Sermons from Saint John’s

Lectionary Readings

Miracles are not particularly hard.

Or rather, they don’t seem all that difficult to do. Maybe it is my own hubris speaking, but we witness lots of folks in scripture doing miracles. Not only that, we witness people doing miracles with and without the help of God. And so, I am led to believe they aren’t all that hard. 

For example, in the Exodus story, we get Moses and his brother Aaron performing a number of miracles to try and convince Pharaoh to let God’s people go. These miracles include turning Aaron’s staff into a snake, and turning the Nile into blood. However, and the reason I don’t think miracles seem that hard, Pharoah’s people are able to do the exact same things: they too can turn staffs into snakes, and the Nile into blood. It is striking that people outside the purview of God are able, in the story, to perform the exact miracles that God’s people are able to perform.

We get another example in the New Testament, with a man named Simon Magus. His specific works and miracles are not disclosed in the narrative, but we know that he did such impressive miracles that the people were hailing him as some kind of god-like figure. He eventually does convert to Christianity, and some other weird stuff happens in his story. But importantly, his business with miracles was entirely outside the purview of God, and were apparently impressive enough to compete–as it were–with the miracles of the followers of Christ. And so, I am led to believe that miracles are somewhere in the realm of “difficult and rare, but not all that hard”. 

We see yet another miracle in our readings for today. Peter raises up Tabitha, a disciple of Christ, from the dead. Part of what makes this miracle different from the ones that Simon Magus and Pharoah’s people do, and similar to the miracles that Moses does, is that Simon Peter is a disciple of God, and acting in that capacity. Another thing about this miracle that makes it different from Pharoah’s people and Simon Magus is the reason that Simon Peter brings back Tabitha from the dead. It is quite easy to miss in today’s reading, but the reason is in there: Tabitha being raised up from the dead became known throughout her hometown, and many people came to believe because they had heard all about it. It is the business of causing people to believe that underpins miracles associated with God.

And we see this reflected today in our Gospel when Jesus says that the works he does in His Father’s name testify to him. The “works” Jesus does are the miracles he does, and are also called “signs”. In the context of today’s reading, this means that all the miracles that Jesus has done so far testify to the fact that he is the Messiah. And Jesus has done quite a few miracles, the Gospel of John, from which today’s gospel lesson comes, is brimming with miracles, including such famous ones as Jesus turning water into wine, and Jesus bringing his friend Lazarus back from the dead. In fact, it contains so many miracles or signs that the entire first half of the Gospel of John is often nicknamed “the Book of Signs”. 

It is these miracles (or signs)–turning water into wine, feeding the multitudes, raising Lazarus and Tabitha–that call out to people in Jesus’s time and that engender a feeling of belief in Christ.

They are not miracles for the sake of miracles. After all, miracles are not that hard, and we have examples of miracles that are not God’s will. Rather, these miracles associated with Christ are actual signs that hold a deeper meaning. All of Jesus’s healing miracles, each of the feats Moses and Aaron do, and Simon Peter raising Tabitha, are all signs that point to the reality of Christ: that Jesus is the Son of God who defeats death, that Jesus calls us into fellowship with him, and Jesus is our shepherd.

To me, this way of understanding the miracles we read about in scripture also answers another kind of question. If Peter could do that for Tabitha, why wasn’t he going around and doing that for so many other people? It seems somewhat sad and unfair that for every Tabitha gets a miracle when so many others do not.  

And we’ve seen this answered in our reading today. As I’ve said, the miracles are not just simply miracles for their own sake. In scripture we see with Pharoah’s people and Simon Magus that there were other people able to do miracles, and so miracles for their own sake seem kind of lackluster. The miracles we read about in God’s name are are all signs that point people to a much deeper reality of our faith. This reality is reflected very clearly in our readings today from Psalm 23 and Revelation. 

Psalm 23 is probably one of the most famous scriptural passages, and so I suspect it needs to further introduction. It is doesn’t hold back  in its description of God’s love for us. Psalm 23 depicts God as our shepherd who leads us to still waters and restores our souls, and it’s a profound expression of this deeper reality that miracles point to. 

Our reading from Revelation is a bit weirder, and steeped in symbolism that can be hard for a modern reader to understand. However, just like Psalm 23, it also points to this reality. Just as God is our shepherd who leads us beside still waters; God’s kingdom is one where the sun shall not strike us by day, and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes. 

