Out of the Depths

When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea. Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.”  So he went with him.

And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him.  Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’ ”  He looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

Mark 5:21-43

Perspective

This past week I bought a drone – an entry level drone that was 40 percent off.  It affords a person a different perspective.  For instance, I took the drone for a test flight (I’m very much a novice) over one of our flood control dams while it was being inspected by one of the people from the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality’s Dam Safety Division.

While they were doing the inspection, I flew the drone out over the dam and took a photo of the riser that acts as a spillway for the water to go through.

Then I decided to fly the drone higher to get a photo of the whole dam.  I got a little over 200 feet and then turned the drone so I could get a shot along the length of the dam.

I kept moving the toggle sticks trying to get the best image and lost sight of the drone (it’s really, really small).  I could hear it in the distance but couldn’t see it or figure out where it could be.

Finally, as I fiddled with the angle of the camera I realized the drone – that I thought was out over the dam – was actually behind me. That’s me in the middle of the shot in the bottom third.

Not only did I learn a lesson in how things look from 200 feet up, I learned how my understanding could be confused.

Sometimes, it can be the same way with Scripture.

Last week we saw the Kingship of Christ over the created order – nature – when he stilled the storm.

This week we see his Kingship over life.  It’s a healing story that has within it another healing story – let’s take a look at the first story:

Jairus was a leader in the synagogue.  He came to Jesus asking for him to come and lay his hands on his daughter, who was at “the point of death.”

This man, a person of power and privilege in the community, humbled himself and fell at the feet of this itinerant Rabbi, begging him to come to his home.  In doing so, he was recognizing the Kingship of Jesus over life itself.  It was a very public confession of faith in who Jesus is.

Mark’s Gospel doesn’t relate what Jesus said in response to Jairus, but simply reports that “he went with him.”

But they didn’t go alone.  The Gospel tells us that a large crowd followed Jesus and pressed in on him.  Imagine this if you will.  We’ve seen images of crowds in the Middle-East where the people are massed together so closely, you wonder if anyone can move. And we’ve seen crowds here in this country — crowds at rock concerts, crowds at sporting events, crowds at demonstrations and protests, crowds that press and pack people close together.

Jesus and Jairus didn’t have secret service agents or personal bodyguards, they were surrounded by people.  You have to figure that they had to push their way forward toward Jairus’ home, maybe with Jairus in the lead pushing folks out of the way while Jesus and his disciples followed.

And in that crowd was another person.  A woman suffering from hemorrhages.

Another Perspective

Unlike Jairus, she was not privileged, she was impoverished.  She wasn’t powerful, she was vulnerable.  She wasn’t accepted and honored by her community; instead, she was considered ritually unclean. We are told Jairus’ name.  Mark doesn’t even record her name.

And – she was a woman: which, in that time, was to be considered a second class citizen.

But she had one thing in common with Jairus – Faith.

While his faith was public, hers was private.  Jairus fell at Jesus’ feet – The unnamed woman only dared to reach out and touch his cloak, but she did so believing it would be enough.

Last week, Jesus responded to his Disciples, asking them why they had so little faith. 

This week, we have two people who demonstrated their faith in who Jesus was even though they were only familiar with Jesus by reputation – by what they’d heard about him.

In both instances their faith was rewarded.

I titled this sermon “Out of the Depths.”  I did that because the Psalm in this week’s United Methodist Lectionary was Psalm 130. Here are the first lines:

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord
Lord hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my supplications!

Both Jairus and the unnamed woman cried out to Jesus from the depths of their despair – and he heard and responded to their cries.

Note that the woman was healed immediately upon touching his cloak.  But Jesus stopped and looked around, sensing that power had gone out from him and demanding to know who touched his clothes.

So she came to him in “fear and trembling” and fell down in her turn, telling him the whole truth.  Now, Jesus could have simply let the healing stand – but instead he drew her out from the crowd.  Surely, this was a second healing – acknowledging her as a person of worthiness in a community in which she had been ritually shunned.

At this point, Mark returns to the story of Jairus.

Talitha Cum

People came to tell him that it was too late, Jairus’ daughter was dead.

Of course, we know the end of the story.  We know that Jesus is going to tell the little girl to “get up and walk”.

But it’s interesting that now the crowd seems to disappear and Jesus proceeds with only Peter, James and John and the little girl’s father.

