Quenching the Thirst of Christ and Others

Quenching the Thirst of Christ and Others

a sermon based on John 4:5-42

given at Palm Bay, FL on March 27, 2011

by Rev. Scott Elliott

 

A hiker got lost for days in the desert, and as his supplies were running low he desperately sought and prayed for the means to find refuge from the heat and get a source of water. Then suddenly he came across a vendor in the middle of the desert and cried out “Thank God I found you! Please help me. I’m in dire need of water.”

“Well,” said the vendor, “I don’t have any water. But would you like to buy one of these fine…neck ties.”

“What am I going to do with a tie?” the man asked.

“That’s what I’m selling sir. I am sorry I have no other wares or water.”

The man left the vendor and walked on for many more miles, praying each minute that he would find water and respite from the scorching sun.

Just as he was giving up hope he saw a restaurant. At first he thought it was his mind playing tricks, but as he got closer, sure enough it was a restaurant in the middle of the desert.

As he stepped into the air conditioned building he saw pitchers of ice water on every table but the hostess pushed him back outside saying, “Excuse me sir, but you can’t come in here without a neck tie!” 1

Did you notice how the man’s prayer for a means to get refuge and quench his thirst was answered in a very unknown way, with the offer of a tie that he does not understand the significance of.

Today’s lesson about thirst is a bit like that, it appears to many to focus on a very immoral woman whom Jesus saves, but is not really not applicable to us more moral folks. Yet, really, quenching thirst is the significance of the story, it’s about quenching our own thirst and that of Christ’s and others by our own actions.

The reading today is the famous story usually referred to as “The Woman at the Well,” or “The Samaritan Woman.” It’s a long story packed with enough stuff to preach on for hours, maybe days.

Don’t worry I am not going to preach that long.

People often hear the story of The Woman at the Well as being about a woman with loose morals (and so unlike most of us she is a very great sinner). The story is most often heard as a story where Jesus tends to the very great sinner at the well by probing and revealing her hidden sins with supernatural power, and so convinces her he is the Messiah. The message being that those of us who are not great sinners like the Woman at the Well surely ought to all the more be convinced that Jesus is the Messiah.

Before I explain a different way to hear the story of The Woman at the Well, I need to spend a few moments unwrapping the Samaritan Woman from the scandalous loose-woman packaging that the patriarchal church has bundled her up in for years. We need to see her in a different light, so, that we can better hear her as a metaphor for us, followers of Jesus, those whom he seeks to quench his thirst even as he teaches us how to quench our own and others’ thirst.

To hear this story anew we have to ignore the tradition that the Woman at the Well is a floozy – and if we actually turn to the Bible text we find that all we are told is the that the Woman at the Well has a man who is not her husband and previously had five husbands. Jesus makes no negative comment about this evidence; no judgment issues forth from his mouth that her marriages and love life sully her or make her unworthy somehow.

While Jesus makes no judgment or negative comment about her, commentators over the years have nonetheless scorned her and scandalized the Woman at the Well based on their interpretation of her marital history.

This is doubly unfair. First because Jesus and the Gospel writer make no negative note of it – IT IS NOT IN THE BIBLE! And second, because the Woman at the Well would have had very little control over her marriages. She lives in a patriarchal culture that considered females property that men could purchase, barter over and discard at a whim. So the Woman at the Well would have had little, if any choice in whom she married and whether or not a husband divorced her.

Moreover, we do not even know that there were any divorces involved. It may be that in the unsanitary, rough and tumble world of illness and death and violence that she and her husbands occupied that all five husbands simply died and widowed her. Back then was not like our culture today where death is staved off for most of us until we are older.

Whether she was left by her five husbands through divorce or death, the Woman at the Well would have had very little control over how her marriages ended. To hold her morally culpable for her marital past, then, is really not fair as nothing in the text indicates immorality was at issue – NOTHING – you have to read that in.

The Women’s Bible Commentary written with a decidedly unpatriarchal slant has this interesting observation about the “Woman at the Well:”

PARAGRAPHThe text does not say, as most interpreters automatically assume, the woman has been divorced five times but that she has had five husbands. There are many possible reasons for the woman’s marital history, and one should be leery of the dominant explanation of moral laxity. Perhaps the woman, like Tamra…is trapped in the custom of levirate marriage and the last male in the family line refused to marry her. Significantly, the reasons for the woman’s marital history intrigue commentators but do not seem to concern Jesus. Nor does Jesus pass moral judgment on the woman because of her marital history and status. All such judgments are imported into the text by interpreters. 2

And – this is me talking – such judgments make the story seemingly inapplicable to most of us. When it is about a great sinner we don’t have to do as she does, the story is not about our redemption but hers and those like her. Which is a shame because the story has much more meaning that than that.

The prejudicial reasons the Woman at the Well has been defamed over the centuries by the patriarchy emphasizes one of the amazing things about Jesus in the story. He talks to her. He ignores the patriarchal rules. Cultural constructs come down . Jewish men were not supposed to speak to unknown women. Yet, Jesus does.