The reality that these readings point to is expressed well by the fact that they are some of the recommended, and most common, readings that we read at funerals. In our most deep and profound moments of loss, this Psalm and this reading from Revelation provide a solace and a reminder that the tragedy that exists in our lives is not the end; that there is a deeper reality beyond death and loss. The deeper reality reflected by God who is calling out to us, who is leading us, and who is shepherding us constantly. 

We read these now, today, even though it is not a funeral, because it is Easter season. Its a time where we get to fully acknowledge and live into one of the central parts of our faith: that Jesus has defeated the powers of sin and death in the resurrection. In the Easter season, we read these readings to point to this fact: that Christ remains our good shepherd, that God will wipe away every tear from every eye, that goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our lives. At our core, our faith rejects the powers sin and death, and the miraculous works of God are signs that point to this defeat.

So sure, we don’t really get miracles in the same way today that they were getting in Acts. That’s not to say that God is not working in strange and mysterious ways in our own time, I believe that God is still acting in the world. What I mean is that we are not (to my knowledge) raising people back from the dead and doing other such kinds of miracles. And that is okay. Our faith is not a faith based in how many miracles God is doing for us or through us. Our faith is deeper than any particular miracle. 

And even if we don’t get miracles as signs like the community in Acts did–we don’t get to witness Tabitha being raised from the dead. I suspect that the people in this room are getting by “okay” in their faith without miracles. By that, I don’t mean that I think the life of faith of any person here is easy all the time–its still incredibly difficult throughout our lives when we face death, tragedy, and other forms of hardship. And even outside of particularly difficult times like those, we can still experience more everyday moments of doubt that are still difficult. 

What I mean when I say that I suspect that the people in this room are getting by okay is that each one of you (and me, and Greg) decided that coming to church to feel close to God, to experience communion with God and one another, was the most valuable way to spend your time this morning. Even if you are not feeling particularly great, particularly faithful, particularly pious, you showed up because you feel something. [And that matters, and that counts]

So even if, generally speaking, we don’t have very visible miracles around us that we get to witness, we still feel this call. We still show up. In the Gospel today Jesus has this in mind when he says “my sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me”. We are all sheep to Jesus, responding to His voice and His call to follow him. We all keep making this choice, rooted in our faith, to keep showing up here. We make this choice to keep following Jesus as best as we can day by day, week by week, and season by season. It’s not always easy, and at times it can feel quite hard, and at times it would feel like a very obvious miracle would be reassuring, but all the same, we continue to try and respond to the loving call of our Shepherd in Christ. Who revives our souls, and leads us besides still waters, and will wipe away every tear from our eyes. In the name of the One who first loved us. 

Lectionary Readings

Have you ever had a friend who always has to be the most of everything? When you’re on a roller coaster, they scream the loudest. When someone tells a joke, they laugh the loudest. When your high-school sweetheart dumped you, they started crying. A friend who you love, but who sometimes seems to suck all the oxygen in the room into the inferno of their own emotions.

I sometimes feel that way with Peter and with Paul.

Now, these guys are great, in many ways. Two real pillars of the church, two people without whose leadership we wouldn’t be here today. They’re the only two people other than Jesus and Mary who appear twice on our calendar of saints, because the events in their lives were so momentous that they deserve double recognition. But sometimes—and don’t tell them I said this, when we’re all hanging out in heaven—sometimes they’re just a little much.

Here’s Paul this morning, for example, back when he still went by Saul, displaying his full emotional range. When the story begins, he’s persecuting the disciples of Jesus for their beliefs. But this is Paul. He can’t just oppress them quietly; no, he’s “breathing threats and murder!” (Acts 9:1) He is madder than anyone else about this whole Jesus thing, and he wants everyone to know it. But as he’s on his way to Damascus to start arresting people “belonging to the Way,” something strange happens. He sees a flash of light. And he doesn’t just shut his eyes. No! It’s Paul. He tumbles to the ground. And he hears a voice “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” Saul gets up, but he still can’t see. And his friends help him find his way into the city, where Ananias comes to help restore his sight. And immediately! something like scales falls from his eyes, and he regains his sight. And then this man who started out toward Damascus breathing threats and murder opens his mouth, and not only does he decide to stop arresting Christians, he goes to the very synagogues where he was going to hunt them down and starts proclaiming, “He is the Son of God!” (9:20) The primary persecutor of the church becomes its foremost theologian, and Paul’s “Damascus Moment” becomes the proverbial example of a dramatic turn-around.