When they arrive at Jairus’ home and the people there told them that it was too late, they responded to his assurance that the girl was not dead but only sleeping by laughing.

Was this a lack of faith, a scornful response, or a sign of their sorrow and shock.  We aren’t told.

Accompanied by only his three disciples, along with Jairus and his wife, Jesus went in and simply said, “little girl, get up.”

And she did.

So, we have one very public healing and one that is virtually private.  One involving a woman who is “outside the law” because of the nature of her malady, and one involving a leader of the religious community.  Both of them involve answered prayers – a response to faith.

Unanswered Prayers

But what about prayers that aren’t answered – at least not in the way that we’d prefer. 

We’re tempted, aren’t we, to take a utilitarian approach to prayer.  It’s as if we go online to Amazon and order a drone (for 40% off) and expect to receive exactly what we ordered.

I was appointed to our state’s Information Technology Board some years ago and before 2020, I would drive down to Jackson each month for a two to three hour meeting in which we made decisions on every aspect of technology from computers, printers and cameras to software and data centers.

Then the pandemic came along and we started meeting virtually during the initial shut-down of in-person meetings.

It happened to be my turn to be chair during the Spring of 2020, and I used a photo of our board room as my virtual background.

It was funny because people watching online were calling, texting and emailing the agency staff asking if I’d driven down to Jackson to sit alone in the building to host the meeting.

Now we’re used to all kinds of virtual backgrounds. 

Who’s experienced Zoom meetings since 2020?  Raise your hand.

I keep a Daily Book calendar in our bedroom – the past few years I’ve bought the one with The New Yorker cartoons.

This past Thursday, it showed a prophet standing in a shaft of heavenly light and asking, “Hello, Hello, I think you’re on mute.”

I’m betting that’s happened to everyone who’s been in a Zoom meeting in the past four years.  Either the person speaking has forgotten to unmute themselves, or we find that we have.

So when it does seem as if God is “on mute” and our prayers seem to be unanswered, what are we to think?

Here’s where, upon reflection, I think we miss the point of Mark’s relating these two healing stories.

Maybe the lesson isn’t simply about our telling God what we want and using “faith” like a virtual debit card online.

My initial thought today about the connection between the Lectionary reading from 2nd Corinthians and the Gospel was that Jesus responded to both the important synagogue official and the outcast woman.  

Stay with me a moment.

In his letter to Corinth, Paul was urging the church to fulfill their “generous undertaking” of sending assistance to the poor saints in Jerusalem.  He noted that it involved a question of a fair balance between “your abundance and their need.”

Paul made the comparison in verse 15 to the story of Manna in Exodus, where those who gathered much had nothing over, and those who gathered little had no shortage; they gathered as much as each of them needed.

In today’s Gospel, Jarius and the unnamed woman each received just enough.  Right?

But more importantly, Paul’s letter tells us that we don’t dictate what God’s response to our prayers will be.  He reminds us here and elsewhere:

For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.

2 Corinthians 8:9

Paul reminds the church at Corinth – and he reminds us – of the nature of “divine economy”.

The Economy of God

One of the discussions at Annual Conference this year was about budgeting and the funding of the various ministries of the church.  With the changes and disruptions that have taken place in the last few years, many of those ministries have been threatened.  I imagine Paul would be urging us to remember to excel in our generous undertaking to support these ministries in difficult times.

We make a mistake in focusing on Jesus healing the woman with hemorrhages and restoring Jairus’ daughter to life as simply answers to their prayers.

Instead these healings pointed to the nature of Jesus’ divine Kingship over life and his identity as the son of God.

Paul pointed out in his Epistle and Mark recorded in the intertwined stories of these two healings what has been called the “economy of God” – 

The one who had the ultimate power to control the stormy seas and even life itself, emptied himself in order to bring himself level with our impoverished nature.

As Paul said in verse 15 of his letter to Corinth:

The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little.

2 Corinthians 8:15

Mark’s Gospel isn’t telling us that we should use our faith to simply call on the power of Jesus to do what we want as if faith were a coin we can spend.

There’s certainly nothing wrong in praying — for healing, for family members facing crises, for unity in our church family, for our country and for the world. However, we must also remember the example of Christ – who responded to the needs of others – who balanced the scales in God’s “divine economy.”

