Week of Easter 7, June 1st thoughts going in

After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, ²since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. ³And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. ⁴I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. ⁵So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed. ⁶I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. ⁷Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; ⁸for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. ⁹I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. ¹⁰All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. ¹¹And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.

            This coming Sunday is the 7th and final Sunday of Easter. Many churches also observe the day as "Ascension Sunday," taking note of the fact that the actual day of the Ascension occurred within the week itself.

            For us, we will stick with the designation of the "7th Sunday of Easter," but the themes are generally similar. In either case vs 11 of the reading from John looms large, as Jesus says: And now **I am no longer in the world...

            Scholars like to refer to this passage in general as Jesus' "High Priestly Prayer." In many ways, however, it could be referred to as the [real] Lord's Prayer. After all, what we call the Lord's Prayer is actually the prayer that Jesus gave his Disciples (us) to pray...whereas this prayer in John 17 is the prayer HE prayed.

            There are a lot of things going on in this prayer. One of those things is the "one-ness" that Jesus prays for at the end: Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.  When concentrating on this part, it's usually at this point that pastors either decry the lack of oneness that exists within the church today and attempt to rekindle feelings of ecumenism--or, as may be the case among some highly sectarian groups, advocate that oneness will only be achieved when the whole world believes as they do.

            My own feelings about the oneness of which Christ prays is that two aspects of human sinfulness hinder it:  (a) Majoring in minors and (b) minoring in majors. Regarding the former, growing up in the church I've seen congregations split over the most miniscule things like the color of carpet used in the church sanctuary, or the type of wallpaper used on the nursery walls. Sadly, we live in a postmodern era that questions the existence of absolute truths--but this has had a blowback effect in some church bodies, as we see doctrinal walls being built higher and higher around matters of lesser significance. A wonderful **positive example of majoring only in the majors would be the ecumenical creeds of the Church, and even our own Augsburg Confession which states that "For the true unity of the Church it is enough to agree concerning the doctrine of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments." What about Bishops? What about the service of women or children in the church? What about the form of worship? What about the shape or layout of the building? In comparison all of these things are 'minors,' and majoring in minors inhibits the unity that Christ prays for.

            The latter, however, is also true... minoring in majors is also destructive to unity. For some, this is more difficult to see. Many can see how building walls or fences is damaging to unity, but how can the opposite be true? Shouldn't we tear down EVERY wall? Doesn't Jesus pray for unity at ALL costs? Here it needs to be remembered that the sort of unity that Jesus prays for already has a template. He prays that they may be one, as we are one. There is a sameness of purpose, and will that exists between Jesus and the Father. There is a sameness of mission, work, and love that exists between Jesus and the Father. If, therefore, we would seek to achieve an entirely borderless unity among all religions, the end result would be to IGNORE the oneness that exists between the Father and the Son. The end result would be to have a unity among ourselves that no longer has anything to do with God and his mission in the world. This would be minoring in majors.

            In the end, it's a fine line to walk, yet we can take heart because we know that Jesus is remembering us IN HIS PRAYER. Given all that the Bible says about Christ's continued intercession on our behalf, I have always chosen to believe that this 'High Priestly Prayer' is not something that Jesus prayed only once many many years ago, but is rather a continuing prayer that our Lord and Savior prays for each and every generation of the church.

Cheers,

TM

Week of Easter 6, May 25th 2014

I'm off this week studying hard in Michigan at the Civil Air Patrol Chaplain's Staff College.
A good friend of the parish, Pastor Tom Noll will be our guest preacher May 25th. Please come out and give him a warm LCHS welcome.

God bless,

Pastor Manwell

Thoughts going in, Sunday May18th (Easter 5)

John 14:1 "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. 2 In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. 4 And you know the way to the place where I am going." 5 Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" 6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him." 8 Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied." 9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, "Show us the Father'? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. 12 Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

            The drama of Easter continues this week with a Gospel selection from prior to the death/resurrection of Jesus. This continues an idea begun last week (4th Sunday of Easter). The point being, on Easter Sunday we read about the empty tomb; on the 2nd Sunday of Easter we read about the resurrection appearance in the upper room; and on the third Sunday of Easter we read about the Emmaus Road disciples. Each of these readings featured the resurrected Christ. To one degree or another, the focus was on him and his resurrection.