That’s Paul, for you, but Peter can be pretty dramatic too, and today he goes overboard.

You may remember the last two times we heard from Peter. It was Peter who said to Jesus, “Lord… I will lay down my life for you!” (John 13:37) “Will you?” Jesus asks. “Before the cock crows, you’ll deny me three times.” (13:38) And he does! The same Peter who promises to die for Jesus denies that he’s even one of the disciples. His betrayal is as deep as his devotion was high. Then the women come on Easter morning to share with him the good news of the Resurrection, and what does Peter do? Does he walk back over with them to the tomb to see? No—he runs! Because it’s Peter. Of course he does.

He’s equally enthused today. Peter and Thomas and Nathanael and their crew are on a boat, out in the Sea of Galilee. They’ve gone back to their lives of fishing on the lake, how they spent their days before Jesus came to them. And just after daybreak, a man calls to them from the shore. They don’t know who it is. “You boys catch any fish yet?” “No.” “Try over there, I think you’ll find some.” And they do. In fact, they catch so many fish they can’t pull the net in.

John, the Beloved Disciple, realizes what’s going on. “It’s the Lord!” he says.

And Peter goes nuts.

He’s stripped naked to stay cool while he’s working in the sun, but now he puts back on his clothes and then leaps into the sea and starts splashing toward the shore. They’re close enough that they could talk to Jesus. A hundred yards or so. The other disciples are still back there, on the boat, looking at Peter, thinking, “That was weird.” But they eventually arrive, and there’s Peter’s, soaking wet, and Jesus, grilling fish. And Jesus breaks bread, and gives it to them, while Peter drips onto the sand.

I’m teasing Peter and Paul a bit, but that’s not really fair. Sometimes our lives are like theirs, too. Sometimes we experience these dramatic swings, from anger to joy, disdain to sincerity, faithfulness to betrayal. Sometimes we feel as though there’s a voice speaking to us from the heavens. Sometimes we throw ourselves into the sea and swim straight for the shore, because we just can’t wait to get where we’re going.

But most of us spend most of our lives like the other disciples in the boat. Just sailing along, day by day, dragging a heavy load, and hoping that what we’ve heard is true. Hoping that the faint smudge we see on the beach is Jesus. Hoping that we really are headed toward God.

This spring, a group of four of our teenage members have been meeting once a month with Michael and me to prepare for confirmation. When they were baptized as infants, their parents and godparents made promises to support and care for them in their life of faith, promises that they made, in part, on their children’s behalf, taking on responsibility for their spiritual lives. Confirmation offers the chance for these young people to take that spiritual responsibility on for themselves, to become adults in the eyes of the church. At confirmation, you kneel before the Bishop, who lays her hands on you and offers a blessing, praying for the Holy Spirit to strengthen you in your faith, empower you for God’s service, and sustain you all the days of your life.

You might notice that the Bishop isn’t here. You can tell because there’s nobody wearing a pointy hat. The formal service of confirmation will take place the next time the Bishop visits St. John’s, or in a joint service with other churches at the Cathedral, something like that. But we thought it was important this morning to recognize these four students here, as they complete their preparation. And so I want to say a word about what this time in their lives means as part of the longer life of faith.

Tommy, Caroline, Maggie, Paul: Sometimes you might have the big spiritual experiences of a Peter or a Paul. Sometimes you might feel your life turn in a direction you’d never imagined, as Paul did on that Damascus Road. Sometimes you might feel torn between loving and denying God. Sometimes you might throw yourself into the waters of life and start swimming toward the shore.

But most of life is sitting in the boat, wishing the wind were blowing a little harder, wishing your arms weren’t so sore from dragging the net, and wondering, “Is that really Jesus over there?” You may not always feel particularly connected to God. Even for the most faithful people, it often feels like the biggest questions of life—the kind of questions I’ve heard you all ask—don’t have very satisfying answers.

And that’s okay. To be a faithful person you don’t need to have the big spiritual and emotional energy of Peter or Paul. Sometimes, you just need to stay in the boat and trust that the wind is taking you where you need to go.