The challenge set for us in today’s Gospel and Epistle lesson is to follow his example by extending grace to our fellow beings — restoring the balance where it’s been lost.

What's in a Name?

There are two accounts in Genesis, separated by a few significant chapters, that involve names – specifically, the names of the people in the accounts and that of “the Name” (Hebrew HaShem השם‎) of the Almighty.  First, in chapter 16, there’s the account of how Abram came to have a child by his wife’s servant:

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, bore him no children. She had an Egyptian slave-girl whose name was Hagar, and Sarai said to Abram, “You see that the LORD has prevented me from bearing children; go in to my slave-girl; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her slave-girl, and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife. He went in to Hagar, and she conceived; and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. Then Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my slave-girl to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the LORD judge between you and me!” But Abram said to Sarai, “Your slave-girl is in your power; do to her as you please.” Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she ran away from her.
The angel of the LORD found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. And he said, “Hagar, slave-girl of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She said, “I am running away from my mistress Sarai.” The angel of the LORD said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit to her.” The angel of the LORD also said to her, “I will so greatly multiply your offspring that they cannot be counted for multitude.”

And the angel of the LORD said to her,
“Now you have conceived and shall bear a son;
you shall call him Ishmael,
for the LORD has given heed to your affliction.
He shall be a wild ass of a man,
with his hand against everyone,
and everyone’s hand against him;
and he shall live at odds with all his kin.”

So she named the LORD who spoke to her, “You are El-roi”; for she said, “Have I really seen God and remained alive after seeing him?” Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; it lies between Kadesh and Bered.

Genesis 16:1-14

Then, a few chapters later, we have the account of Hagar and her son being driven out by Abraham’s wife, Sarah:

The child grew, and was weaned; and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. So she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.” The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son. But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed because of the boy and because of your slave woman; whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for you. As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring.” So Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed, and wandered about in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.
When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot; for she said, “Do not let me look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink.
God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow. He lived in the wilderness of Paran; and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

Genesis 21:8-21

What’s in a Name?  Well, quite a bit if you stop and study it.

Genealogy

I’m into genealogy.  A lot.  So much so that there’s a rule in our Sunday School class that I can’t talk about genealogy – a rule that I sometimes break and, well, we’re not in my Sunday School class right now.

My Christian name is Thomas.  I’m named for my grandfather, Thomas Caswell Murray Wicker.  He was named for his grandfather, Caswell Drake Wicker, who was named for Richard Caswell, the first governor of North Carolina, and also for his great grandmother, Nancy Drake, who was born in Scotland and emigrated in the mid 1700’s to North Carolina.

I’m also named for my great grandfather, Thomas Street Wiley, who was named for his father, John Charles Street Wiley, his grandmother, Jane Street, and ultimately, his great grandfather, Joseph Street.  I’m not sure about the Thomas part when it comes to the Wiley family.

You could say that I’m also named for my 6th great grandfather, Thomas Oscar Wicker, or for his grandfather, Thomas Wicker, who was born in Devon, England, and emigrated to America in 1685, after the failed Monmouth Rebellion.  As far as we know, he was the first of many, many Thomases – so many that it can drive a genealogist crazy . . . I found a couple of instances where a Thomas Wicker had a son named Thomas and, after his first wife died, he remarried and had a another son named Thomas.

You can see why they won’t let me talk about genealogy in Sunday School.

Methuselah, Abraham and Sarah

But you can learn a lot from genealogies.  Including how Methuselah, the oldest person recorded in the Bible, died.  Everyone knows that Methuselah is the oldest recorded person in the Bible and the genealogies give us a strong clue as to the manner of his death.

Genesis 5:25-27 tell us —

When Methuselah had lived one hundred eighty-seven years, he became the father of Lamech. Methuselah lived after the birth of Lamech seven hundred eighty-two years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty-nine years; and he died.

Then we are told of Lamech —

Lamech lived one hundred and eighty-two years, and became the father of a son. Now he called his name Noah [Hebrew נוּחַ “rest”], saying, “This one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the LORD has cursed.” Then Lamech lived five hundred and ninety-five years after he became the father of Noah, and he had other sons and daughters. So all the days of Lamech were seven hundred and seventy-seven years, and he died.

Genesis 5:28-31

And then Noah

Now Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of water came upon the earth.

Genesis 7:6

You don’t need a chart to figure it out, but I thought a chart might be fun —

You could just as easily add 187+182+600 to find the answer

But back to our Scripture for today.

