Facepalm Sunday

Nah, it wasn't facepalm Sunday it was just regular old palm Sunday.  You know that story, right?  The story of when Jesus rides into Jerusalem, humble, on a donkey?  Yes, that story. 

Jesus Comes to Jerusalem as King

¹² The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. ¹³ They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting,

“Hosanna!^[a]”

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”^[b]

“Blessed is the king of Israel!”

¹⁴ Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, as it is written:

¹⁵ “Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion;
    see, your king is coming,
    seated on a donkey’s colt.”^[c]

¹⁶ At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that these things had been done to him.

¹⁷ Now the crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to spread the word. ¹⁸ Many people, because they had heard that he had performed this sign, went out to meet him. ¹⁹ So the Pharisees said to one another, “See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!”

Jesus Predicts His Death

²⁰ Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the festival. ²¹ They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.” ²² Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus.
²³ Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. ²⁴ Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. ²⁵ Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. ²⁶ Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.

John 12:12-26

No no, not writing IN the wall....

If you were at Good Shepherd on Sunday, you would have heard me talk at great length about the writing on the wall.  And I'm glad that I did.  Part of the glory and wonder of the Palm Sunday story is the situation that Jesus himself is riding and moving towards.  It's one of the most poetic things that we have in the Scriptures, really.  And this is part of what makes holy week such a crazily tense time, is the presence of the disaster lurking in the background.  All the way through the New Testament, we hear about how the disciples don't quite understand what has to happen when Jesus rides into Jerusalem.  We hear about how the disciples miss what Jesus is all about, how they miss that Jesus means that he's going to die there, and be buried.  He is going to be executed, and they all seem to miss it.  In fact, the only person who knows that Jesus is going to die, is Jesus. 

In this way, it's the polar opposite of the film 'the wicker man.'  No, not the dreadful Nicolas Cage remake, the really really good original, staring Edward Woodward, and Christopher Lee.  A very very good film, and it hinges on one key point.  It's the reverse of the Palm Sunday story.  It's the story of a man who comes to a community to be killed for the community, but he is the only one in town who has no idea that he's the sacrifice.  And that's why it's a horror movie.  It's a horror movie because if you don't know you're the intended sacrifice, and the entire community is colluding against you, it's a problem.

But Jesus, as he rides into town, knows more than anyone else about this.  He knows that he will be slain when he gets into town.  But he rides into town anyway. 

It's the most foolhardy thing in the entire world, really.  It's ensured and guaranteed martyrdom.  Jesus is well aware that he will be killed, but he rides into town anyway.  He rides directly into the heart of the lions' den, into the gaping maw of those who kill and destroy, knowing that those who would kill are going to kill.  That sense of self preservation that accompanies everything we do, the sense that calls us to get the heck out of bad situations, the sense that encourages us to run away from anything dangerous, the sense that makes us avoid bad neighborhoods, that makes us stay far away from dark alleys, that sense kicked in for Jesus, big time, but he overrode it.

This is what it means to be fully human and fully divine.  This is why the sacrifice of Jesus is as intense as it is.  I know I know, usually when you find out about something, you find out that it's not as bad as you thought it might be.  And that applies mainly to stuff that you've never experienced.  You go through it, you try it out, and you think to yourself 'huh.  That wasn't so bad.'  That's not possible, though, if you're Jesus.  Then you know exactly what you're getting into.  You know fully well what your actions will bring with them.  You know not just what might happen, or what is likely to happen, but what will happen.  And the weight of the issue is that his death becomes more and more inevitable with everything that he does.

I've heard a great many people, mainly atheists, who seem to think that because Jesus was divine as well as human, that his suffering didn't mean anything.  That he was just momentarily inconvenienced for our sins.  Well, I'd like to put that to bed.  Nothing hurts as much as a disaster, a penalty, a problem that you could easily avoid, yet you chose not to. For whatever noble reason, for whatever necessity that was kicking around, you chose to stay behind, and take it on the chin.  And there's a good chance that when you get caught in something, that the matter might spiral out of control.  It's along the same lines as when you step off the high diving board.  But can you imagine if the only thing that would keep you rushing towards the water wasn't gravity, but your willpower?  Gee whiz.  Now imagine if the pool was full of nails instead of water, and you have a better idea.  Would there be any chance that you'd actually keep on falling if you didn't have to?

