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AN UNHINGED JESUS

7/31/2018

AN UNHINGED JESUS
John 2:13-22
Sunday, March 8, 2015
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell

For the first 20 years of my life, I lived in the mortal fear of an angry God. The messages of my childhood church were filled with fear and self-loathing. We heard about a God who demanded that not one letter of the Law be broken, but then we also heard that we were fundamentally incapable of keeping that Law.  And so God was angry.  And that’s where Jesus came in.

I deserved to be punished on a cross, I was told.  But Jesus took my place.  I remember feeling grateful as a child that Jesus would do such a thing for me, but I certainly could not love a God who demanded such a horrible act.  I feared that God.

That’s hard thing to live with, especially when you don’t fit society’s and the church’s mold, as I did not.  So one day, as a young adult, I had simply had enough.  I shed that theology like one sheds a jacket on a warm spring day.  And I was born again as a liberal Christian. Suddenly, God wasn’t angry anymore, at least in my mind. Instead God was very, very nice. And humans weren’t so bad either.

And I was very happy with that new theology for some years. It helped me recover from the theological abuses of my childhood.  But one of the unintended effects of dismissing the anger of God so completely was that sometimes, I had a hard time respecting God, because life is not always nice. People are not always good.  There is also genocide and racial profiling and the denigration of women and the glorification of war and the unbridled greed that most Americans still admire.  And the more I took those things seriously, the more I found that I needed a God who cared enough to be angry when the situation called for it.

I think many of us are OK with a God who is sometimes angry, but we keep Jesus in a separate category.  Jesus Christ, meek and mild, the friend of sinners and lover of souls. And that’s all true of Jesus, thank God.  But Jesus was also sometimes angry.

And that is how we find him today.  The story of the Cleansing of the Temple is one of those stories found in all four Gospels, so it must be important.  In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, this story is placed at the very end of the life of Jesus, and is presented as one of the straws that broke the camel’s back and led to the Cross. But in the Gospel of John, the Cleansing of the Temple is one of Jesus’s first public acts.  And that means that John wants us to read his Gospel through that lens.

Here’s how John tells the story: Jesus, the faithful Jew, had gone up to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, with three or four hundred thousand other pilgrims. And as Jesus entered the Temple, that magnificent Herodian structure, he saw the merchants selling cattle and sheep and doves that were to be used as Temple sacrifices. And he saw the moneychangers sitting at their tables. And seeing that enraged him.  He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out, both humans and beasts, and knocked over the moneychanger’s tables in the process. Now imagine that if you can: sheep and cows, bleating and mooing and running for their lives.  Newly freed birds flapping about.  Coins clanging and rolling.  People cursing; others screaming for the police.  And all the while an unhinged Jesus shouting at the top of his lungs: “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”

So why was Jesus so upset?

Some have said that it was simply the presence of the merchants and moneychangers that upset Jesus.  After all, this was a place of worship not a shopping mall.  But what Jesus witnessed that day was in no way out of the ordinary and he had no doubt seen it before. The sacrificial system of ancient Judaism required that perfect animals be presented to God.  And no one was going to bring Bessie the cow all the way from home. And so merchants sold animals at the Temple as a convenience to the faithful, as an aid to worship.  Likewise, the moneychangers served an essential religious purpose.  The official coinage bore the image of the Roman Emperor.  And because they did, they broke the commandment to not have any graven images. So the moneychangers exchanged those verboten Roman coins for something called a Temple Shekel – an ecclesiastically approved form of money.  So the coins and the animals were necessary.

Others scholars have suggested that Jesus was angry, not because the merchants and the moneychangers were there, but because they were taking economic advantage of the people.  After all, they had a monopoly and the people had to pay whatever they said. This is even implied in the other three Gospels where Jesus accuses them of turning God’s house into a den of robbers. But John makes no such assumption in his telling of the life of Jesus.

Some other biblical scholars suggest that Jesus was reacting to what the system had become.  Maybe, they say, the whole thing had grown so big and sophisticated and impersonal that it obscured the original purpose.  In other words, the trappings of religion had come to substitute for its substance. And that’s a little too close to home.

So maybe it was that.  But remember that John tells us this story early in his Gospel so that it will help to define his vision of Jesus. And while Jesus was sometimes critical of the religious system to which he belonged, it was not the bulk of his ministry.  So maybe his anger had nothing to do with the presence of the animals and the moneychangers and the sacrificial system itself, but instead had everything to do with the location.