I want everyone to look up at the ceiling of this room. In church architecture, this space—the big central part of the church where the congregation sits—is called the nave. This is “nave” as in “navy,” as in “naval”—in Latin navis, a “ship.” If you picture that ceiling turned upside down, you might see that it’s built a bit like the hull of a boat. And there’s a good engineering reason for that: the physics of keeping a ceiling up against the force of gravity are more or less the same as the physics of keeping the ocean out against the force of water pressure.

But there’s a good symbolic reason, too. For centuries, Christians have thought about the Church as a kind of ship: the vessel within which we sail from one end of life to the other, from the beginning of God’s story for us to the end, sailing across the sea of the world, carried along by the Holy Spirit, the wind from God.

The journey that we on the way to meet Jesus on that other shore is rarely straightforward, because our path is determined by the breeze. And so, sometimes it feels like we’re sailing straight ahead toward our goal. But sometimes we’re ahead away. On occasion, this is because we’ve taken a wrong turn. But sometimes it’s because we needed to tack away in order to come back. Sometimes there’s just no wind in our sails, and we sit and drift along.

But wherever the voyage of this life takes us, we’re sailing together, not alone. So, Paul, Maggie, Tommy, Caroline, welcome to the crew of the ship of faith. You may have a dramatic life. It may be smooth sailing ahead. But wherever you go, you can always find a community and a home in the Church.

Lectionary Readings

The wonders of the lectionary have it so that this gospel reading appears every single year the Sunday after Easter. And this particular Sunday has gotten an affectionate nickname after the most memorable character in the gospel reading. This Sunday is nicknamed “Thomas Sunday” after our disciple who features so prominently in the story. Thomas, who gets his name attached to this day, also gets his own–rather unfortunate–nickname. If you know it say it with me…doubting Thomas. 

But I think this nickname is a bit unfair–we don’t make nicknames in the same way for any other disciple. We don’t call Peter, “Denying Peter” or “Fell-in-the-Lake” Peter, or “Cut-Off-Someone’s-Ear Peter, or “Get-Behind-Me-Satan” Peter. And! Thomas is not the only one who doubts. In fact, the other disciples also have a moment of doubt and unbelief–in the story we read from Luke on Easter Day just last week the disciples do not believe Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James when they tell the disciples that two angels told them that Jesus had risen. The disciples do not believe them–they have doubt. 

In all of this, I don’t mean to be very “gotcha”. Rather, I think doubt–whether from Thomas or from any of the other disciples, is a very human thing. I think each of them experiences a deeply human thing when they cannot believe that Jesus actually resurrected. Humans like proof; and I am well aware of how many scientists and lawyers are in the room right now when I say that. We like proof in the face of things that are almost unbelievable, and I will [try] to really drive it home with an example. Mathemathicians in the room, if I flounder, and you know it, help me out. 

So the Monty Hall Problem is a kind of probability brain teaser that takes its name from the original host of the gameshow “Let’s Make a Deal”–Monty Hall. The Problem became most famous when it was answered by Marilyn vos Savant in the “Ask Marilyn” column of Parade Magazine in 1990. The problem is as follows, “Suppose you’re on a game show, and you’re given the choice of three doors: behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. [By the way, the problem assumes that you would rather win a car than a goat]. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what’s behind the doors, opens a different door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, “Do you want to pick door No. 2?” Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?” Now, most people who answer the problem would say that switching your choice is neither advantageous or disadvantageous. Remember, there are still just two closed doors, and so, logically, most would say there is a 50% chance that the car is behind one of them. Thus, it does not matter if you switch your choice or not. That is what the vast majority of people believe to be the correct answer to the problem. 

Savant’s response, published in the magazine, was that the contestant should switch to the other door. By the standard assumptions, the switching strategy has a ⁠2/3 probability of winning the car, while the strategy of keeping the initial choice has only a ⁠1/3 probability. 

So the readers of the magazine were in an uproar. Though in this room it still seems relatively calm. I can assure you it is 100% true, and verifiable. If you set up the conditions of the gameshow, and you follow vos Savant’s advice, you will win the car ⅔ of the time if you switch your choice. I can even give you a website where you can play through the scenario yourself an infinite amount of times. Unless every single one of you is a statistical genius (and I’ll admit, I was banking on a few in here), I imagine you are having a moment of disbelief at this absurd statement, despite my own assurances that it is true. I might even wager that you might be experiencing some doubt of this verifiable fact. 