The ride to Jerusalem on palm Sunday, surrounded by people who would be sure to betray you, being cheered on by crowds whom you know for sure are going to betray you, deny you and leave you, would be an intensely difficult thing.  Possibly the most difficult thing.  People will betray you, they will turn their backs on you, they will deny you and walk away from you.  But if you could see it happen before it did, if you could know for sure, for certainty, that you would be denied and betrayed and stepped all over, if you know for absolute certain, would you ever go into that situation?  Probably not.  But Jesus did.

What you as an individual Christian need to know is that the situation that Christ rides into, full of people who are guaranteed to deny him, to betray him, to hate him, and to spurn him, you need to know that that's exactly what you expect Jesus to do on a weekly basis.  You expect him to do this every Sunday.  You expect him to come to your church, full of people who welcome him in with hosannas and praise, and stick around like it ain't no thing.  And you know, and I know, and dogs know that at some point in the week, you're going to deny Christ.  You're going to turn your back on him, you're going to betray him, you're going to wish him dead.  You're going to curse his name by the end of the week, and if you don't then you're doing it wrong, and you haven't been listening to what he says.  But if you have been paying attention, then after a week of Jesus telling you what you should be doing and reminding you that you're not doing it, then you may or may not be ready to kill him yourself.

But that's the poetry of Palm Sunday, and of your faith in general.  Jesus only ever associates with people who love him and who are planning on betraying him alternately.  Have you noticed that?  You are, essentially, part of that Palm Sunday crowd, greeting Christ with joy and love, and then turning your back on him and spurning him by the end of the week.  And as bemusing as it is for you to see Palm Sunday, and the rest of Holy Week, remember that every week is essentially holy week, in that way.  Every week is that poetic rollercoaster, of Jesus coming to people who love him, but who will end up hating him and denying him, only to cling to him when he rises again.  Our weeks are laced with anger at God, shame at spurning him, and needing his love and care.  It's the same as it always has been, and that's why it remains so poetic and so meaningful.  When Jesus rides into Jerusalem, he rides towards those who will betray him.  When he rides into Regina, or Saskatoon, or Edmonton, or London, or, gosh, anywhere else, he does the same.

But that's what he does.  Rides on, rides on in majesty, in lowly pomp, rides on to die.  To die for whom?  To die for you.

PJ.

Don't tell me how to play with my toys

I've preached sermons that people have ignored.  It's true, I'm sure.  And I've worked hard to preach sermons directly targeted at certain people in the congregation (flagrant sinners, mainly), and they got nothing out of it, but someone else, someone totally unconnected to the situation got something totally great out of it.  Something I'd never even thought of.

And this is how preaching works. Once the words leave my mouth, then they're just sort of our there.  And it doesn't do me much good to say to someone "Oh, that really helped you in thinking about your son's addictions?  Sorry, it was actually about sexual immorality.  You lose."

That's sort of the way that the Spirit is supposed to work.  It's supposed to do what it's supposed to do.  The Spirit does not return to God void, it accomplishes its task.  And that's what happens on Sunday mornings, when people get all sorts of stuff out of what I say.  And that is primarily the spirit working on them, on their hearts, and all that.

But here's the other thing.  As much as it wouldn't do for me to tell everyone how to interpret my particular object lessons, to tell them how they weren't supposed to get that out of my sermon, so too do our Bibles get into a bit of trouble sometimes when they get all interprety for us. 

To wit, study Bibles that don't just give you hot tips, but tell you what everything means.  And that's a bit more problematic.  It gets problematic because of parables like this one.  The parable of the prodigal son.