Last week an important shift happened in the drama. From a textual chronology perspective, we backed up and had a reading from before His death--the Good Shepherd passage from John 10. And now we have this passage from John 14 for this week. Next week we'll have a passage later in the chapter where Jesus promises to send The Comforter. And then the 7th and last Sunday of Easter we have the "high priestly" prayer of Christ in John 17 where he prays that his followers would be one, as he and the Father are one. In other words, what's going on in the Easter 'drama' is that the focus is shifting away from the simple fact that Jesus arose, and is directing our attention to life in the Church as we follow the risen Christ. This is accomplished by traveling backward in the story of the text, but we should always remember that the words belong on the lips of the risen Christ.  For last Sunday, an excellent example of this is the icon I have in my office at home of the Good Shepherd. Jesus is depicted as out in the pasture with sheep all around him, but when you look close at the image, you can see that his hands and feet have nail marks.

            I see this week's passage as being easily divided into two chunks:  vss 1-6 regarding our anxieties about life after death and the promises of comfort that [the risen] Christ gives, followed by vss 7-14 regarding the [everlasting] relationship Jesus has with The Father. My hunch is that it would be difficult to preach this entire text--and my knee-jerk reaction is to focus in on vss 1-6. Having said that, vs 14 deserves some comment: If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it. On the surface it sure looks like Jesus has revealed the secret to getting whatever we want; ANYTHING we ask, he'll do it. We could get our despised co-worker fired; we could get a brand new BMW. We could be financially secure... healthy, wealthy and wise. And yet surely our experience as Christians teaches us it DOESN'T work like that. So what gives? We need to remember that in my name part. The name of Christ, like the name of God mentioned in the 2nd commandment, is not to be taken in vain. Invoking the name of Christ means invoking His Will. It is his will to forgive sinners; to rescue us from death and the devil. If we invoke his name and ask for this, he will surely do it.

            Back to the first part of the passage... I'm struck by the anxiety in Thomas's voice: Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way? I like Thomas a lot because he seems like a 'detail guy'... and I'm a detail guy. Thomas has just been told let not your heart be troubled... but obviously his heart seems troubled as he blurts out this statement. In his exclamation he is trying to call "timeout" in a game that's unfolding too quickly before his eyes. He thinks he's missed something. He thinks that he's going to be held accountable or responsible to personally accomplish something that he doesn't know how to do. I can relate. Several instances come to mind--particularly in my former career field. At one point, my section was going to be held strictly accountable for performing hardware modifications/upgrades on our test systems... to be accomplished no later than a certain date... yet the schematics and instructions for accomplishing these mods had not yet been given to us. Just the recollection of that story causes the spirit of Thomas to well up within me... we do not know how to do this, and how can we know?

            Of course the spirit of Thomas can well up within any of us at any time and at any stage of living the Christian life. Maybe you feel a clear call and open door to pursue a new area of ministry, yet the spirit of Thomas is simultaneously welling up within you saying I don't know how to do this and HOW can I know how? Maybe things are not going well in your personal relationships.... with your spouse, or your children. Or, maybe it is the eternal question; maybe you’re just not sure about this whole thing of belief and faith, and it seems like it’s all resting on your shoulders and dependent upon your ability to understand it all.

            Regardless, to ALL of this we need to see and HEAR Jesus’ words to Thomas I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Often these words are lifted out of context and used as a ‘prooftext’ for the exclusivity of the Christian faith as a viable path to God. There is indeed a time and place for this sort of question to be pondered in theological discourse, but within the context of what’s going on in the text, Jesus is addressing Thomas’s specific concern. Thomas has just been anxious; Thomas has just said he doesn’t “know how” to get there, or the “way” to get there. And in response to this, Jesus in essence tells him, ‘don’t worry, I’ve got it covered.’

            I wonder how often we complicate the life of faith by assuming that Jesus is relying on us to work miracles. I wonder how often we become anxious and let things weigh us down, when in fact, those cares and concerns belong to Christ. He is the way… we’re not. Our call is to be faithful to him, to follow him along ‘his way’ (this week) to follow him as our good shepherd (last week), and… with Thomas after Christ’s response, breathe a big sigh of relief.

Cheers,

T.M.

Thoughts going in, Sunday May 11th (Easter 4)

Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. ²The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. ³The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. ⁴When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. ⁵They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers." ⁶Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. ⁷So again Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. ⁸All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. ⁹I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. ¹⁰The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

            This Sunday is the 4th Sunday of Easter, also often referred to as "Good Shepherd Sunday." There are a lot of things sort of percolating all at the same time. First, there's the idea that Jesus applies a shepherding metaphor to himself. On the one hand this is a very ancient Jewish metaphor. The Old Testament speaks in similar terms about God, Israel's kings, and prophets. Ironically, by the New Testament era the 'profession' of shepherd is thought of as suspect. It was a necessary thing in an ancient agrarian society, yet shepherds themselves were thought of as shifty, transient, unreliable people. Scholars tell us that a shepherd was not allowed to give testimony in a legal proceeding, for instance. So when Jesus adopts the metaphor for himself, he is at one and the same time borrowing from Old Testament imagery (think Psalm 23), but also putting himself in a [current] unappreciated category.

            Another interesting detail about the story is that the immediate context is the expulsion of the man born blind. This occurs in John 9. The disciples see the man born blind and ask who sinned, this man or his parents? Jesus replies His blindness has nothing to do with his sins or his parents' sins. He is blind so that God's power might be seen at work in him. At which point he goes through the complex process of spitting in the dirt, placing the mud in the guy's eye, telling him to wash, etc. Of course this was all done on the Sabbath, prompting the Pharisees to object: The man who did this cannot be from God, for he does not obey the Sabbath law. More things happen, as there's a debate about whether or not the healed man really was born blind; they quiz his parents, etc., with the end result that they expelled him from the synagogue (9:34). Following that, Jesus makes a statement about 'spiritual blindness'... applying it to the Pharisees, and then immediately launches into the Good Shepherd monologue.

            Within the passage, Jesus uses several words to describe 'other voices.' He uses 'thief,' ...one who steals what does not belong to him; 'bandit' (marauder) ... one who willingly uses violence to get his way; and 'stranger'... anyone who is unknown. Within the narrative, all of these terms would apply to others who are in competition with Jesus for the lives/souls of the sheep.

            In many ways, I think that’s what the passage boils down to for us in our context today. Who/what is in competition for our souls today? I can think of a lot of things: false religion; NO religion; general apathy; a pervasive sense that God doesn’t matter; materialism, consumerism, and at the opposite end of the spectrum a rabidly legalistic fundamentalism. Over and against this cacophony of ‘voices,’ Jesus says: He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. ⁴When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. And therein, is where we as sheep of the flock find our calling: we are to listen to our Good Shepherd’s voice and follow him: follow him to the still waters of holy baptism, and to the lush green restorative pastures of holy communion.

            As so many commentators point out, this picture of “sheep-herding” is entirely different from our culture. To the extent that we think much anymore about such things, shepherds from our culture ‘drive’ the flock from the rear and with the help of dogs. In the ancient culture of the Bible—and in places in the world where this still holds true today—the shepherd is alone and **leads the flock from the front.

            The point is that we go where HE goes. And this is a life-long process.

Cheers,

T.M.

Thoughts going in, Sunday May 4th (Easter 3)

Luke 24:13 Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. 14 They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. 15 As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; 16 but they were kept from recognizing him. 17 He asked them, "What are you discussing together as you walk along?" They stood still, their faces downcast. 18 One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, "Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?" 19 "What things?" he asked. "About Jesus of Nazareth," they replied. "He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. 20 The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; 21 but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. 22 In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning 23 but didn't find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. 24 Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see." 25 He said to them, "How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?" 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. 28 As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. 29 But they urged him strongly, "Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over." So he went in to stay with them. 30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. 32 They asked each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?" 33 They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together 34 and saying, "It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon." 35 Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them in the breaking of bread.

            How did the writer of Luke’s Gospel know Jesus? If we go with the traditional understanding, Luke was a convert of St. Paul; his Gospel was likely written in the mid to late 80s AD. Luke the investigator and narrator of the Jesus story—Luke the one who told the world about Gabriel’s visit to Mary, Jesus being left behind in Jerusalem at age 12, and those wonderful parables of the Lord about the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son, …. THAT LUKE… had no more intimate relationship with Jesus than his readers did. What’s more, THAT LUKE had no more intimate relationship with Jesus than WE DO.

            Now & then it’s important to remind ourselves of this detail. It is so easy for us to think of ourselves as ‘impoverished’ to some extent because while we can sing about the Lord “walking and talking with us along life’s narrow way”…. we know that we cannot experience it in the physical world. As we confess in the creeds, he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. His relationship with his Church has been different since that day. It’s been BIGGER; ETERNAL; and UNIVERSAL…. but different nonetheless.

            This is part of the beauty of Luke’s gospel. Though he lived 2000 years ago…. approximately the same time as Jesus, that approximation does not get him any closer to the physical Lord than we are.

And so, two key verses pop out at me in the Emmaus Road story:

--They asked each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?" (v32) In other words, the power of Christ in THE WORD. The power of Christ in the Word… the ability for our hearts STILL to burn within us when we encounter Jesus in the Word of Scripture is something that transcends the Ascension; it’s something that transcends time and space.

            The Bible is a LOT of things, but occasionally I get perturbed when well-meaning Christians get side-tracked trying to PROVE its historical or scientific viability. To be clear, to the extent that our salvation depends on historically or scientifically verifiable detail, we can rest assured God’s word will not return void. Yet having said that, I find it to be misdirected that some people have drawn lines in the sand and made these issues the MAIN point of the Bible. They are not. The Bible is first and foremost a JESUS STORY. It is about HIM. HE is its content, plot, and story; not science, and not history. When we remember this, and open our Scriptures… either in public worship or private devotion, we can rest assured that through the work of the Spirit, WE TOO can encounter, and know the risen/ascended Christ. Our hearts can also burn with this love and knowledge. 

And then the other verse: Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them in the breaking of bread (v35). Of course within the narrative itself, the meaning of this sentence is likely that they had supper together; bread & fish, or whatever. But who among Luke’s readers within the context of the worship service of the Church could not hear this verse sacramentally?  The meaning becomes crystal clear. The excitement of those Emmaus Road disciples that had dinner with the risen Lord is translated to the thrill, excitement, peace, joy, and renewal that the Church of all ages can experience through sharing the sacramental meal OF AND WITH the risen/ascended Lord. We STILL recognize him in the breaking of bread!

It’s passages such as this that convince me of the richness of the sacramental tradition. How, for instance, would a non-sacramental church interpret such a verse? If one negates the mystical/sacramental element, all one is left with is the fact that either (a) those original Emmaus Road disciples had something special and the rest of us are impoverished—a position I’ve been trying hard to argue against in this article--**OR… the greatest experiential thing that can happen in the Church would be the ‘pot luck dinner’… an actual, real, meal. As much as I enjoy a good church pot luck dinner, however, I prefer taking the sacramental view.

And so not surprisingly, when all is said and done, what we’re left with is WORD & SACRAMENT. The dual focus/ministry of the Church. One is not greater than the other; one should not displace the other; both are legitimate ways of encountering the risen/ascended Christ. It is in this reality that St. Luke lived his Christian faith; it is in this reality that his readers lived their Christian faith; it is also what is offered to us to live in our Christian faith.

Cheers,

T.M.