In fact he does so in a very powerful and honoring way. The Woman at the Well is the very first person to whom Jesus discloses that he is the great “I Am” and the Messiah.

At verse 25, the Woman at the Well indicates she knows the Messiah is coming. And “Jesus said to her ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you.’” The English translation adds the “he” what Jesus is actually recorded as saying is “I am,” which is the very name Moses learns from the burning bush is God’s name.

Jesus is remarkable for talking to a woman when he was not supposed to and including her into his circle.

And she is not just basically a nobody female in Jesus’ world, but also appears to be poor and without children, since those with servants or daughters typically went to get water at the well, and her she is left to do it on her own.

Since this adult woman is fetching water, she is likely poor and perhaps even barren, childless, in a society that measures worth in great part by family size.

That would make it three strikes against her. Female. Poor. Childless.

While her morals are not in question, she is thrice scorned by the culture. But Jesus talks to her and takes her into his community regardless of this cultural treble curse.

She is of the lowest value in her world yet Jesus values and cares about her.

Indeed she is the lowest of the low in the culture she is not just thrice scorned but quadruply scorned by Jesus’ culture since she is also a Samaritan. Talking to a poor barren Jewish woman would have been bad enough, but a despised Samaritan to boot? Why that, that is nothing short of scandalous.

So you see, a woman who had five husbands is not the scandal in this story, a respected Rabbi conversing with this cultural low life; daring to sit with her and ask her for water from her enemy-woman-cooties-contaminated drinking pot, that’s the scandal. You just don’t do that.

Unless you are Jesus.

And Jesus wants us to be like him. The Gospels want us to be like him. 1 John 2(6) puts it like this, “Whoever says, ‘I abide in [Christ],’ ought to walk just as he walked.”

And you know what? The Woman at the Well walks the walk.

Preachers and commentators spend a lot of time pointing out how Jesus breaks down barriers in the story but so does the woman. She is not supposed to talk to Jews or males and certainly not hang around alone with such low lifes at a well.

Nor is she supposed to serve them or help them with water either but she does. And she is certainly not supposed to share the news with other Samaritans that a poor homeless Jewish rabbi is the Messiah.

The Woman at the Well breaks the barriers with Jesus in this story.

We learn at the start of the lesson today that Christ is thirsty. Christ has an earthly need. And you know who he goes to to fulfill that need? A cultural outcast. A nobody. An enemy. The Woman at the Well.

We can hear a thirsty Jesus sitting at the well in the heat of mid-day as more than Jesus needing water for his human body. We can hear it as a metaphor for Christ needing us, any of us, to be willing to break down cultural barriers; to stop and listen even when we think we are not supposed to; to hear the Gospel; and carry it within us to others, spreading its living waters around. No worrying about who we give that water too. They don’t need a proper neck tie or a pedigree to have Christ poured into their being.

Isn’t that exactly what the Woman at the Well does?

Hearing the story this way means that we – each of us, no matter what anyone may think – have the ability to quench Jesus’ thirst for someone to do something in the world; someone to carry Christ’s living waters to others.

We – you and me – can, like the Woman at the Well, provide a vessel (US!) to carry the living water of Christ around and quench a whole lot of Spiritual thirst in the world.

Did you notice in the story that The Woman at the Well leaves her earthen vessel at the well when she runs away? She herself is now the vessel of water, she is full of Christ’s living water.

It is just as Christ told her “Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

The Woman at the Well wants that water and she gets it. Her spiritual thirst in quenched and so she runs off telling others bringing the gushing spring of that living water to others throughout Samaria.

Her efforts bring others to Christ, quenching their thirst for the spirit and truth of God that Jesus tells her about.

Those whose thirst is quenched from the Woman at the Well’s vessel get the same living water she got, Christ. She gives them the means through Christ to save themselves from the lesser being they might have been without that living water.

In this way of hearing the story, we know the Woman at the Well not as a sinner, but as a disciple who helps quench the thirst of Christ for humans to be God’s hands and feet and mouth in the world by breaking down cultural barriers; stopping and listening even when they are not supposed to; hearing the Gospel embracing its goodness; and carrying it to others, spreading the living waters around. 3

Once the woman’s own thirst is quenched she is so excited that she shares that news with everyone she can.

The Woman at the Well kind of reminds me of a modern Jewish parable that goes like this:

A man was traveling a long way home on a Greyhound bus and was just about to fall into a sweet nap when suddenly he was jolted awake by the sound of an old woman from the back of the bus: “Oy, am I thirsty, Oy, am I thirsty!”

The woman repeated this loudly over and over again every few minutes. “Oy, am I thirsty. Oy, am I thirsty.” Exasperated, the man gets up and brings the woman a bottle of water and goes back to his seat to relax.

The bus is quiet again and just as the man nods off he’s jolted awake again by the old lady at the back of the bus: “Oy, vas I thirsty… Oy, vas I thirsty….”

 

The old woman in the story can be considered someone who likes to complain…or she can be thought of as an enlightened one.

See, usually when our thirst is taken care of we forget about our former needs and soon the gratitude and joy of the remedy wears off. But the old woman she chants with joy, gratitude and contentment: “Oy, vas I thirsty!” 3.