Seems legit

As I mentioned on Sunday, this parable is one of the best known parables of all time.  When Jesus speaks, when he teaches using parables, he explains them very rarely.  More often than not, he ends his parables with 'He who has ears, let him hear.' In other words, pay attention, if this is about you, pay attention, find out how you fit in with this parable, and apply it. And the reason that the parable of the prodigal son is so great, is because it's so BIG.  And what do I mean when I say big?  I mean that it's all encompassing, it's massive, it's perhaps the biggest of his parables, because it has so many layers.  You can see yourself all over the place, you can see people you know, you can see God himself, it's so big!  And what does the study Bible say?

 

The Father represents God, the prodigal represents a sinner, and the older brother

represents those who consider themselves to be 'righteous persons who need no

repentance'

 

Thanks, Study Bible, I was almost getting interested.  I was almost beginning to see myself in this parable.  Where in the parable?  Man, all over it!  And not just in the place that I'm supposed to see myself.  Yes, it's easy to see myself as the younger son, who blows his inheritance on all sorts of nonsense.  It's easy to see myself as the one who has realized and recognized his sin, and who is coming back to beg for the Father's forgiveness. 

 

Thomas Benton's "The Prodigal Son"

But more often than not, even though I parrot the confession and absolution during the service, it is wildly contingent on nobody actually bad showing up.  And Christmas and Easter are the two big testing grounds for this.  They're the big testing grounds, because that's when the prodigals show up, and that fires you and I, John and Jane churchgoer, into insane levels of older brother syndrome. We look around and grumble at those who show up to ostensibly throw themselves at God's mercy.  How dare they just show up now, when we've been serving on boards and committees, when we've been doing the hard work of running the church ,and they just show up now?  For shame!  

 

Yes, we can be cruel and spiteful.  And the strange thing is, we end up being both brothers at the same time.  Or, more accurately, we begin as the younger, and end up as the elder.  It's real easy to come and confess your sins in God's holy church until someone faithless shows up and sits in the same pew as you.  Then, all bets are off.  It's when you come in from working in the fields, and hear the celebration that you start to get a little bit peeved.  You were all ready to take part in a standard church service, but when you see the people who just sort of casually show up, who have no involvement in running the church, who use it when it's convenient, then we get a little bit upset.  Then we talk to God, and say 'I know I'm a sinner, but look at these guys!  They're unbelievers to the max, who just show up twice a year!"

 

Feeding these dudes would be okay, though.

Here's the thing.  Strangely enough, we've got this whole parable flipped around, for the most part.  The word prodigal goes with son like good goes with Samaritan, and we're so used to the idea of the younger son, that it's almost a badge of honor to be that son.  It's the expected outcome that we might be the younger son, but our problem is that we always ALWAYS skip to the end of the parable.  We skip to the part where the repentant son comes back.  We never dwell on the devouring the property with prostitutes bit, we never think about the wild living that would get the son to realize his sin.  We skip this stuff because we Christians live beneath the thin veneer of respectability.  We live in a world, in a worldview at least, of mild perfection, in which we and people like us are actually not too terribly bad.  Yes, we're repentant sinners, but what are we repenting from?  Anything vaguely like the wild reckless living of the younger son?  Not likely. 

 

But the big sin that we inside the church need to deal with, and the one that we don't seem to see, is our priggishness. Oh, sure, we may claim that everyone is welcome in our churches, but how do we actually feel about that?  Do you, as an individual Christian, feel as though you should be spending time with someone who was just out feeding the pigs?  Or do you feel as though God should be giving you a young goat for you to feast with your friends?  

 

Be honest.  Be honest about how you feel when all the prodigals come back.  Is it anything like the father in the parable, or is it more like the elder son?  As with the rest of the parables of Christ, he who has ears, let him hear.  Stop looking for yourself only in the part where someone comes off looking good.  That is gospel, and it's supposed to give comfort to the repentant sinner, which might be you.  But it may very well not be.  The real work of this Christian life is to look deep into the eyes of the elder brother, the one covered with the veneer of respectability, the one who is wrapped in a cloak of good deeds but inside is filled with self-righteousness, to look deep into his eyes and realize that there is your mirror right there.  You, within the church, you who have gotten comfortable, you who have beaten back all the unacceptable sins, like devouring property with prostitutes, like reckless living, that's probably you.  All you have left is the cold-hearted acceptable sins.  The ones where you honestly and sincerely believe that you are right, always have been, and that these sins of reckless wild living are far worse than anything else you may be up to.

