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At this critical moment, ask Congress to act with moral clarity, move forward wisely, justly, and in the spirit of the common good. 

If you would like to watch the video clip of Robin Williams on his desk in the movie "Dead Poets Society," please click on this link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtYRC00IoUs 

Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches.  These are the suggested readings for April 4th:  Job 14:1-14 or Lamentations 3:1-9, 19-24; Psalm 31:1-4, 15-16; 1 Peter 4:1-8; and Matthew 27:57-66 or John 19:38-42.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Matthew and Luke use the earlier Gospel of Mark as the template for their own Gospels.  Mark is the most primitive of the Gospels.  Mark describes Joseph of Arimathea primarily as a member of the council, the Sanhedrin, who was “himself waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God.” (15:43)  Matthew refines this description from a later perspective.  He leaves out the Sanhedrin reference and places his primary emphasis on the new and previously unknown description of Joseph as: “Was himself a disciple of Jesus.” 

Mark explains that Joseph “went boldly to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.” (15:43)  This is a bold action because the Romans displayed the rotting corpses on their crosses to increase the deterrent effect of opposing the Empire.  Pilate could have reacted harshly to Joseph’s request, and it was not healthy to be on the wrong side of the authorities.  Furthermore, crucifixion was intended to be a drawn-out form of execution.  Pilate is surprised that after only six hours Jesus is dead.  He, therefore, checks with the centurion to make sure that Jesus “had been dead for some time.” (15:44)  With the centurion’s confirmation, Pilate grants Joseph the body.  None of this is recorded in Matthew’s account of Joseph requesting and receiving Jesus’ body. 

In Mark, all of this takes place after the day of Preparation had arrived at sunset.  This necessitates swift action on the part of Joseph to bury the body.  It is simply wrapped in a linen cloth and then laid “in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock.” (15:46)  This is a rather vague reference as to where the burial took place so Matthew updates the received tradition and writes instead, “[Joseph] laid it in his new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock.”  Then both Evangelists tell us the tomb was closed by rolling a stone against the entrance to the tomb. 

This is where Mark’s description ends – outside the closed, random tomb that held Jesus’ corpse.  But Matthew continues.  Matthew adds a passage that falls on today, the day after the crucifixion.  The religious authorities approach Pilate and warn about a possible deception that could prove more devastating than all of Jesus’ lived ministry.  They suggest that Jesus’ disciples could steal the corpse and proclaim the falsehood of His resurrection.  Pilate does not need a resurrected Messiah to stir up the people so he orders, “‘You have a guard of soldiers; go, make it as secure as you can.’ So they went with the guard and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone.” 

Why add this Holy Saturday account to Mark’s version?  It is quite possible that denials were circulating in opposition to the Christian proclamation of Easter that Jesus had not resurrected, but that His body had been stolen.  This accusation had not yet surfaced at the earlier time of Mark’s Gospel, but it was well-known by the time of Matthew.  Accordingly, Matthew debunks the possibility of a grave robbery by creating the story of the guard of soldiers who sealed the tomb. 

This unreliable description does not offend or threaten my faith because the Evangelist is not a reporter.  The Evangelist is responding to a challenge that has traction within his community, and that challenge is from those who deny the resurrection.  They are saying the corpse was stolen.  This, to me, is a backhanded confirmation of Easter.  The believers and the deniers both agree that the tomb was empty.  The deniers posit grave robbery while the believers proclaim Easter.  The soldiers are stationed outside the tomb on Holy Saturday in Matthew’s Gospel to counter the accusation of a stolen body.  This is not in Mark’s original and it may never have happened, but much more importantly is the confirmation by non-believers that the tomb was empty.

There is no Easter proof.  Easter will always be a matter of faith.  But the tomb was empty.  This is not the time to go into the possibility that Mark hints at in his Gospel that after Jesus’ arrest the disciples give-up and disperse.  They go back to Galilee, to their previous lives before Jesus.  Their experiment with Jesus as the Messiah is now in the past.  Is this why the women hear inside the empty tomb that they are to tell the “disciples and Peter” (16:7) that Jesus will meet them in Galilee?  If this is the case, there is nowhere near enough energy or conviction to raid Jesus’ tomb, dispose of His body, and then only on the basis of this known deception begin a proclamation of Easter that will eventually encircle the globe.  But even so, Easter is never going to be proved.  It is always going to be a question of faith.

I hope and pray that our time together over these 40 Lenten days have strengthened and grown our faith so that on this last day of Lent we can look with our mind’s eye at the sealed tomb and believe in our heart of hearts that Jesus’ story, that our story with Jesus, is far from over.  I invite you to join us, rain or shine, for a Sunrise Service across the street from the American Legion in Hatfield at 6:20am on Easter Sunday, and then to join us in the church sanctuary for worship and Communion beginning at 9:30am.  Thank you for walking along this Lenten journey with me. And if you would like to continue sharing a discussion about the biblical text, I encourage you to join us for our online Bible study.

If you would like to join us for our online Bible study, please send an email to [email protected] for the Zoom logins.
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.

Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches.  These are the suggested readings for April 3rd:  Psalm 22; Isaiah 52:13—53:12; Hebrews 10:16-25; John 18:1—19:42.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

I have mentioned this several times during Lent, but let me say it one last time.  I do not look at Lent like I look at Advent.  Advent anticipates and prepares believers for the mystery of the Incarnation (Christmas), that God takes on our full humanity in Jesus of Nazareth.  In the Epistle to the Philippians, Paul quotes a Christian hymn that is already familiar among first generation Christians around 56AD.  The hymn begins with words that express astonishment at Jesus’ human nature:  “Though [Christ Jesus] was in the form of God, [he] did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied [έκένωσεν, ekenosen] himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness …” (2:6-7) 

Lent, I believe, does not anticipate Easter.  It culminates at the cross and grave of Jesus.  This is the only way to represent the true human nature of Jesus.  As He was born “emptied” of His divine nature, so He must die “emptied” of his divine nature.  Thus, that first generation Christian hymn continues in its astonishment:  “… And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.” (2:7-8)  Scholars postulate that the hymn ended at “the point of death,” and that Paul himself added the phrase, “even death on a cross.”  The hymn marveled at God Incarnate’s death, and Paul expresses the further astonishment that it was not an ordinary death, but the scandalous “death on a cross.”  If Jesus endured the cross with absolute assurance of the resurrection, then His human connection with us is less than complete.  One of human nature’s defining characteristics is our awareness of our mortality and our hope without proof of our immortality.  Take this away from Jesus and His death is not like ours.  Take this away from Jesus and the desperate cry from the cross of “‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” (Mark 15:34) become the script of an actor. Take this away and Jesus’ loud cry, His primal scream (Mark 15:37), is stripped of its palpable distress and becomes just maudlin.  This is where Lent’s 40 days lead and where Lent ends.

Lent calls upon the faithful to consider and empathize with a crucified Saviour, even going as far as Jurgen Moltmann who offers the theological teaching of a “Crucified God.”  This is a defining mystery that cannot be passed over in a rush to the empty tomb.  Similarly, we must understand the loss and confusion of the disciples who saw the cross only as defeat, who do not anticipate the resurrection.  Lent calls on us to walk in those same shoes so that we may marvel still at the love of Christ, at the love of God, so outlandishly provocative that its last testimony is the crucifixion and death of the Incarnate Word of God. 

Isaiah’s Suffering Servant was always seen as a precursor to Jesus by Christians.  In today’s passage we read, “Who has believed what we have heard?”  Honestly, who really believes in a love like this?  Isn’t this why we rush from the cross to the empty tomb because we do not like to linger at such a love as this?  On His last night, Jesus offers a final revelation, a deathbed testimony:  “‘I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have love you, you also must love one another.’” (John 13:34)  As the last words of a loved one are cherished so may these last words of Jesus be cherished by all who call on His name.  We are commanded to love just as Jesus loves, and that means as much as the cross.  In a new world order apparently defined by power, where prayers to Jesus can ask for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy,” it is a fair to restate Isaiah’s question:  “Who has believed what we have heard?” 

May we take time this Good Friday to contemplate what the cross means.  The church will be open from noon until 3:00pm for private meditation and prayer.
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If you would like to join us for our online Bible study, please send an email to [email protected] for the Zoom logins.
If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.

Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches.  These are the suggested readings for April 2nd:  Exodus 12:1-14; Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; and John 13:1-17, 31b-35.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Last night at sunset the Jewish festival of Passover began.  It is the remembrance of God’s liberation of the Jews from Egyptian slavery.  As it is said in today’s Exodus passage, “This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.”  Accordingly, Jews around the world and in our local communities are right now observing Passover, and are finding true spiritual nourishment in it. 

Jesus was Jewish.  It should go without saying, but Jesus did not wear a cross necklace.  Jesus maintained the religious rites and practices of His people, the Jewish people.  What we now call the Last Supper was Jesus’ last Passover observance.  It is interesting to study the different ways the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke treat this gathering as compared with John.  A principal difference is that the much shorter Synoptic Last Supper pericopes highlight the institution of Holy Communion, while the much longer account in John never mentions the institution (That happened earlier in the miracle of the loaves). 

John’s Gospel is behind the name Maundy Thursday.  It is derived from the Latin word for commandment.  In John’s account, Jesus gives a new command that His followers must love one another just as He has loved them.  Tied in with this command is Jesus’ example of washing the disciples’ feet.  Jesus here takes on the role of the household servant/slave, and as such He teaches:  “‘I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, slaves are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.’”  “If you do them …”  That’s the key.  It is one thing to know that we are to love one another as Jesus has loved us, to love in a selfless, humble way, to erase the differences between slave and master and see everyone as equal in the eyes of God, but it is another to act accordingly. 

The Synoptics don’t share the washing the feet story.  They celebrate Jesus’ institution of Holy Communion.  This is the occasion when Jesus says over the bread “This is my body” and over the cup “This is my blood.”  He also commands, “Do this in remembrance of me,” and the church has for nearly 2,000 years.  This is one of the church’s most ancient and most authentic traditions.  It reaches to a time before the emergence of any Christian text.  Paul’s letters are the oldest parts of the New Testament, and Communion predates them.  In technical language that reports the exact reception and exact transmission of a tradition, Paul writes, “For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you …,” and then Paul describes the basics of the Holy Communion ritual.  Christians have gathered at table and repeated this Last Supper action for as long as there have been Christians.  Communion unites us with Christ and each other, and also across the millennia of generations. 

After this last Passover meal, Jesus and most of His disciples exit the city proper and plan to spend the night in the Garden of Gethsemane.  It is here that Jesus is betrayed by one of His disciples and deserted by all of them.  Jesus must face the abuse of His enemies alone throughout the night, leading to the next day’s unbelievable ordeal.

All of these actions, the inherited Passover tradition, the new commandment, the institution of Holy Communion, and the beginning of Jesus’ Passion, are all part of the Maundy Thursday worship Service.  It is a special and beautiful liturgy that ends in the silence of a darkened church.  I invite you to join us this evening at 7:00pm at the Sunderland Church for our Maundy Thursday Service.  Whoever you are, you are welcome.

If you would like to join us for our online Bible study, please send an email to [email protected] for the Zoom logins.
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.

Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches.  These are the suggested readings for April 1st:  Psalm 70; Isaiah 50:4-9a; Hebrews 12:1-3; and John 13:21-32.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Today is the colloquial April Fool’s Day.  It’s so familiar it is printed on my calendar along with other more formal April observances such as Passover and Easter.  The origins of April Fool’s Day are uncertain, which seems appropriate for such an observance.  The one that makes the most sense to me is that when France switched officially from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in 1564, it moved New Year's Day from late March/early April to January 1st.  Those who continued celebrating the new year at its old Spring date were mocked as “April Fools” because they were unwilling to accept change.

Today’s Gospel passage seems strange to me.  A troubled Jesus reveals to His closest followers that one of them will betray Him.  This is disturbing even to Jesus.  These are the people who were close-by throughout Jesus’ three-year ministry.  [John’s three Passovers are the basis for this teaching:  2:13; 6:4; and 12:1.]  They have witnessed all of Jesus’ “signs.”  They have heard His preaching and teaching.  That one among them would betray Him is heart-breaking.

The reaction of the Twelve is bewilderment.  Peter encourages the Beloved Disciple to ask Jesus who the betrayer is, and Jesus gives a direct response:  “‘It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish,’” and then Jesus gives the bread to Judas.  Jesus has outed the betrayer.  There is no obfuscation.  It is Judas.  Then, just in case this was not clear enough, Jesus lets Judas know that his plans are known:  “‘Do quickly what you are going to do.’”  And Judas retreats immediately into the night, into the darkness.

One would have to assume that by this time the Beloved Disciple has let the others know what Jesus had revealed to him.  So why the confusion?  Why is that “no one knew why [Jesus] said this to [Judas].  Some thought that because Judas had the common purse, Jesus was telling him, ‘Buy what we need for the festival,’ or that he should give something to the poor.”  This seems strange to me.

I wonder on this April Fool’s Day if the disciples were blinded to the obvious because they chose not to believe.  Like those 16th century people of France who chose not to change when the world around them did and were named April Fools, are the disciples choosing not to accept the change that will rupture their community?  Is it so unthinkable that it is literally un-thinkable? 

Won’t this continue when the remaining disciples cannot receive Jesus’ revelation that with His betrayal by Judas and the inevitable crucifixion and death that will follow, rather than defeat, Jesus can say, “‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him.’”?  Isn’t this a lesson for all believers that Jesus, especially a crucified Jesus, will challenge our expectations, will challenge what we want to believe, and will confront us with an unexpected reality?  Holy Week is a time to face our assumptions and to reexamine in a deeper fashion, every year, what it means for each of us to believe in and be guided by a crucified Saviour.

If you would like to join us for our online Bible study, please send an email to [email protected] for the Zoom logins.
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.

Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches.  These are the suggested readings for March 31st:  Psalm 71:1-14; Isaiah 49:1-7; 1 Corinthians 1:18-31; and John 12:20-36.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Maybe you have heard at one time or another the famous dictum:  “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  World history is chock full of tyrants wielding power to only be overthrown by others with more power.  In our Bible study group, we have talked about the quick succession of conquering powers.  The Assyrians are overpowered by the Babylonians who are overpowered by the Persians who are overpowered by the Greeks who are overpowered by the Romans, and then the story goes on and on. 

In the mythical story of national origins found in Genesis, we read that “[Nimrod] was the first on earth to become a mighty warrior.” (10:8)  In modern North American English slang, the term “nimrod” is often used to mean a dimwitted or a stupid person.  Maybe a person does need to be a nimrod to believe that a reliance on power can be a sure and lasting foundation.  Kenneth Waltz is a political theorist and he once observed that “unbalanced power, whoever wields it, is a potential danger to others.”  Power is too powerful a temptation so an unbalanced power will eventually be misused.  Might makes right becomes its logic.  However, if it was logical, if it made sense, it would be convincing on its merits.  It would not need to rely on power to force compliance.  This is why it is the nimrod who presumes that power justifies anything and everything. 

This abused power will not last.  It creates enemies not allies.  It coerces rather than persuades.  It will eventually exhaust itself and when its power is no longer an unbalanced power, it will collapse.  And since world history is filled with insanity a subsequent power will fill that vacuum, and the whole insane cycle will begin again.  People will again suffer and die.  Ignorance and poverty will again thrive.  Resources will be wasted and generations will be lost.  And as power’s technology increases the real possibility of an end-of-civilization conflict increases.  To save us from this End-time Armageddon I wouldn’t wager on Jesus’ Second Coming; I would focus on Jesus’ first coming.

And in the midst of all this, today is Holy Tuesday.  In such a world, does it even matter?  I think it matters more than most imagine or bother to consider.  Jesus suffers and dies later this week at the hands of unbalanced power.  He would not succumb to its insanity.  When a disciple pulls out a sword and attacks an attacker in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus rebukes the disciple:  “‘All who take the sword will perish by the sword.’” (Matthew 26:52)  Jesus will not allow violence to be violence’s response because it will never, ever end.  Jesus wields this gospel wisdom against all the world’s nimrods.  Jesus offers an alternative to endless cycles of power grabs.  He will not condone violence.  Violence can triumph for a moment, but it will pass when another cycle of violence tramples the previous nimrod so that another nimrod can take its place.  Jesus rejects violence and war and no one can use Him to justify violence and war.

The wisdom of Christ, and He crucified, is a wisdom that offers humanity the chance to escape the insanity of doing the same stupid thing over and over again and still expecting a different result.  Christ was willing to accept the cross because Jesus accepted the wisdom of the cross, or as Paul so famously has put it:  “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”  The power to extract ourselves from the absurd logic of unbalanced power, now this, this is the power of God, this is the cross, this is Christ’s last living gospel proclamation, this is the wisdom that stands in opposition to all the world’s endless line of nimrods.

Christians have always looked to Isaiah’s Suffering Servant as an image of Jesus.  Today we read:  “‘It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.’”  May the light of Jesus, and He crucified, be a light and a wisdom to all the nations, to all the world, so that we can discover a better alternative to the one we have embraced throughout human history, and still today as the world seems poised to erupt in a horrendous spasm of violence.  So yes, Holy Tuesday definitely matters.

If you would like to join us for our online Bible study, please send an email to [email protected] for the Zoom logins.
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.

Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches.  These are the suggested readings for March 30th:  Psalm 36:5-11; Isaiah 42:1-9; Hebrews 9:11-15; and John 12:1-11.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

At our last online Bible study gathering, we talked about the Suffering Servant passages in Deutero-Isaiah (Isaiah 40-55).  Scholarly arguments are inconclusive about who or what these passages refer to at that time.  Was it an actual person, an ideal, or even the people of Israel as a whole?  I am drawn to Deutero-Isaiah.  He is a breath of fresh air.  He doesn’t speak of sin and judgment as so many others prophets had and will.  He offers hope.  He doesn’t place that hope in king or temple, but rather in the sanctity of the people themselves.  He hopes for the conversion of the people so that once restored to their homeland they will be invested with royal and prophetic authority.  And since they have known the humiliation of defeat and exile, living as foreigners in a strange land, they will then create a new community of welcome for all people.  Unfortunately (but naturally), this is but a momentary breath.  Almost as soon as the people return to Jerusalem, they forget the words of Deutero-Isaiah.  They seek but fail to reestablish the Davidic monarchy, and they seek and succeed in restoring the Jerusalem Temple.

Scholars are unsure of who the Suffering Servant passages represented at that time, but it is quite clear that the earliest Christians saw Jesus, and Him crucified, as the ultimate reference.  Jesus challenged the power of the Roman Empire not by physical force, but by offering the alternative of the gospel.  When Christians looked back upon the crucifixion and that Jesus accepted this injustice rather than betray His gospel of peace, they saw the fulfillment of the Suffering Servant passages.  The crucifixion must have confused those earliest believers.  As they sought with time to understand its theology, they turned to the Hebrew Scripture’s examples of atonement sacrifices to God, and to the Suffering Servant:  “I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.  He will not cry out or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.”  When some distort the life and teaching of Jesus to bolster their supposedly righteous anger and violence, we need to remember that Christians have always seen Jesus as the Suffering Servant, the one who fostered justice worldwide and was so peaceable a man that he would not break a bruised reed or snuff out a dimly burning candle.

We should also combine this with Deutero-Isaiah’s hope that it would be the community of all the people who would usher in and advance God’s reign.  It would not be king or temple; it would be all the people.  Jesus’ death is not meant to stand alone.  It is meant to inspire us to act in accordance with so great a sacrifice.  During these days of Holy Week, with anger and violence aplenty in the world and somehow justified by Jesus’ name, may we follow Jesus’ lived example, lived even to the moment of His death, of justice through peaceable change.  Justice will not descend magically from heaven.  This will well up from the all the people who remember and are inspired by Christ’s lived example, lived even unto the cross.

If you would like to join us for our online Bible study, please send an email to [email protected] for the Zoom logins.
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.