Pentecost Season - Year B-- 2024
Indexed by Date. Sermons for Pentecost and the Season After Pentecost Year B
Job 1: 1; 2:1-10
Psalm 26
Mark 10: 2-26
59 years ago, for the first time on the silver screen, The Sound of Music, depicted Fraulein Maria and Geog VonTrapp, a novice nun turned governess and a retired officer of the Austrian navy, (played by Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer) standing in his gazebo, expressing their love for each other and singing:
“PerhapsI had a wicked childhood Perhaps I had a miserable youth But somewhere in my wicked, miserable past There must have been a moment of truth. For here you are, standing there, loving me Whether or not you should But somewhere in my youth or childhood I must have done something good Nothing comes from nothing Nothing ever could So somewhere in my youth or childhood I must have done something good.”
Andrews and Plummer sing of the same awe and wonder every Christmas season, delighting the hearts of those who know every line, every scene, yet watch it again and again.
Singer, Kris Kristofferson, wrote these words in 1972:
“Why me Lord, what have I ever done To deserve even one Of the pleasures I've known Tell me Lord, what did I ever do That was worth loving you Or the kindness you've shown”
In this way of looking at life, it is assumed that our unfortunate circumstances are a result of our own actions, as well as our seemingly undeserved and unexpected joys. When it does not happen that way, we are surprised! Many people believe that we should get what we actually deserve in this “tit for tat”, “quid pro quo” world. Or we think that we are supposed to believe that!
What about all those times when the scales of justice are tilted in the wrong direction? Why do the innocent suffer and the guilty seem to prosper. Surely those thousands killed on 9/11 did not deserve that fate, nor those who went down with the Titanic on that cold April morning in 1912, or who have perished in wars and local conflicts in this century alone! Where is the fairness? What is the use of believing? Surely it must have some reward!
Human beings have an innate expectation of justice and fairness. If there is more than one child in a family, the desert portions must be the same size, bedtimes, tv time and other privileges must be the same. Once we had more than one channel, but still only one TV, I wondered why the ones who wanted to watch hockey ALWAYS got their way!!!! Children in school feel all should be equally punished for the same rule breaking - and some NOT let off because of who their parents were!
The book of Job has perplexed its readers for several thousand years. What is it trying to tell us? When we look at the book of Job it may be helpful to remember that the land of Uz was a foreign country, it was not in Israel, and that Job himself was a foreigner and not one of the children of Israel. Its message is more universal. The story is not meant as biography, it is likely a parable, a story crafted to convey a spiritual truth, a story to tease the mind into deep thought. Job never existed; but, Job has existed in every time and place where human beings have lived!
For over 100 years the term, “Job’s comforters” has come to mean the opposite of what it appears to mean! When misfortune befalls someone, friends who show up, intending to be helpful, but utter words of seeming encouragement and comfort which are neither encouraging nor helpful, probably should have stayed home! We’ve all probably been on both sides of that experience!
Many of us have suffered the untimely death of a loved one or had an illness which was debilitating and caused life-long limitations and we may have wondered where God was in all of it.
In this story, Job has suffered both and his friends, the so-called “comforters,” tried to give him reasons. First they came and sat in silence but unfortunately. After 7 days they began to speak; and their speeches were not helpful.
When I was serving my very first Pastoral Charge, I recall visiting a parishioner whose husband had just died, quite suddenly. I lived about 25kms away, but because he lived a few houses away, a minister from another denomination had already arrived by the time I got there. He was in full-blown “pastor mode” telling them to have faith and to trust in God. Finally, he prayed with them - and then left. I could not wait for him to go because I was so uncomfortable with what he was saying with the intention of bringing solace to the family. My firm belief was that the widow had to sit with her feelings of shock and grief before she could take any comfort in the promise of heaven, which, to him, made mourning a mockery of faith. My goal was to sit with her in her pain and loss, to listen to her and affirm that her feelings were all perfectly okay. In time she would be able to put the pain behind her.
The unhelpful involvement of “some” other clergy in such situations has repeated itself over and over since then. Different denominations have radically different perspectives on the issues of grief and suffering and sin and salvation and they don’t tend to mix well.
When reading the book of Job, it is easy to get lost in the details. We may ask, “Who said that; who is speaking.” Most of the speeches ask, in one way or another, “what HAVE you done, Job? There must be SOMETHING you can think of.” So, these verses are not, equally “the word of God,” that we can quote out of context, but set up as a “counter opinion.”
The details of those speeches will be in the passages read over the next few weeks but I wont likely be preaching on them ; I will be preaching on the Gospel texts. So this week I have to cover Job from a to z.
I will state up-front that I actually don’t like the premise of the book; God and the heavenly beings are staging a bit of a game in which Job is but a pawn. God says, “Job will not” and the Satan says, “Job will too!”. The only way that it makes sense is that it is a story written to make a point. Job is not a real person being batted back and forth between God and Satan. By the way Satan in this book is not the same Satan as appears in the New Testament.
We can affirm that Job is innocent; the story tells us that. It tells us that he is so diligent that he even makes extra sacrifices on behalf of his children in case they have done something wrong.
The truth is that we do not know why the innocent suffer. As the book nears its end we hear God tell Job that his friends are all hot air. They spend a lot of time speculating, but really know nothing. In the end, Job is not punished but his blessings are restored, as much as that is possible.
What is the real question in the book of Job?
The Men of the Deeps, is a coal miner’s choir, and one of the little ditties they used to sing at concerts is called, “Why Study?.” I don’t think they wrote it but they d=sang it well. I have not heard it more than a few times in the last 40 years but I think it goes something like this.
“The more you study the more you learn. The more you learn the more you forget. The more you forget the less you know. So, why study?”
This leads us to the question: “if faith does not come with guarantees, why believe, why be faithful” If you are not guaranteed to “get something” from being a persona of faith, why bother? Are we not just wasting our time?
One of the messages of faith is that faith and religious commitment is not like a vending machine. You know how they work: put in your money, press the right button and your bag of chips, bottle of pop or chocolate bar, drops into the slot and you retrieve it. In Pearson (airport) you can buy deluxe pieces of cake from a vending machine, at least in the Air Canada terminal, or even an I-pad or I-phone! Those require a credit-card!
Faith is not a transaction of the same nature as we find in commerce or contracts; we don’t believe in order to receive a benefit of some kind. So the innocent do suffer and they do prosper, just as the guilty do. Faith and a relationship with God are ends within themselves and are their own reward. Faith is not a “ticket” to heaven or a “get our of jail free” card. The life of faith is not a Monopoly game. Job knew that in the midst of his troubles God was still there and had not abandoned him. The ultimate why’s cannot be fully answered or understood. We are called to live in trust, knowing that whatever happens we can proclaim the love of a God who is with us, always.
Amen.
NO SERMON _ON MEDICAL LEAVE
NO SERMON, On Medical Leave
No Sermon - on medical leave
NO SERMON, on medical Leave
Ruth 3: 1-5; 4:13-17
Psalm 127
Mark 12: 38-44
Beginning on January 4, 1998, from Ottawa to the Maritimes, a severe ice storm all but paralyzed just about everything. The power grid surrounding Montreal suffered an almost total collapse as transmission tower after transmission tower and the connected lines collapsed under the weight of the accumulating ice. I was living on the north shore of Nova Scotia at the time and the next morning, I woke up to a power outage. With the sun on the ice-laden poplar trees lining my driveway, the scene was stunningly beautiful but as time went on, the manse was getting a bit chilly. I was outside when the sun took hold and all of a sudden the ice on the trees let go - and almost instantly my driveway was covered by thousands upon thousands of ice cubes, each with a hole in the centre where the branch had been. As I remember it, we were back to almost normal in a few days but the news from Quebec was grim. People were cold and running out of food and diapers and shelters were maxed out. Hydro Quebec was working as fast as it could, other utilities sent the crews it could spare, but Hydro Quebec had never contemplated losing the very backbone of its grid.
At our regular meeting of the Executive of Truro Presbytery, one of our members proposed a care package be sent to Montreal- a very BIG care package. She knew someone who could donate the use of a truck and we set up a donation centre at a local downtown church and put announcements on the radio telling folks what was most needed.
We were contacted by a woman on social assistance who wondered if she could drop off the food she had purchased somewhere closer to her house. That town has no transit system and the way taxis work in that town is that the social assistance vouchers operated by zones and she was hoping something in her zone could be opened up to receive donations. A quick call to a local car dealer led to the use of the dealer’s showroom and a van to receive donations.
When the truck finally left for Quebec it was loaded to the gills with food, batteries, diapers and other essentials. The guy at the weigh scales at the provincial border, saw the sign on the side of the truck, “to Quebec, with love from Nova Scotia” and turned a blind eye to this very overweight truck headed for those most in need.
I tell this story because of that woman who was willing to donate to people in need, even when she had so little herself. We have no idea how many people donated out of their abundance and how many did so despite their poverty, but that area of Nova Scotia was able to make a small impact on the massive need in Quebec.
Today’s passages call on us to reflet on the nature of giving and sacrifice. Tomorrow is Remembrance Day - the day when Canadians remember the day the Peace of Versailles ended the Great War on- the 11th hour, of the 11th day, in the 11th month. There will be ceremonies all over the country to mark the sacrifices of the men and women who paid the “ultimate sacrifice” and those who left their youth and their innocence in shell holes and cold ocean water.
As we know, “the war to end all wars” did NOT end war. As we speak, shells are probably flying and landing and exploding in the middle east and Ukraine and people on both sides of each conflict are suffering. We know that overall, old enemies are now allies and old allies are, well, not so friendly any more.
My grandfather, a WW1 veteran, survived the mud, trenches and shells of Belgium and was raising a family of 4 when WW2 was declared. Until then, he had wished that his sons were older than his daughters - he needed the extra help on the farm that older sons could have given him, but in 1939 he was quite glad that his sons were too young to go to war and that they would not have to go through what he did.
When I was a teen, I mowed the church cemetery. Toward the front of the cemetery lies a woman whose husband was killed in action in 1918, Cpl Harold McPhee. His name is also on the stone even though he is buried in France. My grandmother told me that they were married only a day before he left for the war. His name is in the WW1 Book of Remembrance, usually housed in the Memorial Chamber of the Peace Tower in Ottawa. These are beautifully ornate books, all decorated by hand with each name hand lettered in calligraphy. There are very precise schedules and rituals for turning the pages of these books so that all names are on display for one day a year. You can even order a copy of the page on which your loved one’s name appears and find out what day it will be available for viewing.
(Pause)
Sometimes we look at a biblical story and we wonder why it is in the Bible at all. The book of Ruth is one of those stories; and even though it is short, she has a whole book. As I understand it, at some point, the people of Moab and the people of Israel were enemies. There was a lot of pressure at that time to keep Israel pure and not marry those of other nations.
This story, written down some time after the events happened, was meant to shock them into remembering that at least one of their revered ancestors was an enemy. This story of loyalty was meant to present an example of one foreigner who was instrumental in saving their nation - Ruth and Boaz were, after all, ancestors of the great King David. She was a foreigner who took on her mother in law’s loyalties and through tenacity and sacrifice earned a place in their history. Not everyone from an enemy country deserves to be tarred with the same brush!
But let’s go to the Gospel. We have Jesus and his disciples sitting in the temple and observing the people make their offering. If the paintings I have seen are accurate, the offering receptacles were shaped like trumpets and attached to the walls. The heavier coins would clang and make a great noise as they went into the chamber inside the wall.
Think of the RCA emblem with the dog listening to his owner’s voice coming out of the phonograph speakers. A store in Charlottetown had an actual model of this from back in the day and displayed it in the front window every Christmas. I believe it is Dairy Queen which has an elaborate donation box for their charity. I guess it is supposed to add a little fun to the donation process, at least for children!
So, all of these rich people come and dump in big, heavy coins which would make lots of noise but one woman, obviously poor, came along and deposited two coins, the smallest there were. I suppose that they hardly made any noise at all. Jesus remarks that she had given more because the rich ones gave from their abundance while she gave from her poverty.
This has been a much abused passage. A colleague of mine from many years ago was in a church that was in the midst of a building program and a wealthy man came in to give, I think it was $20. He said, “I know it isn’t much but Jesus praised even the widow’s mite.” It was all the minister could do, to restrain himself and not to tell him off - that wealthy man had totally misunderstood the story. He ignored the part of Jesus’ comment where he said that she had given everything she had to live on.
There is a lot of magical thinking involved with giving and sacrifice. One day there was a stewardship testimonial at a church in which a wealthy man was speaking about God rewarding sacrificial giving. He said, “I attribute my success to my giving 100% of my first pay-cheque to the church. That is why I am so well off today. I guarantee that God will reward sacrificial giving.” From the front row, an elderly man called out, “Sonny, I dare you to do it again!”
When I was in my first years of ministry, I read a magazine article in which a real estate agent decided not to work on Sunday and often had to split a commission when a colleague showed a house in her portfolio to prospective buyers. Apparently she had a much higher income after she made this decision, even with the loss in commissions. She attributed her rise in income to this decision - but she said northing about the fact that housing prices in that city were going through the roof!
Generosity may do many things for us but is is not an investment strategy! At least not for money.
What if we have missed something? What if we have missed the real point of the Gospel story? What if it has been in front of us all along? In a previous chapter Jesus drives the money changers and the dove and sheep sellers out of the temple, In the previous paragraph, we are told of Jesus’ observation that the rich people “devoured” widow’s houses! It’s a wonderfully descriptive word isn’t it? DEVOURED. How much more predatory can we get; lions devour their prey; the rich devoured the homes of the poor.
I think of what is usually a Christmas movie in which a depressed George Bailey is given the opportunity to see what his town would have become if he had never been born and the people had to resort to borrowing from mean old Mr Potter. In his vision, Bedford Falls had long since become Potterville!
What if we have missed the reason Jesus pointed out that she was giving everything?
We have Jesus sitting by the offering receptacles and casually observing the wealth people going through the lobby and making a show of dumping in their coins.
What if Jesus was NOT praising the widow for her gift, he was condemning the system that demanded it of her. “Did you notice that the rich are giving what they can spare, but this poor widow is giving everything she has to sustain life.”
I read a book, or rather, several books, a few years ago, written by Marcus Borg, a scholar who talked about the “domination system” under which Jesus and his friends and neighbours lived. He described this “system” as something much larger than the Roman governor and the temple aristocracy, ...... and which, in the end killed Jesus because he exposed its moral bankruptcy.” The temple authorities sold their souls for the relative protection of Rome and the people suffered greatly. Many examples in the gospels describe the ways in which religious laws were used and manipulated to funnel money from the poor to the rich and to absolve those rich from seeing that the poor, even in their own families, had enough to sustain life and dignity.
What does all of this say to us on this day? Comparing giving and sacrifice is not really possible. Some people can give a thousand with more ease than someone else’s $20. Many leave home to make a new life in a new land but each person responds differently.
What I think of as the takeaway is that we are called to create a world where the widows of the world are not expected to support a system which keeps them that poor and where the wealthy take no notice and don’t care.
In the early church, the care of widows and orphans was their high priority for outreach. There was no other system for them. In our different world, but a world with poor and oppressede people, what is our call?
I believe that Jesus came to give people abundant life and that includes the material necessities necessary for dignity - as well as any afterlife to which we have usually limited Jesus’ salvation. If people are starving and we are well off and have the power to change things we need to act.
Amen.
1 Samuel 1: 4-20
1 Samuel 2: 1-10
Mark 13: 1-8
When I was on my first internship many years ago, I was doing some hospital visits and encountered a woman from the church, just outside the hospital elevators. She was beyond excited. She had just had an ultrasound and was able to see her baby’s outline, the arms and legs and so on and to see the heartbeat. The joy she felt was written all across her face and she just bounced with excitement. I found out later that the year before she had suffered a miscarriage so her over-the-top excitement was more understandable.
A few years later, I was visiting a woman who found out she was expecting - and she was devastated. She did not want to be pregnant. Actually, I can put three names, and sets of details, at least, to that woman! It’s not uncommon!
I was talking with an older woman whose youngest was in his late 20s, while her other children were much older. She told me that when the doctor told her that she was expecting she went home and cried for a month. She thought that she and her husband were “done” with babies. However, by the time she told me this, she could not imagine life without that “baby,” her surprise, her shock, her joy, her gift.
I knew a woman who suffered from severe depression. I believe some of her mental health issues could be attributed to being raised by a mother who did not want to have any more children but was forced to raise a child to whom she showed little love or affection.
Each person’s personal and private pregnancy story is different and carries a different set of emotions and outcomes.
Today we are told the story of one infertile couple. It is a polygamous marriage and the two wives do not get along. There is a great deal going on in the story about Samuel’s birth - I think of the reality TV shows such as “Sister Wives” when I look at the story of Peninnah and Hannah and how the one with the child would torment the one without. In that day and age being able to have children was very important. We are told that Elkanah loved Hannah more despite her childless state. He was allowed a second wife and did have children with her so maybe that made it easier for him. But, like the story of Rachel and Leah generations before, it is a recipe for misery. It seems that one wife, even though she has children, is jealous of the one who cannot, because she knows that her husband loves her rival the best.
She may well have thought that it wasn’t fair; after all when she had given him what every man wanted and needed, children to carry on the family name, she SHOULD be the favourite. That only seemed right!
These days, infertile couples have options that would have been unimaginable to people in the time in which Hannah and Elkanah lived. A friend who experienced infertility would get tips and advice from the woman in her community - but nothing worked. Another friend and her husband succeeded with easily implemented changes to their lifestyle. Another couple were approved for adoption and then, before the baby arrived discovered they were expecting, naturally. However some couples never manage to conceive; some of those adopt, others move on and find joy in other pursuits, while others live for the rest of their life with an “ache for a child.”
There are a number of biblical stories which stand out in my mind as stories of unexpected or impossible pregnancies. In the older testament there are Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and Samson to name the ones I can think of, off the top of my head. Each of these boys turned out to be leaders who had a significant part in shaping the future of their small nation. Perhaps such children need to have a beginning guided by God’s hand! In the Gospels we have John the Baptizer and, of course, Jesus. We will hear those stories in the upcoming season of Advent, when the cycle of readings resets itself and we begin once more to hope for a world made new.
The Psalm like passage in today’s reading and the one placed on the lips of Mary and often called “the Magnificat” are strikingly similar and give God the credit for the miracle of these births. They are lofty and eloquent songs of praise. It seems to me that the whole point of this poem of praise is that the regular way was not quite good enough; God’s grace was needed to make what was natural for others, happen. Each time the story was told the people were reminded that God was the author of their success, lest they think that they had done it all by themselves.
We are told that Hannah prayed so fervently that Eli, upon observing her prayer, had assumed she had been drinking. I find that kind of ironic: this holy man can not tell the difference between fervent prayer and drunken muttering. We find out later that he that he had a troubled home life and that his sons had no regard for the life to which they were born. When Eli confronts Hannah he is set straight; Hannah is no pushover.
Well, we know the rest of part 1 of the story - The couple had a baby and named him Samuel which means, “I asked God for him.” I have known this story since I was very young and never quite understood why she gave away the baby she wanted so much - but we have to place his life in the context of the much larger story of the people of Israel - and see his special training (and separation from his parents) as part of this plan.
Various parts of the story of Samuel, his childhood and later life, are spread out across the three years of the lectionary and I’m not going to take the time today, even to hit the high points. I believe that Samuel was such an important prophet in their history that they needed to show that even his conception was a work of the Spirit. This story asks us to reflect on the intersection of human action and God’s grace.
When we began to expect Jesus, 50 or so weeks ago, what were we hoping for? When we encountered the baby in the manger, what did we expect him to grow up to be?
This leads me to wonder, “What do we expect from our faith? What do we expect from our connection to Christian community?” Last week I spoke of people I have encountered who saw faithfulness to the Gospel as the way to prosperity because they belive God rewards the faithul with material wealth or safety.
We have all probably heard the story of the man whose small boat sank and he was treading water and praying for God to rescue him. By and by a helicopter showed up but he refused rescue, so sure was he that God was going to rescue him. After some time, a small boat came by and offered rescue but again the man refused so sure was he of God’s rescue. As his energy was about gone, a young boy on a jet ski came by and he refused again, saying, “no, God promised that he would rescue me,” so the boy on the jet ski roared off. By and by the man’s energy gave out and he drowned. He met God at the gates of heaven and when St Peter let him through he confronted God with, “You promised to rescue me. Why did you let me drown?’
God replied, “I sent a boat, a helicopter and a kid on a jet ski. What more did you want?”
Sometimes we expect God to fix problems that we are capable of fixing - not on our own, but as a part of our faithful response. God does not absolve us of our responsibility to create a world of justice and of peace. God does not tell us that we can do this without affecting our own life. Sharing with others may never give us extra income, but when they work for justice people of faith receive benefits that are more meaningful than material porsperity. The prophets were continually calling people to lives of justice and mercy. The care of the poor and vulnerable was part of the life of the community; it was simply, “the right thing;” simply what God required.
The news is filled with talk of elections and analysis of election prospects and election results. This past week Saskatchewan municipalities voted in mayors and councillors. Two weeks before we voted for a provincial government> As we know, those who get the most votes are declared the winners. Sometimes the winners are the people with the most money to run the most catchy ads, to have the best signs, to promise a better life for the voter. However the biblical story presents a God who operates in a different way . It’s not about popularity, or wealth or many of the things people hope for - for ourselves. The life of faith is about seeing that everyone has enough for life and dignity and meaning. The life of faith is about the hope that this is actually possible - but it’s not going to fall from the sky through no effort on our part but it will come about when the faithful take a deep breath and venture forth in faith, acting in small and large ways to make the world made new a reality.
Amen.
2 Samuel 23: 1-7
Psalm 132
John 18: 33-38
I love the tv courtroom drama, Matlock; I’ve probably seen every episode. The old one, not the reboot with Cathy Bates, which I have not seen yet. I’m talking about the one with the middle-aged widower practising law in Atlanta, driving a Crown Victoria and wearing a trademark gray suit.
Matlock defends his clients with tenacity and, in many cases, has the real culprit on the stand and in short order, the jury knows his client is not guilty and there is a good chance that the witness is.
I don’t know about real American courtrooms but real Canadian courts are not at all like Matlock’s portrayal. There are few theatrics and much less drama. In the end we hope that the verdict of the jury is a correct discernment of the truth.
I don’t know if any of you are Corner Gas fans? Our family started watching it because my dad and his brother and sisters were born near Rouleau, the real-life location of the fictional “Dog River”. In one episode Lacey wanted to start a pilates class. Pilates is a mind-body exercise program - somewhat like yoga. However, a number of Dog River citizens got the name mixed up with a certain Roman Governor from 2,000 years ago and wanted nothing to do with it because “he killed Jesus.” Like much of the show, it was a good gag for one episode.
The question of who really did kill Jesus has dogged the church for centuries; at least, ever since the event itself. For centuries, at least in the west, the blame has fallen on “the Jews” even though those of Jesus’ own generation had long since died. It has fed anti-Semitism and violence against Jewish people for close to 2,000 years.
In 2011 the Vatican declared that the Jews were not responsible for Jesus’ death. While the Gospel writers refer to a group named “the Jews” in the accounts of Jesus death, it seems clear, that the drama involved only a few Jewish people - and all Jewish people got tarred with the same brush by the early church.
I think though we can put that matter aside for the purposes of this sermon while we focus on the underlying interaction between Pilate and Jesus.
I would like to focus my sermon on the questions of kingship and truth. In the children’s classic, Alice in Wonderland, the Queen of Hearts is known to decree, “off with his head” when one of her subjects displeased her. In terms of real-life kings and despots, King Henry VIII had two of his wives executed. It is estimated that during his reign, 57,000 people were executed for crimes such as heresy, treason and the denial of the royal supremacy. If we were to make a list of ruthless rulers, in just the 20th century, Joseph Stalin would top the list. 20-30 million people died under his watch. Adolph Hitler caused the deaths of 17 million, including 6 million Jewish people. Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, Kim Il Sung, Benito Mussolini, Idi Amin, Augusto Pinochet, Saddam Hussein, and Francesco Franco, complete the list. I found it on the internet.
Of course, we could become smug and say that the British Crown has not executed anyone for almost 300 years, but power is broader than this! The current royal family lives in luxury with many servants who do whatever they ask. King Charles, a number of years ago, was described as “a lot of work” by a former valet. Perhaps that is because the King expects his valet to put an exact amount of toothbrush on his toothbrush and has his pyjamas and shoelaces ironed. He travels with his own sheets and toilet seat.
So, when we talk of the Reign of Christ, of Christ the King Sunday, we need to ask ourselves what kind of Ruler is Jesus? I think I can say a simple phrase, “not that kind of King.” Neither did he spend his time greeting commoners and foreign dignitaries, keeping up to date on matters of state and performing symbolic duties hundreds of days a year.
What was bewildering to his friends and his foes alike was his lack of interest in seizing worldly power. His disciples wanted him to lead a revolution, after which they would have positions of power. Because the Messiah was to be patterned after King David, who did lead his armies into battle, people thought this was part of Jesus’ role.
As a result of his non-committal responses to various questions, Pilate could not find a charge for what he was doing. The kind of realm Jesus was promoting had little resemblance to earthly power as it was usually understood.
We are left to answer the question for ourselves about how Jesus’ power affects the ways in which royal power is perceived. What kind of world did Jesus want? Did he want a world where the rich and powerful got rich off of the backs of regular folks. Throughout the centuries since Jesus lived, many churches focus on the upside-down world of Jesus’ power. The Magnificat from last week describes that upside down world of wealth and poverty, strength and weakness, powerlessness and vulnerability. Several of Jesus’ phrases sum it up, “those who seek to save their life must lose it,” and what profit is there in gaining the whole world but losing one’s soul.”
Another of my favorite TV programs was M.A.S.H. Set in Korea during the conflict in that country we are asked to see the war through the eyes of a hospital and its medical staff. The doctors treat the most badly injured first (even if the person is North Korean and THEN those who can wait, despite the orders of generals and other soldiers.
One day when there were no wounded, BJ Hunnicutt, one of the doctors, is on his way to a great fishing spot by helicopter. As luck would have it, after they rescue one wounded soldier, they come upon another wounded man in terrain where they cannot land the chopper and Hunnicutt throws him a rope which the man on the ground has trouble grasping on to. When they come under fire BJ is forced to cut the rope so they can escape. The chopper pilot nominates him for a medal and before he can refuse a General shows up and awards it to him, despite not wanting it at all. He gives it to an injured soldier. His words were something like, “When I cut that rope, I stopped being a doctor and became a soldier.” He felt, I think, that he sold his soul for his own safety.
In a world of black and white, truth is easy to see. But is a world of shades of grey, the difference is less clear. Pilate asks, “What is truth?” Is truth limited to answer to the question that we pondered for an entire summer, “who shot JR?” Is truth limited to what Ben Matlock can prove in court? Is truth something that can be verified by a blood test, an MRI or an x-ray? Is truth, “what really happened?”
A few years ago, I had never really entertained the concept of fake news and I can’t get my mind around it, even yet. In my mind, something happened or it didn’t. Conspiracy theories abound when it comes to the dangers of COVID and the true outcome of the US Presidential elections since at least the time of George W Bush and certainly since Donald Trump. I see some things as fact and as truth - though I do concede there is latitude on WHY people like trump (or not) and why people hate Trudeau or not!
As followers of Jesus, we are called to commit to what we see as the Christian mission, despite the cost. The answer to this must challenge us to a life that is counter cultural and even counter intuitive. The answer must challenge us to our very core, every day and call us to live uneasily in the world that values peace that is only on the surface and power that is shared by the few.
If we know Christ then when we find the truth we will surely know it.
Amen.