You see the marketplace was set up in the outer courtyard of the Temple.  But this outer courtyard had another name: the Court of the Gentiles.  There were Gentiles in that day known as God-worshippers. They weren’t converts to Judaism, but they were certainly interested.  We call these folks “seekers” today.  And since they weren’t converts, they could not enter the Temple proper.  The Courtyard of the Gentiles was their place. And their place was being used to keep the Institution rolling in the dough! In other words, institutional solvency was more important than ministry to the least, the last, the lost, the unclean, the unacceptable, the less-than.  Religion got in the way of radical hospitality. And since radical hospitality was Jesus’s thing, seeing it obstructed by religion made him angry. Really angry.

Seven weeks in as your minister, I have learned this about you: you are a wonderfully welcoming congregation.  You have made us so welcome here.  We feel it.  But hospitality and openness and welcome is a continuous work.  And just when we think we got it right, God sends us some stranger strangers to see if we really mean what we say.

Do we mean what we say?  I think we do.  But I think there is always more to learn.  And I think it’s always a temptation to make religion the goal instead of the means.  So let’s find ways to make the circle wider.  Let’s invite the whole world to this table.  Let’s not just open the proverbial doors of this church.  Let’s take them off their hinges!  And let us see what God can do.

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THE GOD WHO OBSCURES

7/31/2018

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THE GOD WHO OBSCURES
Mark 9:2-9
Sunday, February 11, 2018 – Transfiguration Sunday
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell

My grandmother used to have a bumper sticker on the back of her Cadillac Eldorado that proclaimed: “Jesus is the answer!” It summarizes the belief that a good dose of Jesus can clear up any problem.  Are you afraid of illness or death?  Jesus is the answer!  Is your relationship falling apart?  Jesus is the answer.  Are you concerned about the direction of the country or the state of the world?  Jesus is the answer!  Jesus clears things up. Jesus illumines the dark places.

And he does!  Jesus as the Light of the World is a constant theme during the season of Epiphany.  It all begins with the bright star in the east that led the wise ones to Jesus, and our Epiphany journey ends today as we remember that supernova of an event, the Transfiguration of the Lord.

Mark writes that Jesus took Peter, James and John up to the top of a mountain for some alone time.  And while they were there, the strangest thing happened. Jesus was transfigured before them.  Some gospels say Jesus himself began to glow.  But all Mark says is that his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly the two great patriarchs of the Jewish faith appeared: Moses the Lawgiver and Elijah the Prophet.  Mark, who is always short on details, doesn’t tell us what they talked about, but other Gospels report that they discussed the events that would lead to Jesus’s death and Resurrection.

Well, Peter was so blown away by this divine light show that he began to do what many of us do when we are overwhelmed. He began to babble.  And he was babbling about building three shrines - one for Jesus, one for Moses and one for Elijah in order to commemorate this spectacle.  But Mark says that it was his fear talking; that he babbled on because he didn’t know what else to say. But then again, what do you say about such an event? What do any of us say about luminous moments our lives?  Our epiphanies come to us unannounced and we often don’t have a clue about their ultimate meaning.

So Peter is yammering away, trying to put words to the numinous (which almost always a bad idea), when suddenly that bright scene changed.  Out of nowhere, a cloud enveloped them and the thick darkness scared them to death.

Some years ago, Marcos and I were driving from a Brazilian seaside village back to the city of São Paulo. We had stopped to ask for directions at a roadside stand that oddly appeared to only sell hubcaps and bananas.  A rather odd woman came out to greet us. We bought some of her bananas and asked her if this was indeed the road to São Paulo. “Oh yes,” she said, “just keep going over those mountains.”  And as we pulled away, in the side view mirror, I caught the rather unnerving sight of her laughing.

And so we began to drive up into the mountains, higher and higher and higher.  At some point the paved road turned into a gravel road.  And then that gravel road narrowed to a single lane.   The higher we climbed, the thicker the clouds became until the clouds morphed into something that can only be described as wet darkness, so thick that you could only see a foot or two in front of the car. And, quite frankly, I was terrified of oncoming traffic or of plummeting off a cliff.