I hope that I have garnered some sympathy for Thomas and our other disciples with this thought experiment. The lack of verifiable physical proof is a difficult thing to deal with, both with the Monty Hall Problem and with the resurrection. It was difficult for Thomas to have faith and live into the reality of the resurrection based on nothing but someone else’s account. So difficult, in fact, that Jesus made a specific appearance for Thomas’ benefit so that Thomas would believe. 

As it was with Thomas, so it is with us today. Easter reminds us of the fact that our faith is fundamentally about Christ who died and rose again, and is still alive and ascended into heaven. It is a strange reality to live with–that Jesus is in fact risen, that Jesus defeated the powers of sin and death, and that the story of the resurrection is still underway. We do not believe in a God who ascended into heaven, pulled the ladder up behind Him, and left us to our own devices. The work of Christ continues, and the resurrection is a reality we live in right now. 

Still, it is hard to really believe this when we are separated by the events of the resurrection and the physical body of Jesus by so many years. But, Jesus and the gospel have this in mind today. We, as people who are living so long after the events in the Bible, actually get mentioned in the Gospel reading today. We “are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” We are the ones on whose account that these things are written down, so that we might have some help in believing. 

As much as I love the Bible, I think I would like an encounter with the risen, physical body of Christ a bit more. Of course, we get moments of encounter with Christ in our own lives. Greg mentioned, very aptly, in his Easter sermon just last week that we can encounter Christ in every act of love we witness in the world. Still, we bear a heavy resemblance to Thomas, and it is hard to live into the full picture of the resurrection even with the signs that we get.

However, the good news is that we are not doing this alone. And I don’t necessarily mean that we have a wonderful church community to lean on when faith becomes hard–even though that statement is very valuable, and very true. 

What I mean is that, in a moment, we will be baptizing our friend Nick. Baptism is a moment of a full and deep initiation into the Body of Christ; and involves a series of promises. Nick will answer some questions and make some promises about living his faith on his own. Afterwards, we all will make some promises–we will renew our baptismal vows. The first three promises are the Apostle’s Creed adapted into a question and answer form, and are about what we believe. The last five are more specifically about what it means to be Christian, and are about what we will do because we are Christian. For all five of these questions the answers are the exact same. “I will, with God’s help”. 

That, to me, is the key. As we affirm the promises of our baptismal vows, we get an indication of how we are to live into these vows. As we respond to these questions, we state how we are going to try and live into the full reality of the resurrection. We say how it is we will deal with our moments of doubt. 

Because “with God’s help” can mean many wonderful things. In one way, it means that whenever we are moved to belief, or moved to do something nice for others, there is some mystical presence of God that is encouraging us and moving us. We will try and do so many wonderful things: proclaim by word and example the Good News of Christ, seek and serve Christ in all persons, continue in the breaking of bread, and so on. Whenever we do this, God is there with us, helping us, pushing us on.

“With God’s help” also recognizes the fact that when we are baptized, we become part of the Body of Christ, and are suffused from that moment on with the grace of God. In all that we do, God is present with us. We see this most clearly when we are gathered together as the Body of Christ, the church, in a visible and tangible way. In all that we do, we are suffused with the grace of God, and benefit from God’s help. 

“With God’s help” also means that when we fall short of the promises of our baptism: when we struggle to show love to our neighbors, when we do not come to church for a while, when we have our doubts, or struggle to pray: God will be there to help us. It is a difficult claim to make, but one that I sincerely believe. In moments when we struggle to be “good Christians” God is still working with us, just like Jesus worked with Thomas. Jesus did not leave Thomas to his own devices when he experienced doubt, and God does not abandon us when we have our own shortcomings. 

Today, as I’ve said, we continue to live in the reality and mystery of the resurrection. After Easter, we are reminded of this dimension of our faith so pointedly. Having a baptism in our community the Sunday after Easter gives this an extra depth and special kind of meaning. 

And, in all the wonderful mystery, the story of Thomas shows us that, in our lives of faith there is room for doubt–a very natural human response to something as great and unbelievable as the resurrection. Doubt is not the end of faith, and we are never far from the help of God. In the name of the One who first loved us. 