Notice in chapter 16, that Abraham is referred to as Abram (pronounced “Avram”) and Sarah is referred to as Sarai.  As you know, that changed in Chapter 17:

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.” Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him, “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram [Exalted Ancestor], but your name shall be Abraham [Ancestor of Multitudes]; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations.

Genesis 17:1-5

The name “Abram” אַבְרָם(Avram) is composed of two words, av and ram, and means something like “exalted father.”  Abraham אַבְרָהָם (Avraham), on the other hand, derives from the words אַב (av) and הֲמוֹן (hamon), as explained by the phrase “because [I give you as] a father of a multitude of nations” (Gen. 17:5). So a one letter change makes the big difference.

And then in Genesis 17:15-16 –

Then God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and indeed I will give you a son by her. Then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.”

“Sarai” (שָׂרָי) and “Sarah” (שָׂרָה) are different forms of the same Hebrew word that basically means “princess/woman of strength”. It is likely that Sarai is simply the possessive form of Sarah (i.e. “My Sarah”). Sarah, therefore, signifies that her strength does not belong exclusively to her immediate family, but to the future nation of Israel and even the world-at-large.

Consonants And The Great Vowel Shift

There are a lot of Sarah’s in my family tree on Ancestry.com.  It’s a very common name throughout the generations, and usually someone named “Sarah” would be referred to as “Sally.”  [In the time of the Normans in the 11th and 12th centuries, people would often substitute the letter R for other letters (in this case it's replaced by two L's), and would add a Y to the end as well. And so Sarah became Sally.]

Have you ever wondered why people named Margaret are often nicknamed Peggy?  Well, a diminutive of Margaret was Maggie or Maggs which, changed to Meg or Meggie after The Great Vowel Shift in the 16th century.  Then, because it’s a common name, the English would use rhyming to distinguish one Meggy from another, by changing the first letter – in this case to Peggy.  Same reason we get Bill from Will, short for William.

{Words had very different pronunciations in Middle English from their pronunciations in Modern English.

• Long i in bite was pronounced as /iː/ so Middle English bite sounded like Modern English beet /biːt/.
• Long e in meet was pronounced as /eː/ so Middle English meet sounded similar to Modern English mate /meɪt/
• Long a in mate was pronounced as /aː/, with a vowel similar to the broad a of spa.
• Long o in boot was pronounced as /oː/, similar to modern oa in General American boat /oʊ/.}

The Name Of The LORD

But back to our Scripture –Notice that in Genesis 17:1, we have God  referred to as LORD.  Whenever you see that combination of a capital L followed by small caps “ord” it is a reference to the name YHVH or Yehovah – that is “I AM” or “I AM WHO I AM.”  [The word “LORD” when spelled with capital letters stands for the divine name, YHWH, which is here connected with the verb hayah, “to be”.]

In Exodus 3:13-15 we find this:

But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”

God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’:

This is my name forever,

and this my title for all generations.

So, when you see LORD it means YHWH which we sometimes say as “Yahweh” or even “Jehovah.”  [Note: Jesus/Joshua/Yeshua}.  Lowercase Lord, on the other hand, would translate as “sir” or something along those lines, and is usually a translation of the Hebrew Adonai.

But what about when we see “God”, as in the passage from Exodus and elsewhere – well, usually that refers to “El” or “Elohim.”  In Genesis 17:1 – where we see the LORD address Abram as “God Almighty” this is our English rendering of the Hebrew “El Shaddai.”

Now, you should not use “Yahweh” or any other rendering when talking to a person of the Jewish faith.  The name is not spoken.  In fact, the reference is actually to “the Name” or “HaShem.”

But back to Hagar and Ishmael.  We know that Ishmael derives from the Hebrew “El” or God, and “Ish” hears.  So, “God hears.”  And he does . . . in both chapters 16 and 21 of Genesis.

"Hagar" allegorically represents the Jewish church (Galatians 4:24), in bondage to the ceremonial law; while "Sarah" represents the Christian church, which is free.  Some sources say that the name Hagar comes from the Hebrew for “flight,” as in “flee” or “forsaken.”  Now, I told you I’m an “enthusiastic” genealogist.  My family tree on Ancestry.com has almost 26,000 people in it.  And there are a lot of Abrahams and Sarah/Sally’s.  But not one Hagar.