 

But the real difference between the sons is that one, who is up to his elbows in pig slop that he would want to eat but can't, realizes that he is a sinner, that he has messed up, that he needs help.  The elder son, who stayed behind, who helps, who is working hard, he sincerely believes that he is owed feasts and celebrations.  He has forgotten something key.  Whether you're leaving and coming back, or staying around for a long time, you're still living off of your father's wealth.  It's not as though the elder son was buying a young goat for himself out of his own wealth.  He was still reliant on his father.  You and I who are Christians, who are deep in the heart of the church, we need to look at ourselves, and how we see ourselves in the church, and in the kingdom of God.  Is it like the tax collector, or the pharisee?  Is it like the younger, repentant brother, or the elder self righteous brother?



 

Heck, 90% of the time, you're going to be a pastiche of both.  The great skill in Christian faith, though, is recognizing when you are being one or the other.  It's in realizing when the money is gone and you're feeding pigs, and it's in recognizing when you're sneering at those who are coming back to God's grace, who honestly look as though they've been up to their elbows in pig slop all day.  But whether fatted calf or young goat, you're all benefiting from God's goodness.  You're all reliant on God's grace.  Don't worry about the younger, repentant son traipsing back in after hard living, and don't worry about the sneering gaze of the older brother from the fields.  Just think about how the father treats the two children.  Robes and rings and fatted calves for one, and for the other, the truth of the sentence 'all that I have is yours.' 

 

Aw shoot.  Maybe the study Bible was right after all.

 

PJ

Simul Luther et Anti-Semite

I talked at length on Sunday on the subject of examples, and I'd like to do so a bit more here, because I think it's important.  You see, on the internet (that medium through which you are experiencing my words right now), there is a fun argumentative tool that goes as follows:

Reductio ad Hitlerium.

i.e. if an argument goes on long enough on the internet, it will eventually have Adolf Hitler dragged into it.  Someone will use him to make a point, usually by comparing their adversary in said argument to the aforementioned Nazi.  And this happens seriously all the time.  If you haven't noticed it, then you haven't been paying attention.

But a curious subset of this argumentative strategem is the attempt to fool other people into agreeing with Hitler.  This is something that comes up all the time, and is used by both sides in a great many debates, including but not limited to religious debates.  The argument usually goes as follows:

Subject A posts this quote:

Spock? Your national socialism is illogical.

"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith."

Subject  B reads the quote, and thinks to himself 'gosh, that sounds reasonable.  I agree with and identify with that statement.

Subject A then drops the bombshell - that quote was by ADOLF HITLER!  YOU AGREE WITH HITLER!  CLOSET NAZI!

Subject B then realizes that his views on faith are identical with those of Adolf Hitler, loses his faith, then goes and joins the merchant marines.

Or that's how it's supposed to go.  And this argument goes both ways.  Often, that quote above is sneakily snuck into conversations to undermine your religious beliefs.  i.e. if Hitler was religious, heck, even potentially Christian, what does that say about YOU?  But in the other sense, people bring up parts of the Bible, or quotations from otherwise famous Christians, and use them as fodder against those of us in the pew.  They bring up the fact that St. John Chrysostom was an horrendous anti-semite, or that Paul was a misogynist.  Or, for those of us who are in the Lutheran faith, they bring up a curious pamphlet that Martin Luther wrote, called 'on the Jews and their lies.'