Lectionary Readings

Alleluia! Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

So I have good news for you, this Easter morning, and I have bad news. Which one do you want to hear first? […] Okay, well, the bad news this morning is that when the disciples head home on Easter afternoon, the story of the Resurrection isn’t finished yet; it’s only just beginning. But there’s good news, too—and this may ring a bell. Because the good news is that when the disciples head home on Easter afternoon, the story of the Resurrection isn’t finished yet; it’s only just beginning.

Mary and Joanna and Mary, these three most faithful followers of Christ, go to the tomb at the crack of dawn on Easter day. They go expecting to find Jesus’ body in the tomb, and to use the spices they bring to prepare his body for burial.

But the story of Easter is not the story of a body in a tomb. Because when they go to the tomb, they find that the stone that’s covering it has been rolled away, and when they go inside, they find that there is no body there; the tomb is empty.

But the story of Easter is not the story of an empty tomb. Because while they’re standing there confused about what’s happened, they see two men, in dazzling clothes, and they’re afraid. These men must be angels, messengers from God. And they have a question for these disciples. While Mary and Joanna and Mary bow their faces in awe, the two men ask them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” (Luke 24:5)

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

The story of Easter is not the story of a stone rolled away, or the story of an empty tomb. It’s the story of a living Christ. Not the story of a Messiah who came back to life back then, but the story of a Messiah who lives, even now. On Easter morning, Jesus burst forth from the tomb, and went out into the world, and he never went back. We say that he ascended into heaven, but he didn’t die again, he lives, and so the work of love that God began in Jesus’ life on earth continues even now.

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?” the two men ask. Because the story of Easter is a living story. We don’t just live in the world after the Resurrection of Christ. We live in the world of the Resurrected Christ who leads and guides us even now, in the present. And that’s what I mean when I say that when the disciples go home on Easter afternoon, the story of the Resurrection isn’t finished yet, it’s only just beginning.

There’s a very real sense in which that is bad news. We believe that the story has a really happy ending; but we’re not there yet. The final chapter of the story God is writing for our world is what we heard described in our reading from Isaiah this morning. God promises us a new creation, “new heavens and a new earth,” (Isaiah 65:17) a world in which we will “no more” hear “the sound of weeping,” or “the cry of distress,” (65:19) a world in which no one will die before her time. It’s a world in which “they shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain,” says the Lord; a world of peace so complete that “the wolf and the lamb” will graze together, and the lion will munch straw next to the ox. (65:25) It is a world in which all our sorrows will be ended and all our divisions cease. I wish that we already lived in this world. But we don’t. Because the story of the Resurrection isn’t finished yet.

I say that’s bad news. But of course, if you’ve lived in this world for long enough to graduate from the Egg Hunt, you know that it isn’t really news at all. You can hear that our world is still full of weeping and distress. You can see that wolves literal and metaphorical do not lie down next to their prey in peace. You can go visit God’s “holy mountain.” It’s Mount Zion, in Jerusalem, the Temple Mount, where you’ll find the Western Wall (sometimes called the “Wailing Wall”) and al-Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock. You tell me if that holy mountain is free of pain and destruction yet.

The final chapter that Isaiah foretells has not yet become reality, because the story of the Resurrection isn’t finished yet. But that’s good news, too. The Resurrection of Jesus long ago is only the “first fruits” of a greater harvest, the apostle Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthians. (1 Cor. 15:20) On Easter Day, the story of the Resurrection is only just begun, and it’s a story that will build and build until God’s love has triumphed over “every ruler and every authority and power,” (15:24) until finally the last enemy is defeated, which is death itself. (15:26)

And that may sound abstract, but Christ lives among us now in the most concrete ways, in places where he said we’d find him, long ago. In every act of love you see in this world—in every stranger we welcome to a new land, in every hungry person who is fed, in every child or elder who receives love or compassion or care—the living Christ who rose two thousand years ago is there, and just as you do to the least of his children, so also you do to him. We don’t see Jesus now, but—trusting in the promise that he is leading us toward the end of the story—we live in the hope of the Resurrection.

Sometimes that hope is hard to feel. But hope isn’t really a feeling. It’s a choice about how to live. And on this Easter Sunday, that may be the best news of all.

The Canadian Anglican priest Jesse Zink writes about the difference between hope, optimism, and despair. Despair, he says, is to live life thinking, “if this is what the present is like, the future is nothing to look forward to.” Optimism is “the naïve view that the future will be bright, happy, and prosperous.” But hope is something else. Hope, he says, is “to live now in the expectation of what is coming in the future.”