She sounds a bit like the Woman at the Well to me.

May we all proclaim to the world the joyful news that our spiritual thirst has been quenched by the living waters of Christ.

And may the living waters of Christ gush up in us forever and always.

AMEN.

ENDNOTES

1. I found this joke by an unnamed author posted on the Internet at this site: http://freefunnyjokes.blogspot.com/2007/05/dying of thirst in dessert joke.html

2.Women’s Bible Commentary, p 384.

3 This idea was influenced by the commentary in Feasting on the Word by Anna Carter Florence (Year A, vol 2, pages 92-97) where she writes (among others things): “Jesus is thirsty at the well and we are the ones with the bucket.” (p.95).

4. Adapted from a note posted by Rabbi Yossi Marcus at http://www.chabadnp.com/templates/blog/post_cdo/AID/1182064/PostID/17341

 

 

COPYRIGHT Scott Elliott © 2011 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

At the Crossroads Just Say “Yes”

At the Crossroads Just Say “Yes”

a sermon based on Genesis 12:1-4a

given at Palm Bay, FL on March 20, 2011

by Rev. Scott Elliott

I recently read about a conversation on an airline. The flight attendant asked a passenger if he would like dinner. The passenger asked “What are my choices?” The attendant cheerfully replied “Your choices are ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’”

Sometimes it seems like it would be nice if choices were easy. But if you have ever tasted airline chicken and had the choice of eating or going without on a long flight the “Yes” or “No” in even this dinner option is not so cut and dry.

Many choices in life boil down to a “Yes or No,” do-it-or-not-do-it choice; and many are not cut and dry, or otherwise easy to make.

Today’s story is, at its heart, about choices, a decision needs to be made. And Abram alone has to make it. It is a momentous decision, one that ends up altering the course of history.

Abram of course, is not offered a choice for a meal on an airline. But it is at heart a “Yes or No,” do-it-or-don’t-do-it choice.

And in the context of the story, and Abram’s culture, it is a very difficult choice. In Abram’s culture family is very, very important, it is basically the only support unit available. One scholar put it like this, “In traditional societies the kin group is the source of identity, economic benefit, security, and protection. To leave such a fundamental social network is to put a great deal at risk.” 1

Risk is a hard thing to choose, to face. After the great flood in the story about Noah, God calls the survivors on the ark and their descendants to go forth and multiply. The New Revised Standard version puts it like this “God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” (Gen 9:1).

You probably have noticed that the multiplying part is a choice people as a whole seem to find easy enough to say “yes” to.

It’s the going forth as God decrees that people have a difficult time saying “Yes” to. It is easier to settle in than to go. It is easier to stay where you are than venture into the unknown. And so before we get to Abram the Bible stories in Genesis emphasize this risk aversion choice of not going as God calls humans to do.

For example the story in the Bible before Abram’s call story (that we just heard read) is the story of the Tower of Babel. It’s one of these people don’t do what God calls them to do tales that I am talking about.

You probably recall that story of the giant tower, where folks refuse to heed God’s call to “go.” In sharp contrast to today’s story the people in Babel don’t go, but rather settle down and build a profane tower.

God’s response to this conduct is to knock the tower down, confuse the speech of the people and scatter them about the world, forcing them in effect to go whether they want to or not. The call ends up to be more of a push or shove. The people in Babel do not go of their own volition.

After the Tower of Babel story there are a bunch of so-and-so-begat-so-and-so verses that end with Terah, Abram’s father.

Terah is a name that means “delay.” 2 And interestingly we learn in the Bible verses that appear just before today’s lesson that Terah’s own delay in going further occurs in a place called Haran, which is a name that means “crossroads.” 3. It is at the crossroads that Abram’s father delays going.

But is also at the crossroads that Abram chooses not to delay as the people in Babel did or as his father did. At last in Abram we have one individual who answers God’s call to go as called – and it is to the Promise Land.

Abram is a name that means “exalted father.” The one who does as God bids is exalted.

And he is indeed eventually exalted as the father of three religions. The Abrahamic religions are Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Abram, the exalted father. It is a name that rings true even today where nearly 4 billion followers worldwide trace their religious roots back to him.

And it is in today’s story that Abram is first exalted. God calls him. He answers not “No” like everyone else so far in Genesis, but “Yes, I will go.”

We do not know much at all about Abram’s past before God calls him. Basically we know that he was Terah’s son and Sarai’s husband and was called by God at a Haran, a crossroads. “The focus of this narrative is not who Abram was, but who he will become.” 4.

If you think about it, the same can be said for the God-who-is-love’s focus on us. God’s love and call to us in every given moment is not focused on who we were, but on what we can become.

Just like today, as in Abram’s day, God is calling folks from where they are, whatever crossroad they are at. And God’s not so much concerned about our past as about the present and the future, God looks to the now and forward to tomorrow.

In other words, what has always mattered with respect to God’s call to be a blessing is what we are and what we can be, not what we were and where we came from.

Think about it, forgiveness from God for our past has no limit, just as God’s love knows no bounds. God’s grace is freely given – no strings attached.