Now we’re getting down to where I want us to go with today’s Scripture.  Let’s take a look at Genesis 16 and 21 again.

So, What’s In A Name?

In Genesis 16, Sarai says, “You see that the LORD has prevented me from bearing children; go in to my slave-girl; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.”  And then she says, “May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my slave-girl [Hebrew “maid”] to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the LORD judge between you and me!”  And Abram replies, “Your slave-girl is in your power; do to her as you please.”

In Genesis 21, Sarah says, “Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.”

Abram/Abraham and Sarai/Sarah don’t recognize Hagar as a person, with a name, but as an object – “my slave-girl,” “this slave woman.”  For that matter, they “name” Isaac, but Ishmael is also simply “the son of this slave woman.”

Now let’s see how God views Hagar.

In Chapter 16 the Angel of the Lord addresses her – “Hagar, slave-girl of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?”

And in Chapter 21, when God hears the cry of Ishmael, the Angel of the Lord says, “What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.”

The difference in human and Divine recognition of Hagar tells us something about her (that she is a person of some worth) and about God (that God recognizes each of us as unique person of worth).  “Unlike Abram and Sarai who will never identify Hagar by name, the Divine speaks to her in a most personal way . . .” (Elizabeth B. Tracy, See Me! Hear Me! Divine/Human Relational Dialogue in Genesis, Contributions to Biblical Exegesis & Theology, Peeters, (2015), p. 123).  “With the initiation of dialogue by the Deity, Hagar is not reduced, as might be expected, to quivering silence.  Instead, the appearance of the Divine and the questions asked have drawn Hagar to speak for the first time.” (Id.) In Hagar’s response, we see not a subservient person shrinking away but a person with an identity, recognized by God, who responds to God and even names him “El-Roi” that is, “God sees.”

“The blessing promised in Genesis 16:10 comes to Hagar; not a man, a husband or a patriarch.  Of all the women in the book of Genesis, she is the only one to receive this divine promise directly and one of just four people ‘to hear the language of the promise from God’s own lips’.” Tracy, Supra, p. 125.

I’ve titled this little talk, “What’s in a Name,” and you might think that it’s about the name of Hagar.  And it is.  But more importantly, it’s about the name of our God, which even in the Old Testament is not just about God Almighty, “El Shaddai,” or “Elohim” or “Adonai” or even HaShem but –

The God who hears

The God who sees

The God who does justice

The God who calls each of us by our names

The God who is Love. 1 John 4:8.

But I Say

“You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire. So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.

“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

“Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.’ But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one.

Matthew 5:21-37

When I looked at the Lectionary for this, the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, my first thought was maybe I’ll preach on the Epistle instead of the Gospel.

For one thing, the Gospel lesson is long but long as it is, it’s incomplete – Verses 21-32 begin with Jesus saying, “You have heard it was said to those of ancient times . . .” and then he proceeds to recall three different passages that echo themes from the book of Deuteronomy.

But the last section of today’s Gospel lesson begins with, “Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times . . .” Then Jesus recalls three more passages from the Old Testament, but this time from Leviticus.  For some reason, the Committee on Common Texts decided to only include the first of the Leviticus related passages for this Sunday, leaving the other two for another day I suppose.  I’ve tried to figure out why that may be, but in the end decided to just focus on the context of what Jesus is saying in connection with all of these “You have heard . . . but I say to you . . .” passages.

So, if we’re going to talk about what Jesus means, we have to include the other two Leviticus related passages as well –

In verses 38-42 he says:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.

And then, in verses 43-48 he concludes with:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Be perfect?  Really?

Are you serious, Lord?

To begin to understand this, we have to back up a bit to understand the context.  Immediately before this series of six “But I say” passages, Jesus proclaims that he hasn’t come to abolish the law or the prophets but “to fulfill.”

In verse 18 he says, “For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.”

And then, in verse 20, he says, “[U]nless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

We can’t have this – Jesus can’t really mean what Matthew has recorded him as saying here, can he?  So, we come up with all sorts of ways to interpret these challenging passages.  For instance:

• Jesus was teaching that righteousness through the law is impossible, setting up the need for justification by grace; or

• Jesus was speaking just to his disciples, not to us; or

• Jesus was talking about goals that we should aspire to even though they’re impossible to achieve.  By trying to live up to them we’ll be the better for it.

