Author: Rosemary Lovelace

Easter C – George Yandell

“Now I lay me down to sleep…..” How many of you recited that bed-time prayer as children?  I don’t know about you, but I never dwelt on “If I die before I wake, pray the Lord my soul to take.” Some say Jesus was praying a bedtime prayer on the cross, psalm 22- we’ve been reciting Psalm 22 on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, but we’ve left off the last stanzas, which are uplifting. They are vindication for the one praying the psalm, where God has forsaken him. Hear some of those stanzas:

“To God alone all who sleep in the earth bow down in worship; my soul shall live for God, my descendants shall serve God; they shall be known as the Lord’s forever. They shall come and make known to a people yet unborn the saving deeds that God has done.” If Jesus did pray those stanzas, he was doing much the same that many of us did- he was taking solace from familiar bedtime words. Almost foretelling that his ministry, his life would continue and thrive after his death.  And then, Easter morning: 

Resurrection!! Jesus rose from death before anyone else knew of it. He rose alone, long before dawn, on the first day of the week after Passover in 30 a.d. It was a new day, a new week, a new creation. God had raised him, not taking his soul, but re-creating Jesus, a new man.

The idea of resurrection was known first in the mind of God. The unfathomable, impenetrable mystery of the mind of the Lord of all creation- Resurrection first generated in God’s unknowable consciousness. The resurrection of Jesus occurred beyond our world, first. The bond of Father to Son, Son to Father, reknit itself after 3 days, and an eternity, of death. Then, flesh, holy flesh, lived; a new body, a new Self. Jesus stretched new sinews in the dark, cool tomb- and all the hosts of heaven simply shouted in victory!

What was the first action of Jesus on that Easter morning? We have a tiny, often overlooked clue- it is mentioned only in the gospel of John; but to me it is today’s symbol of the Son of Mary, the Son of God, risen in new, victorious life. The first thing Jesus did was to practice the ritual he’d learned as a child- he made his bed.///

John says, “Mary came to the tomb when it was still dark and saw that the stone had been removed. She ran and went to Simon Peter and said, “They have taken him out of the tomb and we do not know where they have laid him.” “Peter went right up to the tomb and went in.  He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself.” The small humeral cloth, carefully folded and placed, speaks to me– of simple rituals enacted by people everywhere– tiny gestures of order on first waking– the Son of God arose, removed his burial linens, and neatly folded the cloth of linen that had been placed so lovingly over his face. Placed by friends who were heartsick and horribly afraid. Jesus, with tender care, folded the cloth and placed it aside.

Then later in the morning at dawn, Mary Magdalene was again at the tomb. She found it open and vacant. She ran to tell the disciples, and they had come and found the cloths, and Jesus gone. Then Mary came back to the tomb, she stood at its entrance, weeping. When she looked in, two angels in white sat where Jesus had lain, and asked her “Why are you weeping?” She said through her tears, “They have taken my lord and I do not know where they have laid him.”

When she said this, she turned around and saw Jesus but did not recognize him.  Jesus asked her, “Why are you weeping?” -the same question the angels had asked- and she asked him, thinking he was the gardener, “Where have you taken him?” And Jesus simply said to her, “Mary.” And she was undone! 

Another very simple act- Jesus spoke lovingly, directly to the first human who knew him as the resurrected Jesus that morning- he spoke to end her tears, but I would guess they flowed over then- for simple unbelieving joy, not fear. These are simple morning actions- making one’s bed, quietly greeting the first friend you meet, concerned about their well-being- yet this was RESURRECTION!

We can’t know the way, the mechanisms God used to raise his Son from the dead. We hear that the familiar was still familiar to Jesus, but he himself was changed- not recognized immediately by those who loved him best. We don’t hear details we’d like to hear- about what Jesus experienced in death, about his private conversations with all the disciples. We have only glimpses, little vignettes, about Jesus. But we know why he was raised- to renew all creation- to raise us with him into the life with God we were created for, and redeemed into anew.  Easter is the giddiest, the wildest celebration the world has known. In the immensity of all space, all time, a dark earthy tomb held, and then could not hold, our Lord. Sing with the angels and remember- the impeccable care of Jesus folding his burial veil- that care is now lavished on you and me! 

Good Friday Year C – George Yandell

When I was a little boy in Mobile, my best friend Mikey lived next door. He was a year older than I. He had to lift me over the low fence when we went from his yard into mine. We played together nearly every day. On the other side of our house lived a girl who babysat for me. (I thought she was the most wonderful girl in the world.) Her father grew beautiful daylilies in his front yard. There were 100’s of them, many different colors. One day in the spring, Mikey suggested we pick a few of the daylilies. So we did. And we picked some more. And we picked more and more until we had picked every daylily in Mr. Hodges’s front yard. They were lying all over the ground. I knew we had done something bad. Mikey said not to worry, that no one would ever know how it happened. 

Mr. Hodges came home from work and knocked on our front door. Mikey was there, playing with me in our back yard. When Mr. Hodges told my mother about his flowers, she was real upset. As I remember it, she brought Mr. Hodges into the back yard, and said, “Boys, Mr. Hodges has something he’d like to ask you.” I remember freezing up and being afraid. Mr. Hodges asked whether we knew anything about his flowers. Mikey piped up, “No, George and I have been playing back here all day.” I couldn’t bear the look in my mother’s eye, and the frown on Mr. Hodges’ face. I blurted out, “Mikey and I picked them! We’re sorry.” My mother me told later I started to bawl uncontrollably. Mr. Hodges burst out laughing and said, “Well, Honest George! It’s okay about the flowers. Thank you for telling me the truth. Maybe you boys can help me clean up the flowers and put them in bunches to give to your mothers.” And I remember being so relieved. I wish I could say I never was party to any lies since then. ‘Honest George’ is a name that has haunted me more than giving me pride. I’ve found it an impossible name to live up to.