The disciples were terrified too. Having your vision suddenly obscured is terrifying.  But perhaps more disturbing is that the dark cloud began to speak: “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”

Now that message from the cloud is worthy of sermon in and of itself.  How often do we really listen to Jesus?  But what’s more interesting to me is the way that God was made manifest. Notice that God did not speak out of the light that radiated from the face of Jesus.  God did not speak out of the glow coming off of the two long-dead patriarchs.  God did not speak in the brilliant sunshine of a mountaintop.  Instead God spoke from an obscuring cloud.  God spoke from the darkness.

And that seems odd at first, except that it isn’t. God manifesting as cloud or darkness is a theme found throughout the Bible. When the Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt, you will remember that God’s presence guided them through the wilderness by a pillar of cloud by day.  When Moses climbed Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments, a cloud descended on the mountaintop and obscured him from the people below.  When those same people erected a portable Tabernacle during their wilderness wanderings, God’s presence filled that tent with a cloud. And much later when they had settled in the Promised Land, King Solomon built a grand Temple and on the day of dedication God’s presence filled the building in the form of a cloud.  God manifested as something that obscures rather than as something that illumines.

Back on that Brazilian mountaintop, as Marcos and I entered ever more deeply into the darkness; as our fears mounted, I remember that we became exceedingly quiet. Part of that was so that Marcos could concentrate on his driving, but part of it was also that in that much darkness there was simply nothing left to say.

Likewise Peter, who had been babbling about building three shrines, was suddenly quiet.  The darkness left him speechless too.  But once speechless he was in a position to really listen.  And so are we.

When our lives are full of light, when we are on the mountaintops of success and fresh love and new jobs, we can just babble on and on.  But when our lives suddenly take a darker turn, when the clouds of illness or sorrow or loss descend upon us, we are often left without words.  And we have been taught, incorrectly, that God cannot be found in that gloom, cannot be part of that gloom.  And so we desperately seek for any source of light to dispel the darkness.  But if we can stop struggling for the light switch, if we can quiet down and pause, we might just hear God speak from the gloom.

And so we crept along that mountain top road, the gravel crunching under our tires. I remember being acutely aware of my breath.  I remember looking over and being so grateful for all Marcos and I had shared.  The gloom seemed to clarify all of that. Yes, I was frightened, yet in that darkness I was also somehow more alive.

After what seemed like an eternity, we began our descent.  And as we did, that thick darkness began to break apart and the sun began to shine and before us there was the most magnificent green valley I have ever seen. And we literally shouted for joy.  The vision of that sunny valley is emblazoned upon my memory, but it so emblazoned because we had just emerged from such thick darkness.

God is light.  But God is also darkness. In the words of Psalm 139: “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? …If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me, “even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.”

So blessed be the light.  But blessed also be the darkness – for it is the traveling between the two that transfiguresusfrom one degree of glory to another.

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Everyday Miracles

7/30/2018

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EVERYDAY MIRACLES
John 6:1-15
Sunday, July 29, 2016
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell

John 6:1-15

After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.”

When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

+++

New England Congregationalism is about as far away as one can get from the religious upbringing of my childhood. This congregation, for example, is respectable and orderly and historic.  The church of my childhood was hardscrabble and rather chaotic.  We Congregationalists value reason and education and proper governance.  My childhood church valued emotional experiences with God.  And that included a strong belief in miracles.  We were firmly convinced that God regularly intervened in the normal affairs of humans.  We believed in divine healings and economic miracles.  My childhood memories are peopled with traveling evangelists and faith healers and testimonies of the wonder-working power of God.

That early religious upbringing still influences my idea of the ways God works in the world.  Unlike some of my brilliant and faithful colleagues, I have never really had an issue with the idea of miracles.  I think that the world and the universe are very mysterious places.  I believe in a reality beyond the reach of our five senses.  And I do believe in the power of God in the lives of people just like us.  I read the stories of the Bible – the miracles of Jesus, the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection – and I think, “Why not?”

Now I know that there are others who cannot come to same conclusion.  Those folks read the Bible or hear a sermon about something beyond the scope of regular human experience or the laws of science, and they scratch their heads and wonder how anyone could believe that.

And in churches like ours we have folks on both sides of that theological divide – and lots of folks in between.  And we all live together in respect for the individual’s spiritual journey.  In fact that respect for each person’s experience of God is a hallmark of Congregationalism.

So for all of you true believers and all of you skeptics and all of you folks in between – what do you make of this story?