The problem is that when you read on through the Gospel you don’t find support for Jesus talking about these “but I say to you” challenges as a way to let us off the hook.  He means it when he says he hasn’t come to abolish the law.

Some commentators don’t refer to the “Old Testament” for this very reason.  They use the term “First Testament.”  God hasn’t done away with the First Testament as all, which is why we include it in our Bibles.

One of the heresies that arose in the first centuries after Christ was one that did away with the Old Testament altogether.  Saint Augustine recalled his struggle with this in his Confessions, in which he wrote of his experiences with sects such as the Manichaeans, who like many Gnostic cults, held that moral law did not affect their spiritual lives.

Similar beliefs arose during the early days of the Protestant reformation in which the belief in salvation by faith alone – sola fides – gave rise to what scholars call Antinomianism (against the law) which Martin Luther rejected. Even today, there are some folks who think that we’re freed from obedience to the law, when in fact we’re freed “for joyful obedience” when we confess our sin before Holy Communion.

So, the idea that Jesus was demonstrating that righteousness was impossible and that we could ignore the law and simply respond to the grace of God, is wishful thinking.

One of the alternative readings for the Old Testament lection this Sunday is from the deuterocanonical book Sirach in which it is written:

“He has not commanded anyone to be wicked,

and he has not given anyone permission to sin.”

But maybe when Jesus said, “I say to you . . .” he was only talking to his disciples.

Sorry, but no.

Jesus wasn’t just talking to his disciples as some sort of special humans who would be granted superhuman powers.  They were humans just like us.

If you haven’t watched any of episodes of The Chosen, I recommend it.

Some of the people in my Sunday School class and Men’s Bible Study have complained that the series starts off slow, but if you stick with it the episodes bring the disciples to life.

The series does take liberties with things not found in Scripture, such as Simon Peter being a debt-ridden gambler, or Nicodemus trying (and failing) to exorcise demons from Mary Magdalene and Thomas being the wine merchant in the miracle at the wedding at Cana.

But these liberties don’t detract from the main message of Scripture but serve to use drama to humanize the disciples.

Paradoxically, by taking away the “saintliness” of the disciples we find that we’re not allowed to do away with our own call to “saintliness”.

So, if Jesus wasn’t setting up an argument demonstrating the impossibility of living within the law or being as saintly as the first disciples, was he saying that we were off the hook as long as we at least aspired to an impossible righteousness but didn’t have to actually achieve it?

Not for us Methodists.  We believe that we are called to move on toward perfection.  That doesn’t mean aspiring to impossible standards but striving to achieve them.

Wesley wrote:

“God well knew how ready our unbelief would be to cry out, This is impossible! And therefore stakes upon it all the power, truth, and faithfulness of God, to whom all things are possible.”

So, what does Jesus mean when he says that we are to be perfect just as our heavenly father is perfect?

I believe that what he is saying is that we are to “put on Christ.”

Let me reference three other passages to explain what I mean.

First, there is Matthew’s recounting of Jesus’ parable of the great banquet that ends with people, both good and bad, being invited to the feast after the original invitees have declined to show up.  You’ll recall that one of the new guests is found to be without the appropriate wedding attire and is bound hand and foot and thrown into the outer darkness.

We’ll come back to this seemingly unfair outcome.

Then there is the Paul’s second letter to the church at Corinth, in which he writes in chapter 5, at verse 16,:

“From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”

Note that Paul is saying that we regard “no one” from a human point of view.  This is consistent with Jesus saying that we must be reconciled with those with whom we are angry and that we must love even our enemies.  To do this is to be perfect as our heavenly father is perfect.

But again, you object and say this isn’t possible.  To which Paul replies in the same passage that we are able to regard no one from a human point of view by saying,

“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

And then, finally, the passage that was so fundamental to the experience of both John Wesley and St. Augustine. The former when he heard a sermon on the passage being expounded as he stood on Aldersgate Street and the latter when he heard the children in the garden on the other side of the wall in the place he was staying in Milan as they sang, “Tolle Lege, Tolle Lege,” and turned and then indeed take up and read the book that lay just inside in which Paul, writing to the Romans, in chapter 13, verses 12-14, urged:

“Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”

Back to the guest who was thrown out of the banquet for not being dressed appropriately.  We want to object that it’s not fair.  After all, he was called in off the street with others who weren’t originally invited.  How was he supposed to have the correct attire?