God does not so much worry about what individuals have already done, it’s what they can do that ultimately matters.

So it is quite ironic that so many religious leaders get folks all riled up about worrying over the cosmic affects of a person’s sinful acts that have already occurred. I say ironic because God seems most interested in making the best – and OUR making the best – out of the present, and the hope that lays before us.

We can see that in the reading. In the story today we know almost nothing about Abram’s past, but, by the time we get to Abram in the Genesis narrative we do know about humankind’s collective past; and it has not been pretty. People as a whole have been ignoring God, and basically the result is that all hell breaks out.

Adam and Eve in the garden with God do fine. But without God, they fall apart. And the reason is simple, without God as the focus of their life they do not answer God’s call, but their own call and the call of the lowest (literally) of life, represented by the serpent who tempts them away from God’s call to the best they can be. So what happens is they move from life in a pristine world to life in a world polluted by wrong choices.

Later Noah does the same kind of thing. Before the flood, he answers God’s call and is honored and survives to re-start life in the newly cleansed pristine world . After the flood Noah is told to go forth and multiply, but instead he listens to his own call settling down to farm and plant a vineyard so he can get drunk; actions which later lead to trouble.

After Noah we get to the Tower of Babel where folks, as I mentioned, not only disobey God’s call to go forth but, they have no focus on God and are so distracted by non-God things that they wantonly and intentionally build what amounts to a profane fertility tower to another god, insulting God so much so God intervenes, forcing the folks to go forth by confusing their language, (and I might point out actually giving us a great and intended Biblical pun by making them babble in Babel).

Again the story of the Tower of Babel is followed by outlining the lineage that leads to Terah who also does not forth not go forth as God has called. At the crossroads Terah settles, he tarries.

So we can see that up through Terah (Abram’s dad) the stories in Genesis have an underlying theme about people at crossroads ignoring God’s call and as a consequence getting into trouble or at least not moving the world – or themselves – in the direction that God desires.

And the adverse consequences of humankind’s collective and individual failures to heed God’s call are understood and experienced in these stories as God’s reaction to the failures of humans.

So the preamble to today’s Lectionary reading, chapters 1 to 11 of Genesis, is in a very real sense a long story demonstrating Abram’s ancestors did not heed God’s call and things do not turn out so good when humans say “No” to God.

Which is why at the start of Abram’s story we find his father Terah doing as many people are wont to do, settling at the crossroads, avoiding risk by choosing not to do God’s bidding to go forth.

In essence as the stage is set for Abram to make his entrance, people as a whole and as individuals have long been saying “No” to God, and fail by missing the mark God aims them at, what we tend to call sinning.

Up to this point, the Bible’s stories have God punishing humans for failures, tossing them out of paradise; scattering them hither and yon, babbling languages; even attempting a universal purge with the great flood, but none of it has worked.

Biblical stories of Adam, Eve, the people of Babel, Noah and even Terah, can be heard to represent humankind’s continued muddling and messing things up by missing the mark God aims them toward.

Humans are, of course, are still doing that. But thankfully not everyone does that. One person can make a difference, Christians see that with Jesus, they see that with Mary and Joseph and Paul and the disciples.

And it is not just New Testament folk who matter. Joseph, Moses, Miriam, Esther, Deborah, David, Isaiah and Daniel – just to name a few – are people who chose to follow where God beckoned them and it mattered.

But it all starts with Abram. In today’s lesson we have the first reported person in the Bible who, standing at a crossroads, hears God’s call to go forth to the Promise Land and follows it.

And most interestingly God’s call comes with an amazing promise, the promise (from God) that not only will the person be blessed for following the call, but – and these are the words God says – “in you all families of the earth shall be blessed.”

WOW! In you all families of the earth shall be blessed. That literally means everyone. EVERYONE gets blessed when Abram answers God’s call.

When we read on in Genesis we learn that Abram is in no way perfect as he answers the call. Along the way he makes mistakes, commits sins and otherwise engages in the types of foibles and follies humans make. But he answers the call.

God beckons and Abram follows and so – imperfect as he is – even in all his humanness, he is blessed and a blessing to all families on earth.

He is blessing because through him humans first experience God as one, as Yahweh.

In fact, as I have mentioned before, it is through Abraham that the old ways of the polytheistic gods of his culture who called for the sacrifice of the first born are rejected. Human sacrifice is disavowed and discarded because Abraham hears the call of Yaweh, the One God, to not sacrifice humans, and he dares to go against the culture and no longer take the lives of children.

One man willing to listen to God and follow God’s call mattered.

And it still matters. At one level the reading today is an introductory narrative about Abram, the founder of three religions who later becomes known as Abraham, which means “father of a multitude.”

At another level it is symbolically about everyone who answers God’s call. It is never easy to do, but it always makes a difference, and it always matters.

At the crossroads of life, at every single one of them we have a choice. God calls us from every place at every moment to be the best we can be as a people and as a person.

Just like the airline attendant told the passenger, the choices are “Yes” and “No.”