Most lies are like that. Lies speak falsehood at one level, but truth at another. Mikey was right in part- we had been playing most of the day in the back yard. The one story, spoken with words, is the excuse, the cover, a tale that probably has some accuracy to it but not 100%; the other, spoken in feelings, is the truth.

It carries the unspoken (or understated) need for understanding and forgiveness. It is the job of parents and teachers and friends to sort through the tales of our children. To separate the levels of the story, to glean facts from fiction, and to decide which deserves the closest hearing. We have a responsibility to help others learn the value of truth over falsehood, like Mr. Hodges did.

In my experience, this is usually the way such lies go: the words say one thing, the emotional message says another. It’s like the person who says, “I am fine,” and then starts to weep. Some lies, however, are entirely deception. The words are false, the emotions are false, everything about the message is false. Maybe the liar is clever enough to harness both word and feeling to the task of deception, like the tele-marketers who surround their twisted tales with well-scripted interest in my welfare.

The passion of Jesus began with the telling of lies. The religious establishment brought Jesus before the Roman governor and made two accusations: that Jesus had argued against paying taxes to Rome, and that he had publicly declared himself Messiah. In fact, Jesus had done no such things.  But the chief priests and the temple rulers were right about this- Jesus undermined their established domination of religious and social life in Judea. And that’s what motivated them to turn him in.

What we might miss is the incredible hubbub that surrounded the Passover in Jerusalem. The normal population of @ 40,000 residents swelled to over 100,000. The Roman governor each year dispatched a much larger contingent of soldiers to keep the peace- in the years prior to Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion, there had often been public acts by rabbis and others to disrupt the proceedings and protest Roman policies that were robbing the Judeans of their livelihoods. And to add injury to insult, after paying the temple tax a month prior to Passover (to subsidize the festival and the slaughter of all the lambs) whenever the Roman garrison was increased, the citizens had to pay an extra tax to house and supply all the additional soldiers.

It is very important for us to realize that when the gospel of John speaks of “The Jews”, it does not mean the whole Jewish people.  It means those Jewish leaders who collaborated with the King of Judea and the Roman occupation. (The gospel translation we use today is redacted from the National Conference of Christians and Jews which clarifies John’s sweeping term.) More than that, most of the mentions of “The Jews” in John’s passion story mean “The Judeans”, the Jews who lived in or near Jerusalem. The Judean police would have been a kind of militia organized to help the temple rulers keep order, especially during the holy days. The religious rulers referred to, Annas, Caiaphas, and others, were in cahoots with the Roman governors, so their leadership role in bringing Jesus to trial was probably only to support what the Romans were doing. And key among the Romans was Pilate.

Pilate needed to sort out truth and falsehood, to separate minute and hour, to discern whether anything about these accusations was true. He saw immediately that the factual charges against Jesus were lies. What about their conveyance: emotions of fear and loathing, a simpering desire to flatter, the obvious self-serving of small men determined to protect privilege? Was there truth in them?

True believers can be a frightening force. They will stop at nothing to get their way. The normal restraints of society are no barrier. They cannot be argued into sense, for they take their lies to be truth. The demonic forces we have seen in our time are rarely wild-eyed. Their eyes are dead, their mouths set in smiles, their words calm and rational. Jesus was powerless against “people of the lie,” as author Scott Peck called them. He could not teach them or heal them. Their evil spirits were buried too deep. Jesus fell silent before such liars.

Pilate gets history’s blame as villain. But Pilate was just doing his job. For him, the arrest of Jesus followed actions not reported in John’s gospel. He probably needed nothing from the temple rulers except their recognition as the decision-maker. 

More than likely, these were the reasons Jesus was arrested:

• gathering followers who were of the lowest reaches of society and charging them to live new lives of justice and love;
• teaching with incendiary rhetoric about the coming new kingdom;
• prophesying about tearing down the temple;
• upsetting the tables of the temple money changers;
• and bringing together a large, jubilant crowd at his entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.

When the gospel of John talks about the crowds shouting, it is probably a literary device of the gospel writer, because the Roman soldiers kept gatherings of the pilgrims in strict order.  Because of the uprisings during Passover in years prior, any outbursts could be met with immediate imprisonment, maybe even crucifixion. Most probably, that’s why Jesus himself was arrested and executed- he threatened the order of government.

So the so-called mob who shouted down Pilate had three small components. First were the chief priests – the religious establishment, custodians of old answers, men who had waited their turn and now had power- upright men, respected men. They had been Messiah’s target from the beginning, because they stood between God and God’s people. Second were the leaders – not named, but apparently those who had worked or wormed their way to whatever positions of authority were available in Rome’s domain. Jesus threatened their perch.

Third were the people. Were these the same people who had welcomed Jesus to Jerusalem as a hero just days before? Were these the people who had heard him teach and taken his bread? Or had those people stepped aside and allowed a new group to form?  That, I think, is the perplexing and terrifying question, that third group, “the people.” Who were they? What switch turned? What was the mentality that led some to shout, “Crucify him!?” If so, the answer to evil might simply be crowd control. But it was more.

“The people” clutched close the little power they had. In the patronage system of the Roman Empire, if one lost position or patrons, one lost honor. One could lose a settled order, a predictable future. The people prayed that an aloof God would not intrude on their lives. They valued the safety of an unquestioned equilibrium, an equilibrium Jesus threatened.