Because God provided it.

Through Jesus.  The Logos made flesh, through which God reconciled the world to himself and gives us the power to become perfect, just as our heavenly father is perfect.

Through Jesus, God abolished our lament that living up to the law is an impossibility and calls us to choose to put on Christ.

To strive to be one of The Chosen.

Scandalous Grace

When I looked at the Lectionary for this, the Fourth Sunday in Lent, my first thought was how can I say anything new about the story of the Prodigal Son? After mulling it over and praying about it, I decided that focusing my message today on Paul’s words in what we know as his second letter to the church at Corinth made more sense.

Here’s the text from 2 Corinthians 5:16-21

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

That decision found further support when I turned to the commentary in Feasting on the Word.  Feasting on the Word is a series of volumes on the three-year cycle of the Lectionary.  The passages for each Sunday are examined by different authors from theological, pastoral, exegetical and homiletical perspectives.

Ralph C. Wood, the author of the theological perspective on 2 Corinthians 5:16-21, began his reflections on the passage with the following words:

“Whether apocryphal or not, there is a splendid story that illustrates the centrality of this Lenten text. It is reported that Karl Barth was once asked what he would say to Adolf Hitler if he ever had the chance to meet the monster who was destroying Europe and who would ruin the whole world if he were not stopped. Barth’s interlocutor assumed that he would offer a scorching prophetic judgment against the miscreant’s awful politics of destruction. Barth replied, instead, that he would do nothing other than quote Romans 5:8: “While we still were sinners, Christ died for us.””

— Ralph C Wood. Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 2: Lent through Eastertide.

Okay, whether the story is true or not, that’s a wonderful reflection on the Christian character of Karl Barth, one of the preeminent theologians of the 20th Century. But then Wood added —

“If I were brought to a similar pass, I would hope to have the presence of mind to utter these words: “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation . . . . We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:19–20 RSV).”

My first thought was that I appreciated Barth’s spare style much more than Wood’s, with the added attraction that it is familiar to all United Methodists as a part of the confession with which we inaugurate the Great Thanksgiving. Following the communal confession and the private meditation, the leader pronounces —

“Hear the good news: Christ died for us while we were yet sinners; that proves God's love toward us. In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven!”

While I appreciate the expanded theology of Paul’s letter to Corinth, I could see it as being a bit wordy if you thought to use it when confronting a bloodthirsty autocrat.

Of course, this was Wood engaging with an audience most likely to consist of clergy and I figured he could get away with it. But then he made a compelling point that I thought could preach. The key to this affirmation lies in the beginning of the text:

“From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.” 2 Cor. 5:16

How often, when reading Scripture, do we “bleep” past some words and lose the deeper meaning along the way? Many of us might read this text and understand it to mean that we no longer view the risen Christ as merely the carpenter cum rabbi from Nazareth, worker of signs and wonders though he was, but as something much, much more. In doing so we miss a key element:

“From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view . . .”

No One.

Not even Vladimir Putin.

See why this commentary spoke to me?

Scandal Part One

In a little bit, I’ll try to connect Paul’s words to the parable of the Prodigal that Jesus related to the Pharisees and scribes who were criticizing him for welcoming sinners and eating with them

But first, think about how Wood’s words struck me when I read them a few days ago against a backdrop of the evil that Vladimir Putin has visited upon the people of Ukraine. Writing about Adolph Hitler and Karl Barth is one thing – after all they’re history now. Sure, we know that Hitler was a monster, but he’s a monster that has retreated into the mists of time: Putin is here and now and we’re witnessing the terror, the pain, the suffering and deaths of not just soldiers but innocents – including children.

Painting by Uta Kaxniashvili

I thought of the picture of the young boy fleeing from the terror of war, crossing the border into Poland, his face contorted in abject misery and fear, separated from his parents and carrying all he had in a plastic bag. Uta Kaxniashvili used painting to render this arresting image universal.

Substituting Putin for Hitler in the apocryphal story about Karl Barth, we are expected to say to Putin:

“In Christ, God is reconciling the world to himself, so not counting your inexcusable crimes against you, as God’s ambassadors we implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”

 Really???

This is what I mean by “scandalous grace.”