Many choose “No.” That choice does not necessarily make them bad or evil. Nor does it condemn them to hell or even life without God. God’s love has no strings attached and God is everywhere all the time, so even if they do not know, it naysayers to God’s call are loved and in God’s arms.

But those who choose to answer God’s call with a “Yes,” those folks make a difference, they always matter in life. They move themselves and all the rest of us toward God.

Joseph, Moses, Miriam, Esther, Deborah, David, Isaiah, Daniel, Mary, Joseph, Paul, the disciples and Jesus, all said “Yes” and mattered and it made a difference.

At this moment whatever crossroads you may be at, listen. Listen. You can hear God calling you to go and do God’s work in the world. This is what Christians have long understood to be a call to be Christ incarnate now: to show love to all and to work for justice and righteousness, to help bring in the Reign of God.

Doing our part to bring in the Reign of God is ultimately what God calls us to do. It is about an aim toward a world where Shalom – universal peace – is what we go for, not settling for where we are. It’s about moving from the crossroads and choosing to go down the path that brings us heaven on earth.

Today, right now, we have a choice to answer that call.

The choice is “Yes” or “No” to God’s call.

May God be pleased with our choices.

And may those choices matter much.

AMEN!

 

ENDNOTES

1.Newsom, Carol, James, Feasting on the Word, Year A commentary, p 53

2. Bible Works 8, Strong’s Codes Hebrew word meanings under Genesis 11, KJV.

3. Olsen, Donald, Feasting on the Word, Year A commentary, p 52.

4. Newsom.

 

COPYRIGHT Scott Elliott © 2011 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Spiritual Spring Cleaning

Spiritual Spring Cleaning

a sermon based on Psalm 51

given at Palm Bay, FL on March 13, 2011

by Rev. Scott Elliott

Lent began last Wednesday and I am going to talk a bit about what Lent’s about, but, first I want share a little story.

During Lent in the Catholic tradition many folks give up eating meat on Fridays, and once upon a time a Protestant moved into a Catholic neighborhood and on the first Friday of Lent he barbecued a juicy steak while his neighbors were eating cold tuna. The smell of the BBQ made it difficult for the neighbors to eat without distraction.

This went on every Friday of Lent. On the last Friday of Lent, the neighborhood decided before the next year to convert the new neighbor. And sure enough their efforts paid off, he decided to become a Catholic. A Priest sprinkled water over him saying, “You were born a Baptist, you were raised a Baptist, and now you are Catholic.” The neighbors’ Lenten temptation concerns appeared over.

But when Lent rolled around again the next year there came the tempting smell of steak on a grill. So the neighbors rushed to the former Protestant’s yard and they found him standing over a grill sprinkling water over a steak saying, “You were born a cow, you were raised a cow, and now you are a fish.”

We are, of course, Protestants. And Lent for most of us does not include giving up fish on Fridays, or even baptizing steaks in hopes they become fish.

Some Protestant traditions do not make a big deal out of Lent. The United Church of Christ, however, has ancient roots and many of our churches remember and find meaning in observing Lent.

Lent takes place forty days before Easter in memory of Jesus’ 40-day fast in the wilderness, and in preparation of Easter. Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and ends the day before Easter (Holy Saturday). 1

It has also traditionally been a time of penitence, prayer and charity.

Lent has traditionally been a period of some sort of fasting, which is why some still give up something.

For many Lent begins with an Ash Wednesday service that includes reflection on both past failings and the present and future hope for betterment, symbolized by ashes on the forehead and communion and prayer.

The term Lent actually comes from the Teutonic word for the season we call spring.

One author I read made this lovely connection between Lent and spring:

[Lent] can be viewed as a spiritual spring cleaning: a time for taking spiritual inventory and then cleaning out those things which hinder our corporate and personal relationships with Jesus Christ and our service to [God]. Thus it is fitting that the season of Lent begin with a symbol of repentance: placing ashes mixed with oil on one’s head or forehead. However, we must remember that our Lenten disciplines are supposed to ultimately transform our entire person: body, soul, and spirit. Our Lenten disciplines are supposed to help us become more like Christ. Eastern Christians call this process theosis, which St. Athanasius aptly describes as “becoming by grace what God is by nature. 2.

I like that quote. I particularly like the notion of viewing Lent as a “Spiritual spring cleaning.”

In order to clean we must take inventory of the things that need to be kept, those that need straightened out and even those we ought to discard in order to try and get our Spiritual house in order to become like Christ.

You see, sprinkling water on us in baptism does not make sinners into saints, any more than putting water on steak can make it a fish. It takes effort to better ourselves. A traditional effort in the Church is this Spiritual spring cleaning at Lent.

In our efforts to do our spring cleaning we necessarily reach decisions on what is the best way for us to proceed and then we attempt to do it. We know that inevitably next year we will have to clean again, but, that ought not to keep us from taking steps this year to better ourselves.

And looking at what we have done up to this point and being contrite for our failures is a big part of Lent.

The word “Sin” has its roots in an archery term that means to miss the mark. In the Bible is it refers to the marks, the targets, God aims us toward and our not taking or making the shot.