Oh boy oh boy. This one's fun.  Because, you see, as Lutherans, we believe in what Martin Luther set down in the Lutheran confessions, found in the Book of Concord.  The large and small catechisms, the Smalcald Articles, the Formula of Concord, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something here.  That's all well and good.  We hold fast to these things because they are a correct and true exposition of the word of God.  But this good stuff was written by a guy who penned an incredibly anti-semitic pamphlet.  How can we believe in and hold fast to the teachings of someone who was able to speak plainly about justification by grace through faith, but at the same time was writing horrendous anti-semitic screeds?

Welp, I would have you know, as Lutheran Christians reading this, that the original Lutheran, the reformer himself, was a bit anti-semitic.  But that doesn't mean that YOU have to be.

Crazily enough, and please brace yourselves for this, Luther himself may have been a sinner.  He may have been an anti-semite.  And that's not okay.  And I happily condemn his antisemitism in the strongest possible terms, because I find it to be unacceptable, and in violation of several of the commandments.  And yet I remain a Lutheran.

How?  How can I hitch my wagon to this guy whose views on several points I radically disagree with? Well, it's actually astonishingly simple.  It works because I do with Luther what most of us say we would do with sinful people in general.  I understand that he has been forgiven for his sins, however grievous they may have been.

Martin Luther doesn't get a free pass on everything he ever said just because he happened to say some stuff that was wildly controversial and bad.  But how do you as a Lutheran Christian (and believe me, I happen to be well aware that most of you are not Lutheran, and perhaps not Christian either.  But pretend that you are, or better yet, convert for the sake of this conversation), how do you deal with Luther's whopping great antisemitism?  Do you say:
a) Luther's antisemitism was just a product of his times, and people were all sorts of racist back then, so how was he to know any different?
b) Pretend that it was ghost written by Melancthon, Elvis, or Francis Bacon.
c) Blissfully go back to ignoring that it ever existed in the first place.
d) Agree with him on the topic (author's note: don't do this one)
or e) Apply his own words to himself, the way you apply his words to you so easily.

'Simul justus et peccator.'  A fancy Latin term for saint and sinner at the same time.  Which is what Luther was.  Which is what you are.  When confronted with the dreadful antisemitism of Luther, the cowardice of Peter, the wrath of James and John, the doubt of Thomas, the drunkenness of Noah, the incest of Lot, and the adultery of David, what do you do?  Do you explain it away as you would your own sin, as a product of the time, or not really that important, or not enough to outweigh all the good things they did, or do you do what you ought to do.  Do you look at these people as examples, good and bad.  As examples for us, as Paul says.

"Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our 

instruction, on whom the end of ages has come.  Therefore, let anyone

who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.  No temptation has overtaken you that is 

not common to man.  God is faithful, and he will not let you 

be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation, he will also

provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it."

1 Corinthians  10:11-13

Everyone in the scriptures is an example, both positive and negative.  Moses was an amazing spokesman for his people, led the Israelites out of slavery and into the promised land.  He was also a murderer who buried his victim, and a doubter of God's promises which led to him dying outside the promised land.  Was he a saint, or a sinner?  Or was he both?  Just like you?  You can learn from everything these people do and say.  The Bible presents to you real people, not characters in a book who are either good or bad.  The Bible presents to you real human beings, and the story of their interactions with God and with each other.  They have examples of righteousness, and examples of sin. Just like everyone else.  Just like you.

The only exception to that is Jesus Christ.  And thanks be to God himself, that Martin Luther is not Jesus.  His words are good and solid, but they aren't all perfect.  We can hold fast to the words of the catechism, and reject the words of 'on the Jews and their lies,' and it doesn't denigrate the one or elevate the other.  Because he's a saint and a sinner at the same time.  Like you.  And the same robe of righteousness, the perfection of Christ, applies to Luther the same way as it does to us.  If you're looking for someone perfect, don't look to Luther, don't look in the mirror, don't look anywhere but in the pages of the New Testament, to the person of Christ.  And thank him that his righteousness applies to you now as well.  That you can be a saint even in the midst of your sin, that no matter how ridiculous the things you say and do, that you are a saint even while you are a sinner.

Simul Justus et Peccator.  Saint and Sinner all at the same time.

PJ.