Christians typically want to connect with the cross. But we need first to connect with the people who called out to crucify Jesus, and to ask, Why? Why did God’s own son die such a horrible death? Why was he tortured, mocked, spit on, and dragged through the streets with his cross on his back? Why was he nailed through his wrists and ankles, gasping in unbelievable pain? Why did he bleed and suffocate in three hours, giving up his spirit? Why did God allow him to suffer and die? Don’t you just know – when he was betrayed his heart must have been jumping out of his chest with fear. He knew then there was no going back, no redemption; death was close. The gruesome end was guaranteed. Why? Because of the normal way empires work. Because those who set Jesus up in Jerusalem that day wanted to keep their positions of authority safe. 

We were there when they crucified our Lord. We watched the ones who gawked, spat and nailed him to the hard wood of the cross. In our quiet acceptance of the brutality of empire, in our lack of compassion for those Jesus cares for, we guaranteed his death. Today, Jesus dies from the sins of humanity. His horrifying pain, his blood poured out, is what humans at their worst do to one another.  Today, this group is subdued by death. It is what we deserve, yet what Jesus would never allow us to deserve. Jesus dies because his vision of heaven collides with the practices of worldly powers. The ways of Jesus and his followers always offer an alternative to defeat and domination. But on this day, we remember that all Jesus had taught, all the healing, all the love he lavished on those without hope, it all died with him.  

Maundy Thursday – George Yandell

I’d like to offer a distinction, tiny in some ways, earth-shaking in others. The distinction comes from comments Marcus Borg made on the pilgrimage to Turkey that I took in 2006 with 40 other pilgrims. What would it be like for us instead of saying “We have faith in Jesus,” to say “We have the faith of Jesus?” Do you hear the fine distinction? To claim the faith of Jesus makes me, for one, sit up, take notice, and feel woefully inadequate. On this holy night, the faith of Jesus drives him to offer the most poignant goodbye in religious history.

In every thing he did, Jesus disclosed the character of God. Having the faith Jesus himself had in God means we have the passion for doing God’s will, as Jesus did. It means having the confidence in God that Jesus demonstrated the night before he was cruelly tortured and murdered by the Roman Empire. It means we participate in the passion for justice Jesus lived each hour of his ministry. For us it implies the same loyalty to God that Jesus lived up to the moment of his death.

There are many overlays in our remembering the last night before Jesus’ crucifixion. First, there was the foot washing. Peter balked, as we heard, at having his feet washed by Jesus. Peter thought it was too embarrassing, too demeaning for Jesus to do so. But as he washed the feet of his closest friends, Jesus symbolized the whole of his message and ministry- THIS is what it means to do God’s will, this is what it means to have faith in God like God’s own Son. The new commandment says in words what Jesus acted out in the foot washing- “Love one another as I have loved you.” Live the love God intends.

Jesus planned well the Passover meal the disciples shared with him. It continued and culminated the common, open meal-sharing Jesus practiced with undesirables and marginalized people. The religious significance of the open table fellowship meant inclusion in a society with sharp social boundaries in name of God. Its political significance affirmed a very different, countercultural vision of society. (Some of this borrowed from The Last Week by Borg and Crossan.)

The body and blood of Jesus in bread and wine of the Last Supper echoed the first Passover lamb as the Jews fled Pharaoh and the Egyptian empire, with clear connection to Jesus’ impending death. It is possible that Jesus said the words linking his body and blood to the bread and wine many times at common meals before Maundy Thursday. (From Rabbi Jesus by Bruce Chilton) Why would he have done this? In his radical table fellowship, it would have been a prophetic overlay to the meal; it may have been an in-your-face action against the Jewish temple leaders collaborating with Roman authorities. It made rabbi Jesus a target not only of the Empire, but of those Jewish leaders who’d sold out their own people. But on this evening, the poignancy must have overwhelmed him. If you’re like me, Maundy Thursday hits hard every year. I really can’t imagine the pathos in Jesus’ heart, nor the reactions of his disciples when they heard him say, “This is my Body, this is my blood poured out for you.” Jesus summed up his passion, confidence, participation and loyalty in and to God in his last love-feast with his friends. Now it falls to us to continue the disciples’ tradition: Come to the table, share the love of God Jesus lived. It is by living the faith ofJesus that his followers were to pass through death to resurrection with Him. And so it us for us followers tonight. Have the faith of Jesus- we’re the ones on whom Jesus depends to live the love God intends for all of God’s children.

Palm Sunday – George Yandell

This day in our calendar is Palm Sunday / the Sunday of the Lord’s Passion. It moves from pageantry to horror. Our palm procession mirrors the excitement in Jerusalem 1,992 years ago. Jesus was entering the great city, the crowd was chanting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” His disciples were giddy, I imagine. Then so quickly the joy turns to sadness on Maundy Thursday, then disbelief and horror on Good Friday. 

None of my feelings or thoughts pondering the events of Holy Week comes remotely close to what Simon of Cyrene experienced on the day he ventured into Jerusalem and suddenly found himself carrying a condemned man’s instrument of death. But they are similar, in that reality has intruded on the joy of palms and hosannas, and somewhere in that reality Jesus is going on to die.

We moderns feel helpless about the coarsening of our world. We endure it, we try small survival strategies, we wish for better, but in the end we lock our doors and hope that the angel of death passes by.

Jesus is just as helpless today as we are. The Christian era has witnessed humanity’s worst barbarism – entire populations slaughtered, peoples enslaved, compulsory ignorance made public policy. Lies have been treated as clever, thievery as necessary and cruelty as manly. Much of that barbarism has been done in the name of Jesus, as if he were an angry volcano-god demanding human sacrifices.

All that Jesus has ever been able to do is walk to Calvary. He cannot wave a wand and make history disappear and human choices become benign. He can only walk on to die and hope that we will see him, weep for him, weep for ourselves, and for at least a heartbeat allow ourselves to carry his cross and to know that this cross is the answer, not lock or gun or hatred or bitter nostalgia.