We all miss the marks God aims us toward. Lent is about not ignoring the past shots that fell short of the target, but rather learning from them. And in the learning there is hope, hope that we can both re-aim and have new chances to hit more of the targets God aims us at.

Lent is ultimately about having and taking a second chance, transforming what we are at this moment into what we are called to be now and from now on.

Now – in this moment – wherever we find ourselves, we are called by God to aim for the very best we can be. God forgives us for whatever sin, whatever mis-aiming we have done, all of it, right up to this moment.

I am going to say that again: God forgives us for whatever sin, whatever mis-aiming, we have done, all of it right up to this very moment.

Today’s reading, Psalm 51 is about just that. It begins filled with references to sin, but it ends filled with references to God.

Lent is supposed to be like that. Find the sin, deal with it, clean it out and re-start our Spiritual life aimed toward God. In so doing we are aimed toward being saved, as it were, from the lesser being we might have been without that Spiritual spring cleaning and focus on God.

And if you think you have committed too big a sin, or broken too many commandments to get your Spiritual house cleaned, you are wrong. I say that with all due respect, but you are wrong if you think that whatever you have done up to this moment is too big and bad for God to forgive and for you to move toward your best self from now on.

Psalm 51 is typically ascribed to David. Not our David Cook, David the King of Israel from days of yore.

My New Oxford Annotated Bible has this note below the title of Psalm 51, “A Psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone into Bathsheba.”

Scholars do not think David actually composed the Psalm, but he certainly could have used its words to reflect on his own life and sins and the grace God showed him.

David’s sins are about as bad as they can get. Again I am not referring to David Cook’s sins, but King David’s sins.

You may recall that David, the greatest king of Israel and a most beloved servant of God, coveted a married woman named Bathesheba. She was married to Uriah, a soldier faithful to David. David had an affair with Bathsheba and when his efforts to cover it up failed, he had Uriah killed. Yet, God forgave David.

It was quite wise of the ancients who compiled the Psalms to connect Psalm 51 to David. Rev. Dr. Clint McCaan, one of my professors at Eden and a leading scholar on the Psalms, puts it like this:

To hear Psalm 51 as David’s prayer and testimony is to appreciate the radicality of divine grace. After all David had violated at least half of the ten Commandments– he coveted… his neighbor’s wife; he committed adultery with her; he lied about it; and when the lies did not work, he had Uriah killed. And yet despite the extent of his disobedience, and despite the fact that he had committed capital offenses, David was forgiven! So, whether David actually prayed Psalm 51 or not, we should have him and his experiences in mind as we [consider] Psalm 51… 3

Let’s consider again the text of Psalm 51. It is a great Psalm and is often used during Ash Wednesday services and as Lent gets underway.

As we look at this Psalm let us think of our failures to hit the marks God has aimed us toward. Things like: love of neighbor, love of self and love of God and God’s creation. Things like providing justice and compassion for those who are oppressed, and honoring God’s commandments. Think too of King David’s sins which surely must be greater than yours.

Finally lets think bout the hope God offers through abundant no strings attached forever love. Psalm 51 begins with these hopeful words about that very love, the Divine grace we aim to center our lives around at this church. The Psalmist writes: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.”

See, I did not make it up. We really are talking about God’s abundant no strings attached forever love. It’s called in Old Testament Hebrew, “hesed,” which is translated as “steadfast love.” It is God’s no strings attached forever love. The very Love we celebrate on all those rainbow colored things in our lobby and on our cars and such.

After calling out to the God of love the Psalm then offers this prayer that we can claim this morning as a Lenten prayer of Spiritual spring cleaning:

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.

Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.

You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.

Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.

Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.

 

AMEN! Can you hear how this prayer of Spiritual cleaning leads to transformation?

 

It leads to salvation from a lesser existence, to restoration of joy and a willing heart. With that transformation in mind the prayer then turns to being about a generous giving back to God. 4

The Psalmist prays to God that once he is cleansed:

Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.

Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance.

O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.

For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.

The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, then you will delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.

The broken spirit and heart in the passages I just read refer not to our being put in a sorrowful or even broken spirit as we might use the term today, instead it is about having a humble heart remorseful about our past sins and ready to do things God’s way – to do our best to aim for those targets God has set for us.

It’s about having done our Spiritual spring cleaning and getting our hearts prepared for what God wants.

One of the best summaries of God’s desire for us and the targets God wants us to aim for are found in Micah 6:

With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?

Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

This Lent consider experiencing a Spiritual spring cleaning and beginning anew a humble walk with God toward God’s targets for us: doing justice and loving kindness – and being on that humble walk. AMEN.

ENDNOTES

1. Most of the information on the basics of Lent I obtained from Chruchyear.net which can be found at: http://www.churchyear.net/lent.html

2. Ibid.

3. McCaan, Clint, Great Psalms of the Bible, 2010, page 72. The general nature of this sermon was inspired by the chapter on Psalm 51 in this wonderful book.