Scandal Part Two

 Merriam-Webster defines “scandal” as “a circumstance or action that offends propriety or established moral conceptions or disgraces those associated with it.”

 To me, telling Putin that God isn’t counting his trespasses against humanity against him is scandalous.

There’s another meaning of scandalous that we need to consider.

First, however, Wood references another of my favorite theologians when he writes of Hans Urs von Balthasar:

“[I]n his splendid little treatise titled “Dare We Hope That All Men Be Saved?” [Balthasar] argues that if we deny this hope, then we have no right to confidence in our own salvation. To give up hope for any other person, no matter how wretched their condition may be, is also to give up hope for ourselves. How can we presuppose our own final deliverance from human wretchedness into divine worthiness, while assuming that others cannot be similarly saved?”

— Ralph C Wood. Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 2: Lent through Eastertide.

Paul wasn’t writing in the abstract in his letter to the Corinthians.  They were fighting among themselves over what constituted orthodox behavior and the correct understanding of what it meant to be a follower of Christ.  One group of the people of Corinth considered themselves to be righteous and others to be condemned.

 For the Corinthians it was scandalous to be told that they shouldn’t count their opponents’ trespasses against them.

Paul was having none of it, however — telling them that once someone was “in Christ” there was a “new creation” – that everything old was done away with, put behind us, because everything had become new.

 What did Paul mean by everything had become new?  For the answer to that question, we have to look at verse 21:

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Okay, that just seems to raise more questions, doesn’t it?  How could Jesus, God in the flesh, be made to be sin?

In his commentary in The New Interpreter’s Bible, J. Paul Sampley writes of verse 21:

“Rather than let the appeal for reconciliation conclude the tradition and its application, Paul makes a Christological development that is very reminiscent of the “story” that structures the Christ hymn in Phil 2:5–11 and that reappears later in the letter fragment before us. The “story” goes like this: (phase 1) The exalted (rich) one assumes lowly (poor) status, becoming like us (phase 2), so that we can become exalted (rich) like him (phase 3).”

— Sampley, J. P. (1994–2004). The Second Letter to the Corinthians., New Interpreter’s Bible (Vol. 11, pp. 95–96). Abingdon Press.

Here’s where I try to tie in the parable of the Prodigal son.

• First, just as with the Corinthian factions, the elder brother in the story of the Prodigal, was offended — “scandalized” — by his father’s actions in not only forgiving his profligate younger brother, but acting as if none of his bad behavior mattered.

• Second, I’m reminded of Karl Barth’s idea of Christ acting in a manner similar to the Prodigal by forsaking his inheritance and traveling to a far country (being made flesh) in order to bring us back with him to the Father.

Barth’s notion offends at first, but then so does Paul’s statement that Christ, who was without sin, was made to be sin so that he might erase our sin.

This brings me to the second meaning of scandalous. Well, really it’s the original meaning of the word; that is, a stumbling block or stone.

Scandal Part Three

In Greek, the word skandalon meant just that – a stumbling block.

 We’re most familiar with the use of that term in 1 Corinthians 1:22-23:

“For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,”

 We see it elsewhere in Paul’s letter to the Romans where, in Romans 9:30-33 he quotes from a combination of verses from Isaiah:

What then are we to say? Gentiles, who did not strive for righteousness, have attained it, that is, righteousness through faith; but Israel, who did strive for the righteousness that is based on the law, did not succeed in fulfilling that law. Why not? Because they did not strive for it on the basis of faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written,
“See, I am laying in Zion a stone that will make people stumble, a rock that will make them fall, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

So, what does this mean for us this morning?

Like the older brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son, we are “scandalized” by the “stumbling block” of God’s amazing grace. We see grace from the perspective of the “flesh” or human point of view:

The grace that saves a wretch like me is amazing.

The grace that saves a thug like Vladimir Putin is scandalous.

But, as Jesus wanted the Pharisees to understand, God looks upon the sinners they were so concerned with as having been dead but come to life; as lost but yet found. Jesus tried to make the scribes and the Pharisees look upon those sinners as God does — as those he seeks to reconcile to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.

Therefore, we are challenged to no longer regard anyone – even Vladimir Putin – from a human point of view, but are to become ambassadors for Christ, imploring all people – even Vladimir Putin – to be reconciled to God.

 Or, as Karl Barth is claimed to have said he would have told Hitler, “While we still were sinners, Christ died for us.”