We ache for our children, our country, our friends who struggle, and in all of that, we ache for ourselves. Love is an aching. Love might be patient and kind, a brave tulip on a spring day, but love also hurts…

Love goes to the home of a friend and discovers that the friend has died. Love stands before his tomb and weeps. Love feels that helpless pain that springtime and blossoms bring to the surface. Love stands outside the child’s door and weeps, or outside the hospital room and weeps. Love walks and touches, and knows the pain of absence. Love knows hope, and hope dares to see death.

And we, at our best, walk behind love, carrying his death. By the time love cries out in agony, we might be standing nearby or continuing onward. Either way, we are changed and made less numb. We know through his death that Jesus loves everyone, all people equally, even his tormentors and those who betrayed him.

We’re next going to pray a song, to know that love and live in it: “My song is love unknown, my savior’s love to me, love to the loveless shone that they might lovely be. O who am I that for my sake, my Lord should take frail flesh and die?” We enter the passion of Jesus together, so that we might be renewed in the only love that endures even death- the love of God for us.

Lent 5C – Byron Tindall

Matthew and Mark record an incident in Jesus’s life similar to what we read in John’s gospel today. Both of the synoptics have the event taking place at the house of Simon the leper, also a resident of Bethany, rather than at the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.

Matthew and Mark have an unnamed woman pour the ointment over Jesus’s head rather than on his feet. Both Mark and John said the anointing oil was made of nard.

Matthew, Mark, and John are not in agreement about who complained about the perceived costly waste of money by either Mary or the unknown woman.

For Matthew, it was the disciples. Mark reports, “But some who were there said to one another in anger, ‘Why was the ointment wasted in this way?’” In John’s gospel, it was Judas Iscariot who raised the possibility of selling the nard. The complainers in Matthew said it could have been sold for a large sum of money. Mark valued the ointment at more than 300 denarii while John reported the cost that could have been obtained by selling it at exactly 300 denarii. The denarius was the usual wage per day for a laborer. Any way you look at it, that would have a tidy sum of money for the poorer residents of Palestine at that time.

John has Martha in her apparent usual place — that of preparing the meal and serving it.

For those who are curious, true nard is a flowering plant akin to honeysuckle. It’s found in the Himalayan sections of China, India, and Nepal. There are, apparently, other closely related species which have been known to be substituted for the more expensive nard found in the Himalayan mountains.

All three of the evangelists have the anointing take place shortly before Passover and Jesus’s final meal with his disciples. For them, this was the end of his public ministry just prior to his death.

I have to say it. There are a lot of people who echo Judas Iscariot’s statement today. Think about it. How many times have you heard someone say something to the effect that if the church took all the money spent on constructing magnificent buildings and equipping them with the finest musical instruments available while adorning the walls with almost priceless trappings, the problem of world hunger could be nearly, if not completely, eliminated.

And when you give it serious thought, there’s a lot more than a grain of truth in that statement. There’s so much truth in the statement, actually, that Hollywood made a movie out of it.

“The Shoes of the Fisherman,” starring Anthony Quinn, was produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1968. Morris West, an Australian novelist, wrote a novel with the same name in 1963. The movie was based on West’s novel.

Briefly, after being elected to the papacy, the new pope decides to sell all the church’s property in order to feed the Chinese people and avert a world war. Needless to say, the decision did not meet with enthusiastic approval from all quarters. If you haven’t seen it, I’m sure the movie is still available from one of the many streaming services.

There’s an extremely fine line between being overly extravagant on how much we spend on our worship spaces and doing it right and for the right reasons.

First of all, why do we spend so much in building such splendid edifices in the first place?

Our so-called bricks and sticks buildings are supposed to be erected to the glory of God and as houses of worship, not as elegant showcases of how much money we have or how much we can raise.

The organs that have been installed throughout the ages are to be used in helping us praise our creator and redeemer, not just as an instrument in a recital hall.

The stained-glass windows built into the old churches were there for a purpose. The vast majority of the people in the building on any given day were illiterate. The events depicted in the windows referred to stories in the scriptures. These pictures were instructive to those who viewed them.

And I can’t recall ever seeing a plaque near a window that didn’t say, basically, “Given to the Glory of God and in loving memory of… or in honor of….”

I remember a saying about putting on your Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes. These were the nicest duds one had available. Why were one’s best outfits reserved for church attendance or for an important meeting? I think a major portion of the reason was out of respect. Respect for the God who created us, the God who redeemed us and the God who sanctifies us and out of respect for those with whom we were to meet.

Can we worship God in a triple-wide trailer as well as in a beautiful building like we’re in here at Holy Family? Can we worship God in shorts and flip-flops as well as in a coat and tie or a dress? Of course we can! But somehow, I get the feeling that I need to offer God the very best I can. Our creator endowed us with a beautiful planet on which we live and move and have our being so why should we offer him anything less than our best?

But this is only one part of our relationship with God, and it may very well be the easiest part to grasp and to accomplish.

Jesus referenced the other part of our relationship with our heavenly father when he said, “…You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

During his earthly ministry, Jesus cast his lot with the outcasts of society. He seemed to favor the poor, the sinners, the lame, the sick, and even on occasion, the dreaded Gentiles.

The rest of our relationship with God rests on the way we treat the other parts of creation. How do we care for the environment? How do we treat our fellow human beings, especially those with whom we differ politically; those who don’t look like us; those who don’t speak like us; the poor; the sick; the lonely; the widow and the orphan; those who don’t worship like us; those who don’t believe like us? I think you get the picture.

When we spend lavishly on our buildings and everything that goes along with them and forget the rest of God’s creation, we totally miss the mark of what it means to love God and follow Jesus. Jesus said that whatever we do to the least of our brothers and sisters, we do to him. Do we give him our dead level best?