4. Ibid at 75.

 

COPYRIGHT Scott Elliott © 2011 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Get Up and Do Not Be Afraid

Get Up and Do Not Be Afraid

a sermon based on Matthew 17:1-9

given at Palm Bay, FL on March 6, 2011

by Rev. Scott Elliott

A Christian comedy team flying to an international convention on comedy, crash-landed on a remote jungle mountain. Everyone survived the crash, but they were quickly captured by a tribe that still practiced cannibalism.

The captors took the team to their village and brought them to their leader.

The leader asked them who they were. “We are a Christian comedy team,” they all replied.

Upon learning this, the tribal leader immediately ordered their release. The team thanked him and asked if it was because they were Christians. “No,” he replied, “It is because you’re comedians and I’m afraid you’d taste funny.”

Today is Transfiguration Sunday, the day on the Christian calendar when we remember another type of mountain top story, the one where Jesus is transfigured and shone like the sun with clothes a dazzling white. It’s the story where God calls him the “Son”and the “Beloved” with whom God is pleased.

I mentioned in a past Transfiguration Sunday sermon how this story has some funny parts too. Mostly that Peter’s goofy response to the vision and God’s voice was to basically say, “This is Cool. Let’s build some tents for Moses and Elijah and Jesus to camp on the mountain in.”

It is a funny story, but also a poignant one. Transfiguration Sunday in one sense might be called “Lent Eve,” as it falls on the Sunday before Lent begins.

It falls on the eve of Lent – a time when we start mindfully marching toward some pretty dark stories when Jesus is betrayed, captured, abandoned and killed. This story is in the Lectionary before our Lenten focus on much darkness in order to remind us that there is Light in the story too, lots and lots of Light.

In today’s Lectionary reading Jesus and three of his followers, Peter, James and John go up a mountain, and at the top they have a mystical experience with God.

God is of course everywhere, but, mountains are places in the Bible where God is often experienced in greater measure. High up God somehow seems to us humans more accessible.

I find that’s true. I assume that even though we all live in Florida – where the world in my experience is very flat – that most of us have actually been on a mountain…or at least have seen one or heard about them somewhere.

The nearest thing to mountains in Brevard County are the causeways. Right?

And you know what, if you walk or ride a bike up a causeway you actually get a little sense of being on a mountain. You have to work to get to the top and when you do the view is to die for, you can see for miles up and down the river and over into the main land cities and even catch a peek of the blue Atlantic.

I ride my bike up over the Melbourne causeway a few times a week. And I am always stunned at the view and the broader sense I get not only of the world up there, but even as cars rush by, it all makes me feel a bit closer to God. On more than one occasion reaching the crest of the causeway has for me been a Scared moment (and it is not because I am praying to survive the looming very fast decent).

For a guy from the real west coast where mountains are thousands and thousands of feet high, it seems a little odd to be exhilarated going over a tens of feet high man-made bridge, but I guess you take your mountains where you can find them.

The Bible is full of encounters of God on mountains.

Abraham hears God’s call to end human sacrifice on a Mount Moriah.

Moses sees God in a burning bush on Mount Horeb.

God gives the law to Moses on Mount Sinai.

The people of Israel first glimpse the Holy Land from a mountain.

Elijah defeats the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel.

Jerusalem the great holy city at 2,670 feet is also known as Mount Zion.

Jesus goes up mountains to pray, gave a great Sermon on the Mount, triumphantly marches into Mount Zion (Jerusalem), wept on the Mount of Olives and was crucified on a hill up on Mount Zion called Calvary, and his tomb was nearby on that mound.

Arguably the story about Jesus that is most identified with a mountain though is today’s lesson on the Transfiguration. Like the other Biblical mountain stories a Sacred event happens, and in this story a very detailed mystical, seemingly other worldly, encounter unfolds.

From a Christian standpoint there is no greater mountain story than the transfiguration story.

Moses the greatest lawgiver and Elijah the great prophet appear side by side with Jesus; and God says of Jesus, “This is my Son the Beloved, with him I am well pleased, listen to him.”

In the story, up on the mountain Moses and Elijah are honored and great, but for Christians Jesus becomes the greatest lawgiver and the greatest prophet and it is Jesus in the story that God instructs Christians to listen to.

One way to hear this story is that it really occurred. That is a fine and fair way to embrace the story. For those of us who have experienced mystical events this story can ring true.

But for many of us the mystical nature of the story and events described strain our belief. In our experience people and their clothes don’t glow and dead great men do not literally appear on mountain tops, and neither does God roll in like fog and speak aloud in a voice to humans.

For those of us who have trouble believing today’s lesson as an historic fact, the Transfiguration story can nonetheless still ring true.

Indeed as metaphor we can hear the Transfiguration story ringing the very same Truth whether we believe the events really happened or whether we doubt they literally occurred.

I am going to read the story again so it is resonating in our heads and in the air as we consider what the words might mean to us as metaphoric truth. Listen to the story again:

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves.

And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.

Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.

Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”

When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear.

But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.”

And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” (Mat 17:1-9 NRS).

The Transfiguration story as metaphor can be heard as a brilliant summation by Matthew’s community of the Truth of how Jesus’ first followers experienced Jesus – and if we think about it, how Jesus’ followers have experienced him ever since.

