johnhardinsawyer

[johnhardinsawyer]

"God is Our Refuge and Strength"

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

6 / 15 / 25 – Summer Sermon Series[1]

Psalm 46

“God is Our Refuge and Strength”

(Words to Live By)

This summer, we are exploring a series of scripture passages that have been requested and suggested by members of this congregation.  This list of readings that many of you have provided is not an exhaustive list, by any means, or even a list of “Greatest Hits,” but it does kind of paint a picture of who we are as a church, theologically speaking.  What are the scriptural and spiritual themes of our lives that have helped to shape the way that we see God and the world and our place in all of it.  

Today’s scripture was suggested by two different people – people who are not unacquainted hardship and grief, but people whose personal faith are an inspiration to many.  Both of them suggested words from Psalm 46 and when I saw that they had picked Psalm 46, I was excited, because I find these words to be especially meaningful to me, too.  I can trace their significance all the way back to the beginning of my ministry in the church.  

Before I graduated from seminary in May of 2001, a friend and I took the train from New Jersey into New York City and we went to the Statue of Liberty – climbing all the way into the crown.  On the way to catch the train back to New Jersey, we walked through the big, open plaza between the World Trade Center towers – past a large bronze sphere in the middle of a fountain.  It was a beautiful, sunny, afternoon and all seemed right with the world.  

A week or two later, I graduated, and a few months after that, in August of 2001, I started my first church job in Charlotte, North Carolina – working as a youth director and Christian educator.  I began, knowing that – in the beginning of September – the pastor and a large group of church members would be out of town on a Caribbean cruise.  Around 9 AM on the morning of September 11, Donna the church secretary, came into my office to say that she had just heard something on the radio about an accident in New York.  We turned on a TV and saw the unforgettable images of the World Trade Center towers on fire.  We watched – horrified – as they collapsed.  

Pretty soon, the phone at the church started ringing.  Were we going to have some kind of gathering for prayer?  I made the suggestion that we gather at 12 Noon in the church sanctuary.  And, as a newly-minted seminary graduate, full of all of the wisdom and experience of three weeks – twenty-one days – on the job, I started to wonder what on earth I could say to bring comfort in such a horrific moment in the life of our nation and the world.  

Suddenly, it came to me – a song that I had sung in church choir, years before: 

God is our refuge and strength,  A present help in time of trouble.   Though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea,  Though the waters roar and foam,  We will not fear.[2]

Yes, I know the music was a little too peppy for a tragic event like September 11, but the words were what mattered.  Besides, however the words get planted in our minds – however the words get written on our hearts – when it counts, it is the words that matter.  It is God’s Word that matters.  

In the history of God’s people – throughout the words of scripture – there are all these reminders to take, and hear, and read, and remember the Word of God.  In the Book of Jeremiah, God says that God will make a new covenant – a new relationship – with God’s own people, saying, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (Jeremiah 31:33)

In the Book of Deuteronomy, God’s people are reminded, 

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.  Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart.  Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.  Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:5-9)[3]

Sometimes, you might see a very traditional Jewish person with straps literally wrapped around their arm and forehead – straps inscribed with the commandment to love the Lord.  

A great scholar of the Old Testament, Walter Brueggemann, who died just last week, once wrote that these instructions to recite the words and post them and wrap them around yourself are a “pedagogy of saturation”[4] – teaching these words by surrounding your every waking moment with them and absorbing them, almost by osmosis. . . until they take up residence in your mind and are written on your heart.  

And so, on September 11, even though I had never wrapped the words of Psalm 46 around my arm or hand, in a moment of crisis, the words, “God is our refuge and strength. . .” came to my troubled mind – as if pulled from some mental and spiritual rolodex – and spoke to my fearful heart.  You see, if we surround ourselves with enough of something, it has a way of sinking in, taking up residence, and staying.  It does beg the question in this age of constant bombardment by different forms of media, what are we surrounding ourselves with?  What words, what attitudes, what beliefs and values are you and I ingesting?  What is sinking in and taking up residence in our hearts and souls?  And is all of it good for us – for our mental and spiritual well-being?  I would contend that not all of it is.

And yet, if there is a word of hope, a word of faith, a word that gives us the courage to keep going, despite all odds, that somehow gets written on our hearts, I don’t believe this is a bad thing.  I believe that Psalm 46 is one of the best examples of this in all of scripture. . . 

The Psalm begins with a bold statement – a theme that carries throughout:  “God is our refuge and strength.” (Psalm 46:1)  Not material things, not other human beings, not governments or human systems, or technology. . . No. . . God is our refuge and strength.  There might be times when we find comfort in material things, or other people, or systems that help our lives.  But when it comes to who and what is our true refuge and who and what grants us true strength, God is theonly answer.  And it’s not just God who is the answer, it is God’s presence that is “. . . a very present help in trouble.”  (46:1)

Have you ever been in trouble, yourself, or lived through troubling times and events?  Where and how did you find the help you needed in the moment?  

In today’s passage, the Psalmist is singing a song about cataclysmic events – natural disasters, great upheaval, wars between nations – and how through it all, God is our true refuge and strength because God is with us.  There is even a refrain that is repeated twice in the Psalm:  “The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.” (46:7, 11)

This does not mean that there won’t be times when we wonder whether God is with us or not.  There have been plenty of times in my own life (and in the lives of people that I have known) in which the big question is, “Are you there, God?”  This past week, someone in this very room told me that they were having a hard time connecting with God in the wake of a horrific tragedy.  But sometimes, the very act of wondering – wrestling – in this way is a sign that God is with us, at work within our hearts, stirring us to long for God, even if we might not “feel” God’s presence with us.  By the way, if we do not feel God’s presence, does this mean that we have done something wrong or that God is not truly with us?  Absolutely not!  God reserves the right to be with us whether we acknowledge or “feel” God’s presence or not. Oftentimes, God is with us, despite our feelings.  

When I go to sit with a family whose loved-one has died, or someone who is about to undergo a difficult surgery, or someone whose heart is broken by the end of a relationship, or someone who has lost a job, or is facing an uncertain future, it can be so hard to see and feel God at work for good in the moment.  And yet, God is still God, and the act of remembering, and acknowledging, and repeating this – that God is still God, for us, in a moment of great difficulty and trial – is a faithful act. . . sometimes a stubbornly faithful act or an incredibly humbling act.  The presence of God with us, even when the world is falling apart, gives the Psalmist a reason to say, “Therefore we will fear not when the earth breaks apart, when the mountains collapse in the heart of the sea. . .” (46:2)[5]  Therefore we will not fear, though the test results are bad, though the cancer may have returned, though we have lost someone dear to us, though elected officials are targeted, killed, and shot for their political views, though Israel and Iran are shooting missiles at each other and the world is on the brink. . . though we fear our world is ending. . . God is our refuge and strength. . .  Therefore, we will not fear. . .  

Is God with us?  How would we even know whether God is with us?  Where would we even begin?  Careful readers of Psalm 46 might notice that we actually get some instructions straight from God.  In verse 10, the words of Psalm 46 change from the voice of the Psalmist in the first-person plural (“God is our”) to the voice of God in the first-person singular (“Be still and know that I am God. . .”).  In verse 10, God speaks – instructing us to be still and know that God is God.  The word to “be still” in the original language is the word “relax” but it can also mean, “to drop our hands from work and sink into relaxation.”[6]  Our hands, our minds, our bodies can be so busy with worry – working hard with worry – but here, God is telling us to rest in the knowledge that God is God and not we, ourselves.

How do we know that God is with us?  Sometimes – amidst all of the chaos of this world – we just need to stop. . . and be still. . . and wrap ourselves in the words of Holy promise and Holy presence. . . and know. . .  When we gather in this place, we call upon the name of Jesus – who is sometimes called “Emmanuel”. . . a word that means “God is with us.”  God is still our God, and we trust in God’s presence with us – sitting with us in the midst of suffering, crying with us, groaning within our hearts when we have run out of words to say or pray, healing us where and how we need to be healed, comforting us in ways that no one else can. . .

Even though the earth quakes and there are wars and so much uncertainty in this chaotic world, may we be still. . . and know. . . that God is God.  There will come a day when all upheaval will come to an end and God will make this so in God’s own way and time.  And yes, there will be a time for us to go to work for God and seek to make a better world through the work of our hands and the love in our hearts, but we cannot do this unless we begin from a place of stillness, and hope, and eventually trust that all will be well and God will make it so.

There were only three of us who gathered in the darkened sanctuary on September 11 – Marilyn Long, and Lu Daumer, and myself.  Most folks were either on that Caribbean cruise or felt they needed to stay home and watch the events unfold on TV.  And I don’t know what difference the simple prayers of three people made on that hard day of tragedy.  But, in the quiet of that place, it made a difference for us to hear and to say the words, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear. . .”  

Therefore, we will not fear. . .  Be still, and know. . .

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

---------

[1] The series, “Words to Live By” is comprised of scripture passages requested by members of Bedford Presbyterian Church.  Each passage represents a “life verse” or “life scripture” for someone.  

[2] Music by Allen Pote, Words by Jay Johnson.  “God Is Our Refuge” © 1986 Hope Publishing, Inc.

[3] For similar themes, see also Psalm 78:5-8 and Proverbs 6:20-22.

[4] Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997) 722.

[5] A translation by Robert Alter, The Book of Psalms (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2007) 162.

[6] F. Brwon, S. Driver, and C. Briggs, The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (Peabody: Hendrickson Publications, 1997) 951.

[johnhardinsawyer]

Who and Whose

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

6 / 8 / 25 – Pentecost Sunday[1]

Acts 2:1-21

Romans 8:14-17

“Who and Whose”

(Belonging to God)

When I went off to college, our whole freshman class had to read a book called The Whisper of the River, by an author named Ferrol Sams.[2]  The book, which is part of a three-book series, is all about a young man who leaves his family and tight-knit community and goes off to college.  Spoiler Alert:  the somewhat naïve boy who gets dropped off at college at the beginning of the book does not remain unchanged.  Everything and everyone he encounters during college – through his classes, and friendships, and different experiences – bumps up against how he was raised, and the expectations of his family, and his expectations of himself.  Over time, his beliefs and worldview are expanded, and yet the essence of who he truly is, remains.  

When he graduates college and goes off to medical school, and then into the army in World War II, the words of his wise grandmother are ringing in his ears:  “Remember who you are.”  

He had heard those words countless times [from her]. . . It was more than [a slogan]; it had become an incantation.  The words were her wisdom, the essence distilled from eighty years of joy, sorrow, confusion, serenity, and finally overweening assurance.  Her wisdom was all she had to give.  She gave it freely, but she never wasted it. . .  “Remember who you are.”[3]

I don’t know about you, but when I went off to school, there were some of the usual spoken admonitions from my parents:  “study hard, have fun, make new friends, please call home when you can.”  But then there were some unspoken admonitions, too, including some variations of “Remember who you are.”  Remember how you were raised.  Remember the things that we hold to be true and important about living this life.  Remember that you are more than your accomplishments, more than your GPA and SAT’s, more than your failings and failures, more than your heartbreaks and heartaches, more than you know or can imagine.  Remember who you are and whose you are. . .

Today’s reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans reminds us who we are and whose we are.  Because of the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we are God’s children and we belong to God.  

Now, when I say “because of the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives,” I wonder what thoughts or questions these two words might conjure up in your minds.  In the church, we often use the words, “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” to talk about who God is.  And, even though the topic is a pretty big one and there is a lot of mystery and a lot that we just don’t know, plenty of people can kind of wrap their minds around the concept God the Father being the Creator of the heavens and the earth.  In the same way, when we talk about Jesus Christ, the Son of God, we can point to stories in the Bible about a living, breathing, person who taught, and healed, and died, and rose again.  So, we can see God’s wondrous creation all around us.  And we might just be able to envision this divine and human being named Jesus.  But, when it comes to the Holy Spirit, what’s that all about?  

On this Pentecost Sunday –  the day that we celebrate the arrival and presence of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the church – it is good for us to be reminded of who God is.  If God the Father (or Creator) is for us, and Jesus Christ is God-with-us – alongside us – then the Spirit is God within and among us.  

Close readers of the Book of Genesis, might just find the Holy Spirit at work from the very beginning.  At the very beginning of the Bible, in this ancient mythic story of creation, we read, 

“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters,” (Genesis 1:1-2) 

This wind, or ruach, in the original language is the word for “breath, or Spirit.”[4]  In the same way, just one chapter later, when God forms human beings in God’s own image[5] out of the elemental dust of the earth, God “breathes the breath of life into the human being and it becomes a living soul.”[6]  

In these two early examples, the breath – the wind, the Spirit – of God is all around, at work in God’s creation, and at work deep within, granting us a living human spirit.  And, if we are looking and listening as we read the Old Testament and on into the New Testament, we can see this Spirit at work – from the wind that separates the waters of the Red Sea for the Israelites,[7] all the way through to the Holy Spirit playing a pivotal role in Mary giving birth to Jesus.[8]  

All the way through Jesus’ ministry, we can catch glimpses of the ways that the Holy Spirit is at work – descending upon Jesus in his baptism,[9] driving Jesus out into the wilderness and sustaining him while he is there, and then, activating and inspiring his ministry.[10]  In Luke, “Jesus, filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, [returns] to Galilee. . .” (Luke 4:14) to begin his ministry.  We can also infer that the Holy Spirit also has something to do with stirring the hearts of Jesus’ first disciples to leave their nets and follow him and later recognize Jesus as the Messiah.  The Spirit works in the same way in us.  

As we talked about a few weeks ago, in the Gospel of John, the risen Christ breathes on his disciples and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22)  And, in the story of the first Pentecost, we find the Holy Spirit being poured out upon the disciples and giving them the exact gifts that they need to go out and spread the good news of Jesus.[11]

In our own Reformed Tradition, the Holy Spirit is poured out upon us in our baptism, is at work in our minds and hearts and human spirits, granting us faith, helping us to understand scripture, inspiring every good act, helping us to pray, and both giving us every gift and talent that we possess and nurturing these spiritual gifts and talents for the building of God’s kingdom and spreading of the good news of Jesus Christ.[12]

All of this adds up to who God is, in and through the Holy Spirit.  But in today’s reading from Paul’s Letter to the Romans, we find God doing one more very important thing through the Holy Spirit:  adopting us as God’s children – embraced, as children, into the divine family.[13]  As Paul writes, we are no longer outsiders – slaves to fear – we are fully accepted as members of the family and the Holy Spirit makes this so.  

The Holy Spirit (with a Big Capital S) is at work leading and guiding and shaping and adopting our human (lower-case-s) spirits.  Because, as Eugene Peterson translates today’s passage, 

God’s Spirit beckons.  There are things to do and places to go!  This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life.  It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are.  We know who [God] is, and we know who we are:  Father and children.  And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us – an unbelievable inheritance. . .[14]

God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are.  We know who [God] is: the loving and holy parent who made us; and we know who we are:  God’s beloved children.

If anybody asks you who you are. . .  tell them you’re a child of God.

When Martin Luther wrote about this, he said that it would be good, “. . . that this text were written in letters of gold; so admirable is it, and full of comfort.”[15]

And so, beloved children of God, in your waking and sleeping, and coming and going – in all that you do and all that you are, in every Spirit-filled and Spirit-led moment, everywhere you go and in everyone you meet, remember who you are and whose you are.  Take comfort in this good news.  God’s Spirit beckons.  There are things to do and places to go.  

May the presence and power of the Holy Spirit fill us and lead us.  

Remember who you are. . . and whose you are. . .

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

-------

[1] Year C. Day of Pentecost.

[2] A fun family connection: Ferrol Sams was actually a distant cousin of mine.  His mother and my great-grandmother were cousins.  His mother’s name was Mildred and my grandmother’s name was also Mildred – possibly named after Ferrol’s mother.  The Whisper of the River was based, in part, on Ferrol’s experiences at Mercer University in Macon, GA, in the late 1930’s.  I attended Mercer in the 1990’s.

[3] Ferrol Sams, When All the World Was Young (Marietta: Longstreet Press, Inc., 1991) 1.

[4] F. Brown, S. Driver, and C. Briggs, The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1997) 924.

[5] See Genesis 1:26.

[6] See Genesis 2:7 – Paraphrased, JHS.

[7] See Exodus 14:21.

[8] See Luke 1:35.

[9] See Luke 3:22.

[10] See Luke 4:1, 14.

[11] See Acts 2:1-21.

[12] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960) See 2.5.14-15; 3.1.4; and 3.20.5.

[13] Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979) 833.

[14] Eugene Peterson, The Message: Numbered Edition (Colorado Springs: NAV Press, 2022) 1550. Romans 8:14-16.

[15] Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans (London: Oxford University Press, 1968) 295. Barth quotes Luther.

[johnhardinsawyer]

"Free"

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

6 / 1 / 25 – Seventh Sunday of Easter[1] / Children in Worship Sunday

Acts 16:25-34

“Free”

(Freedom From and Freedom For)

There is a certain kind of freedom that will soon be felt by a whole lot of New Hampshire kids – an uncomplicated freedom, months in the making.  Sometime, in the next few weeks, after attending school all year, there will come a day when kids will wake up and go to school in the morning and when they are done for the day, they are done for the summer.  There’s no feeling like it.  Suddenly, all of the weight of responsibilities, and deadlines, and tests, and quizzes, and projects has been lifted.  And you walk, or run, or skip out the door, singing, “School’s out for summer!”[2] – and you are free.    

Even if it’s been a long time since you have felt this last-day-of-school kind of freedom, I have a feeling that many of you might just remember what I’m talking about.  

Just imagine that you are suddenly free from school. . .  What do you?  Well, some kids get enrolled in camps, some go on vacation, some join a swim team, some are getting very excited about BPC’s Vacation Church School in July, some get to visit grandparents, some stay home and watch The Price is Right, some take a nap, some get a job.  Some do all of the above.  For many kids, the uncomplicated freedom of summer is a tremendous gift.  

Freedom is a tremendous gift.  It isn’t always uncomplicated, though.  Sometimes, we long for freedom from things a whole lot harder than school – grief, and guilt, and responsibilities that we know we cannot give up at the time; freedom from oppression, or illness, or a negative self-image, freedom from the things that bind us and keep us from being our true selves.  Freedom can be quite complicated and hard-won.  Freedom can have tremendous costs – both acknowledged and unacknowledged.  Freedom is sometimes only achieved after great sacrifices made by many people.  

But if you and I have been set free or granted freedom from something, it might just follow that we might just be freed up for other things.  

In today’s reading from the Book of Acts, we see what happens when Paul and Silas are set free from jail.  But there is more to this story than an earthquaking Holy Spirit jailbreak – more freedom in this story to tease out:  freedom from and freedom for.  

For starters, Paul and Silas are in jail because they have set a young woman free.  The woman is, basically, enslaved by mental illness and enslaved by the people who use their “slave-girl” (Acts 16:16) to make money.  When Paul and Silas meet her, they can see that her way of life is no way to truly live.  And so they heal her – they set her free – and, suddenly, she is in her right mind.  

This is good news for the young woman but it makes her owners upset because they have lost a source of income.  The owners are angry, and so they have Paul and Silas beaten and thrown in jail.  

This is where today’s reading begins, because Paul and Silas have been beaten with rods by the citizens of Philippi and have been placed in the innermost cell of the city’s jail.[3]  They are in a tough situation, here – a situation that you and I might see as hopeless.  But, about midnight, we find Paul and Silas, “praying and singing hymns to God.” (16:25)

Now, I don’t know if you have ever been locked in the innermost cell in a dark jail and felt the desire to lift your voice in song, but I find Paul and Silas’ singing to be indicative of their state of mind and heart.  They might not be free in a literal sense, but it sure looks and sounds like these two apostles of Jesus feel free in the moment.  As someone who loves to sing in my own life – from the stage to the sanctuary to the shower – I find singing to be something that is incredibly freeing, spiritually and mentally.  So, maybe Paul and Silas are praying and singing hymns as an act of faithful resistance or to keep their spirits up.  Maybe they are singing because it makes them feel free.  

I’ve told this story before, but I find it so powerful.  Back in 1963, when the struggle to register black people to vote in Mississippi was at its most dangerous – even violent – a woman named Fannie Lou Hamer was arrested by police and cruelly beaten.  She had been returning home from a training session at which black people had been learning how to claim their freedom to vote.  Lying in her jail cell, as Mrs. Hamer remembered it, “When you’re in a brick cell, locked up, and haven’t done anything to anybody but still you’re locked up there, well, sometimes words just begin to come to you and you begin to sing.”[4]  And so, Mrs. Hamer – bruised and beaten though she was – sang out from her jail cell: 

Paul and Silas was bound in jail, let my people go. Had no money for to go their bail, let my people go.  Paul and Silas began to shout, let my people go. Jail doors open and they walked out, let my people go.

Mrs. Hamer took the biblical story and applied it to her own life.  She did not walk out of jail that night, but she named her suffering “and emplotted it in a cosmic story of hope and deliverance.”[5]  She had faith and hope in the One who offers us freedom in the truest sense of the word. 

Oh, to be delivered from suffering, and injustice, and hatred, and violence. . . In today’s story, we see this happening – not just for Paul and Silas, but also for the jailer who has imprisoned them.  

You heard the story:  Paul and Silas are praying and singing, there is an earthquake, all the doors to the jail are opened, and all of the chains holding them fall away.  They are suddenly and miraculously free.  Freed from jail and freed for ongoing service to God.  

But the jailer – the one who had locked them away in the innermost cell – comes running, and sees what has happened, and is about to harm himself. . . maybe even bring about his own death.  Why would he do this?  Well, up until this point, the jailer’s purpose was to keep people in jail.  His job, his reputation, his very purpose are all in jeopardy.  And now, in a moment of anxious fear and desperation, he tries to end it all with his own sword.  

Oh, to be freed from anxious fear and desperation, to be freed from the fears and feelings that keep us bound. . . This is the freedom that Paul and Silas offer the desperate jailer – the freedom in which the jailer’s fears fade away, the freedom in which a word of grace is offered, the freedom in which a new life can begin.

I wonder what you might need to be freed from today. . .  We all come to this place carrying burdens that weigh us down.  Each of us can find ourselves held captive by many things – some of which lead us down the road toward anxiety and hopelessness.  I wonder what word we might need to hear that would finally and completely set us free.  

And I wonder – if we heard this word of freedom, if we cast off our chains and set down our burdens, if we welcomed the grace of God into our minds and hearts – what this might free us for doing, and being, and living.  What would you do?  Who would you serve?  With whom would you share the freeing grace of God?  How would you do this?  

The jailer’s first response to his new and free life is two-fold.  First, he binds up Paul and Silas’ wounds – trying to heal and make right the hurts that had been inflicted upon them.  And then, he welcomes Paul and Silas into his own home, and sets food before them, and the whole household rejoices.  

You know, it doesn’t always work out this way, but I love how they all sit down at the table, and rejoice, in the end.  When we come to this Table, we call it the “joyful feast of the people of God” because it is here that we are not only reminded of the freeing forgiveness – and freeing love – of Jesus Christ, but we experience this freedom in mysterious, deep-down spiritual ways that might be hard for us to understand but we trust to be true and lasting, freeing and empowering.  This joyful news of God’s freeing love for us is good news.  And this joyful feast of freedom and welcome and new life is the best that God offers, for those who are open to tasting and seeing that the Lord is good.  

Beloved people of God, in Jesus Christ, we are set free from sin and death, free from the parts of ourselves that imprison our hearts and minds, free from the distractions and desperations of the world.  And in Jesus Christ, we are set free for the ministry of care, and reconciliation, and healing, and justice, and peace, and faith, and hope, and love, and freedom – for ourselves and for others.  May we find strength and purpose and freedom in the freeing power of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit.  

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

[1] Year C, Seventh Sunday of Easter.

[2] A song sung by people of a certain age who listen to Classic Rock music.

[3] See Acts 16:22-24.

[4] Charles Marsh, God’s Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997) 22.

[5] Charles Marsh, 22.

[johnhardinsawyer]

Going and Coming

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

5 / 25 / 25 – Sixth Sunday of Easter[1]/Memorial Day Sunday

John 14:23-29

Acts 16:9-15

“Going and Coming”

(Peregrination in Pneuma)

This past week on The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon and his guest, Tom Cruise, were playing a game.  They took turns, with their back to a curtain, and tried to guess what was behind the curtain when it opened.  The curtain would open, and some weird – hard-to-guess – thing would be back there:  three Bruce Springsteens on surfboards in Paris, Lady Gaga and Batman trying to assemble Ikea furniture. . . silly stuff like that.  

But then the game changed, because Jimmy and Tom (yes, we are on a first-name basis) went out into the audience and picked a woman – seemingly at random – to come play the game with them.  The woman, Shontavia, lives in Buffalo, New York, and works in a community health center.  And when Jimmy asked Shontavia if she had any kids, she said, “Yes,” she has a son who is in the military – stationed in Europe.  She told Jimmy that she hadn’t seen her son in two years.  And so, Shontavia turned her back to the curtain, and the curtain opened, and – lo, and behold – standing behind the curtain was her son.  When she realized who it was, Shontavia was absolutely speechless, and she began to weep.  Her handsome son in Navy whites shed a tear or two, which his mother wiped away.[2]  And I, watching the whole thing on YouTube on my phone, joined them, wiping away a tear, myself.

The whole thing was just so heartwarming.  It was one of those feel-good stories that doesn’t often get covered, in this day and age.  The thing that got me all misty wasn’t just the fact that her surprise was so genuine and her reunion with her son was so sweet.  It was that her love for her son was so palpable.  

Now, I don’t know Shontavia, but she struck me as the kind of mom whose love could span oceans – holding her son in the light of her love wherever he goes.  Shontavia might not always be physically close to her son, but she is close to him.  Because her love for him makes this so.  

We believe in a God whose love for us is this direct and all-encompassing.  

In the church, we will often say that God is with us, wherever we go.  We see this time, and time again, in scripture.  In the Book of Exodus, God travels with God’s people through the wilderness.  In the Book of Psalms, we are told that there is nowhere we can go where God is not:

Where can I go from your spirit?  Or where can I flee from your presence?  If I ascend to heaven, you are there;  if I make may bed in Sheol, you are there.   If I take the wings of the morning  and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,  even there your hand shall lead me  and your right hand shall hold me fast. (Psalm 139:7-10)

In the Book of Romans, Paul reminds us that nothing “. . . will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.” (Romans 8:39)  And in Gospel of Matthew, when Jesus gives the Great Commission, he says, “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20) 

In today’s reading from the Gospel of John, Jesus – in his last supper and final discourse with his disciples – clearly states that he is about to leave them.  “I am going away. . .” he tells them. (John 14:28)  But he follows this up, by saying a strange-sounding thing.  He says, “I am going away [comma,] and I am coming to you.” (14:28)

Now, I’ve heard people sometimes say, “I don’t know whether I’m coming or going. . .” as a sign that they are so distracted, or busy, or confused.  But I’m not under the impression that Jesus – even though he has a lot on his mind and heart, in the moment captured in today’s reading – is confused.  Instead, Jesus says that even if he is going away to be with God, the Father, he will be coming to be with the disciples in and through the Holy Spirit.  

Just prior to today’s reading, Jesus tells his disciples, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.  This is the Spirit of truth. . . whom you know because the Spirit abides with you, and the Spirit will be in you.” (14:15-17)[3]

And, just a few verses later – in today’s reading – Jesus says, “I have said these things to you while I am still with you.  But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you.” (14:25-26)  Jesus is physically going away, but the Holy Spirit will be God’s spiritual presence in the physical world – and in our own lives, too. . . our minds, and hearts, and bodies, and spirits.  

To be clear, God’s spiritual presence with us might not always be clear to us.  When John Calvin writes about this, he says, basically, if we do not immediately see and experience the help and consolation we have received in Jesus Christ, “. . . be of good courage, until the Holy Spirit, who is the inward Teacher, [speaks] the same things [that Jesus has taught us] into our hearts.”[4]  In other words, God is always going to be with us, but in ways that might be more inward, than outward – more spiritual than physical.  Of course, we believe that God is at work in the physical world and in our physical bodies,but the work that God is doing is the spiritual work of the Holy Spirit.  

So, even though Jesus is both going away and coming to us, God isn’t going anywhere, at all, because the Holy Spirit is still with us.  And Calvin encourages us “to always be satisfied with this kind of presence.”[5] The Holy Spirit is always with us in all of our goings and comings, and comings and goings.  We see the Spirit working in this way in today’s reading from the Book of Acts.  

Now, anyone who has read the Book of Acts would probably tell you that it is a book about the movement of the Holy Spirit – from a small gathering of disciples in Jerusalem, out into the wider world – across land and sea, from person to person, from community to community.  The Spirit is on the move and God’s people are on the move in the Book of Acts.  Last week, we heard the story of Peter traveling out from Jerusalem to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea – to Joppa and Caesarea Maritima.  But Peter isn’t the only one on the road.  An apostle named Paul goes even farther – setting sail from Caesarea Maritima and carrying the gospel to present-day Turkey, Greece, and even Italy. . . all the way to Rome.   

To an outside observer, Paul’s journeys from place to place might seem kind of random.  And yet, there seems to be something Holy, guiding him along the way.  In today’s reading, we find Paul and his companions standing at the edge of one continent, looking across the water at another continent.  They are on the west coast of present-day Turkey, not far from the ancient city of Troy.  And, as the story goes, one evening while they are there, Paul has a vision. . . a dream, of sorts.  In the dream, Paul sees a man from Macedonia – across the Aegean Sea – in present-day Greece, saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” (Acts 16:9)  And, as the author of today’s story writes, “When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.” (16:10)

Now, I don’t know the last time you took travel advice from someone you saw in a dream, but there are many stories in the Bible of people who have dreams and visions in which they are told to go certain places and do certain things.  And when they follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, somehow God blesses their faithfulness.  To be clear, the road ahead, the passage across the sea, the wandering through the wilderness is not always easy, but it is blessed.  In today’s story, we see Paul and his friends blessed by the hospitality of a woman named Lydia.  In the story, they are gathered outside the city of Philippi, sitting on the banks of the river, and in this group is a woman named Lydia.  And, while Paul and his friends are speaking – talking about Jesus – as the story goes, Lydia is listening to them and “the Lord [opens] Lydia’s heart to listen eagerly to what [is] said by Paul.”  (16:14)

In the original language, when Lydia’s heart is opened, she is granted a “fullness of intelligent understanding.”[6]  And, immediately, she invites Paul and his friends to come and stay in her home.  

When Jesus tells us that he is sending the Holy Spirit to be with us in all times and places – in all of our own comings and goings – he is inviting us to understand that just as we are being led by the Holy Spirit through our own hearts and minds, we are also being led to the Holy Spirit in other people and places.  Paul is led by the Spirit to Macedonia – to a riverbank outside the city of Philippi – and there he encounters this woman named Lydia, whose heart has been fully opened by the Spirit.  

But this phenomenon is not limited to stories from the Bible or tales from long ago.  If you were to think of your own life, and all of the paths that led you to this very moment, and all of the people you have encountered along the way, I hope that you might be able to pinpoint some blessed moments of Holy connection – times in which your life intersected with the life of another person and you both were blessed. 

We are at a time in the life of the world in which there is great upheaval – between nations and cultures, even religions.  And a lot of this might be seen as negative.  A lot of it is.  And yet, if our hearts are open, somehow the sacred – the spiritual, the Holy – just keeps showing up.  We might even be living in a new era – the Age of the Spirit, as some scholars call it.  As Harvey Cox writes, the transformation of religion that we are seeing is one of the most momentous transformations since its transition “. . . from what had begun as a tiny Jewish sect into the religious identity of the Roman Empire. . . Christianity [is moving] awkwardly but irreversibly into a new phase in its history.”[7]  

Now, I will freely admit that, sometimes, at this awkward phase in history, recognizing the Holy Spirit in the mind and heart of another person can be a challenge.  There are sharp divisions and surface distinctions that we make between one another.  And yet, the Holy Spirit has a loving and life-changing power which spans the divides of geography, and language, culture, and politics.

Perhaps, one of the keys of bridging the divide is remembering that we are all on one pilgrimage or another – going and coming – from and to and in God.  And so is everyone else. . .  

This pilgrimage – this peregrination – is a spiritual journey that begins and ends in God and is blessed and surrounded by the Spirit, all along the way.  No one’s pilgrimage is without difficulty or hardship and yet everyone’s pilgrimage is blessed, for anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear.  

The Holy Spirit is not hiding behind a curtain, waiting for us to guess if God is with us.  The curtain has been torn in two and the Holy Spirit is on the loose – out in the world and in our lives.  

May we trust in the presence of the Holy Spirit – with us and in us and surrounding us – through all of our goings and comings.  

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

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[1] Year C, 6th Sunday of Easter.

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIWohtuFVUM.

[3] Paraphrased, JHS.

[4] John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries – Vol. XVIII – John 12-21, Acts 1-13 (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2009) 100.

[5] John Calvin, 102.

[6] Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979) 187.

[7] Harvey Cox, The Future of Faith (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 2009) 2, 19.

[johnhardinsawyer]

Dreaming of Love

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

5 / 18 / 25 – Fifth Sunday of Easter[1]

John 13:31-35

Acts 11:1-18

“Dreaming of Love”

(When Grace Surprises)

About a month ago, I was in a bit of a quandary.  Pope Francis – the leader of the Roman Catholic Church – died.  Now, I didn’t have anything to do with it – that I know of – and I did not know Pope Francis personally, but I do know that he was a humble and loving man who faithfully served the people he was called to serve.  He faithfully worked for peace and faithfully ministered to people on the margins – the poor, the sick, the suffering, even gay and lesbian people.  Was he perfect?  No.  But no one is.  I’m sure that there were things about which the Pope and I would have disagreed – and we’ll get to this in just a moment – but first, back to my quandary.  

You see, I got a text message from Kenny, our wonderful Church Sexton, who asked me whether or not the flag outside our church sanctuary needed to be lowered to half-staff.  There had been a proclamation from the governor’s office, following the lead from the White House in Washington, that all flags needed to be lowered to half-staff out of respect for the Pope.  For the record, we lower the flag all the time, when we hear about similar proclamations.  We lowered the flag this past week.[2]

In the case of Pope Francis, a religious leader died in Italy, then a political leader across the ocean in the US asked that a national symbol (the flag) be lowered on all public buildings, and our church – a religious organization not officially affiliated with the guy who died – was being asked to lower the national flag on our church property out of respect.  So, when Kenny asked me the question about lowering the flag for the Pope, it took me a moment to think, because. . . well. . . Here’s what I wrote back to Kenny. . . 

Our Presbyterian/Protestant ancestors would probably be rolling in their graves over the idea that a Presbyterian Church would lower the flag out of respect for a Catholic Pope, but he was a good and faithful man, so I guess it’s okay.  Talk about a strange confluence of history, theology, and symbolism!

Now, to be clear, I don’t want to come across as anti-Roman-Catholic or anti-lowering-the-flag-to-half-staff-out-of-respect, but Protestants and Roman Catholics have had some serious disagreements over the centuries.  Why, 500 years ago, we were literally killing each other.  If you read any of the writings of Martin Luther or John Calvin, you will find, sprinkled throughout, disparaging statements about Catholics.  And the Catholics at the time were slinging mud and breathing out violence right back at the Protestants.  If you read our own Book of Confessions, you will find several references to “Papists,” which was a derogatory term for Catholics.  In the Second Helvetic Confession of 1561, we can read, “Above all we detest all the trafficking in which the Papists engage in dispensing the sacraments.”[3]  If you say that you “detest” something about a group of people, chances are, you don’t have a great relationship with them. 

 More recent printings of the Book of Confessions of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) do say that negative statements like this “emerged from substantial doctrinal disputes. . . [but] are not the position of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and are not applicable to current relationships between [us] and the Catholic Church.”[4]  We still can’t celebrate the Lord’s Supper together and I can remember being turned away from the Table by people I consider friends and colleagues.  Thank goodness things are better now between our church and our Roman Catholic siblings, but when you’ve had a beef for 500 years (even if it’s just a theological one), there are usually some lingering complicated feelings.  Feelings like these are not new and are definitely not limited to our historically rocky relationship with the Roman Catholic Church, though.  

In today’s reading from the Book of Acts, we find some deep-seated divisions on display – divisions that go back around 2,000 years.  On one side, we have the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who believe themselves to be God’s chosen people.  By the time of Jesus and the events of the Book of Acts, these people are known as “Jews” (people who come from the land of Judah – the Southern Kingdom of Israel and consider themselves to be the rightful descendants of Abraham).  And, on the other side, we have everyone else who is not a Jew.  These people are called “Gentiles.”  Ever since the time of Abraham, God’s people – the Hebrews, the Israelites, and later, the Jews – have separated themselves from everyone else – the Gentiles, the inhabitants of every other nation in the world.  Now, there are Gentiles who live among the Jews, but there are some strict boundaries put in place, both socially and religiously.  Jews and Gentiles don’t eat the same kinds of foods and have other strict practices that separate them from one another.  

But when Jesus comes onto the scene, these strict boundaries begin to get a little blurred.  You see, there are multiple examples of Jesus (a Jew) interacting with – and even loving – Gentiles, who then come to believe in him and follow him:  a Roman Centurion whose servant is paralyzed,[5] a Canaanite woman whose daughter is possessed,[6] and a Samaritan woman at a well,[7] among others.

Despite these examples, most of the earliest followers of Jesus were Jewish and they believed that if any Gentile wanted to follow Jesus, too, then those Gentiles would need to convert to Judaism first.  One can see the logic, here:  Jesus is Jewish, he comes from a Jewish family, the primary source of his teaching comes from the Jewish scriptures, so this Jesus movement is clearly a Jewish movement.  

But then Peter – Jesus’ close friend and disciple – has a dream.  You heard about the dream, earlier.  It’s kind of a strange dream – as dreams often can be.  Just prior to today’s reading, Peter has been on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, in Joppa.  Joppa sits just north of the largely Gentile city of Caesaria Maritima.  Caesarea Maritima is a seaport, where a large contingent of Romans are stationed.  If you go to Caesaria Maritima today, you can see the ruins of a Roman amphitheater, a racetrack for chariots, and other things.  Just watch out if you decide to walk on the beach, barefoot, because you might get some tar that washed ashore smeared on your foot, and it is nearly impossible to wash away.  I speak from personal experience, on this.

Anyway, in the chapter prior to today’s reading, a Roman Centurian who lives in Caesarea has a vision, inviting Peter to come for a visit.  Peter is reluctant because this Centurion, named Cornelius, is a Gentile.  And, as we have just discussed, Jews, historically, don’t hang out with Gentiles.  I mean, what would happen if Cornelius invited Peter to stay for dinner?  

But then, just as Cornelius has had a vision, Peter also has a vision of a sheet full of animals – the kinds of animals that Jewish folks are not supposed to eat – and God saying, basically, “Go ahead and eat. . . What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”[8]  God’s command for Peter to accept a change in his diet is also a command for him to recognize that all people are made in God’s image and all people – Jew and Gentile, alike – have the opportunity to come to know the life-changing grace of God in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit at work in their hearts, minds, and souls.  

So Peter goes to Cornelius’ home, and eats with him and his family, and baptizes them and they receive the Holy Spirit, and Peter says, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to God.” (10:34-35)

After this Spirit-led epiphany, Peter goes back to Jerusalem and shares this amazing story with the people who are gathered there.  And, in today’s reading, after the Jewish believers in Jerusalem criticize Peter for eating with the Gentiles, Peter explains why.  He says, “. . . the Spirit told me to. . . not make a distinction between them and us.” (11:12)  And, after telling more of the story, Peter also says, “If then God gave them the same gift that God gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” (11:17). “Who was I that I could hinder God’s grace, God’s gift of new and abundant and everlasting life, God’s gift of good news of love to all the world?”  

We should note that this story of God’s grace for all is so significant that it is told twice, back-to-back.  There is the actual story of what happened in Chapter 10 and then in today’s reading from Chapter 11, Peter tells it again.  

When it comes to us, who are we that we could ever possibly hinder God’s grace?  It’s hard, I know. . . because there are many rooms in the Christian household and the people in each room – or each and every denomination or even congregation – believe that they have their own unique slant on the meaning of God’s grace and that the lens through which they read the Bible and see the world must be the one and only best way to read the Bible and see the world, right?  

Our ancestors in the Church of Scotland, led by a firebrand preacher named John Knox had plenty of criticism for any group of Christians that wasn’t the Church of Scotland – or, as they called it back then, the “one [true] Kirk.”  John Knox had been imprisoned and enslaved by Roman Catholics.  So, quite naturally, he had some negative vibes.  Knox eventually escaped and made his way to Geneva to experience a different kind of church, led by John Calvin.  

Folks back then had their reasons to be angry and divided.  But we should note that all of this division – as warranted as it might have seemed at the time by those who did the dividing – was never the goal of Jesus Christ.  In the Gospel of John, Jesus prays that his followers “may all be one.” (John 17:21). This is one reason why even Protestant churches, like ours, use the word “catholic,” but we spell it with a small “c.”  The word originally means, the universal or worldwide nature of the church, encompassing all Christians.  The Roman “Big-C” Catholics have one way of interpreting what it means to be part of the Christian household, but their room in the household is not the only room.  And neither is our room.  We all live in the same house, though. . .

When it comes down to it – as hard as it can be, in a world filled with far-too-many divisions – there is one standard by which all of us will be judged, in the end:  how we love one another.  In today’s reading from John’s Gospel, several chapters before Jesus prays that we “may all be one,” Jesus gives his disciples – including us, and our Roman Catholic siblings, and the Baptists, and Methodists, and the non-denominational folks, and the Assembly of God, and all the rest – a new commandment:  

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13:34-35)

Last Sunday night, a friend of mine, who knows what I do for a living, clapped me on the back and said, “Hey, you’ve got a new Pope!”  In a typical Protestant-with-a-chip-on-my-shoulder way, I said something like, “Well, he’s technically not my Pope.  Our churches split up 500 years ago.  We have different theology, we have different things we believe about the sacraments, we have a different ecclesiastical structure.  I’m sure the new Pope is a good and faithful man, but he’s not, technically, my Pope.”

Who was I that I should hinder God?  What I should have just said was, “You know, I don’t know the new Pope, and he doesn’t necessarily sign my paychecks, but I send my love to him and all who love him.  I hope that he, and all of us who are trying to love Jesus can love each other the way Jesus loves us.”  

It is by and through our love that we will be known. . .  Maybe, just maybe, if we are known by how we love, everything else that doesn’t matter as much – all of our baggage, and feelings, and theological ticks will fade away and something more lasting, and true, and loving, and pure, and Christlike will take their place. . . 

Jesus’ deep desire is that we may be one.  May we be known by our love.  

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

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[1] Year C, 5th Sunday of Easter.

[2] After the death of former Supreme Court Justice, David Souter.

[3] Book of Confessions: The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) Part 1 (Louisville: The Office of The General Assembly, 2016) 5.171.

[4] Book of Confessions, iii-iv.

[5] See Matthew 8:5-13.

[6] See Matthew 15:21-28.

[7] See John 4:1-42.

[8] See Acts 10:13-15.

[johnhardinsawyer]

Whose Voice?

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

5 / 11 / 25 – Fourth Sunday of Easter/Mother’s Day

Acts 9:36-43

John 10:22-30

“Whose Voice?”

(Hearing, Knowing, Trusting, and Following)

Do you remember the first voice you ever heard?  When was it?  Whose was it?  Where were you?  Now, I don’t know for sure but, since it is Mother’s Day, I would venture a guess that one of the first voices that any of us ever heard was that of our mother – echoing down through the amniotic fluid while we bounced around, completely unaware.  Or maybe it was when we first became aware, after all the noise and confusion of birth, being placed on the breast of this person who began to speak – a voice that was no longer muffled by layers of skin, muscle, and fluid.  In the best of all circumstances, the voice was clear, but soft – hopefully, loving and full of awe in the moment.  

Pretty soon after that one quiet moment with our mothers, I imagine that other voices started coming quickly to us – the voices of fathers, other parents, siblings, family members, doctors and nurses.  And then, as we grew, the voices of babysitters and teachers, friends and strangers.  Many of these voices were loving and caring, but I know that some were not.  There were some voices that told us that we were the greatest thing since sliced bread and other voices that told us that we were no good and wouldn’t amount to much.  Pretty soon, these voices began to compete for our attention, among so many others, because there were other voices that entered the picture – the voices we heard singing on the radio, or voices speaking seriously about serious things, or voices made us laugh or feel other feelings.  

Now, I’m not saying that I’ve been hearing voices, lately, but when it comes to the sheer number of voices that can be heard these days, unfortunately, it sometimes takes some real mental acuity and spiritual maturity on my part to discern which voices truly deserve my attention.  To be clear: there are some voices that can (and should) be trusted and others that are not reliable at all.  But, depending upon which voice comes our way – via television, e-mail, the internet, print media, and text messages, too – not to mention in-person interactions and the thing that we tell ourselves, it can be hard to tell the difference between the good and the bad.  One cannot simply passively absorb all these voices that are speaking to us.  It requires active vigilance on our part.   

A few years ago, the phrase “media hygiene” entered the cultural vocabulary.  If we have healthy media hygiene, then it means we are setting some boundaries on how many voices we allow into our lives – into our minds, hearts, and spirits – as well as evaluating the reliability of these voices, being aware of bias, and using some critical thinking.  To what and to whom we listen, as well as how we listen (how much and how often) can seriously impact our outlook on life, our behavior, our sense of right and wrong, our emotional well-being, and even our physical health. 

I wonder. . . to what and to whom are you listening as you come into this space, today?  Whose voice is speaking the most clearly to you?  Thus far in our worship service, you have heard the voices of those around you – speaking and singing.  You have heard the voices of those who have spoken from this pulpit and from the floor – women, men, and children.  Perhaps, in the waters of baptism, you heard or felt or remembered echoes of the Holy voice that tells us, “You are my child.  I love you.  I am pleased with you.”

What we seek to do here in this place is deeper than simply sharing our human voices.  What we seek to do here – humbly, yet faithfully – is listen to and share the voice of the God that has been revealed to us in scripture:  the voice of God our Creator, the voice of Jesus Christ our Savior, and the voice of the Holy Spirit who sustains a life of faith seeking understanding.  This Holy Voice, if you will, speaks in certain ways – claiming us, calling us, filling us with faith, and hope, and love, challenging us, granting us new life, empowering us and sending us out into the world to live and share what we have heard, here.  

In today’s reading from the Gospel of John, we find Jesus talking about his own voice and the ways that you and I – and all people – respond (or do not respond) to what we hear.  At this point in the Gospel of John, Jesus – who often speaks in metaphors – is using an extended metaphor about a flock of sheep, and a gatekeeper, and a gate, and a shepherd.  Not all who heard Jesus speak way back then and not all who hear these words, today, find them easy to understand.  Just prior to today’s reading in John 10, the religious officials in Jerusalem are arguing among themselves, some saying, “Jesus is out of his mind, talking like this.”  And others saying, “If he were out of his mind, would he be able to cure someone who is blind, like he just did in Chapter 9?”[1]

The religious officials in the Temple in Jerusalem – who are very concerned with maintaining an uneasy peace with the occupying Roman empire while maintaining their religious practice at the Temple – are confounded by Jesus.  Has he come to disrupt everything that they are trying to keep a tight lid on?  And, in today’s passage, they confront him to his face among the columns of the wide courtyard of the Temple, known as Solomon’s Portico.  As the story goes, it is the festival of the Dedication, also known as Hanukkah.  And, as one commentator writes, Jesus is walking around the portico while teaching, possibly trying to stay warm behind the Temple’s massive walls.[2]  While he is walking, he finds himself surrounded by the people in charge, who demand to know, “How long will you keep us in suspense?  If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” (John 20:24) “Are you or aren’t you the One – the King – who has come to set our people free?  Are you or aren’t you the One who has been promised to us by the prophets, long ago?”  

Now, questions like these are tricky and dangerous for Jesus to answer, outright, and Jesus never really does.  As scholar Dale Bruner writes, 

Jesus cannot and will not come right out and say “I am the Messiah”. . . for good political and religious reasons. Politically, it is a dangerous affirmation [because anyone who claims to be a God-anointed ruler would instantly run afoul of the Roman emperor, who – many believed was the god-anointed ruler at the time].  Religiously, it is a much too easily misunderstood and manipulable affirmation [because there have been many (and still are) those who claim earthly authority on religious grounds, which can be a dangerous and deadly thing to do for multiple reasons].[3]

So, instead, Jesus invites his religious interlocutors to simply look at what he has done – the miraculous signs he has done in the sight of many people – curing a blind man,[4] feeding five thousand people,[5] healing a paralyzed man on the Sabbath day,[6] and turning water into wine at a wedding,[7] among other things.  According to Jesus, all of these signs and wonders are the Holy sign that he is, indeed, someone who is of God, but does he really need to come out and say it?    

The people at the Temple still aren’t sure, though.  And so, Jesus says to them, basically, “I have told you and you do not believe and you have seen the things I have done and you do not believe.  Maybe you do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep.  Maybe you’re not in my flock. . . my church.”[8]

Now, I want to be clear in saying that far-too-many preachers make the mistake of trying to determine who is “in” and who is “out.”  And I don’t want to be one of those preachers.  Besides, in a time in the life of the world when far-too-many people are trying to make distinctions between who is “in” and who is “out,” I think I’ve had about as much of that kind of thinking as I can take.  This is why I don’t see Jesus’ “maybe-you’re-not-in-my-flock” statement, here, as an absolute moment of final judgment, deciding insiders and outsiders.  What I see and hear in this moment with Jesus is an invitation to the people who are surrounding him – for his followers, his interrogators, his enemies, his friends, and even us, all these years later – to listen, deeply.  In other words, ��Maybe you’re not in my flock. . . or my church, or one of my people. . . yet.”

“My sheep hear my voice,” Jesus tells them.  “I know them, and they follow me.”  (John 10:27)

This is an invitation for any and all people to become, as Dale Bruner writes, 

“Christocentrics,” or now more specifically, “Christophonics,” “Christ-listeners,” “Christ’s-Voice people,” whose passion is hearing, listening to, seeking out again and again, like food for the soul, the one great piece of news ever given to the world – the Voice, the Word of God, through the Word and Work of Jesus. . .[9]

“My sheep hear my voice.  I know them and they follow me,” Jesus tells us with an open-hearted invitation, calling us to listen, and be known, and to follow – adopting a Christocentric, “Christophonic,” way of life.  

By the way, I love that word, “Christophonic.”  It sounds like it could be some of the latest headphones made by Bose or Beats by Dr. Dre.  I would venture a guess, though, that to be truly Christophonic, we would need to remove anything that covers or plugs our ears up, so that we can pay attention to the world around us.  

In today’s reading from the Book of Acts, we see what happens when people hear and respond to Jesus’ invitation.  Peter, Jesus’ friend and sometimes fumbling disciple, has come to a new town and hears the voice of Jesus speaking through the friends of a woman named Tabitha.  “Our friend has died,” they say.  Peter listens and follows them immediately.  Peter listens to the voices of the women who are weeping beside the dead body of their friend.  Peter listens for God’s voice as he kneels down to pray.  And then, after all this listening, Peter uses his own voice – a voice full of the Holy Spirit – to say “Tabitha, get up.” (Acts 9:40)  And she does get up and God’s beloved people rejoice.  

Not even death can withstand God’s voice – a voice, the Voice, that has claimed us from the very beginning:  “You are my child.  I love you.  I am pleased with you.”[10]

There is nothing that can separate us from God’s love – the love that we see and know in and through the loving voice and actions of the Good Shepherd named Jesus and the loving presence and power of the Holy Spirit.  There is nothing – no one and no voice – that can separate us from God’s love.  

Beloved people of God, whose voice is speaking the most clearly to you?  

May it be the Voice of the loving Shepherd who calls us to follow.  And may we follow – in faith, hope, and love – always listening for the Voice who claims us, calls us, and sends us.  

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

---------

[1] See John 10:20-21. Paraphrased, JHS.

[2] Frederick Dale Bruner, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishers, Inc., 2012) 635.

[3] Dale Bruner, with [explanatory brackets] by JHS.

[4] John 9:1-41.

[5] John 6:1-14.

[6] John 5:1-18.

[7] John 2:1-11.

[8] John 10:25-26 – Paraphrased, JHS.

[9] Dale Bruner, 636.

[10] See Matthew 3:17, Mark 1:9-11, Luke 3:21-22, and John 1:29-34.

[johnhardinsawyer]

The Only Question That Matters

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

5 / 4 / 25

John 21:1-19

Psalm 30

“The Only Question That Matters”

(Starting Over Begins with ‘Yes’)[1]

There is a question that everyone asks, but we rarely ever ask it out loud.  We ask this question of others, and it is asked of us.  The question is only four words long, and might sound simple, but the way the question is answered by you and by me has the potential to change us and those around us.

I know some people who recently had a baby and even though the baby does not know how to speak yet, she is asking the question every time she cries.  Thankfully, she lives in a home where the answer is always “Yes.”  And so, she has food to eat, and someone to hold her, and change her diapers, and play music for her, and even someone who will let her cry for a little while so that she can learn to fall asleep by herself.

The question gets asked of parents all the time.  And the answer comes out in all kinds of ways – in food and shelter, rides to practice, late night laundry, being subjected to the soundtrack of Moana 2 for the seven-thousandth time.

Teenagers and college students ask the question, too – they ask it a lot and the answer affects what they wear and how they act and who their friends may be.  We ask the question every day at every stage of life, whether we are just starting out or well on our way.  And the question – the question we ask over and over – is this:  

“Do you love me?”

Do you love me?  Am I loved?  Will I be loved?  Do you think that I’m okay?  Am I going to be okay?  Are you committed to me?  Devoted to me?  Do I have your undying affection?  Do I have your respect?  Will I be accepted?  Do you love me for who I am and who I hope to be?  Do you love me?  You and I ask this all the time.  We ask it of one another, of ourselves, and of God.  We usually ask the question out of some deep need – spoken or unspoken – but there are other ways to ask and other motivations.

But we are not the only ones who ask the question.  God is always asking it, too.

In today’s story from the last chapter in the Gospel of John, we find Simon Peter and his friends beside the Sea of Tiberias (also known as the Sea of Galilee) – not too far from where it all began.  How long had it been?  Three years?  Three years since they had left their fishing nets to follow Jesus.  They had witnessed so much in that time – miraculous things – on the road, and around campfires, around tables, in peoples’ homes, in green pastures, beside still and stormy waters.  And they had spent almost all of this time with their friend and teacher, Jesus.  But, at the start of today’s story, the disciples are still reeling from the events of the last few weeks.  Jesus had been arrested and crucified, and now he had risen from the grave.  I imagine it being a particularly powerful, and strange, and frightening, and sad, and joyful, and just-plain-uncertain time.  And now, the disciples are wondering what is coming next.  I mean, what are they supposed to do?  What do you do after all of the joy and amazement and adrenaline wears off?  You might recall that not many of the disciples are from Jerusalem, where the events of that first Easter occurred.  Maybe it would be better if they took a break and all went home.  So, they go back to Galilee – to their boats and their nets.

Simon Peter has become a leader, of sorts, in this little band of disciples.  Jesus had given him some of this authority when he said, “You are Peter – which means “rock”[2] – and on this rock I will build my church.”  (Matthew 16:18). But I don’t imagine that Peter really wants the title of “leader” and if he is supposed to be like a rock, then why does he feel so shaky?  You see, the night Jesus was arrested, and Peter was put under some pressure by some people, he had denied that he even knew Jesus.  Peter lied three times, saying that he did not know one of the best friends he ever had.  And now, since Easter, Peter had seen the risen Christ at least two times.  But during these visits, the Bible doesn’t tell us whether anyone has brought up the whole denial thing.  It’s like the guilt-ridden elephant in an otherwise joyous room.

And so Peter, when confronted with such a weighty thing, goes back to what he knows:  fishing.  You heard the story.  The disciples have fished all night and caught nothing.  In the morning – as the day is dawning – Jesus is standing on the beach but no one recognizes him.  This wasn’t the first time that people aren’t able to recognize the risen Christ.  And it’s not the last time either.  I mean, would you recognize Jesus if you were to encounter him?  What would he look like?  What would he sound like?  Do we recognize him as we go about our day-to-day lives?  Most of the time, we aren’t even aware.  “There is a good chance we will be as slow to recognize his presence as the disciples in the boat.”[3]  “Have you caught any fish?” Jesus calls across the water.  “No,” they call back, “our nets are empty.”  

The disciples out in the boat – following the suggestion of this friendly fellow on the beach – try one more time, by casting the net on the other side of the boat.  Suddenly, the net is filled with 153 large fish, and they recognized Jesus, and Peter – who, according to verse 7, is FWN, “fishing while naked” – puts some clothes on, jumps into the water, and swims to shore.  The disciples pull in the net, go back to the beach, and find Jesus there, cooking breakfast for them.  

They say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day – but this breakfast will likely be the most important meal of Peter’s life.  I imagine that since the night Jesus was arrested, everything Peter has eaten – if he’s eaten anything at all – just hadn’t tasted right.  Shame has a very distinct taste and it’s hard to get rid of it.  But here is Peter, eating with his friends around the fire – eating with Jesus – just like old times.

When they finish breakfast, Jesus calls Simon Peter’s name three times.  And then, he asks “the question” three times: “Do you love me?. . .  Do you love me?. . .  Do you love me?”

When it comes to our relationship with God, this question – “Do you love me?” – is the only question that needs answering.  Now, if we’ve ever had even a momentary glimpse of God’s love, or have come to some kind of small understanding about the good news of God’s grace, or the life of Jesus, or the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, or even if we have ever sung “Jesus Loves Me, This I Know,”[4] or have actually listened to a sermon at church, hopefully we know by now that the answer to the question, “Am I loved by God?” is “Yes, you are.”

But what does it mean when God asks the question of us?  “O, my people, whom I have knit together – protons, neutrons, and electrons, atoms, and molecules, and cells – body and spirit. . .  Do you love me?  O, my people, for whom I sent my Son, Jesus. . .  Do you love me?  O, my people – I am with you always, with every breath and every beat of your heart. . .  Do you love me?”

At first, when Jesus asks this question of Peter, Peter responds by saying, “Duh!  Of course I do!”  But when Jesus repeats the question, each time he asks it, Peter gets more and more hurt.  It distresses him and makes him sad,[5] because what Jesus is really asking starts to sink in.

Friends, we have a God who loves us no matter what – even when the love we return is faltering, and broken, and imperfect.  But if we do love Jesus, we are asked to make that love count for something.  It can’t just be something that we say with our lips.  If you tell someone you love them but you don’t mean it – if you don’t back it up by how you live – then it’s not true – it’s not love.

God loves us and because that love is real, it demands God’s constant, sacrificial, and ever-present love.  This is what God offers us, always.  But if our love for God is real, it demands something of us, too – gratitude, praise, and faithfulness, for a start – even if our gratitude is shaky; our praise, out of tune; our faithfulness, flawed.

There is nothing we can do to earn God’s love.  It is a gift – but this doesn’t mean that God doesn’t still ask something of us.  Love is costly, but because it’s love, we’re willing to pay.  We know this to be true and we see it in every dirty diaper, every late night laundry session, every prideful word we swallow in front of our family, every tear we shed for an aging parent, every sacrifice we make for the ones we love.  Love costs.  But if we truly love, then we are willing to pay that cost at any price.  Jesus knows this to be true, because he lived it and died for it.  And this is why Jesus tells Peter, “If you love me. . .Feed my lambs. . . Tend my sheep. . . Feed my sheep.”  It is why he tells Peter, basically, “you used to go where you wanted to go, but your love for me will carry you where I need you to go.  Love me.  Serve me.  Follow me.  It’s not going to be easy, Peter, but following me ain’t easy.”[6]

“Do you love me?” Jesus asks us, again and again, in a way that is kind, but lovingly insistent – speaking to our hearts and souls.

You know, earlier in John’s Gospel, when Jesus is at supper with his disciples – including Peter – he tells them, “If you love me, keep my commandments. . .” (John 14:15)  “If you love me, keep my commandments to love God and love your neighbor. . .[7]  If you love me, keep my new commandment to love one another as I have loved you. . .[8]  If you love me, then wash one another’s feet[9] – serve one another as I have served you, serve the whole world a generous portion of my grace, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the prisoner, welcome the stranger. . .[10]  If you love me, keep my commandments. . .  I will not leave you comfortless.[11]  I will ask God to send you another Advocate to be with you forever – the Spirit of truth who will abide with you and in you. . .”[12]

These are just a few of the ways that Jesus calls us to love.  And, at this Table, we see yet one more way.  Because at this Table, Jesus offers himself to us – as the One who strengthens us for the work of discipleship, the One who mysteriously and miraculously feeds us with his very self.  Just like Jesus serves breakfast on the lakeshore, and serves supper in an upper room, and breaks bread and gives thanks and opens the eyes, and minds, and hearts of his disciples, Jesus meets us here and welcomes us to this meal – this meal at which we are forgiven and from which we begin, again – sent out into the world to reveal Christ’s love in all that we do.

“Do you love me?” Jesus asks.  “If you do, then let it show in your life.”  “Do you love me?  Do you love me?  Do you love me?”  

The question is always being asked.  How we answer it can change the course of a life – our life, the life of someone in need, the life of someone we know, the life of someone we might never meet.  “Do you love me?”  Jesus asks.  There will be plenty of times when we answer “No” – either with our actions or our inaction – but the question is always being asked.  We always have a choice. . .  We might fall short, or fall flat, or just plain fall, but the question is always being asked – and in every moment we are given the choice to begin again.

How will you answer the question – the only question that really matters?

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

---------

[1] This sermon is adapted from one I wrote and preached at Bedford Presbyterian Church in Bedford, New Hampshire, on April 10, 2016.

[2] Bauer, Walter.  A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature.  Chicago:  University of Chicago Press, 1979.  p. 654.

[3] Bartlett, David and Taylor, Barbara Brown, ed.  Feasting on the Word – Year C, Volume 2.  Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.  p. 423.  Thomas Troeger, “Homiletical Perspective”

[4] Anna Bartlett Warner, 1859.

[5] Bauer.  ibid.  p. 481.

[6] John 21:18-19.  Paraphrased, JHS.

[7] See Mark 12:30-31.

[8] See John 13:34-35.

[9] See John 13:14.

[10] See Matthew 25:37-40.

[11] See John 14:18.  

[12] See John 14:17. 

[johnhardinsawyer]

Closed Door? Open Heart!

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

4 / 27 / 25 – Second Sunday of Easter

Acts 5:27-32

John 20:19-31

“Closed Door?  Open Heart!”

(Jesus Walks In)

On a cold winter day, a child puts on their snow pants and boots, their hat, and gloves, and coat, and opens the door, bounding down the steps to go play in the snow.  When their mother comes to the door to check on them, she sees that the door to the house has been left wide open.  “Hey!” she calls, pointing to the open door and waving her arm back and forth – mixing the warm air from the house and the cold air from outside.  “Next time, please close the door!  We’re heating up the whole neighborhood!”  “Sorry!  I forgot!  I just don’t like closing the door,” the child calls back.  “Mom. . . we’re not really heating the neighborhood, are we?”  “No, it’s just something that people say.  Just, please try to keep the door closed.”

There are times when you just need to close the door.  It’s true:  you don’t want to let all the heat out in the winter or all of the air conditioning out in the summer.  There are other reasons, though, to keep the door closed.  

“When it was evening on that [first Easter] day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear. . .” (John 20:19)  The disciples of Jesus are afraid – and for good reason.  They have seen their friend and teacher, Jesus, betrayed and arrested, tried in the court of public opinion in a horrific miscarriage of justice, beaten and killed and buried in a tomb.  The disciples have good reason to be afraid because the people who have done all of this to Jesus will possibly. . . probably. . . who knows. . . be coming after them, next.  The uncertainty of it all is almost worse than the actual threat.  So, of course the doors to the house are locked.  There are reasons to keep the door closed.  

The woman’s husband had been arrested without warning – taken off the street and put in a van.  His papers had been in order – or so she thought.  His status was protected under the law – or so she thought.  As she looked around the apartment, she saw his things where he had left them this morning.  His breakfast dishes were still in the sink.  She imagined him walking through the door at any moment but knew, deep down, that he probably wouldn’t be home for a long time. . . if ever.  What and how would she tell her children about their father?  All she could think to do was lock the door and check it multiple times every hour.  She had heard that she didn’t have to open the door unless someone came with a warrant.  

So, yes, there are reasons to keep the door closed.  The disciples have checked the locks – but there still has been some coming and going from the house.  Why, just this morning, they received the strange and unbelievable news from their friend Mary Magdalene of something miraculous taking place.  “Has Jesus really been raised from the dead?  Has Mary really seen Jesus, alive?”  The tomb is empty – Simon Peter and another disciple were brave enough to go out to see it with their own eyes.  Jesus had told them that this would happen, but this kind of thing just doesn’t happen.  

And now, “When it was evening on that [first Easter] day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear. . .  [Locked doors or no locked doors,] Jesus came and stood among them, and said, ‘Peace be with you.’” (John 20:19)

Talk about stuff that just doesn’t happen – at least not every day. . .  Someone who has been dead – with total disregard for the closed and locked door – somehow just comes and stands in their midst and says, “Peace be with you.”  I imagine at least a few of the disciples – after they pick their jaws up off the floor – sneaking a look over to the door just to make sure that it is truly locked.  But Jesus is not stopped by something so simple – so worldly – as a closed door or a closed heart.  Jesus always walks in.

As the disciples come to the realization that Jesus is alive, in their excitement, they forget that they are missing someone:  Thomas.  Maybe he has been out running an errand.  Maybe he is off doing something else important.  But when Jesus appears in the room, Thomas is not there.  And so, later, after Jesus departs, when the rejoicing disciples tell Thomas that they have seen the Lord, he isn’t sure what to believe. 

You know, sometimes when our hearts are set on something, and then our hearts are broken, the broken heart that we have left can become a little bit harder.  Scars don’t always heal soft.  And, even as they heal, sometimes hearts can become quite hard – quite closed.  But Jesus is not stopped by closed hearts.  Jesus always walks in.

He had held onto faith, his whole life, sometimes with a white-knuckle grip.  He had held onto faith all the way through high school when a close friend had died in a car crash.  Then there were his tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, when he had had to say goodbye to even more friends.  He had held onto faith through his mother‘s illness, even though it was really hard.  But after she died, and after he lost his job, everything just kind of fell apart.  There’s only so much heartbreak and disappointment that a person can bear, sometimes.  But one night, on his way home, he passed by a church.  And he got the sudden feeling to just pull over in front of the building.  And as he sat in his car, listening to the quiet hum of the engine, he found himself whispering, “God.  Please.”  And then he took a breath, and then he took another breath, and then he took another, and he felt his heart soften a bit, and he began to cry, “My Lord and my God!”

“My Lord and my God!” Thomas exclaims.  (John 20:28)  And then Jesus asks him, “Thomas, have you said this because you have seen me?  Blessed it are those who have not seen and yet still have come to believe.” (20:29)  Jesus is not stopped by closed hearts – not even those hearts that demand to see to believe.  Not even the lack of empirical data can stop God’s grace.  Jesus always walks in, to surprise, and challenge, and inspire. 

So, let’s now fast-forward a few brief months from the scene in that locked room in Jerusalem.  The disciples have listened to and learned from the risen Jesus. ��He has appeared to them multiple times.  And now he has ascended into heaven, but not without telling them that 1) he will be with them always,[1] because 2) he will be sending the Holy Spirit.[2]  In today’s reading from the Book of Acts, we see the same disciples who had locked themselves in that room – afraid for their very lives.  But something has changed.  They are not in that locked room anymore and they are not afraid anymore.  

These former fishermen, and tax collectors, and bumbling, yet faithful followers, have begun to build something new – a new way of life, a new kind of community, a group of like-minded people, who are praying together, sharing meals together, caring for the poor, and listening for the movement of the Holy Spirit.  This new thing is not of the disciples’ own making, though.  It is something that God is doing in their midst – through them – but it is something that does not excite everyone.  Right before today’s reading from Acts, the disciples are arrested and thrown in jail, and yet God opens the prison doors, telling them, “Go, stand in the temple and tell the people the whole message about this [new] life.” (Acts 5:20)  And they walk out of jail to the very place where they had been arrested and begin doing the same thing that had gotten them arrested in the first place. 

The closed minds and hard hearts of those who have had them arrested are shaken a bit.  Especially when they find the disciples right back where they had been before.  “We gave you strict orders not to teach in Jesus’ name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching. . .” (Acts 5:28)  Just how is it that these former fishermen and tax collectors, and others are able to speak with such authority – such confidence?  What or who gives them the right?  Who or what hasopened their mouths?  It is as if Jesus is really alive and is walking with them, still.  

It all begins in today’s passage from John when Jesus says and does some curious things.  “Peace be with you,” he says, “as the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  When he says this, he then breathes on them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”  (20:21-23)

Jesus is empowering the disciples, here, by giving them the Holy Spirit – breathing the Spirit into them.  Some commentators refer to this passage as the “resurrection insufflation,”[3] which is a phrase you don’t hear every day.  As Dale Bruner writes, when Jesus says, “receive the Holy Spirit,” the original language doesn’t say “receive” so much as it says, “welcome the Holy Spirit.”[4]  And then, along with the Spirit, Jesus gives his disciples a new kind of authority:  

. . . the special mission of the Church is to give Jesus to others in such a way that they may believe that he really is Risen and Lord, and, with that simple trust, that they can receive with and in Jesus, the free forgiveness of sins, the free gift of the Holy Spirit, and the free privilege of passing Jesus and his forgiveness on to others.[5]  

In today’s passage from John, we see one version of the arrival of the Holy Spirit.  The other – slightly more famous (and much more dramatic) version from Acts, Chapter 2 – involves the Holy Spirit rushing into the room where the disciples are, with the sound of a mighty wind.  In today’s story, the Spirit arrives, right along with the risen Christ, and is as near as the disciples’ next breath.  In both accounts, we see Jesus granting his followers the great privilege of the priesthood of all believers – the authority to “give Jesus to others in such a way that they may believe” as well as offer warning, even correction, when needed.  

The news report was over, and she turned the TV off – dropping the remote control in disgust on top of the newspaper, sitting on the coffee table.  Yet another thing was wrong with the world.  This time, it was in her own state – her own community – right down the road.  She sat there in silence, fuming for a few minutes.  And then she did something that she rarely did.  She prayed. . .  

“God, you know that I don’t talk much to you – especially not out loud.  Yes, I go to church every week.  Yes, I try to help people, best I can.  Yes, as crazy as it sounds, I still have faith in you, God.  But is that it?  Is faith all I need?  Should faith in you inspire something in me?  Should faith in you prompt me to do something?  How can I make a real difference?  How could you make a difference through me?”  

And then her eyes glanced down to the remote control, sitting on the newspaper page – the page with the letters to the editor. . .  Something stirred within her.  Something opened. . .  and Jesus walked in.  Slowly, but with great resolve, she opened her laptop and pulled up a new, blank document, and began to write, “Let me tell you about the Jesus that I know. . .” 

Friends, there are times when the door is closed – or our hearts and minds are closed.  But Jesus has a way of always walking in. God’s grace cannot be stopped.  God’s good news will be shared with the world – sometimes despite our best efforts.  Always, though, Jesus is walking in, the Spirit is filling our spirits, granting us peace and courage, and sending us out into the world.  

May we welcome the Spirit.  May we give Jesus to the world.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

[1] See Matthew 28:20.

[2] See Acts 1:8.

[3] Frederick Dale Bruner, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012) 1164. 

[4] Bruner, 1164.

[5] Bruner, 1165.

[johnhardinsawyer]

Grief and Hope

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

4 / 20 / 25 – Easter Sunday

Psalm 30:1-12

Luke 24:1-12

“Grief and Hope”

(Everything [in] Between – Week 7)

“Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” (Psalm 30:5b). Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.  Weeping may linger for the night, but. . .   Joy comes with the morning.  But what?  Joy comes with the morning.  What was that?  Joy comes with the morning.

These ancient words from Psalm 30 tell of a dramatic turnaround – a Holy turnaround.  If you have ever had something go oh-so-wrong and then somehow turn oh-so-right, then Psalm 30 is the Psalm for you.  It was written by someone who is remembering a time when something – a bad run-in with some enemies, or a really bad illness, or both – becomes debilitating and horrible.  The Psalmist is down in what feels like “Sheol” – which is a Hebrew word for “the underworld, the hollow place. . .  hell.”[1]  Life is so hard that it feels like death – worse than death.

Many of you know what it is like to be in a place like this.  Most of us have been there.  Some of us might be there right now.  And I don’t know how long it lasts for the Psalmist – how many sleepless nights filled with rivers of tears – but eventually, something changes.  The sun comes up, things begin to look and feel better.  Things heal.  Threatening enemies fade away.  Life doesn’t seem quite as desperate.  God lifts the Psalmist up – like being drawn up out of a deep well, a deep Pit.[2]  All of the late-night weeping goes away with the sunrise.  The Psalmist goes from sobbing to dancing – from lying in bed, cradling a box of Kleenex, to being dressed in the finest dancing clothes – perhaps, the finest Easter clothes – whirling around the dance floor with uncontainable wondrous abandon, singing praise to God all the while.

Now, it doesn’t happen in an instant for the Psalmist – and it rarely happens instantly for us.  On Easter, we always read the story of the women who are surprised that the tomb where Jesus’ body was laid on Friday night is now empty.  And we’ll get to their Easter morning joy in just a moment, but for the bleary-eyed women who come to the tomb. . .  well, let’s just say that it’s been one long weekend 

“On the first day of the week, at early dawn, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them, came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared.” (Luke 24:1)  

The previous forty-eight hours have been the worst hours of their lives – Friday afternoon and evening, and all Friday night, and all-day Saturday, and Saturday night, as well.  Has it really only been two days since darkness came over the whole land, and the sun’s light failed, and Jesus breathed his last on the Cross?[3]  Only two days since the Roman centurion who oversaw the crucifixion said, “Certainly this man – Jesus – was innocent,’ and the crowds who had gathered for this spectacle saw what had taken place and returned home beating their breasts?[4]  Only two days since all of Jesus’ acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things?  

Has it really only been two long nights since a kind and faithful man named Joseph took the lifeless body of Jesus and, just as the sun was setting and the sabbath was beginning, wrapped the body in a linen cloth and laid it in a rock-hewn tomb?  Has it only been two long nights – with one interminably long sabbath day in between – since the women who had followed Jesus from Galilee saw where the body was laid and went back to where they were staying to prepare spices and ointments for the body? 

And now, these women have come to the place where they had seen Jesus’ body laid to rest, and their hearts and minds and spirits are heavy with grief.  

Do you know about grief?  Chances are, many of you do.  And if you don’t, you will one day.  I say this not to bring you down – just to tell one of the hard truths about being human.  Grief is hard.  When the author C.S. Lewis experienced the death of his beloved wife, he took some time to reflect on the grief he was feeling, and he began by writing,  

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.  I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid.  The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning.  I keep on swallowing.  At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed.  There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me.  I find it hard to take in what anyone says.  Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. . .[5]

I imagine that the women who come to the tomb are feeling any and all of these things – fear (or something like it), a fluttering in their stomachs, restlessness, numbness, like the beauty of the world has been smothered by an invisible blanket, having trouble paying attention to what anyone else is saying. 

And yet, even with all these feelings (and more) at the forefront of their minds, they still go to the tomb, bringing the spices that they have prepared.  They have steeled their minds and hearts for what they believe will come next – somehow opening the tomb, unwrapping the broken body of their friend Jesus, rubbing spices and oils on the body, rewrapping the body, and sealing the tomb, again.  They had not had time to do this important work before sundown on Friday – the start of the sabbath – so, they would do it now.

Now, I was not there, and the scriptures do not clearly tell us this, but I do not see a world in which these women could prepare to do any of this important, and intimate, and loving and caring work for Jesus’s body without shedding a tear.  

I’ve heard it said somewhere, though, that weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.  It doesn’t happen instantly for the for Mary Magdalene (who had followed Jesus all the way from the town of Magdala on the Sea of Galilee after Jesus had healed her), and for Mary the mother of James (one of Jesus’ disciples), and for Joanna (the wife of Herod’s steward, who – we are told earlier in Luke – had left her home to follow Jesus and provide for him)[6] and the other women with them.  It doesn’t happen instantly, but the promise of Easter reminds us that it can – and does, and will happen – because, in the end, God makes it happen.  

You know the story:  the women arrive – spices in hand – the stone is rolled away, and the tomb is empty.  The women are greeted by messengers in dazzling clothes. . .  And the messengers ask them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here.  He has risen.” (Luke 24:5). “Why are you weeping for someone who is alive?”  “Friends, ‘weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning?’”  

We should be clear that the scriptures do not tell us that the women’s grief turns to joy, in the moment.  They are already at a loss for words – discouraged – and feeling perplexed when they find the tomb empty.  And once these heavenly messengers show up, their perplexed-ness turns into downright terror.  Many scholars agree that when the Easter story is told in the Gospel of Mark it actually ends with the disciples being very afraid.  No joy.  Just fear.  Thankfully, in Luke, we get the rest of the story – how the women have the presence of mind and heart to carry this strange and wonderful news of the empty tomb and that Jesus has risen to the disciples in Jerusalem.  Unfortunately, at first, the disciples hear this news as, “an idle tale” (24:11) – “utter nonsense.”[7]  Can you imagine these first evangelists, these first human beings to preach the good news – these women – have a hard time being believed?  Unfortunately, this was not the last time such a thing has happened in the life of the world.  

Even though the good news of the gospel is always clear, we human beings have a way of mixing it up and muddling it up.  We just don’t know what to make of it, at times.  And yet – just like Jesus’ body in the tomb – the good news of the gospel cannot be contained.  The Holy Spirit makes a way for the good news, even when we human beings mix it up.  As one commentator writes, what we find in this story is the beginning of “. . . the transformation of Jesus’ followers as, in fits and starts, they are led from uncomprehending discouragement to perceptive faith.  The journey to Easter faith, however, is difficult.”[8]

There are some who, like Peter, will run to the empty tomb and go away, marveling,[9] at what he has seen.  There are others, like Thomas, a few days later, who will need to see and even touch the risen Christ to believe.  And then there are those like us – innumerable people over the centuries – who were not there in the flesh, have not seen or touched, but have only heard this good news.  

How does this ancient story of the empty tomb strike you?  Is Easter faith an easy thing or a difficult thing for you?  Is it a story that changes everything or is it an idle tale?  It was so long ago.  No one was there to snap a photo and post it online.  

For my part, even though I have simply heard the good news, all I know is that it gives me hope – hope that death is not the end, hope that weeping may linger for the night (or for a whole season of life) but God offers joy in the end.  Joy is the final word.  God turns things around, and brings light, and love, and resurrection joy – and this gives me hope even in the darkest and most difficult times.  

You know, one of the great tasks – great challenges – of faith is remembering that God knows what it means to suffer and to grieve, which means that we are never alone when we suffer and grieve.  God is right here, with us.  Another great task and challenge of faith is still holding onto hope that God can and will turn all mourning into dancing – maybe not right now, but someday. . .  The end that we think we know all-too-well is not the end of God’s new beginning.  God is at work, doing something new, whether we see it or not, believe it or not, allow it to change our lives or not.  

Beloved people of God, hear this good and hope-filled news:  even in the darkest night when all seems lost, God is still somehow at work for good.  There is always – and there will always be – resurrection.  It might come slower than we would like.  It might be hard to patiently watch and wait and work for it,[10] but resurrection is on the way.  If it tarries, wait for it.  There is always – and will always be – the resurrection.  Resurrection is always on the way.

“Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” (Psalm 30:5b). Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.  Weeping may linger for the night, but. . .   Joy comes with the morning.  But what?  Joy comes with the morning.  What was that?  Joy comes with the morning.

Happy Easter!

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

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[1] Brown-Driver-Briggs, The Brown Driver Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (Peabody:  Hendrickson Publishers, 1997), 982.

[2] Robert Alter, The Book of Psalms (New York:  W. W. Norton & Company, 2007), 102.

[3] See Luke 23:44-45.

[4] See Luke 23:47-48.

[5] C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed (New York: The Seabury Press/First Warbler Classics Edition, 2023) 1.

[6] See Luke 8:3.

[7] John T. Carroll, Luke: A Commentary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012) 475.

[8] John T. Carroll, 475.

[9] Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979) 352.

[10] Habakkuk 2:3.

[johnhardinsawyer]

"I have fervently longed. . ."

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

4 / 17 / 25 – Maundy Thursday

Luke 22:14-15

All of the hustle and bustle in the kitchen is done.  There is no more sizzling or stirring – no more clanging of pots and pans, there are no more burners burning on the stove, the exhaust fan has been switched off, the food has been placed upon the table, people have stopped whatever they were doing elsewhere, and they come to the table, and sit down, and they pull their chairs close. . .  And then, there is a moment – a moment in between all that has been and all that will be – a moment in which everyone looks around the table at one another and takes a collective breath.  And into this moment of calm, someone breathes a word of thanks.  

When the hour came, Jesus took his place at the table, and the apostles with him.  He said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” (Luke 22:14-17)

The Passover meal is, itself, an in-between meal – going all the way back to the Book of Exodus in the Hebrew Bible.  The people of Israel, living as slaves in the land of Egypt, are given instructions to prepare a simple meal – the last meal they will ever eat in captivity, the last meal they will eat before they are freed.  All that has been, is behind them, and all that will be – as unknown as their wilderness future may be – is ahead of them.  

In tonight’s story – the story of Jesus’ Passover meal with his disciples, a meal that we sometimes call “The Last Supper,” as in “the last supper before what comes next” – we find Jesus and his friends in a brief moment of calm.  The whirlwind of Jesus’ earthly ministry is drawing to a close – a ministry of healing, and teaching, and calming actual storms, and leading (sometimes under very difficult circumstances).  Then there is hurricane of the past few days –– riding into the city to shouts of “Hosanna!” and cleansing the Temple of the money changers, and saying things about God’s grace and mercy that rub the wrong people the wrong way.   

And yet, sitting at the table with his friends, Jesus has a sense of what is coming.  He’s only in the relative calm that one finds in the eye of the storm.  In this moment of calm – of a collective breath around the Table – Jesus knows that more storm is coming:  wrestling with uncertainty in the Garden of Gethsemane, being betrayed and arrested and beaten, dragged in front of the same people who shouted “Hosanna!” on Sunday and who will now shout “Crucify!” on Friday.  And then there is the storm of the Cross, itself – the “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” storm. . .

When we read about this moment at the table in the Gospel of John, we are told that, “Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father.  Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” (John 13:1)

And so, in tonight’s reading from Luke, I imagine Jesus looking at his friends – who are all looking back at him, expecting him to say something (like he always does).  And I imagine Jesus taking a breath, and saying, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. . .” (Luke 22:15)  In the original language, Jesus is saying, “I have deeply desired with desire. . .” or, as another translation reads, “I have fervently longed. . .”[1] to have this meal with you.  

I don’t know what your state of mind and heart and spirit might be this evening.  I don’t know whether you come to this place with a deeply desired desire – a fervent longing – for grace.  We might be coming to this Table, unable to put our fervent longing into words, not even knowing how hungry and thirsty we truly are.  But whenever we come to this Table, we encounter Jesus’ fervent longing and deep desire to share this meal with us – not just this meal, but his very self.    

One of Jesus’ primary places of ministry is around tables, sharing meals with the poor, the sinful, and the Pharisees – as well as his beloved followers and friends.  As one commentator writes, “At table Jesus most intimately communicates and incarnates God’s love for all, especially those who suffer.”[2]  And in the meal that he shares with us, tonight, the meal he shared with his disciples before his own suffering and death, we find Jesus – once again, and always – offering himself to us and to the suffering world he has come to save, deepening the meaning of God’s Passover liberation meal with the deeply desired and fervently longed-for liberation of all the world from sin and death by God’s grace.  

As often as we eat this meal, we experience Jesus because Jesus’ deep longing to be with us meets our own deep longing to be with him.  

Let us prepare our hearts, minds, and spirits to come to this Table, for Jesus longs to meet us here, to share this meal – to share his very self – with us.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

[1] F. Scott Spencer, The Two Horizons New Testament Commentary: Luke (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2019) 552.

[2] Spencer, 552-553.

[johnhardinsawyer]

Shouting and Silence

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

4 / 13 / 25 – Palm/Passion Sunday

Luke 19:28b-40[1]

“Shouting and Silence”

(Everything [in] Between – Week 6)

If these walls could talk, they might reverberate with the sound of hammers driving nails into wood when this sanctuary was built in 1832; and a bell ringing out the hours in the bell tower for years and years;  and nearly two centuries of hymns, and prayers, and scripture, and sermons, weddings, and funerals; the sounds of creaky radiators, and running children, of “Silent Night” on Christmas Eve and “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” on Easter, and hundreds of “Hosannas” on Palm Sunday.  These walls of plaster and wood have reverberated with the sounds of a big bass viol and a pipe organ and a piano. . . handbells and maybe even a guitar or two.

If these walls could talk, they would likely tell us of countless people:  all of them sinners in need of redeeming, all of them recipients of God’s grace and mercy, all of them here seeking some sign of the Holy that is found in belonging, in belief, and in being the flawed, but faithful, followers of Jesus.  If these walls could talk. . .

If you ever go to Jerusalem, chances are you’ll have multiple “if these walls could talk” or “if these stones could shout” moments.  Granted, the Jerusalem of 2025 has changed a lot since the day that Jesus rode into the city on a borrowed colt to cries and shouts of “Hosanna!”  The city was completely destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 and has since seen so much conflict over the subsequent centuries – from the Crusades to the Israeli/Palestinian wars.  There has been so much rebuilding, and tearing down, and building again – oftentimes with the exact same stones used as building materials.  So, if you ever go to Jerusalem – especially the Old City, with its walls and parapets and maze of narrow streets – you cannot escape the history of the place.  And, if you follow in the footsteps of Jesus, down the Mount of Olives, into the Kidron Valley, past the Garden of Gethsemane, and up into the city through the Lion Gate,[2] you almost can’t help but think “if these walls of stone could talk. . .”

“If these walls could talk. . .”  If these stone walls, these walls that have reverberated for centuries with the sounds of a city. . . people from far away, singing Psalms as they end their pilgrimage, entering the gates to go and worship at the Temple; merchants bringing in produce, and cloth, and goods for trading; the voices of priests and scribes and Pharisees, arguing about one interpretation of the law over another; the sounds of children playing; the sounds of birds chirping in the daytime and other creatures stirring in the night; the sounds of joys and injustices; the sounds of battering rams during sieges, the sounds of prisoners being taken to their deaths at a nearby place called Golgotha; the sounds of soldiers marching and chariots being pulled by war horses. . . if these walls – these stone walls of Jerusalem – could talk. . . I wonder what they would say.  

In today’s story of Palm Sunday – a story full of the sights and sounds of a hectic scene, in which a multitude of disciples begin to praise God joyfully with a loud voice – Jesus tells some of the Pharisees in the crowd that even if his disciples were silent, the rocks and stones that make up the road and the city walls would shout out.  

Throughout the Season of Lent, we have been following Jesus on the road to Jerusalem, focusing on some of his stops and interactions along the way.  Jesus has been following the traditional path that pilgrims to Jerusalem have made for hundreds of years around the time of the Jewish Passover festival.  The pilgrims usually come into the city singing Psalms and, at the time of the Passover, there is great rejoicing as the people commemorate and celebrate the deliverance of their ancestors from slavery in the land of Egypt.  

So, into this loud and vibrant celebration – complete with visitors from all over the region – a large crowd of pilgrims arrives,  following a man who is riding on a donkey.  You heard the story. . .  The crowd is spreading their cloaks on the road as they would do for someone of royal birth, and they are singing and shouting:

“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!  Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven!” (Luke 19:38) 

These words come from Psalm 118[3] and are the usual greeting for Passover pilgrims.  

But, apparently, these people with Jesus are shouting even louder than usual – unnecessarily loud.  In the original language they are shouting and singing megale – mega-loud.  And there are some in the crowd who find this level of celebration to be behavior unbecoming of religious pilgrims.  Of course, these nay-sayers have been saying “Nay” to Jesus and his disciples for weeks, if not months.  And today, we find them saying, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” (19:39)  Or, as Eugene Peterson translates it, “. . . get your disciples under control!”[4]

This is where Jesus talks about the rocks and stones shouting out.  You should probably know that this is not the only place in the Bible where someone uses this particular figure of speech.  In the Hebrew Bible – 500 years before the time of Jesus – the Prophet Habakkuk is criticizing those who are proud, wealthy, and arrogant in a time of national crisis, saying that even if you think you’re safe from harm in some fancy house on a hill, you won’t escape what’s coming – the very stones will cry out from the wall.[5]  In other words, even if nobody else will, the walls of stone, and plaster, and wood will still speak the truth against injustice and inequality.  

It’s a strange idea, I know. . . stones that speak or shout – whether their voices are lifted in praise or judgment.  We find similar language like this in Psalm 148 – among other places in scripture – when all of creation is called upon to praise God:  

Praise the Lord from the earth,    you sea monsters and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and frost,    stormy wind fulfilling his command!  Mountains and all hills,    fruit trees and all cedars! Wild animals and all cattle,    creeping things and flying birds!  Kings of the earth and all peoples,    princes and all rulers of the earth! Young men and women alike,    old and young together!  Let them praise the name of the Lord,    for his name alone is exalted;    his glory is above earth and heaven. (Psalm 148:7-13)

The whole idea, here, is that God has a message to convey.  And even though God is powerful enough to cause the stones, or the mountains and hills, or the sea monsters and cedar trees to shout out, usually God relies on the voices and actions of human beings.  In today’s story, God’s message is one of heavenly deliverance and peace.  And yet, if people are unwilling to convey this message, Jesus says that God is willing to use creation, itself – inanimate objects, if necessary – to speak this Word of deliverance and peace.  

There are some messages that just need to be shared.  And God’s powerful message cannot be contained, sometimes no matter how hard we try – no matter how much we would rather stay silent.  In Jesus Christ, we see the embodiment of God’s powerful message of love – a love that cannot be contained or constrained by religious nay-sayers or Roman soldiers, by governors or governments.  

Back in the Hebrew Bible, around the same time of the Prophet Habakkuk, there was another Prophet named Jeremiah.  For Jeremiah, God’s message is so powerful that, at one point, Jeremiah says, 

“If I say ‘I will not mention [the Lord]  or speak any more in [God’s] name,’  then within me there is something  like a burning fire shut up in my bones;  I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.” (Jeremiah 20:9)[6]

When it comes to the good news of God’s love or the powerful news of God’s judgment and justice, are we like the disciples who lift their voices in praise – causing the stones of the city to reverberate with our shouts?  Or are we like those who hold their tongues – letting others raise their voices instead of us, or waiting in fearful or hard-hearted silence, as if the rocks and stones will cry out instead of us?  We might even be like those Pharisees, wishing that people would stay quiet and not rouse any attention or suspicion.  And yet, there are times in which speaking and staying silent have real-world consequences.  

Back in the 1930’s, the German pastor, Martin Niemöller, found himself staying quiet because it was truly a matter of life and death.  After World War II, Niemöller reflected on both his action and his inaction – his speaking and silence – and wrote some words that are now posted in a prominent place at the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC:  

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out —  because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out —  because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out —  because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me —  and there was no one left to speak for me.[7]

Maybe Niemöller had been waiting for the stones to shout, but then he came to the realization that his own voice was the voice that was needed – a voice of moral clarity, a voice filled with the resolutely courageous and loving words of Jesus.  

I’m curious of how this idea might “speak” to you in this present moment in the life of the world.  This past week, I have heard of members of our church raising their voices in the workplace on behalf of someone from another culture and raising their voices in the New Hampshire State House, speaking against a law that would negatively impact refugees’ ability to work.  I have even heard of someone struggling, and eventually finding, the right words to say to someone they love who sees the world differently from how they see it.  How can I love this person even as I tell them they are wrong?

In the coming week – a week that we call Holy Week – a week filled with sacrificial love and resurrection hope, I wonder how God will call us to use our voices, our bodies, our praise, our prayers, and our passion to offer Christ’s Holy Word of comfort, and peace, and powerful witness.  How will you and I proclaim the humble King, riding on a borrowed animal, who has come to deliver us from sin and death and deliver us to new and abundant life?  

Will we stay silent?  Or will the God who speaks to us in word and deed, speak through us in word and deed?

Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is Jesus, the Prince of Peace,  the Word made Flesh, God’s Love Incarnate,  the Suffering Servant, the Sacrificial Lamb,  the Wise Teacher and Holy Example,  the One whose life shapes and saves our own,  the One who is present in the “least of these,” the Risen Lord, the One who reigns in power, the One who was, and is, and is to come. . . ! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven!

Let us not stay silent. . . 

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

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[1] Suggested scripture reading based on “Everything [in] Between” Lenten Worship Resources from A Sanctified Art, LLC.

[2] Jesus may have very well used a different gate to enter the city – a gate that is closer to the Temple Mount – but that particular gate is walled-off today and the Lion Gate is the one that many pilgrims now use.  

[3] See Psalm 118.

[4] Eugene Peterson, The Message: Numbered Edition (Colorado Springs: NAV Press, 2002) 1443. Luke 19:39.

[5] See Habakkuk 2:1-11.

[6] Paraphrased, JHS.

[7] https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-niemoeller-first-they-came-for-the-socialists.

[johnhardinsawyer]

Righteousness and Mercy

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

4 / 6 / 25 – Fifth Sunday in Lent

Luke 19:1-10[1]

“Righteousness and Mercy”

(Everything [in] Between – Week 5)

I don’t know if this ever happens at your house, but sometimes at our house (almost every day), someone might be heard saying – or even yelling – “It just isn’t fair!”  Have you ever said or thought something like this?  I know I have.  Now, I don’t have any hard data on this, but I’m willing to guess that most people – from an early age – are able to get a sense of what is fair and unfair for them.  I’ve learned, though, that just because we think something is fair, it doesn’t make it right.  

You know, the Bible doesn’t talk a lot about fairness.  Instead, it talks more about right and wrong.  Usually, there is some standard – such as the ancient law of Moses or the life and example and teachings of Jesus – by which right and wrong are measured.  If we are living the “right” way – as God calls us to live (by the standards that God sets) – then our relationship with God is “right,” and this “rightness” may very well spill over into our relationships with other people.  One word – a kind of churchy word – that sometimes gets used for this is the word “righteousness” – a way of life that is, “honest, just, and good – someone who does what is right before God and before other people.” [2], [3]

Most folks don’t use the word – “righteous” – very often, unless we are talking about someone being “self-righteous” which is when someone has an air of self-importance, believing that they are living right and other people are living wrong.  When it comes to reading the Bible, there are plenty of examples of people being described as “righteous” and good.  And then, there are other examples – especially in the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament gospels – with people who are clearly self-righteous.   

Last week, we talked about a time when some self-righteous religious leaders looked down their noses at Jesus for welcoming and eating with unrighteous “tax collectors and sinners.”[4]  In today’s scripture reading – the story of Zacchaeus – we see yet another example of this, except that it isn’t just the religious leaders who are upset.  It appears that the whole community is looking down their noses at Jesus spending time in the home of a tax collector – not just any tax collector, mind you, but the chief tax collector.  

As I mentioned last week, the job of tax collector in Jesus’ day had a lot of religious and social baggage associated with it.  Here is Zacchaeus, a local Jewish man who is in charge of collecting taxes for the occupying Roman Empire.  Through his job, Zacchaeus is funding the oppressive occupation of his own people.  Not only do his neighbors in Jericho consider him to be traitorous, because of this, but Zacchaeus is also known to take more money from his neighbors than they actually owe the government so that he can pocket the difference.  It’s legal to do and Zacchaeus thinks it more than fair for him, but it just isn’t right.  Imagine someone else getting your tax refund year after year after year.  This has made Zacchaeus very rich – likely, one of the richest men in Jericho – but it is wealth built on a foundation of dishonesty and betrayal.

Now, we’ll get to how Zacchaeus climbs a tree because he wants to see Jesus, in just a moment.  But as we have seen in many of the texts we have been reading during the season of Lent, we might find ourselves seeing this story from one or more perspectives – or maybe somewhere in-between.  

This week, as I read today’s story about Zacchaeus, I keep thinking about the crowd and their righteous anger toward him.  Centuries before the time of Jesus, the Prophet Jeremiah had similar feelings, and so he asked God:  “Why, O Lord, does the way of the wicked prosper?  Why do all who are treacherous thrive?” (Jeremiah 12:1). We find a similar question in the Book of Job, when Job asks:  “Why do the wicked live on, reach old age, and grow mighty in power?” (Job 21:7). “God, it just isn’t fair!  Here I am, trying – and often failing – to live up to the standards you set, when there are plenty of people who seem to be doing way better than I am and I don’t even hear your name on their lips.  Or, if I do, it’s just on their lips and not in their hearts.”  As Jeremiah puts it, “You, O Lord, are near in their mouths yet far from their hearts.” (Jeremiah 12:2)

And so, the people have pegged Zacchaeus in their minds and hearts for what and who he is:  a wicked, unfairly wealthy, sinner.  But then, along comes Jesus. . .   

As Jesus arrives in Jericho, one of the most ancient cities in the world – a place where crops are brought to market, oil and spices are traded, and where palm and fruit trees grow along the road – crowds of people from the city come out to greet him.  And Zacchaeus joins the crowd, too.

As the text tells us, Zacchaeus “is trying to see who Jesus is.”  (Luke 19:3). In the original language, Zacchaeus could just be trying to figure out which person in the crowd Jesus might be.  But, he also could be trying to figure out “what sort of a person”[5] this Jesus might be.  Is he really the prophet, the teacher, the healer that people have been talking about?  Or, is he just some man, going from town to town, with a crowd of people around him?  Something – maybe curiosity, maybe something else – is drawing Zacchaeus toward Jesus.

When John Calvin writes about Zacchaeus going in search of Jesus, he says that there is clearly something holy at work, here:  

Some [in the crowd] were led, no doubt, by vain curiosity to run even from distant places, for the purpose of seeing Christ, but the event showed that the mind of Zacchaeus contained some seed of piety.  In this manner, before revealing himself to [us], the Lord frequently communicates. . . a secret desire, by which [we] are led to him, while he is still concealed and unknown; and, though [we] have no fixed object in view, he does not disappoint [us], but manifests himself in due time.[6]

In other words, whether we are able to acknowledge the reality of God, or verbalize our faith, the Holy Spirit is often already at work in our minds and hearts, and in Zacchaeus’ mind and heart – pulling him (pulling us) toward Jesus.  But Zacchaeus has an obvious problem.  When he joins the crowd to try to see who Jesus is, all Zacchaeus can see are the backs and shoulders of everyone else.  Zacchaeus is vertically challenged – he is short.  He can’t see through the crowd and definitely can’t see over them.  But just as he has always proved to be resourceful in the ways he has made his fortune, he comes up with a resourceful idea for how to see Jesus.

And so, as the story goes, Zacchaeus runs ahead of the crowd and climbs a sycamore tree – which is a fig tree that has large branches and big leaves.  According to one Bible scholar, the sycamore tree was often the source of food for people who did not have money to buy food.[7]  Ironically, here is this very rich man – Zacchaeus – hanging out in the branches of a tree where poor people – maybe even some of the people Zacchaeus has robbed over the years – might congregate.  And, now that he is sitting there in the branches of the tree, the crowd of people arrives with Jesus.

Somehow, in all of the confusion of the crowd – in the sea of needy and excited faces that surrounds him – Jesus looks up into this tree growing by the side of the road, and sees someone there among the branches.  “Zacchaeus,” he says, “hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.”  (Luke 19:5)

Just so you know, we are not told how it is that Jesus knows Zacchaeus’ name.  Maybe he has heard it among the people in the crowd – a name muttered, under-the-breath, with great derision.  Maybe his disciples or the local synagogue leaders have clued him in to the influential people in Jericho and/or the people who are causing problems for everyone else.  But maybe, as Calvin suggests, there is something deeper and holier going on, here. . .  Maybe, when it comes to Zacchaeus, Jesus just knows – knows his name and everything about him.

It sure seems like Jesus does know, because he up and invites himself to Zacchaeus’ house.  So, Zacchaeus climbs down from the tree, and moves through the hostile crowd, filled with the neighbors that he has wronged, and he is happy to welcome Jesus into his home.  This does not please the people, though, who all grumble and say, “Jesus is going to be the guest of one who is a sinner – the guest of a traitor, a thief, a man who uses the power of the empire against us.”  “Why do the wicked prosper, Lord, and get to host you at their home for dinner?”  

You know, there are those who believe that politics should be kept out of the pulpit, but it should be noted, here, that Jesus is neck deep in the politics of his day.  The grace and welcome that Jesus shows Zacchaeus is enough to upset both the religious right who are all about purity, and the radical left who are all about justice, and the government who has relied on Zacchaeus to support their unjust rule, and everyone in between who just don’t like Zacchaeus for taking their money.  Nobody likes Zacchaeus. . .  Nobody, except Jesus. . .  And Jesus loves Zacchaeus.

The thing about God’s amazing grace – God’s mercy – is that it sometimes just doesn’t seem fair.  How could God offer mercy to even those people – from hard-hearted oligarchs to homeless trans kids, from those locked up in jail to the ones doing the locking up, from so-called sinners to the self-righteous, from those people to we people.  No one is beyond redemption – even those people.  No one is beyond the reach of Jesus’ mercy – even that person.  Even us.  

The key here is repentance – willingly turning toward God or being willing to have God turn us toward God.  Now, there are plenty of people who do not and will not repent – and God will sort those folks out in time.  The question for us is:  When and how will you and I repent?  When and how will you and I see God’s mercy as the gift that it is, the life-changing lifeline that it is, the soul-stirring right-making blessing that it is for us and for all people?  

In a moment of transformation, Zacchaeus takes hold of Jesus’ mercy and suddenly Zacchaeus becomes merciful, himself.  Just like it always was for Zacchaeus, the potential for good is always there – beneath the surface – present in our hearts and minds and souls.  But it is the love of God that breaks us open to reveal the good.  It is in coming to know that we are deeply loved by the One who created us, the One who frees us, the One who sustains our every breath, that draws us deeper into a life that is lived, not for ourselves, but for God. . . and for others.  This is the life of discipleship – the life of saying “Yes” to the One who has given us all things.

God’s righteous standard of mercy is seen and known in Jesus – the standard that God sets before us.

But God also sets this Table – the Table where we can taste and see the extravagant grace of God, the Table of confession and forgiveness, repentance and renewal, supplication and strengthening, welcoming in and sending out, being served so that we might serve.  

May we welcome – with joy, and thanksgiving, and life-changing repentance – the mercy that Jesus offers.  May this mercy be the standard by which our righteousness is measured.  

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.        

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[1] Based on the suggested scripture reading from A Sanctified Art, LLC – 2025 Lenten Resources.  Some portions of this sermon are taken from my 11/15/2020 sermon, “When You Hear Your Name.” 

[2] F. Brown, S. Driver, and C. Briggs, The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1997) 841.

[3] Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979) 195.

[4] See Luke 15:1.

[5] Walter Bauer, 819.

[6] John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries – Vol. XVI – Harmony of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Grand Rapids:  Baker Books, 2009) 434.

[7] Watson E. Mills, et. al, Mercer Dictionary of the Bible (Macon:  Mercer University Press, 1990) 979. Norm Yance, “Zacchaeus”.

[johnhardinsawyer]

Lost and Found

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

3 / 30 / 25 – Fourth Sunday in Lent

Luke 15:1-7[1]

“Lost and Found”

(Everything [in] Between – Week 4)

We were just about to pull into the driveway when the cry came from the two-year-old in the backseat:  “Sharkey, Daddy!  Sharkey!”  Now, Sharkey is a shark – a blue, stuffed animal shark – one of about 700 “stuffies” that we have in the stuffie menagerie at our house.  And, as it happened on that particular Friday morning, Sharkey had been chosen to accompany us on our weekly trip to the YMCA.  Now, as soon as I heard the cry “Sharkey!” from the backseat, I knew that Sharkey was not in the car with us.  Sharkey was back at the YMCA.  The only problem was, it was 11:00 AM – getting close to naptime for the two-year-old and if I know anything, it is, “Do not mess with naptime!  Even if Sharkey is missing, do not even risk messing with naptime by having the two-year-old possibly fall asleep in the car!”  So, there we were – at an impasse – Sharkey or nap.  We could not have both.  

I did place a call to the YMCA, right then, which was answered by a lovely patient man, and when I explained the situation, he said he would see what he could do. Now, even though the two-year-old heard this phone conversation, he was not satisfied.  As I said a moment ago, we have about 9,000 stuffies at our house – a veritable cornucopia of stuffies – so many different stuffies.  But it was Sharkey who was lost.  And, as the two-year-old told me with tears in his eyes, Sharkey needed to be found. 

Today’s scripture reading is the first of three familiar stories of something – or someone – becoming lost.  The Parable of the Lost Sheep is the first of the three, but there is also the Parable of the Lost Coin (in which a woman has ten coins and loses one of them) as well as the Parable of the Lost Son (commonly known as the Parable of the Prodigal Son), who is “found” as he is welcomed home by his incredibly gracious and forgiving father.  

It is important to set the scene, here, because Jesus never tells stories like these in a vacuum.  There is always context.  Jesus and his disciples are on the way to Jerusalem – on the way toward the famous events that we have come to know as Palm Sunday, and Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday, and Easter.  On the road to Jerusalem, Jesus has been doing a lot of teaching and healing along the way, spending time with all different kinds of people.  Today’s reading captures just how “different” these people are from one another:  

Now, all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus.  And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”  (Luke 15:1-2)

“Can you believe this guy?” the Pharisees and scribes ask one another.  “Jesus is hanging out with those people – people that we (good and righteous folks that we are) wouldn’t be caught dead with?”  It is a scandal, in Jesus’ day, to find him welcoming the so-called “tax collectors and sinners” who are coming near to listen to him.  (15:1). Just briefly, tax collectors in the New Testament are seen as betraying their own people – taking taxes from their neighbors to pay to occupying the Roman Empire.  And, as we will hear in the story of Zacchaeus, next week, tax collectors in the New Testament are known to be dishonest – taking more than is owed and pocketing the difference.  So, here are tax collectors coming to sit at Jesus’ feet, along with some people who are called, simply, “sinners.”  In the original language, these people are seen as “irreligious or unobservant. . . heathens.”[2]  

The other week, I told the story of being a kid and my mother coming into the living room while my brother and I were sitting on the couch watching TV, like bumps on a log.  Most likely, we were watching MTV, back when they still showed music videos and, when my mother saw images of long-haired rock-n-roll bands on the screen, she would sometimes say, “Who are those. . . people?  And why are you wasting your time on them?”

In today’s story, you can sense the disdain of the Pharisees – those fancy and fastidious religious folks.  The very name “Pharisee,” most likely meant “separatist,” as in “separated from those. . . people.”  As one commentator writes, in the gospels, Jesus often criticizes the Pharisees for: 

. . . substituting their traditions for the revealed will of God, their lack of compassion, their contempt of the common people who could not obey the Law as carefully as they did, and for their failure to practice what they preached.[3]

Can you believe it?  Religious people being hypocrites?  I am shocked. . . (not really).  And Jesus is not shocked, either.  So, he decides to teach the Pharisees – and the sinners, and the tax collectors, and anyone who will listen – a lesson about God’s persistent mercy, told in the form of three stories.  

In my mind, I’ve always imagined the story of the Lost Sheep going something like this:  “There once was a shepherd who had a flock of one-hundred sheep.  One day, he noticed that one of this sheep was missing. . .”  Jesus doesn’t tell the story this way, though. 

Instead, he begins by saying, “Let’s say that you have one-hundred sheep and one of them goes missing.  Now, friends, imagine a shepherd who would leave his flock of ninety-nine sheep in the wilderness and go in search of that one lost sheep.  Would you be willing to be like that shepherd?”[4]  

Do you see what Jesus does, here?  He takes this story about a shepherd and immediately makes his audience imagine themselves as the shepherd.  And then, after putting his audience (including us) in the shepherd’s sandals, Jesus asks, “When it comes to seeking out and finding the lost, would you be willing to be the shepherd who seeks and finds the lost?”  What do you do?  To what lengths will you go?  What obstacles will you have to overcome?  How hard will you look?  How much will you give?  How much will you risk – walking away from whatever your ninety-nine sheep might be (safety, security, money, an important job, etc.)?  Will you be like this shepherd?  

I can remember Deborah, a mother in my former congregation whose son was deeply lost in a life of addiction.  She went to heroic lengths and gave so much during her son’s struggle.  I don’t know how much money she spent – sending him off to rehab, bailing him out of jail, trying to keep him sober.  She would come to church and sit in the pew, completely deflated and defeated, but she never gave up.  I know it doesn’t always end in this way, but finally, at long last, when Deborah’s son miraculously came to himself, he realized his mother had never stopped her search for him – even in the darkest and most difficult times. 

So, Jesus asks the Pharisees – and us – to put ourselves in the position of the shepherd in the story.  There is another perspective, here, though – one that is most likely recognized by the so-called “sinners” who have drawn near to Jesus.  There are times when we might be called to be the heroic shepherd in the story or just one of the ninety-nine sheep who stick around.  But there are other times that we might just be that one lost sheep. 

How many of us have felt lost from time to time – lost for various reasons.  Maybe we’ve gotten lost on purpose, walking away from safety into the unknown (as today’s second hymn suggests).  Maybe we’ve wandered far from the fold of our family or our faith or our values, without knowing what we are doing until we look around and realize that we are all alone – far from home.  Maybe we feel at a loss for words or feel paralyzed by anxiety or uncertainty.  And yet, if today’s parable reminds us of anything it is that we are never truly alone because God is always about the business of seeking us out and finding us –sometimes, whether we want to be found or not.  

Just so you know, as Jesus is telling this story, it is very likely that the Pharisees hear some direct parallels with at least two passages in the Hebrew Bible.  At Christmastime, we will sometimes hear the words of Isaiah 40:  “He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep” (Isaiah 40:11). And in Ezekiel 34, we read how God, like a shepherd, will go to great lengths to gather God’s lost sheep from far and wide and bring them all home.[5]

God doesn’t just seek us and find us, though.  As today’s story goes, God rejoices when we are found.  In Jesus’ parables about the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Lost Son, there is great rejoicing when the “lost” is “found.”  In today’s story, Jesus says, 

When [the shepherd] has found [the sheep], he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices.  And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ (Luke 15:5-6)

And then Jesus makes the direct connection – telling the Pharisees (and us) – that “there is joy in heaven over one sinner who turns toward God than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” (15:7)

As one commentator – John T. Carrol – writes:

Jesus’ mission seeks to restore persons who are lost and calls the community – including the righteous who have no need (or none yet acknowledged) to reorder their lives – to welcome them and celebrate. . . [and, pointing to those shepherd and lost sheep passages from Ezekiel and Isaiah,] Jesus is furthering the gracious purposes of Israel’s God.[6]  

This is the key, here – the good news:  from beginning to end, God is gracious – abundantly gracious, willing-to-risk-it-all-for-us gracious.  And, following in the footsteps of Jesus – the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep[7]– God calls us to be gracious, too. . .  abundantly gracious. . . willing to risk, and serve, and love as Jesus loves.

Now, God’s grace – especially the grace of Jesus – is a tough act to follow.  We will fall short.  We will not always get it right.  But, with the Holy Spirit’s help, we might just get it right sometimes.  This past week, I was talking with a friend who is so troubled by all that they see going on in the world that they are having a hard time sleeping at night and a hard time holding it together during the day.  The sheer weight of it all is crushing their spirit.  Now, this person is tireless in how they serve others – feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, providing furniture for people who have none – but there is so much more to be done and they feel powerless to do more.  

Imagine if today’s story involved one-hundred lost sheep and the shepherd is paralyzed by the quandary of which sheep to go and find first.  Well, why not start with the first one, and slowly and lovingly find the next one and then the next one?  We might not find them all, on our own.  Regardless of the attitudes we might see out in the world, every single sheep is important and deserves to be found.   But we are not alone in the seeking and the finding.  God is with us and God never stops searching and God never stops rejoicing when what is lost is found.  

It was 5:30 PM by the time we finally got back to the YMCA.  We walked in and there he was. . .  Sharkey was sitting on a shelf in the front lobby.  The lovely and patient man at the YMCA had found him and set him aside for us.  There was great rejoicing in our house.

Friends, life is messy and can be so hard.  And we can be so distracted and forgetful and overwhelmed.  Things get lost.  People get lost, too.  But the God who loves us is always searching for us, and finding us, and rejoicing when we are found, and welcoming us home.  May we, with the Spirit’s help, endeavor to do the same.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

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[1] Scripture reading, based on materials from A Sanctified Art, LLC. – Lenten Worship Resources, 2025.

[2] Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979) 44.

[3] Watson E. Mills, The Mercer Dictionary of the Bible (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1990) 680-681. “Pharisee” by James A. Brooks.

[4] Luke 15:4 – Paraphrased, JHS.

[5] See Ezekiel 34:11-16 and Isaiah 40:11.

[6] John T. Carrol, Luke: A Commentary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012) 311.  

[7] See John 10:11-18.

[johnhardinsawyer]

Rest and Growth

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

3 / 23 / 25 – Third Sunday in Lent[1]

Luke 13:6-9

“Rest and Growth”

(Everything [in] Between – Week 3)

I got an e-mail from one of our elders this past week.  She has been reading the devotional book that goes with our “Everything [in] Between” series throughout the season of Lent.  And she wrote to say that this year, for the first time,  she will finally be harvesting the asparagus that she planted three years ago.  That’s how long it can take – well over a year. . .  sometimes, up to three years.  You can plant asparagus in your garden, but you’ve got to be patient.  The same can be said for fruit trees and other crops. 

Now I know that you can simply go to the grocery and buy all the asparagus you need, but knowing how long it takes to grow, that kind of puts some things in perspective.  Someone had the forethought to plant some asparagus on a farm, they had the skill to tend it, and they had the patience to wait.  

I don’t know about you, but patience can be a difficult thing for me.  There are times when I want results, right now, and I’m not willing to wait. 

Humans beings can be quite impatient.  We also can be quite innovative when it comes to alleviating some of our impatient tendencies.  This is why Amazon can deliver what we want to our doorstep – often in less than forty-eight hours.  This is why if we have a hankering for junk food, Door Dash can dash it to our door within thirty-five minutes or less (before the hankering wears off).  This is why organizations will seek to turn things around quickly – sometimes, by taking drastic measures.  If you buy a company or take over a whole sector of business, or government, or whatever, being a “disruptor” is valued.  If you perceive that it’s not working right now, then change it or get rid of it, right?  You don’t have to wait around like you used to.  

And yet, in today’s scripture reading, Jesus seems to be telling us that there is value – life-giving, life-saving value – to waiting.  

As we look at today’s parable about an unfruitful fig tree, it is important to put this story in context.  You might remember that Jesus and his disciples are on their way to Jerusalem.  And, as they pass through towns and villages along the way, Jesus takes time to teach and heal.  He keeps drawing a crowd, too – a crowd full of admirers and detractors, some who would elevate him to a royal status along with others who want to do away with him.  

Right before today’s story, we see Jesus and some people in the crowd wrestling with a big question – a question that still keeps people wondering, all these years later:  Does God cause or allow human suffering to take place?  Or, to put it another way, does our own sinfulness bring God’s punishment upon us?  There are some people in the crowd who tell Jesus a story about how the Roman governor, Pilate, has ordered the execution of some folks up in Galilee.  Pilate had them killed while they were at worship.  Jesus chimes in with his own ripped-from-the-headlines story about eighteen people who have been tragically killed in an accidental collapse of a tower in Jerusalem.  And Jesus asks a question about those poor folks up in Galilee and the people who died in Jerusalem:  “Were any of these people worse sinners than anyone else – worse sinners than their neighbors. . . worse sinners than any of you?”[2]  The answer to this question is, of course, “No.”  The hard truth is that suffering is often cruelly random and while our sinfulness be a contributing factor to suffering, it’s not always something that we can pin down and clearly state as fact.  There is often no easy answer as to why some people suffer and others do not.

What Jesus says next, though, is tough but important:  “. . . unless you repent, you will all perish as they did”[3]  Another way of saying this, perhaps, is that regardless of what happens to other people, Jesus is calling you and me to turn toward God.  Turning toward God – toward God’s kingdom, toward a way of life that is focused on the teachings and example of Jesus, toward an attentiveness to the Holy Spirit – is the most important thing.  Yes, suffering exists.  Suffering is real.  Suffering, as random as it can be, is so hard.  But set it all aside, for a moment. . .  How are you going to live, right now?  How will we live our lives in the here-and-now in a way that matters – in a way that offers our very best to God and to the world?  As Jesus tells us, unless we turn toward God – unless we repent (which is the word that Jesus uses) – and begin to bear “fruit,” we will never know. . . 

Then Jesus tells this story about the fig tree, and how the fig tree is really us.  Will we bear fruit?  Not bearing fruit has consequences, but thankfully, God is patiently working on it. . . on us. 

We should note that one of the characters in today’s story is anything but patient.  There is a man who owns a vineyard who has had a fig tree planted on his property and, for the past three years, it has produced no fruit.  The tree seems to be a waste of space and nutrients from the soil, not to mention, precious water in a dry land – water that could be used to grow something else.  So, why not cut the tree down?  

But the gardener – who is well-aware that it can take fruit trees extra time to mature – says to the landowner, “Let’s give it another year.  I’ll dig around it, and fertilize it, and. . . let’s see what happens. . .” (Luke 13:8)[4]

Jesus’ parable is, of course, a big metaphor that can be interpreted through several lenses.  One of these lenses – that we might not be aware of in the 21st century, but that people may have been able to hear in Jesus’ day – is that this fig tree represents, not just individuals, but the nation to whom Jesus has been sent.  As one commentator – F. Scott Spencer – writes, 

In depicting “a fig tree planted in [a] vineyard,” Jesus draws on familiar prophetic images of Israel as graciously rooted by God in the promised land to bear fruit for God’s glory.  The desired harvest chiefly yields loyal covenantal love toward God and neighbor expressed in acts of justice and mercy.  However, Israel’s history has been marred by repeated failure to fulfill its fruitful vocation, despite God’s attentiveness as faithful owner and caretaker.  Jesus now alerts his people that they stand at another critical crossroad. . . many continue to resist the message and thereby risk divine judgment.[5]

There are multiple examples in the prophetic writings from the Hebrew Bible – from Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, and Micah[6] – that all depict God’s people as a tree, or a vine, or a vineyard under threat of being cut down because of the people’s unfaithfulness – particularly, a lack of mercy and justice. . . a lack of love for God and neighbor.  Those of you who know your Bible know that it does not end well for God’s people.  They are “cut down” and taken into exile.  Sin – especially the national sin of selfishness, and idol worship, and oppressing the most vulnerable among us – will often yield disastrous consequences.  

But in today’s story – in Jesus’ day, and in our own day – there’s still time to change.  Jesus, who has ministered to his people for about three years, by this point – about the same amount of time that the landowner has been waiting for fruit from the fig tree.  And Jesus is well aware that they have not collectively changed their ways.  There has been no national turn-around of repentance.  There’s plenty of divine punishment that could be meted out. . . but not yet.  It doesn’t have to be this way.  God is still merciful.  There is still time. . .  Even for us. . .

So, how might we spend this time?  How might we use this gift of mercy in this moment?  What might God be doing to us and through us during this time of patient, active, waiting and hopeful growth?  

The first thing we need to remember is that even though we cannot see a plant growing by just watching it for a few minutes, there is always something slowly happening, deep within.  Last week, we talked about Mary –sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening to his words – and how this was perceived as Mary doing nothing when nothing could have been farther from the truth.  The same thing happens in the Book of Acts, before the day of Pentecost, when Jesus tells his disciples to stay in Jerusalem and wait.  As Andrew Root and Blair Bertrand write in their recent book, When the Church Stops Working, “The real origin story of the church does not start in Acts 2 with progress and growth.  The real origin story starts in Acts 1 with waiting for God to act.  God is the hero and the church waits.”[7]

As I mentioned in my State of the Church address earlier this month, we have, in some ways, been doing this as a congregation since the pandemic struck, five years ago (this week) – actively waiting for the Spirit to reveal what will come next.  And, in ways that are big and complicated – as well as small and loving – the Spirit is revealing a different kind of growth, building upon all of the blessings of our rich history and the present spiritual gifts of our people, right now.  We see this in how we are loving our neighbors, by caring for a family from Afghanistan, and supporting affordable housing initiatives in Bedford, and reducing our need for fossil fuels through solar power, and opening our doors to community groups, and offering opportunities for worship, learning, fellowship, and service.  We are not doing nothing.  But, more importantly, God is not doing nothing. 

And, this is the second thing we need to remember.  Just as the gardener offers to dig around the tree and – as the Greek tells us – put “manure” around it, it is God who provides the growth.  God is the hero in the story. . . in our story.  One of my favorite – kind of obscure – quotes from Frederick Buechner comes from his novel, Love Feast, in which a preacher named Leo Bebb says,    

There’s two main things about [manure].  One thing is it’s stink and corruption and waste.  The other thing is if you don’t pile it up too thick in any one place, it makes the seeds grow. . .  God’s where there’s seeds growing. . .  God so loved the world he sent his only begotten son down here into the [manure] with the rest of us so something green could happen, something small and green and hopeful.[8]

Jesus, the patient gardener, is up to his elbows in the muck, right here with us – coaxing us into new fruit-bearing life, by the power of the Holy Spirit.  And if Jesus is doing this for us – with us – how might our own human capacity for patience, and mercy, and service be shaped by Christ’s example?  How might we be inspired, challenged, and blessed by offering our time, and energy, and passion, and hope, and healing and holy patience to this troubled world?

Just as Jesus is at work, justifying us before God – making our relationship right with God – and just as the Holy Spirit is at work, bringing about our sanctification – making us (even us!) more Holy, over the course of our lives, may we too be about the work of right relationships and humbly nurturing the Holy growth that is often hidden in our own lives and the lives of others.   

God isn’t through with us yet.  This is good news!  Maybe we shouldn’t be through, either.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

-------

[1] Based on readings and liturgy from A Sanctified Art, LLC – “Everything [in] Between.”

[2] See Luke 13:2 and 4 – Paraphrased, JHS.

[3] Luke 13:3 and 5.

[4] Paraphrased, JHS.

[5] F. Scott Spencer, Luke (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2019) 347.

[6] See Isaiah 5:1-7; Jeremiah 8:8-13; Ezekiel 15:1-8; Hosea 9:10; and Micah 7:1-6.

[7] Andrew Root and Blair D. Bertrand, When Church Stops Working: A Future for Your Congregation Beyond More Money, Programs, and Innovation (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press/Baker Books, 2023) 23.

[8] Frederick Buechner, The Book of Bebb (San Francisco: Harper and Row Publishers, 1990) 352. “Love Feast.”

[johnhardinsawyer]

Faith and Works

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

3 / 16 / 25 – Second Sunday in Lent[1]

Luke 10:38-42

“Faith and Works”

(Everything [in] Between)

I once had the privilege of going to the Holy Land – serving as the pastor for a group of fellow pilgrims.  There were mostly Presbyterians in our group, but there was one man who was an out and proud Quaker.  For those of you who might be unfamiliar, the Quakers (also known as The Religious Society of Friends) are a Protestant denomination that began in England in the 1650’s.  Many Quakers played a large role in the abolition of slavery and they have continued this kind of work – seeking a peaceful and just society and world – following the teachings of Jesus.  

The Quakers believe that each and every human being has the ability to be guided by the “inward light [of God] ‘to make the witness of God’ known to everyone.’”[2]  Some Quakers will hold services of worship that resemble our own – with scripture and song, maybe even a sermon.  But some Quakers will hold, what they call “unprogrammed worship,” which involves everyone sitting quietly. . . sometimes, for quite some time. . . and waiting for the Spirit to lead someone in the room to speak, to pray, or to sing.  

The proud Quaker who came with us to the Holy Land was part of this latter group and he took it seriously.  I could tell right from the start, that he was a funny guy, though, because he wore a t-shirt that had a picture of a rocking chair on it, with the words, “Don’t Just Sit There: Do Nothing.” – Quakers

To be clear, sitting still and listening for God’s voice or for some kind of movement of the Holy Spirit is not doing nothing.  And my Quaker friend knew this.  

There are some people who are more comfortable with Holy silence and stillness and listening than others.  Silence and stillness are not necessarily the end-all-be-all when it comes to being faithful to God and following Jesus.  It can be helpful, though, to stop and simply listen for God so that we can be prepared to do something for God.  Whether we are working hard at sitting still for Jesus or working hard at working hard for Jesus, though, it’s probably good for us to seek out and try to have some balance.  

In today’s scripture reading, we find two sisters who are each living out one aspect of this.  They are like two sides to the same coin of loving and serving Jesus.  On one side, we have Martha who is laboring hard – so very hard – to be hospitable and welcoming to her friend Jesus and his disciples.  On the other side, we have Mary who is listening hard – so very hard – to hear what Jesus is saying, much to Martha’s frustration.

Jesus and his disciples are traveling up to Jerusalem.  They make their way to a certain village – to the home of Martha and Mary – and are welcomed.  Hospitality was – and continues to be – a major motivation for people who live in that part of the world.  And, in today’s story, Martha is doing her very best to be an excellent and gracious host to the dusty travelers who have descended upon her home.  

Here she is, providing a gracious amount of refreshments, making sure that the linens are clean, offering folks a place to relax, picking up any messes that get made, keeping up with everyone’s needs and – as she passes in and out of the room where Jesus sits, there is this chip on her shoulder that begins to form when she sees her sister, Mary, sitting at Jesus’ feet.  Finally, that chip on her shoulder becomes too much to bear and Martha explodes, “Mary!  Don’t just sit there!  Do something!”

Actually, that part isn’t in the original text.  What we do find in the original text is the complaint that Martha brings straight to Jesus – a complaint that Eugene Peterson translates in this way:  “Master, don’t you care that my sister has abandoned the kitchen to me?  Tell her to lend me a hand.”[3]  

You know, a lot is made of Martha getting frustrated with her sister, Mary.  I mean, how many of you can relate to either saying to someone, or being told by someone, “Don’t just sit there!  Do something!”?  I can remember as a kid, my own mother would often walk into the room where my brother and I were sitting there watching TV, like bumps on a log.  Momma wouldn’t start with, “Don’t just sit there!  Do something!”  Instead, she would say, as if she were continuing a conversation from earlier, “. . . and the clothes need to be folded, and your room needs to be vacuumed, and the table needs to be set for dinner, and. . . and. . . and. . . and. . .”  Maybe she was continuing a conversation from earlier but we were too busy watching TV.  I don’t want to share too much, except to say that all these years later, I can kind of relate to my mom.  Maybe you can, too.  Running a household in the 21st Century can be a lot.  I can’t imagine what it must have been like in Jesus’ day – without a laundry machine or dishwasher under the counter, and Jesus (and at least twelve of his friends) showing up on your doorstep.  

So, Martha is upset with her sister, Mary.  And Martha carries these concerns straight to Jesus.  “Jesus, don’t you care that Mary isn’t helping me out?”  Jesus hears her out and then replies, 

“Martha, dear Martha, you’re fussing far too much and getting yourself far too worked up over nothing.  One thing only is essential, and Mary has chosen it – it’s the main course, and won’t be taken from her.”[4]

We should probably take a look at exactly what it is that Mary has been doing – sitting there at Jesus’ feet for so long.  The text simply tells us that she “. . . sits at the Lord’s feet and listens to what he is saying.” (Luke 10:39)[5]  A rough translation, here, is that Mary sits at the Lord’s feet and “is listening to the Word of him.”  There are two words, here, that deserve our special attention.  The first is the word “word,” which in the original Greek language, here, is logos.  This word – logos – is often connected to Jesus.  In the Gospel of John, when we read “. . . and the Word became flesh and lived among us,” (John 1:14) we are recognizing Jesus as the “Word” or Logos of God.  This is not just a word, like one might read on a page.  This is the Word – Capital-W – that is “a divine revelation – a revelation that includes the good news of the gospel.”[6]  When Mary sits as Jesus’ feet, the Word is speaking a divine message and Mary is really listening, which in the original language means, “to hear, to be informed, to listen with understanding.”[7]

So, at first glance Martha is working too hard and Mary is not working hard enough, and maybe Jesus should speak a divine Word of revelation to Mary, saying “Get up and see if your sister needs help.”  But for some reason, Jesus says that Mary is actually doing the right thing and Martha just needs to calm down.  

Years ago, there was a popular book called Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World.  The book was all about how it is so important to sit and Jesus’ feet and learn from him, but the world is so busy.  And it’s hard to have a listening and reflective Mary heart in a busy Martha world.  The world can be a frustrating place – full of distractions.  But it’s important to pay attention to the way that Jesus gently seeks to calm Martha’s frustration – not condemn it.  Jesus tells her that she is “distracted by many things; [and yet] there is need of only one thing [right now].”[8]  Mary happens to have chosen that one thing, but, as John Calvin writes about this moment, it’s not like Mary is going to remain at Jesus’ feet forever.  “Does this mean that she did nothing else her whole life?”[9] Calvin asks.  Of course not!

But, in this particular moment, Mary recognizes the real gift of the presence and the message of Jesus.  All of the other stuff can wait.  As one commentator writes, 

Mary might have a “better” sense of the present moment, but if she really listens to Jesus, she will perceive his urgent call to active ministry.  And while Martha might currently be so “distracted” by her overwhelming ministerial duties that she can’t concentrate on Jesus’ teaching, she acknowledges the authority of her Lord’s word and may be as jealous of Mary’s position (Martha would love to hear Jesus too!) as she is irked by her cumbersome workload.  Jesus’ calming (down) words effectively invite Martha to join the seminar [taking place right here in her own home].  Dinner can wait.[10]

It’s kind of like how we view what takes place in a worship service or set aside time for prayer, study, and reflection.  All of these things – especially what we do here, in this place – is linked to and (through the Holy Spirit) an inspiration for how we serve out there.  The word used to describe Martha’s service in today’s text is diakonia – the original word for our word, Deacon.  Right here, we are being prepared for how God is calling us for diakonia – service – in the world.  And, to paraphrase Dr. William Yoo, a professor at Columbia Theological Seminary, “What we do here has to matter out there.”[11]  Sitting at the feet of Jesus is wonderful but so is taking what we learn at Jesus’ feet and going out to serve others in Jesus’ name.  Both are essential.  Both are ministry.  Both are tied to and dependent upon one another.     

So, what’s it going to be for us:  doing or being?  Laboring or listening?  What if it doesn’t have to be either or?  What if Jesus is calling us to do – and to be – both?  

You know, there is a group of people in our church who have been working very, very hard – in quiet, but loving and steady ways – for the past three years.  They serve as the Neighborhood Support Team for an evacuee family from Afghanistan.  When the family arrived in 2021, they had little more than the clothes on their backs and the Neighborhood Support Team (or, NST) surrounded them with love, helping them with medical care, language skills, job training, driving lessons, and childcare – all while walking with them through the convoluted immigration process.   

Over these past three years, the family from Afghanistan has worked so hard, too, and they have become part of our family because of the unending work of the NST.  But our team would not – could not – do what they are doing without first hearing and internalizing the Logos in their minds and hearts – the Word that tells of loving our neighbors, and welcoming the stranger and caring for the least of these.  This call of Jesus has been a dominant voice, guiding their work – a voice that can only be heard by returning, again and again, to the feet of Jesus to be reminded and strengthened for service.  It can be hard in the day-to-day slog of caring for a family.  It is easy to become distracted by many things and there are many highs and lows along the way.  

And yet, this work – even when it is hard – is Holy work and I hope our NST knows and trusts this to be true, especially this week.  There is more to say when the time is right, but for now:   to Larry, and Andrea, and Sharon, and Barb, and Barbara, and Brian, to Marc, and Melinda, and Jean, and Sheila, and so many, many more. . . Thank you!  

Friends, one of the hallmarks of the Protestant Reformation, one of the key parts of being Presbyterian is remembering that there is nothing that we can do to earn God’s grace.  God’s grace is a free gift.  What is important for us is to recognize this gift for what it is – to sit and then to stand and serve in the presence of the Holy.  May we do so, trusting God to be at work through our listening and in our labor to bring about God’s kingdom in the world, on earth as it is in heaven.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.    

[1] Based on readings and liturgy from A Sanctified Art, LLC – “Everything [in] Between.”

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quakers.

[3] Eugene Peterson, The Message: Numbered Edition (Colorado Springs: NAV Press, 2002) 1427. Luke 10:40.  

[4] Eugene Peterson, 1427-1428. Luke 10:41-42.

[5] Paraphrased, JHS – Present Tense.

[6] Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979) 478.

[7] Walter Bauer, 32.

[8] Luke 10:41-42, paraphrased, JHS – [Brackets, mine, for emphasis].

[9] John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries – Vol XVI – Harmony of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2009) ii. 143.

[10] F. Scott Spencer, Luke – The Two Horizons New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2019) 290.

[11] From a lecture by Dr. William Yoo at the Matthew 25 Summit – January 17, 2024 at New Life Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, GA.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ajbn1EMYVsQ.

[johnhardinsawyer]

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

3 / 16 / 25 – Second Sunday in Lent[1]

Luke 10:38-42

“Faith and Works”

(Everything [in] Between)

I once had the privilege of going to the Holy Land – serving as the pastor for a group of fellow pilgrims.  There were mostly Presbyterians in our group, but there was one man who was an out and proud Quaker.  For those of you who might be unfamiliar, the Quakers (also known as The Religious Society of Friends) are a Protestant denomination that began in England in the 1650’s.  Many Quakers played a large role in the abolition of slavery and they have continued this kind of work – seeking a peaceful and just society and world – following the teachings of Jesus.  

The Quakers believe that each and every human being has the ability to be guided by the “inward light [of God] ‘to make the witness of God’ known to everyone.’”[2]  Some Quakers will hold services of worship that resemble our own – with scripture and song, maybe even a sermon.  But some Quakers will hold, what they call “unprogrammed worship,” which involves everyone sitting quietly. . . sometimes, for quite some time. . . and waiting for the Spirit to lead someone in the room to speak, to pray, or to sing.  

The proud Quaker who came with us to the Holy Land was part of this latter group and he took it seriously.  I could tell right from the start, that he was a funny guy, though, because he wore a t-shirt that had a picture of a rocking chair on it, with the words, “Don’t Just Sit There: Do Nothing.” – Quakers

To be clear, sitting still and listening for God’s voice or for some kind of movement of the Holy Spirit is not doing nothing.  And my Quaker friend knew this.  

There are some people who are more comfortable with Holy silence and stillness and listening than others.  Silence and stillness are not necessarily the end-all-be-all when it comes to being faithful to God and following Jesus.  It can be helpful, though, to stop and simply listen for God so that we can be prepared to do something for God.  Whether we are working hard at sitting still for Jesus or working hard at working hard for Jesus, though, it’s probably good for us to seek out and try to have some balance.  

In today’s scripture reading, we find two sisters who are each living out one aspect of this.  They are like two sides to the same coin of loving and serving Jesus.  On one side, we have Martha who is laboring hard – so very hard – to be hospitable and welcoming to her friend Jesus and his disciples.  On the other side, we have Mary who is listening hard – so very hard – to hear what Jesus is saying, much to Martha’s frustration.

Jesus and his disciples are traveling up to Jerusalem.  They make their way to a certain village – to the home of Martha and Mary – and are welcomed.  Hospitality was – and continues to be – a major motivation for people who live in that part of the world.  And, in today’s story, Martha is doing her very best to be an excellent and gracious host to the dusty travelers who have descended upon her home.  

Here she is, providing a gracious amount of refreshments, making sure that the linens are clean, offering folks a place to relax, picking up any messes that get made, keeping up with everyone’s needs and – as she passes in and out of the room where Jesus sits, there is this chip on her shoulder that begins to form when she sees her sister, Mary, sitting at Jesus’ feet.  Finally, that chip on her shoulder becomes too much to bear and Martha explodes, “Mary!  Don’t just sit there!  Do something!”

Actually, that part isn’t in the original text.  What we do find in the original text is the complaint that Martha brings straight to Jesus – a complaint that Eugene Peterson translates in this way:  “Master, don’t you care that my sister has abandoned the kitchen to me?  Tell her to lend me a hand.”[3]  

You know, a lot is made of Martha getting frustrated with her sister, Mary.  I mean, how many of you can relate to either saying to someone, or being told by someone, “Don’t just sit there!  Do something!”?  I can remember as a kid, my own mother would often walk into the room where my brother and I were sitting there watching TV, like bumps on a log.  Momma wouldn’t start with, “Don’t just sit there!  Do something!”  Instead, she would say, as if she were continuing a conversation from earlier, “. . . and the clothes need to be folded, and your room needs to be vacuumed, and the table needs to be set for dinner, and. . . and. . . and. . . and. . .”  Maybe she was continuing a conversation from earlier but we were too busy watching TV.  I don’t want to share too much, except to say that all these years later, I can kind of relate to my mom.  Maybe you can, too.  Running a household in the 21st Century can be a lot.  I can’t imagine what it must have been like in Jesus’ day – without a laundry machine or dishwasher under the counter, and Jesus (and at least twelve of his friends) showing up on your doorstep.  

So, Martha is upset with her sister, Mary.  And Martha carries these concerns straight to Jesus.  “Jesus, don’t you care that Mary isn’t helping me out?”  Jesus hears her out and then replies, 

“Martha, dear Martha, you’re fussing far too much and getting yourself far too worked up over nothing.  One thing only is essential, and Mary has chosen it – it’s the main course, and won’t be taken from her.”[4]

We should probably take a look at exactly what it is that Mary has been doing – sitting there at Jesus’ feet for so long.  The text simply tells us that she “. . . sits at the Lord’s feet and listens to what he is saying.” (Luke 10:39)[5]  A rough translation, here, is that Mary sits at the Lord’s feet and “is listening to the Word of him.”  There are two words, here, that deserve our special attention.  The first is the word “word,” which in the original Greek language, here, is logos.  This word – logos – is often connected to Jesus.  In the Gospel of John, when we read “. . . and the Word became flesh and lived among us,” (John 1:14) we are recognizing Jesus as the “Word” or Logos of God.  This is not just a word, like one might read on a page.  This is the Word – Capital-W – that is “a divine revelation – a revelation that includes the good news of the gospel.”[6]  When Mary sits as Jesus’ feet, the Word is speaking a divine message and Mary is really listening, which in the original language means, “to hear, to be informed, to listen with understanding.”[7]

So, at first glance Martha is working too hard and Mary is not working hard enough, and maybe Jesus should speak a divine Word of revelation to Mary, saying “Get up and see if your sister needs help.”  But for some reason, Jesus says that Mary is actually doing the right thing and Martha just needs to calm down.  

Years ago, there was a popular book called Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World.  The book was all about how it is so important to sit and Jesus’ feet and learn from him, but the world is so busy.  And it’s hard to have a listening and reflective Mary heart in a busy Martha world.  The world can be a frustrating place – full of distractions.  But it’s important to pay attention to the way that Jesus gently seeks to calm Martha’s frustration – not condemn it.  Jesus tells her that she is “distracted by many things; [and yet] there is need of only one thing [right now].”[8]  Mary happens to have chosen that one thing, but, as John Calvin writes about this moment, it’s not like Mary is going to remain at Jesus’ feet forever.  “Does this mean that she did nothing else her whole life?”[9] Calvin asks.  Of course not!

But, in this particular moment, Mary recognizes the real gift of the presence and the message of Jesus.  All of the other stuff can wait.  As one commentator writes, 

Mary might have a “better” sense of the present moment, but if she really listens to Jesus, she will perceive his urgent call to active ministry.  And while Martha might currently be so “distracted” by her overwhelming ministerial duties that she can’t concentrate on Jesus’ teaching, she acknowledges the authority of her Lord’s word and may be as jealous of Mary’s position (Martha would love to hear Jesus too!) as she is irked by her cumbersome workload.  Jesus’ calming (down) words effectively invite Martha to join the seminar [taking place right here in her own home].  Dinner can wait.[10]

It’s kind of like how we view what takes place in a worship service or set aside time for prayer, study, and reflection.  All of these things – especially what we do here, in this place – is linked to and (through the Holy Spirit) an inspiration for how we serve out there.  The word used to describe Martha’s service in today’s text is diakonia – the original word for our word, Deacon.  Right here, we are being prepared for how God is calling us for diakonia – service – in the world.  And, to paraphrase Dr. William Yoo, a professor at Columbia Theological Seminary, “What we do here has to matter out there.”[11]  Sitting at the feet of Jesus is wonderful but so is taking what we learn at Jesus’ feet and going out to serve others in Jesus’ name.  Both are essential.  Both are ministry.  Both are tied to and dependent upon one another.     

So, what’s it going to be for us:  doing or being?  Laboring or listening?  What if it doesn’t have to be either or?  What if Jesus is calling us to do – and to be – both?  

You know, there is a group of people in our church who have been working very, very hard – in quiet, but loving and steady ways – for the past three years.  They serve as the Neighborhood Support Team for an evacuee family from Afghanistan.  When the family arrived in 2021, they had little more than the clothes on their backs and the Neighborhood Support Team (or, NST) surrounded them with love, helping them with medical care, language skills, job training, driving lessons, and childcare – all while walking with them through the convoluted immigration process.   

Over these past three years, the family from Afghanistan has worked so hard, too, and they have become part of our family because of the unending work of the NST.  But our team would not – could not – do what they are doing without first hearing and internalizing the Logos in their minds and hearts – the Word that tells of loving our neighbors, and welcoming the stranger and caring for the least of these.  This call of Jesus has been a dominant voice, guiding their work – a voice that can only be heard by returning, again and again, to the feet of Jesus to be reminded and strengthened for service.  It can be hard in the day-to-day slog of caring for a family.  It is easy to become distracted by many things and there are many highs and lows along the way.  

And yet, this work – even when it is hard – is Holy work and I hope our NST knows and trusts this to be true, especially this week.  There is more to say when the time is right, but for now:   to Larry, and Andrea, and Sharon, and Barb, and Barbara, and Brian, to Marc, and Melinda, and Jean, and Sheila, and so many, many more. . . Thank you!  

Friends, one of the hallmarks of the Protestant Reformation, one of the key parts of being Presbyterian is remembering that there is nothing that we can do to earn God’s grace.  God’s grace is a free gift.  What is important for us is to recognize this gift for what it is – to sit and then to stand and serve in the presence of the Holy.  May we do so, trusting God to be at work through our listening and in our labor to bring about God’s kingdom in the world, on earth as it is in heaven.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.    

[1] Based on readings and liturgy from A Sanctified Art, LLC – “Everything [in] Between.”

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quakers.

[3] Eugene Peterson, The Message: Numbered Edition (Colorado Springs: NAV Press, 2002) 1427. Luke 10:40.  

[4] Eugene Peterson, 1427-1428. Luke 10:41-42.

[5] Paraphrased, JHS – Present Tense.

[6] Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979) 478.

[7] Walter Bauer, 32.

[8] Luke 10:41-42, paraphrased, JHS – [Brackets, mine, for emphasis].

[9] John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries – Vol XVI – Harmony of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2009) ii. 143.

[10] F. Scott Spencer, Luke – The Two Horizons New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2019) 290.

[11] From a lecture by Dr. William Yoo at the Matthew 25 Summit – January 17, 2024 at New Life Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, GA.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ajbn1EMYVsQ.

[johnhardinsawyer]

Stranger and Neighbor

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

3 / 9 / 25 – First Sunday in Lent

Luke 10:25-37[1]

“Stranger and Neighbor”

(Everything [in] Between – Week 1)

There is a phrase that has been knocking about in my mind for the past few months.  I can’t remember where I heard it, exactly, but I distinctly remember someone describing this present moment in the life of our country as being “All Tribe, No Village.”  

What they were trying to say was that the many stark divisions in our country involves people who claim a certain tribal identity, based on ideology and politics, even religion and ethics, but they (and we) are unwilling to do the hard work of being in community – a village – with anyone who does not share that same “tribal” identity or ideology.  The “all tribe, no village” label does not apply to all of us, all the time, but it is fairly prevalent.  As David Brooks wrote back in 2018, quoting a study on polarization in America,[2] it’s “. . . no longer about what health care plan you support.  It’s about identity, psychology, moral foundations, and the dynamics of tribal resentment.”[3]  People feel safe within in their own tribe – safe enough to be able to express their beliefs and opinions without any major disagreements from the tribe and they feel safe enough to genuinely resent anyone who is not in their own tribe without any major pushback.  Being in a tribe is so easy, but building a village?  Well, we have some work to do.

Into this present “All Tribe, No Village” moment, we are presented with today’s scripture reading – a passage that is probably very familiar to many of you, even if you’ve only heard the phrase “Good Samaritan.”  What you might not know is that in Jesus’ day, people had their own version of tribalism, based on actual tribes.  

When the Israelites came out of Egypt in the Book of Exodus, they were organized into twelve distinct tribes, descended from the twelve sons of Jacob.  Over the centuries, after entering the Promised Land, these tribes sometimes got along.  At other times, they were at each other’s throats.  After King Solomon died, his united kingdom of all twelve tribes split.  To the North, several tribes broke away and declared themselves “Israel.”  To the South, around Jerusalem, the remaining tribes called themselves “Judah.”  Years went by, and the tribes in the North began to develop different religious practices and customs from their cousins to the South.  Judah, in the South, in their own minds, had remained faithful to the customs and practices of their ancestors, and looked down their noses at their cousins to the North. 

In order to remain viable, the Northern Kingdom, Israel, allied itself with a powerful empire – the Assyrians – and Israel later destroyed by the Assyrian army.  All of the left-over inhabitants in the North were called “Samaritans” – a name that came from the people who had conquered them.  The name stuck – all the way up to the time of Jesus.  And, if you go to the West Bank, today, in Israeli-occupied Palestine, you can still find people (many of them poor and persecuted – some of them Christians) who call themselves “Samaritans.”  

There are multiple places in the gospels when Jesus has encounters with Samaritans.  Jesus often travels through unfamiliar and unwelcome territory.  For Jesus – a Jew, and his Jewish disciples – to travel in Samaria – a region on the margins, a place full of distrust between insiders and outsiders – is no small thing.  And yet, it is in these places on the margins (not just Samaria), that Jesus does some very important work.  God is often doing important work on the margins – more important than we often know or notice.  

So, with all of this as preamble, in today’s text, we find Jesus back among his own people in Judah – the old Southern Kingdom – in the presence of a lawyer.  Now, I know there are probably some lawyer jokes that could be told here, but this lawyer that stands up to test Jesus is not joking around.  He is an expert in Jewish law – the Law of Moses, the Torah – and he probably has a good sense of belonging to a very influential and privileged “tribe” of Jewish insiders.

“Teacher,” the lawyer says to Jesus – maybe in a tone of voice that is not entirely respectful – “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 10:25)  As one commentator writes, “hidden within what may be a sincere religious question concerning the path to enduring life. . . is a challenge to Jesus’ authority as a teacher, a test of his approach to the Torah.”[4]  Jesus is a savvy guy and, likely, senses this challenge.  And so, he responds by pointing the lawyer back to his own field of expertise.  “Well, what does the law say?  What do you read there?” Jesus asks the man.  

The lawyer responds by offering a summation of the law:  “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and [love] your neighbor as yourself.” (10:27). These commands to love God and neighbor are taken straight from the Law of Moses, quoting from Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19.[5]

This lawyer dude knows his Bible. . . but so does Jesus, who tells the lawyer, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.” (10:28). Note that Jesus does not say that, if the man loves God and neighbor, he will inherit eternal life (which was the original question),  just that he will live.  In the original language, this word is rich with meaning.[6]  So when Jesus says, “Do these things and you will live,” he is talking about a way of life in the present and the future – loving God and neighbor in how you live right now as well as in the life that is to come.  

“But who is my neighbor?” the lawyer asks.  Jesus answers with a story.  “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho,” he begins. (10:30)  In those days, just about everyone knew people who travelled between Jerusalem and Jericho, and vice versa.  Just so you know, the road between the two is around 20 miles, and is one long hill with Jerusalem at the top and Jericho at the bottom.  And, in those days (not unlike today) there were some desolate spots along the way.  So, when this traveler in the story is set upon by robbers, a lot of the hearers in Jesus’ company could probably imagine an exact spot or two where such a thing might happen.  

Now, until I reread the story in preparation for today, I had never really thought about the possibility that the robbers – in beating the man and stripping him – leave no external way for passers-by to identify him.  Sometimes, you can identify people by the clothes they wear – if they are in the “tribe” of blue collar, white collar, upper-crust, or maybe they’re wearing a certain t-shirt, or hat, or coat, or piece of jewelry that signifies their “tribe” – but it’s probably the case that there is nothing recognizable about this man on the roadside, except that he is a human being in need.

We should also note that Jesus criticizes the privileged religious people of his day in this story.  The priest and the Levite are people of influence, often well-respected in certain circles, but are also known to ignore the suffering of others in the name of religious purity or downright ignorance.  When John Calvin writes about this, he says that the religious people hearing Jesus tell this story definitely recognize themselves, here.[7]  Maybe you do, too.  I know I do. 

And then, there is this Samaritan who sees the injured man and, as the scriptures tell us, is “moved with pity” (10:33) for him.  In the original language, the Samaritan has a deep sense of empathy that he “feels in his gut”[8] – a feeling not shared by the priest and Levite.  In a surprising move, this Samaritan picks up the injured man, bandages his wounds, puts him on a donkey, takes him to a place where he can be cared for, and offers to pay good money for all the expenses.  Jesus introduces the Samaritan and turns this person from a lower caste and culture into the hero of the story.[9]  

Throughout the gospels, Jesus has a way of surprising his audience (including us) with great reversals – lifting up the lowly and bringing down the powerful in his storytelling and teaching.  The Parable of the Good Samaritan is yet another great example of this.  Jesus turns the tables, turning the story of a man who would have been considered a stranger – an outsider, a sinner, someone who is “not in our tribe” – into the exact kind of neighbor needed in the moment.  Even the lawyer cannot deny this, when Jesus asks him who the good neighbor is in the story.  “The neighbor is the one who shows mercy to the most vulnerable,” the lawyer says.  “Go, and do likewise,”[10] Jesus tells him. . . tells us.    

I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty good at being estranged – being a stranger – to people who aren’t in my tribe.  Maybe you can relate. . . “I just don’t understand that tribe over there,” we tell ourselves.  “They are a bunch of strangers to me, so why should I bother with them?”  And yet here is Jesus, reframing the concept of “tribe” – exploding our all-too-human suppositions on who belongs and who does not – expanding our self-made boundaries to make the circle wider through the gift of showing mercy.  When John Calvin writes about this, he says, 

. . . the chief design [of this parable] is to show that the neighborhood, which lays us under obligation to mutual offices of kindness, is not confined to friends or relatives, but extends to the whole human race.[11]

In other words, Jesus’ neighborhood – the village that Jesus calls the kingdom of God – is far larger than you and I might suppose, based on our own ways of thinking, believing, and moving in the world.  The boundaries and barriers of Jesus’ village – if you want to call it that – are defined by the mercy and grace of God.  Jesus does not say this, willy-nilly, though.  He comes by it honestly.  It’s part of his heritage.  In the same part of the Bible where the law says, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself” (Leviticus 19:18), it also says, 

When an alien [a foreigner, a stranger] resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien.  The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien – [the foreigner, the stranger] – as yourself, for you were [once] aliens in the land of Egypt. (Leviticus 19:33-34)

Jesus calls us to join in the hard, but blessed, work of building this village that is open to more than just “our tribe” of Presbyterians, or Americans, or Liberals, or Conservatives, or MAGA or Woke.  What if we sought to be the good neighbor instead of the self-selecting stranger?  What if, by the Spirits help, we became the neighbor that the world needs?  The good neighbor is identified by the over-and-above extravagant mercy that he offers – kind of like the over-and-above extravagant mercy and grace of Jesus, himself.  

You know, there are plenty in our world – from the priests and Levites to the powerful and power-hungry who do not choose mercy – and that’s on them and their all-tribe-no-village selves.  God will deal with them in God’s own way.  Jesus calls us to live in a different way – willing to be the despised outsider who surprises the world and upends expectations by showing mercy.  

But will we?  Will you?  Will I?  Will we change from “all tribe, no village” to “all village, all tribes” – to build a village where all tribes find home and welcome, where the stranger becomes a neighbor because we begin by being neighbors as Jesus defines it here?  

Friends. . . neighbors. . . we have some work to do. . .  May we go and do likewise. . .

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

[1] Suggested Reading from “Everything [in] Between” A Sanctified Art worship resources, based on Narrative Lectionary, Year 3.

[2] https://hiddentribes.us. 

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/opinion/politics-race-white-tribalism.html

[4] John T. Carroll, Luke: A Commentary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012) 244.

[5] Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18.

[6] Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979) 336.

[7] John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries – Vol. XVII, Harmony of Matthew, Mark, Luke; John 1-11 (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2009) 61.

[8] Walter Bauer, 763.

[9] John T. Carroll, 246.

[10] Luke 10:37 – Paraphrased, JHS.

[11] John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries – Vol. XVII, Harmony of Matthew, Mark, Luke; John 1-11 (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2009)  62.