Lent IV: “Laerte” – Ted Hackett

Today is the Fourth Sunday in Lent,
Since Lent has five Sundays then add Holy Week, and this is about half-way through the season of penitence.  

Today has a number of names…Mid-Lent, Refreshment Sunday, Mothering Sunday and Laerte Sunday…  

“Mothering Sunday” because Monastic Lenten austerity was given some relief and mothers would bring cakes to their monk sons. This developed into the custom of visiting the local Cathedral on this day…the cathedral clergy were “canons” under Monastic obedience.  

The name ‘Laerte” comes from the first words of the old Roman Mass “Entrance Song”: “Laerte Ierusalem”… “Rejoice Jerusalem and gather ‘round all you who love her…”  

And it led to the custom of “lightening up” the somber vestment colors of Lent…some parishes use Rose instead of purple today.  

O.K….that’s the Liturgical Factoid lesson for today!  

Let’s talk about the Gospel.  

I have been conversing with the “Parable of the Prodigal Son” for around 50 years…  

It was part of my Ph. D. Dissertation and I have been fascinated and confused by it ever since…  

I am still trying to make sense out of the realism and insight of the story on one hand…  

And the bizarre, jolting backbone of the thing on the other.  

I still am not sure what to do with it!  

Why?  

Well, let’s go back to the story and see.  

There is an elderly Palestinian who owns a family farm.       
He has two sons…    
       The elder is responsible and hard-working.
                 The younger…his father’s favorite…  
                         Not so much.  
In those days, small farmers were coming under enormous pressure from what we would call Agri-Business…  

Big, rich companies that bought up failing family farms and because they could hire lots of cheap labor, were making big money.  

The law said that each child had a part of their family fortune when the father died.
                      
If there were two boys, the elder got 2/3s and the younger 1/3.  

After they were divided like this for a few generations the farm was so small that it usually went bankrupt and was sold.

So farmers tried to keep the farm intact  

Maybe by keeping the boys close to home, sharing the farm.  

O.K…..now, one day the younger son goes to his father and says: “Father…give me my share of the farm now.”

The father doesn’t have to do this…  

He could say: “Wait till I die, maybe you will come to your senses.”  
But he doesn’t…this is his Golden Child.  

So the kid goes to the bank and sells his 1/3 of the farm.  

To literally “seal the deal”, he gives the banker his family signet ring which proves he is a land-holder. It’s the ring he uses to stamp all business documents.  

The banker makes him sign and seal a quit-claim deed so when the father dies the bank will get the land.  

And he leaves…
With the money, and Without the ring.  

He goes off to the city…and burns through the money pretty fast…     Fancy clothes, good wine and fancy women…. cost!        

Now he is penniless and homeless, what is he to do?  

Well….he goes and gets the only job he can find…herding pigs!

                    A nice Jewish boy….living with pigs!!!
                        And to make it worse…eating pig-food!                                  

So, in his hunger and shame, he says to himself: “Back home, everyone has a warm bed and food. Maybe my father will hire me on as a farm-hand.”  

Now please note…this is not repentance.  

There is no sign that he “gets” what he has done and the injury it is causing…no sense of his father’s pain. No sense of responsibility or guilt.  

For centuries the Church has used this story in Lent to urge repentance but this is not repentance!
                    This is pure, selfish, self-interest.  

So he hits the road back home…dirty and tattered…

      And smelling of pigs!  

Apparently his father has been spending a lot of time on the front porch looking up the road, waiting for this kid to come back, because he spies him at a great distance…and then…  

With his burnoose flopping in the breeze in an undignified manner, this elderly Jew runs…he runs to meet his son!   

And when he gets there, the son starts his well-rehearsed plea for a job and the father cuts him off.

He says to the amazed slave who has followed the father out: “Quickly, bring the best robe and put it on him…put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet! And get the fatted calf and we’ll have a feast! For this son of mine was dead and is alive, was lost and is found!”  

Please note… “put a ring on his finger…”  

Back then, Jews wore very little jewelry except for signet rings if they owned property. This means the kid owns property again.

And if the father is endowing him with property…
             Where could it come from?  

Of course….only from the elder brother’s share!

                            Oh….and where is the elder brother?

Naturally, he is out in the field…working.  

He comes back to the house and in the yard he hears sounds of the feast…. he asks a slave what is going on…              

The slave tells him the whole story…                     

And the guy is furious…  

Not only is the kid getting a banquet without even saying he is sorry… But his father has given the kid his brother’s inheritance!      

Who wouldn’t be furious?  

He won’t go in and celebrate this unfair event…
      The father comes out to plead…
             The elder gives him an earful!  

“All these years I have slaved faithfully and you have never thrown even a small feast for me. But this brat of yours, who has wasted the family property…him you treat like a king!”  

The father wants to assure him…
      “Son…You are always with me…and all that is mine is yours…but it is right we should do this because your brother was dead and has come to life.”  

Did you hear that?
      “All that is mine is yours”
             What is that ring doing on his finger?
                    He sold his property…  

If he has property it must have come from my inheritance…So what’s this “all I have is yours” stuff…You must be lying to one of us!  
By every human standard…this is unfair…
      By every way we can calculate…
             this is actually impossible…  

You can’t get three pieces of pie out of two pieces…  

I don’t get it…  

I do, I think, get part of it…  

The father….who we naturally associate with God,
             Gives the kid what he asks for…  

He trusts him, even if at some level he knows he is irresponsible…

                           And then he leaves…
                                 Leaves the love of the father…

                                         The father grieves…

                                                His son …of his body…  

Seems not to love him      

Has turned away from him…  

And the Father grieves but cannot force him to return.  

So the father waits…watching every day to see if his son will come home…
             He waits and watches and yearns…
                    And when he sees the kid…
                          Dirty and smelling of Pigs…
                                 He runs to greet him…  

A love and joy all out of proportion!  