Peter, James and John represent Jesus’ followers. It is not easy being a Christian. The path is a steep climb up a mountain following Jesus’ Way. We hope that by following Jesus’ Way to the top we will encounter and experience God in our lives.

If we make the climb with Jesus, if we get up the mountain, when we reach the top we realize that Jesus, the fully human being that we followed IS the Light. We see that His face shines like the sun and his clothes are dazzling white. He is human, yet his very being glows. It glows in our lives and in our perception of him.

The fully human Jesus, we realize, found a way to put the Light out there on his sleeves so even his clothes glow with God who is love.

Jesus’ Way is about turning the spark of God within outward so that the God who is Love shines in and through us as a dazzling Light to the world.

On the Way up the mountain, Jesus teaches us to respect the law and the prophets and so by the time we reach the mountain top Moses and Elijah are as honored and Sacred to us, as they are to Him.

We can see the law and the prophets standing side by side with Jesus.

On the path Jesus shows us we experience Jesus as having spoken and listened to Moses and Elijah and all of the law and the prophets that they represent.

And you know what? Followers on Jesus’ Way, even when they have seen His glow and know his Light, sometimes act a little nutty like Peter does.

Peter experiences the Sacred and he notes that it is good and then wants to put Moses and Elijah and Jesus in human tents. He wants to confine them to small quarters that humans provide. Peter’s intention is not necessarily bad, but, he does not get that the Sacred cannot be contained in human-constructed vessels. The Scared is so much bigger than that.

To prove this point in rolls the Sacred – God – bigger than life, in the most uncontainable form in all of creation: a cloud. A bright cloud that we are told overshadows all of them, the living, the dead and even the glowing.

God, you see, not only overshadows all humans, but is a mysterious form that cannot be contained, cannot in the end even be explained.

Consequently even when we follow the Way that Jesus shows us up the mountain top all we can hope to experience of the pure form of God (when all is said and done) is a bright fluid foggy mystery that surrounds and envelopes us, and – and this is the greatest most hopeful part – that Sacred mystery speaks to us. God cares enough to speak to US mere human beings.

God speaks to us.

In our tradition, the United Church of Christ, we say that “God is still speaking.” It’s one of our mottos. It’s even a campaign in the greater church.

See, our God is the still speaking God, and the story of the Transfiguration can have much meaning in that regard.

Following the Way of Jesus up the mountain does not mean we merely find the law and the prophets and Scripture of history awaiting us, but that God will speak to us even if the form of God we find (which surely we will) is a bright fluid mystery.

But I am getting little bit ahead of the story.

What does God speak in the text today?

What are God’s spoken instructions up on the mountain?

God says “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased…” and then commands the followers of Jesus to…“listen to him!”

Listen to him. Listen to Jesus.

When the disciples first heard this up on the mountain they fell to the ground and were overcome with fear.

And we are told the very first words from Jesus mouth after God instructed the disciples to listen to him, after they fell to the ground in fear were these “Get up and do not be afraid.”

“Get up and do not be afraid.”

Jesus of course, says a whole lot more in Matthew and the gospels. Jesus has said a whole lot more to humans ever since that we ought to listen to. But his first words after God tells his followers to listen to him are words of tremendous comfort, words to those down on the ground and afraid.

It is no accident that this is remembered so well by Matthew’s community. The followers of Jesus back then were very much afraid – and with good reason.

Rome is persecuting and attacking sects of Judaism, the Temple has been destroyed as have many of the people in Roman occupied Palestine. The Jesus followers are splitting away from synagogues and there is squabbling with other Jewish sects. Jesus has not yet come back as many expected. It’s a very scary time. To some it even appears that God might have been behind all of this turmoil.

But in the lesson today, God’s anointed one, God’s Son does not speak fire and brimstone and hell, he does not say “Be afraid. Be very afraid.”

Jesus instead offers a message of great hope. “Get up and do not be afraid.”

And the followers of Jesus – thank God – do just that. They pick themselves up and they move forward unafraid. And they survive so that we have church today.

The Transfiguration story can be heard as a metaphor for how the early church experienced following Jesus, and for how it is with us who still follow Jesus today. Jesus’ first words after God says “listen to him” still offer hope to all of us who have ever been down and afraid, even to those of us who are afraid of the angry God that others claim exists.

The message in today’s reading, whether we believe the story it tells is history or metaphor is this: Listen to Jesus when you are down and afraid. After God says listen to him Jesus’ first words are “Get up and do not be afraid.”

No matter how you hear the story – as history or as metaphor – Jesus’ words are true.

Like those early followers on that mountain who were down, through Jesus, with Jesus, we CAN get up and not be afraid. We can find the Light through the Way up the mountain to God that Jesus shows us.

As we gather here on what I am calling the “Eve of Lent,” we know that in the weeks ahead we about to hear some scary things about earthly power’s response to Jesus’ message of love, things that can bring us down. But remember what Jesus tells us to do. His instruction to us is “Get up and do not be afraid.”

We’d do well to listen to Jesus when ever we are down or in fear.

Get up and do not be afraid.

AMEN.

COPYRIGHT Scott Elliott © 2011 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED