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.

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 28th:  Psalm 31:9-16; Lamentations 3:55-66; and Mark 10:32-34.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Tomorrow is Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week.  Only John shares with us that the people in Jerusalem “took branches of palm trees and went out to meet [Jesus],” (12:13) but it is a tradition that has caught on all over the Christian world.  The ecstatic crowds greet Jesus with shouts of “Hosanna to the Son of David!”  Hosanna is Hebrew for “Save, we pray.”  Son of David is a Messianic term.  The crowds expect Jesus to save them as the Messiah, the successor of King David.  David expanded the nation of Israel through military conquest, and the Messianic hope is that Jesus will free Israel from Roman occupation.  Why else would Jesus fearlessly enter the city of Jerusalem around Passover, the Jewish feast of liberation?  Jesus’ parade taunted both the religious and military/political leadership of that time.  Jesus came in the name of the Lord.  The people expected a divine intervention that would lead to victory and freedom. 

In this way, the palms that will be distributed at church tomorrow both honour Jesus and warn us about false praise and worship.  They warn us against making Jesus into who we want Him to be rather than who Jesus is.  The same crowds that shouted “Hosanna,” will be the ones yelling “Crucify Him!” when they realize that Jesus is not the Messiah they expected, they demanded.  This is not a condemnation limited to the Jews of 2,000 years ago.  This is a warning for anyone who wishes to follow a Jesus of their own making.  Instead, may we imitate the faith of the Psalmist who today offers, “But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, ‘You are my God.’” 

Since Palm Sunday is the beginning of Holy Week, we also read the entire Passion account.  This year we will read Matthew’s version.  We do this so that the faithful will be reminded of all that transpires over Jesus’ last days – the Last Supper, the institution of Holy Communion, the new commandment, the arrest in Gethsemane, the torturous death upon the cross, and the quick disposal of Jesus’ corpse in Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb.  The Passion will be read in parts by various members of the congregation.  It serves as both our Gospel reading and sermon.

Palm Sunday and Holy Week are the necessary precursors to Easter.  I truly believe that the promise and joy of the empty tomb cannot be fully experienced without first walking our Lenten journey, and the week ahead is the culmination of that journey.  I invite you to join us tomorrow for our Palm Sunday Service that begins at 9:30am. 

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 27th:  Job 13:13-19; Psalm 31:9-16; Philippians 1:21-30.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Today is our sixth Lenten Friday, the last one before Holy Week begins.  Jesus is journeying with other pilgrims to be in Jerusalem for Passover.  As Mark tells the story, a heaviness hangs over Jesus and His followers.  This would set them apart from other pilgrims who are approaching joyously the Temple for the Jewish feast of liberation.  Those with Jesus feel it necessary to give Him space. 

Being alone is not the same as being lonely, but a person can feel desperately alone in a crowd.  It is not the proximity of others that is determinative.  Isolation is the inability to connect with others.  Jesus is alone and isolated as He proceeds closer to Jerusalem.  On two prior occasions, Jesus had tried to prepare His followers by foretelling His suffering and death, and on both occasions He was met with confusion.  His followers could not process what Jesus was trying to reveal to them.  They could not accept the possibility of a suffering Messiah.  And yet, the inevitability of Jerusalem was getting closer and closer.  With each step forward along the road, Jerusalem loomed more imposing over Jesus, and the disciples’ intransience more disheartening.  Thus, “They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them [alone].”  (10:32)

The same Greek word is used at 10:32 to describe the “amazement” of the disciples as was employed to express their “bewilderment” at 10:24 when Jesus had professed how hard it would be for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.  They are culturally unable to process the revelation of a crucified Messiah, and their bewilderment isolates them from Jesus and Jesus from them.  And Jesus continues to carry that wreckage with Him as He climbs up the road to Jerusalem.

Even the more casual followers of Jesus sense that something is awry, and they are “afraid.” (10:32)  This group may simply be other Galileans taking the same pilgrimage route to Jerusalem for the Passover festival, but they are made afraid by this sense of foreboding that engulfs Jesus and the disciples.  And Jesus’ isolation grows deeper.
Nothing and no one seem able to break through, until Bartimaeus.  This is the last story in Mark’s Gospel before Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on what we now call Palm Sunday.  Jesus has just had to deal with the third failure of His disciples (10:35-45), the ones He had hoped would continue His ministry.  The possible futility of His life and ministry had to torment Jesus, adding to His isolation.  Through all of this Jesus hears the plaintive cry of Bartimaeus, struggling over the crowd’s demand that he be silent.  Jesus hears, “‘Have mercy on me.’” (10:47)  Even as Jesus marches toward Jerusalem and all the horrors that await Him there, He stops and makes time for a beggar.  Jesus restores sight to Bartimaeus.  When others could not break through the isolation, when others who by now should have known better failed, when futility had to torment Jesus, His compassion broke through all of this as Jesus heard Bartimaeus’ desperate plea. 

This is our Saviour, our Jesus.  This is the one we walk with on our Lenten journey to the cross.  He was left so terribly alone on that walk, but now we have the opportunity to be with Him.  We read today in Philippians, “For [God] has graciously granted [us] the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well.”  Paul challenges us to continue the compassionate work of Jesus.  To believe, to understand Jesus, to appreciate who this Jesus is as He stops on His way to all that Jerusalem entails so that he can heal a blind beggar, this sometimes entail “suffering for him as well.”  Faith not only takes; it gives.  Service, ministry, is a sacred privilege that unites us with Jesus.  May Lent help us better understand that this is part of what it means to follow 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 26th:  1 Samuel 16:11-13; Psalm 31:9-16; and Philippians 1:1-11.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Today is Opening Day for the Red Sox.  It’s always a day of hope.  I grew up with the Red Sox long before 2004, and every year the phrase “There’s always next year” was repeated like a mantra.  Opening Day was that day of hope after the previous year’s less than a World Series conclusion.  This is part of the reason why the first of those – at least – 162 games has a bit more excitement.  It’s the expectation of all that is possible.

Today’s first reading is the Bible’s first encounter with David.  Yahweh has rejected Saul as king of Israel, and tells the prophet Samuel that a new king has been chosen.  Yahweh sends the prophet to Bethlehem and to the family of Jesse.  One among Jesse’s sons will be anointed the new king of Israel, but Samuel knows not which one.  The eldest son Eliab is presented before Samuel.  The prophet’s immediate reaction is that this must be the one, but in words that are timeless Yahweh admonishes, “‘Do not look on his appearance … for the Lord does not see as mortals see.  They look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.’” (1 Samuel16:7)  Seven of Jesse’s sons pass before the prophet.  Seven is a symbolic biblical number of fullness and completion.  Samuel is perplexed because Yahweh has not chosen any of these seven sons of Jesse, so he asks, “‘Are all your sons here?’” (16:11)  Then, either almost forgotten or intentionally ignored, Jesse tells the prophet the youngest son is tending the sheep.  When this eighth son, the unexpected one past the number of completion, appears before Samuel, immediately Yahweh reveals, “‘This is the one.’” (16:12) 

This is a wonderful story of all that is possible.  It shares a message of unseen, unrecognized potential.  They had to rewrite the ending of “Field of Dreams” after the 2004 World Series because the unforeseen happened.  The expectation and hope of that season’s Opening Day became a reality.  God reprimanded the prophet for looking at appearance, for not taking into account the possible that God envisions, the hope that will be fulfilled.  I love underdog stories.  I think this is why the 2004 season will always be my favourite.  And I love that God sees us not only as we are, but as we may become.  What a glorious and inspiring message of hope and potential.

Let’s now turn to the opening of Paul’s Letter to the Philippians.  This is often described as an Epistle of Christian joy and happiness.  Paul can be rather severe in his Epistles, but Philippians has a different tone, maybe one summarized in his closing exhortation:  “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say, Rejoice!” (4:4)  And at the other end of this Letter, Paul greets this church community he founded by writing, “To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi …”  Today we have a tendency to think of the saints as limited to exceptional Christians, as the ones who have “St.” before their names, but to this first generation church in Philippi, Paul greets them all as saints.  Paul believes in everyone’s potential.  To accept Jesus, means to follow Jesus, means to be saintly, so therefore, “To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi …” 

This is not unlike Yahweh’s revelation to Samuel to not judge by what you see, but by what God can see, to look beyond what is and to envision what could be.  David is the forgotten one, and yet David becomes the anointed one.  Of course there were difficulties in the church at Philippi, but Paul reminds them from the opening salutation that they are called to be saints.  We, still today, are called to be saints.  Don’t look for halos.  Look for people of compassion and justice, of forgiveness and charity … and faith.  There is no way to live up to the godly expectations of being the saints if we don’t do so “in Christ Jesus.”  We must ground our humanity in our faith.  We must trust that Jesus will heal, help and hold us as we strive to be His saints.  May these Lenten days help us to trust more impactfully that “in Christ Jesus” all of us can live as saints.

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 25th:  Psalm 143; Jeremiah 32:1-9, 36-41; and Matthew 22:23-33.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Truth to power.  That’s a phrase often associated with moral candor.  When others are too cowardly or cowed to challenge the assumptions of those in power, when truth is not being shared no matter how obviously flawed the policy, then reality will eventually force a reckoning.  To speak truth to power is to challenge this self-deluding dynamic.  And it often comes with a heavy price.

Truth to power is the story of fearless activists under oppressive regimes.  They stand up to the fairytales that despots spew regardless of the cost.  Since the authoritarians have no rational argument that is meaningful outside of their own circle of echoed claims, they always must rely on fear, force and punishment.  Alexei Navalny, for example, spoke truth to power inside Putin’s Russia and since those in power had no counterargument, they had to assassinate him.  Truth to power is costly, but for those driven to such a cause it is a cost worth paying.  Such people can only take so much falsity dressed-up as fact.  They are driven to speak out.

Jeremiah was such a person.  God called Jeremiah from childhood to be a “prophet to the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:5)  Jeremiah had the unenviable task of speaking God’s word of judgment and ruin to his very own people.  His prophetic ministry overlaps with the history of Judah and Jerusalem’s national collapse.  God called upon Jeremiah to speak truth to power at such a consequential moment, and the punishment was heavy:  “At that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and the prophet Jeremiah was confined in the court of the guard that was in the palace of the king of Judah, where King Zedekiah of Judah had confined him.  Zedekiah had said, “Why do you prophesy and say:  Thus says the Lord:  I am going to give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it.’”
 
Why do you say?  What else could the prophet say if he were to remain faithful to his calling?  Jeremiah had proclaimed in public spaces in the king’s city of Jerusalem that defeat was inevitable, that the city would fall to the Babylonians.  He advised in God’s name what was judged treasonous in the king’s name, and yet Jeremiah spoke truth to power regardless of the consequences both for the sake of God’s Word and the people’s lives:  “And to this people you shall say: Thus says the Lord:  See, I am setting before you the way of life and the way of death.  Those who stay in this city shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence, but those who go out and surrender to the Chaldeans who are besieging you shall live and shall have their lives as a prize of war.” (Jeremiah 21:8-9) 

Obviously, King Zedekiah would be opposed to such preaching, but Jeremiah was a fearless spokesman of God’s Word.  The king imprisoned God’s prophet and interrogated him in the court of the palace guard, demanding why Jeremiah insists on preaching national defeat.  The king only wanted to hear what he wanted to hear.  The prophet was compelled to share God’s revelation, was compelled to speak truth to power, and he paid the price. 

Jeremiah survives the king’s imprisonment and the defeat of Jerusalem.  Jesus is not as fortunate when He speaks truth to power.  He challenges both the religious and political authorities of His day.  As in today’s Gospel selection, Jesus questions the core assumption of the Sadducees so much so that “when the crowds heard it, they were astounded at [Jesus’] teaching,” and the Sadducees were the powerful and connected religious upper class whose power base was the Jerusalem Temple.  They needed stability to remain in power.  They needed the Temple to continue, and that required a devil’s bargain with the Romans.  When Jesus speaks truth to power whatever that power may be, when Jesus threatens the status quo as His preaching always will, He is fearless, and because of this Jesus is doomed to face the consequences. 

I hope we have had time this quickly passing Lenten season to consider what Jesus’ truth may be, and why it is a threat to unhinged power.  And I hope as we approach Palm Sunday’s triumphal, public, challenging entry into the city where both the religious and political leaders are gathered, that we may be more fearless in proclaiming Jesus’ timeless truth even if that truth is not in accordance with power.   

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.