One thing the parable is saying is “that is how God is”
      Letting us go to do what we will…
           But loving us and yearning for us while we sin,

                     While we turn away…  

I have trouble getting my head around that kind of love…but I can sort of get it…and be in wonder and awe that God could so love and want even me!  

But the other thing…
      about the share of property…
             Makes no sense…
                    I admit it kind of delights my heart…
                          It comes out wonderfully…
                                 An ending worthy of Disney…

                                      Everyone gets what they want

                                               Including the selfish kid.  

I wonder…
      Could I be on to something..
              Something strange and weird?
                    In the kingdom of God…
                          
Everyone is accepted no matter their Sinfulness…their insensitivity…their selfishness…their sin?  

That runs against my sense of justice…but then…I don’t make the rules.  

Years ago, the great theologian Paul Tillich preached a sermon which finished:
      “Now, know you are accepted…
      If you know nothing else…know you are accepted.
      Nothing more is asked of you…just know you are accepted.       

Later, much may be asked of you…
      But for now….just know that you are accepted.”
             Words for Lent!

Lent 3C – George Yandell
I want to talk about changing hearts and community. It all starts in the passage from Exodus- God speaks to Moses from the burning bush. God recounts to Moses who God is in the lineage of those who preceded Moses. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob all encountered God, but Moses’ encounter was personal, direct and terrifying. God gives Moses his marching orders, to rescue God’s people from Egypt. And Moses says, timidly, terrified, I think, “When I tell the Israelites you sent me, and they ask, ‘What is the name of the one who sent you, what shall I tell them?’ God said to Moses, in a voice like the Wizard of Oz in capital letters, “I AM WHO I AM. Tell them I AM has sent you to them.” The name I AM in Hebrew comes out as ‘Yahweh,’ a verb. That moment changed the course of Hebrew history, and one can argue, the course of salvation for humankind. The gospels tell us Jesus is descended from Moses, sent to rescue God’s people forever and for good.  

The gospel story of the fig tree follows grim pronouncements from Jesus. Galileans whose blood Pontius Pilate mingled with their sacrifices, the 18 killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them. “Unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did. Don’t think you’re any better– Repent or perish!” says Jesus. Luke has Jesus warning about a ruthless God, which is unlike Jesus in the other portions of the gospels.  

I have a hard time connecting the warnings of Jesus to the parable about the fig tree. The obvious connection is that Jesus seems to compare his unrepentant hearers to a fig tree that produces no fruit and is threatened with being cut down. But that doesn’t seem to explain things.  

Paul tells the followers of Jesus in Corinth that God was not pleased with many of Moses’ people, and struck them down in the wilderness, about 23,000 people falling dead in a single day. And about some who put Christ to the test and were destroyed by serpents. The key for getting behind Paul’s exhortation is realizing how often he uses the words “destroy” and “testing.” Paul says the dire events happened to others as examples to the followers of Jesus. It’s like Jesus and Paul’s teachings are stringing people along like they were yo-yos- up and down, up and down.    

‘Testing’ can also mean ‘being tempted.’ The difference for Paul is that he always means the whole community of Christians is being tested, not individuals. Testing from God aims for the whole community to be built up, the heart of the community changing as we help our fellows when we lag or falter. Only by supporting one another and relying on God’s faithfulness can the body of Christ be built up. Combining the dire warnings from Jesus and Paul, it sounds like God plays with God’s people like a yo-yo. There’s another understanding: It’s about the fig tree.  

I heard a story sixteen years ago from the archeologist on a pilgrimage to study Paul in Turkey at the sites where Paul was active. It was led by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan. A life-changing time for me. Haluk the pilgrimage archeologist told us something only folks from the Middle East would know- he said, “If you want to play a bad joke on your neighbor, go at night into his garden and plant a fig tree. It will take over everything, and when you try to cut it down, it just grows back more prolifically. You can never rid your garden of the fig tree- it grows everywhere!” Immediately it changed my thinking about the parable.   

Now do you hear a different meaning from Jesus? His hearers would have laughed and laughed at the vineyard owner- they identified with the tree. They knew that even if the gardener had cut it down, it would spring right back up. Jesus is telling a joke, putting an end to the threats with a moment of relief in the fig tree parable. The joke means to disarm and reassure his followers- even if dire things happen, you will rise above them. You can’t be suppressed. Add in Paul’s perspective: even when the community of followers is being stressed and tested, God provides the way up together, and the community thrives as a result.  

What we need to hear over and over, is that the followers of Jesus had already engaged the kingdom of God. They knew the humor and compassion of Jesus were leading them into the heart of God. In all Jesus and Paul did they turned peoples’ hearts anew to God, leading them into the joy of God’s kingdom now. They preached it could only happen as a community. Changing hearts happens together- I rely on you, you rely on me, the fig tree flourishes, and it is us. No yo-yos here, just a string of tests for us that yields the kingdom.

Lent 2 – George Yandell

In 1984, I ran a 10 K race with Jim Ryan. How many of you know who Jim Ryan is? First man to run a mile in under 4 minutes. He was the hero of my generation in distance running. Jim Ryan had come to Nashville to promote the Music City 10-K; the charity was one of his favorites. When I say I ran a race with him, what I really mean is I ran in the same race as Jim Ryan. Mine I ran in 56 minutes, not too bad for an overweight guy. He ran his race in under 28 minutes, and did not win; but when he finished, he ran back along the race route, giving encouragement to those of us struggling to finish under 1 hour.