Jesus and his disciples had rowed over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee in order to escape the crushing mobs that followed them wherever they went.  They thought they had escaped this time.  And they sat down on the side of a mountain to take in the spectacular view and to catch their breath.  Suddenly, they saw a flash of color.  Suddenly, they heard the dull roar of a crowd.  Suddenly, they saw thousands of needy people coming toward them; people who needed healing for their bodies and minds and souls; people who needed food for their empty bellies. They had been following Jesus for miles without any thought of where or how they would eat.  Desperation sometimes makes all of us forget to take care of ourselves.

Jesus turned to Phillip and asked: “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” And Phillip, a little dumbstruck by the question, replied: “There’s no Stop n Shop out here in the countryside, Lord.  And besides, six month’s wages would not buy enough bread even for each person to have a little.”

I expect that there was a pregnant pause.  Then Andrew piped up: “Well, there is a little boy in the crowd today.  I was talking to him earlier.  And he said his mom had packed five barley loaves and two dried fish for his lunch.”  At which point Phillip sighed and rolled his eyes.

And you know how this story ends. Jesus had the crowd sit down on the grass.  And Jesus took the five loaves and two fish and gave thanks to God for what he had. And then Jesus distributed the food to the disciples, who distributed it to the people.  And the people ate and ate and ate.  Soon laughter was heard as people’s tired feet because to relax and blood sugar levels came back into normal range and hunger headaches disappeared.  And even as much as they ate, the Gospel writer declares that there were twelve baskets full of leftovers.  And Jesus had all these leftovers picked up so that, in his words, “nothing may be lost.”

The miracle of the feeding of the five thousand is one of the few stories told in all four Gospels.  In fact, there are actually six miracle-feeding stories in the four Gospels, so they must be important.  And they must have something to say to us: skeptics and believers and everyone in between.

You can see this story is a number of lights.  You can see it as a simple reporting of facts.  You can take it at its face value and believe that our Lord Jesus Christ, who went about healing the sick and raising the dead, also cared that folks have something to eat.  And there is power in that interpretation because it amply demonstrates how much God cares for our everyday needs; how much God cares for this flesh and bone bodies.

You can also see this story as a theological device.  There are Eucharistic elements in it.  Every time Jesus takes bread, breaks it, and blesses it, we see hints of that Upper Room and the Last Supper – that holy meal in which we continue to participate in the very Body of Christ.  In fact, some prominent theologians posit that since the Gospel of John has no Last Supper narrative in it, that this is actually John’s way of commemorating that event.  It’s John’s version of the Last Supper, not for twelve but for thousands.  And there is power in that interpretation because it shows the breadth of God’s amazing grace and a Table open for all.

But there is another way to see this story.  And some might say that it is a diminishment of the power of God.  But I think a miracle is a miracle is a miracle.  Maybe, the theory goes, this isn’t a story about an ontological multiplication of limited resources.  Maybe this is a story about human transformation.  Maybe when the crowds saw the selflessness of the little boy and the way that Jesus took the humble resources that were offered, and gave thanks for them, and in faith started to break them into small pieces – maybe when the people witnessed such an act, their hearts were pricked.  Maybe their consciences were troubled by that that fig or flask of wine or piece of dried meat they had hidden in their cloaks. And they took out what they had and began to share it with their neighbors.  Maybe they chose generosity over selfishness and fear.  And in that sharing of resources, everyone had enough. In fact, there was a super-abundance.

And that, it seems to me, is the point of this story, whether you accept it at face value or give is a theological spin or see it as the Spirit at work in the hearts of people: the end result was the same.  In the act of thanksgiving and breaking and sharing, there was enough.  In God’s economy, there is always enough.  But in order to get there we have to chose faith over fear and generosity over scarcity.

Sisters and brothers in Christ, God has already worked so many wonders through the ministries of this church, through you, the people who support them.  But there is more to do.  There is always more to do.  And we don’t have to understand all the nuances of the need before we start to meet them. We can start with what we have.  We can give thanks for what have.  And we can share what we have with those in need.  And we can do that without too much overthinking about how or where we will get the money or how we will recruit the volunteers.  Find a real human need and determine to do something about it, and all the rest will fall into place.  Because in God’s economy sharing always leads to plenty.  And scarcity always gives way to abundance. And that’s a miracle any way you slice it.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

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AN UNHINGED JESUS

THE GOD WHO OBSCURES

Everyday Miracles

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