Running has never been easy for me, but I kept at it almost all my adult life until about 9 years ago. I realized early on when training for my first marathon in 1990, that runners come in all sorts and conditions. The fleet ones who run near the head of the pack in every competition just amaze me. How can they go that fast for that long? And then there are those of us who run more slowly, who don’t have that naturally fluid style. They struggle, yet keep at it. An 80-year-old man ran in the Memphis marathon of 1990; he finished behind me, but not by much. A marine corps unit had run the entire race with him, encouraging him, helping him through the hardest last miles. I learned early on as I trained at longer and longer distances that I appreciated anyone who decides to get out and “just do it”, as Nike promoted. I still feel kinship with anyone I see, running along the road. Since I no longer do so, it’s a wistful feeling. 

Jesus says in the gospel, “On the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.” When Christians in American today read this passage, they come up with widely varying interpretations of its meaning. Often our brothers and sisters in Christ emphasize the part- “finish my work.” Others emphasize “it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.”

They suggest that Jesus meant to tell his original hearers, and us through them, that Jesus knew he was walking to his death. He had to confront the authorities. Others suggest that salvation necessitated his willing sacrifice.  Some of us play down the whole salvation thing, because God doesn’t desire anyone be sacrificed. We believe salvation has already been settled by the death and resurrection of Jesus.

This is much the way the early Christians wrestled with the salvation question. And more often than not, those who would impose restrictions on entry into salvation life won the day. Is God really like that? Is the messianic age nothing more than new rules for an old game? A new elite supplanting an old elite, but the same reality: an elusive prize chased by many and won by few? “When the roll is called up yonder,” will the winner’s list be short?

The Christian era has proceeded along those lines. Unable to imagine that God truly was doing a new thing in Jesus, the early disciples fell back into the old hierarchies. They tightened up the membership requirements that Jesus had relaxed. They changed other rules, ousted the old players, installed themselves as God’s new chosen, and continued the familiar rituals of demanding and dispensing favors for salvation.

Jesus wanted something entirely different. When asked about score, he responded “strive.” Trying is what matters, not winning. In God’s kingdom, the last can become first, outcasts can draw near, the ancient hierarchies do not apply, grace is freely dispensed, and the skills that lead to worldly success do not count for anything special.

If the door to salvation is “narrow,” it is not because God loves only a few or because God demands perfection. It is narrow because it requires difficult choices. Anyone can make those choices.

So first of all, what is salvation, really? Frederick Buechner writes: “Salvation is an experience first and a doctrine second. Doing the work you’re best at doing and like to do best, seeing something very beautiful, weeping at somebody else’s tragedy– all these experiences are salvation because in them all two things happen: 1) You lose yourself, and, 2) you find you are more fully yourself than usual. You give up your old self-seeking self for somebody you love and thereby become yourself at last. You must die with Christ so you can be raised with him, Paul says. You do not love God and live for God so you will go to heaven. Whichever side of the grave you happen to be talking about, to love God and live for God is heaven. It is a gift, not an achievement.”

So then, what are the difficult choices that open salvation for us and for all? 

1) We choose to run the race, doing the necessary training, keeping the central goal always before us. The goal: to love God, and love others as oneself.

2) We choose to be companions with all God places beside us on the way. We stay with and support those who may run more slowly, because the race is in the running, not the winning.

3) We strive to stay the course. We all fall down, we all falter. When the way gets rough and you feel left behind, ask for help, confess your shortcomings, accept God’s forgiveness, and get back in the pack.

4)We stretch our limits. Test new ways of praying, of caring, of being Christ to all you meet.

5) We choose to pause along the way and refresh ourselves. Moments of grace often come when we look back and realize how far we’ve come together.  What we find is that we’ve been living in God’s domain without knowing it. We can’t claim credit, since it is God’s gift. In the striving is the winning. In the hand we give to those who need, we feel God’s own touch. That’s salvation. Thank you, Jim Ryan, for coming back along the race route to encourage us. 

Lent 1 C          George Yandell        

Did you hear the parallels? One trek in the wilderness is ending, another just beginning. In Deuteronomy, the Hebrew people are concluding their 40 years in the wilds, and Jesus is just beginning his wilderness sojourn. Moses is giving his final instructions to the people of God before they enter the promised land.  They have finally reached their destination.  Jesus was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for 40 days he was tempted by the devil. He was just beginning his ministry.  

In his book The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality (Oxford University Press, 1998), Belden Laneoffers an understanding of wilderness I never heard before. He says, “Yahweh is a God who repeatedly leads the children of Israel into the desert, toward the mountain…. The God of Sinai is one who thrives on fierce landscapes, seemingly forcing God’s people into wild [places] where trust must be absolute.” (p. 43) 

Instead of leading the people of Israel out of Egypt along the easier, more direct coastal route to the land of the Philistines, they had been pointed toward a longer route, more deeply into the desert, toward Mt. Sinai.  God intentionally opted for the more difficult landscape, as if this was God’s usual preference. God’s people were deliberately forced into the desert, taking the harder, more hazardous route as an exercise in radical faith.  (ibid, adapted, p. 44) “Perhaps others can go around the desert on the simpler route toward home, but the way of God’s people is always through it.” (ibid)  

Luke’s gospel tells of Jesus “being led” into the wilderness by God’s Spirit.  Luke bases his account on Mark’s gospel.  Mark uses a tougher descriptor- it tells of Jesus being “driven” into the desert, a harsher word.  It has the sense of Jesus being roughly thrown or violently propelled.  Jesus, like all of Israel before him, is forced to take the hard way, going directly from his baptism into the wilderness of temptation… The Son of God, still wet from the waters of the Jordan, impelled into the wilds, is [already] going to his death, headed already toward the cross. Yet Jesus finds renewal and comfort in subsequent ventures into the mountains and desert places. It leads to miraculous nourishment and hope.  _(ibid)

Jesus resists all the devil’s temptations- Luke’s passage ends with the words, “When the devil had finished every test, he departed from [Jesus] until an opportune time.”

After those 40 days, Jesus continued to seek the wilderness throughout his ministry.  As often as he retreated to the desert, seeking some quiet away from the crowds, people followed him.  They were curious, captivated, drawn to the edge of their experience.  It is in desert places that thousands were fed, and new community took form.  In the presence of Jesus, the desert created a sharing and openness that would be repudiated by the authorities.  They shunned the openness of contact and fellowship that characterized the Jesus movement.  The place of scarcity, even death, Jesus revealed as a place of hope and new life. (ibid, adapted pp. 44-45) The desert bloomed with Jesus.  

I suspect you know where I’m going with this.  Lent beckons us to explore the wilderness of the soul. It’s a time when we can confront what tempts us away from being centered in Christ.  We are offered a renewed sense of orientation.  It’s like finding true north after being disoriented.  Where better to encounter Jesus than in the challenging landscape of doubt, uncertainty, temptations.  He has been there before us. 

Walking through those tough passages opens us to mystical encounters with the cosmic Christ.  He is in the still and the quiet, waiting to nourish us.  He is with us in our hardships and frustrations. The tough landscapes of our past and future open us to honest, challenging relationships with God and one another. Jesus has bonded us as body of fellows. He keeps company with all who undertake his desert path. His trust in us is absolute. He invites us in turn trust him absolutely.  That trust yields transformed people, transformed fellowship of sharing and openness. Transformed more and more into the beings God created us to be. 

As Paul puts it in the epistle to the Romans, there are no distinctions in the company of Jesus.  “Jesus is Lord of all and is generous to those who call on him.”  

Epiphany 7C – George Yandell

“Who are your enemies?” I’ve been asking this question of people close to me this week. None of them reports having anyone s/he regards as an enemy. Thus I conclude we miss the point of what Jesus says- “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return.” I want to talk about enemy, balance, and more. I want to show you what’s at stake when we miss the point Jesus makes. 

These enemy/hatred sayings are the very core of the gospel Jesus taught. The Greek word ‘enemy’ comes from a root meaning “to hate.” It’s hard for us to admit hating anyone. Except maybe the driver who cuts us off, the politician who rubs us the wrong way, the drug dealer who sells to those who are addicted. But if we hear these sayings the way Jesus said them, then it’s not so hard to figure. My enemy is anyone who hates me. Anyone who hates me is the enemy. Jesus enjoins me to love that one. Love and pray earnestly for anyone who curses me, anyone who insults me, uses me spitefully. 

What possible benefit can there be for me in loving those who wish me ill? It’s not for a reward, although the gospel led the Beatles to sing, “In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.” Jesus clearly says, “Do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return.” So there’s some deeper intent in the transaction Jesus commands. 

I am reminded of growing up in E TN, where many looked down on our neighbors up north of the Mason-Dixon line. We called them ‘carpetbaggers’ when they moved in amongst us. We ourselves were held in disregard by our neighbors to the north who called us slow, racist, backward, hillbillies, hicks. Having enemies fills a strong human need. If enemies don’t exist in reality, then we create them in our minds.

Maybe there is a need to hate that we can’t admit to. But I think of it more as a need to blame. Blaming we hear all the time. What’s wrong? It’s them. Why is one’s world such a confusing place? It’s their fault. Why is the former order breaking down? It couldn’t be because it was flawed and is collapsing of its own weight. Why do I feel pain? It’s somebody else’s lack of empathy.

Not only do enemies explain what we otherwise can’t, but they provide the perfect hiding place. Why did I get cut from the team? The coach played favorites. Why am I short of funds? The evil banks forced credit cards on me. Why try if the deck is stacked against me?

The trick in loving one’s enemy is not just to take a new attitude toward the other guy, but also toward oneself. To love an enemy, you must love yourself. To accept the other, you must first accept yourself and stop forcing some other person, race or type into the enemy role. To stop blaming the other, you must take responsibility for your own life. Even if the enemy is real and dangerous, before you can make peace, you must make peace with yourself and stop clinging to a warped self-image. Jesus insists that his followers work for a balance between really knowing and accepting oneself, and really knowing and accepting the enemy.

Maybe, just maybe, the enemy gives a gift. Not the neurotic hiding place or blame target, but something worth receiving. The gift of humility, of course. Maybe more. An opportunity for compassion – that is a gift. An opportunity to see the world through another’s eyes – that is a gift. An opportunity to experience the agony of severed relationships – an agony far worse than losing belongings to thieves, an agony that instructs.

Striking back, then, could be seen as an act of ingratitude. A strange way to view things, perhaps, but Jesus had strange views. He did not see his accusers as enemies, but as ones to love. He did not strike down his tormentors, but carried his cross to Calvary. He did not conquer the Roman centurion through might of arms, but through the greater might of submission.

I think Jesus was encouraging his friends to go deep. He saw more in them than they saw in themselves. Once they saw that more, then they would be more like him, more accepting, more loving. As long as they were superficial in themselves, then their relationships would be superficial – utilitarian, quid pro quo, tit-for-tat back-scratching. We might even begin to laugh at the truth Walt Kelly spoke years ago in the comic strip Pogo: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Loving one’s enemy probably is not the first thing one does on the road to wholeness, but the last. So much other work must proceed it. Self-regard seems to start in knowing oneself as flawed – and knowing that God loves one anyway. Other-regard flows from seeing the other as flawed, too – and no less loved by God.

I want to give you a simple assignment.  It’s a simple addition to your regular prayers: Pray for everyone who might have a hard time with you.  Pray for anyone you blame for anything gone wrong. Pray for the one who gives you a hiding-place from admitting your own flaws. I believe you’ll find a peace you’ve been searching for. You just may find yourself transformed. That’s what Jesus intended.