This hope is a choice. It’s the choice to look at the unfinished stories of our lives, and our nation, and our world—the chapters of pain and regret, of sorrow and of grief, of struggle and of strife—to look at them honestly, to see them as they really are, and then to choose to live as though the story of the Resurrection isn’t over yet, as if it’s only just begun; to live as if Jesus really were leading us toward a world of grace and mercy, justice and peace, a world in God’s love will triumph over all, even over the power of death itself. And living this way will look different from living as if this were all there was. It should look like Christ’s self-sacrificing love. And we can numb ourselves with optimism or give in to despair; or we can choose to live in hope, to follow in the way of love that Jesus walked, living in the expectation that the story of the Resurrection isn’t over yet, but has only just begun.

Lectionary Readings

Then Jesus, knowing all that was to happen to him,
came forward and asked them, “Whom are you looking for?”

Jesus is surrounded by pathetic people.

His disciples are failures, almost to the man. Judas betrays him for thirty silver coins, handing him over to people who want him dead. Nine of the other eleven disciples simply flee at his arrest. Peter had said that he would lay down his life for Jesus. But now, when he’s merely asked if he’s one of Jesus’ disciples, he vociferously denies it, three times: “I am not!”

His disciples are a failure. His accusers are a disgrace. When Pontius Pilate asks them, “What accusation do you bring against this man?” they answer, “If this man were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you.” This is a favorite fallacy of tyrants: that criminals or terrorists or enemies of the state don’t deserve due process, that by the horror of their crimes they’ve forfeited their rights. In a just society, the only way to prove that someone has committed a crime is for them to stand trial; to say that “if this man were not a criminal, we wouldn’t have arrested him” is perhaps the most despicable example of the logical fallacy that called “begging the question.” His accusers have the courage to convict him without a trial for a crime they refuse to name, but they’re too cowardly to punish him themselves; “We’re not allowed to put anyone to death.” They’ll break the law of their own people, but they don’t dare break the law of Roman rule, and so they come to try to push a Roman execution through.

Pontius Pilate takes his part with an abdication of his role that rings through history. You can tell he’d rather be anywhere else, doing anything else, enjoying all of the benefits of power without having to handle the responsibilities. He dabbles in philosophy—“What is truth?” He feigns ignorance—“I’m not a Jew, am I?” How am I supposed to know what’s going on? Again and again, he tries to pass the buck—”Look, I find no case again him.” He suggests they ought to break his own laws. “Take him yourselves and crucify him,” he says, when they’ve already said what he knows to be true: only the Roman governor can put someone to death. And then, his final words of throwing in the towel, “What I have written, I have written.” Pontius Pilate, in this story, makes me sick.

The Beloved Disciple and the Marys, the mother of Jesus and Joseph of Arimathea, these characters are noble and good. But they are bystanders here. They no real part in the story until it’s much too late to do anything but bear witness to the suffering of the one they love.

And then there’s us. All of us, who bear witness with them, here. This small nucleus of the church, that stands at the foot of the cross, unable to do anything to change what’s going on.

And it’s easy to point our fingers today, at Peter or Pilate, at the chief priests or Judas Iscariot, at the disciples who run or stand by impotently while a horrifying injustice is done.

But we’re no different from the rest. And even as Lent draws to an end, my mind drifts back to its beginning, to our Ash Wednesday prayers, to the Litany of Penitence in which we confess not big, earth-shaking sins, but the small ones that afflict us every day: “all our past unfaithfulness: the pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of our lives… our anger at our own frustration, and our envy of those more fortunate than ourselves… our negligence in prayer… and our failure to commend the faith that is in us… uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors… [and] prejudice and contempt toward those who differ from us.” I don’t know about you, but I am an imperfect person, and these small ins from which we repent year after year are still my daily bread. And so I stand here, listening to this story, and I don’t find myself up there on the cross with Christ—I’m in the crowd of imperfection standing all around him. (That’s why I always claim the privilege of playing Pontius Pilate in the Passion gospel.)

But in a story of cowardice and helplessness, of betrayal and abandonment, of injustice and irresponsibility, Jesus still takes my breath away. Think again about those opening words: “Then Jesus, knowing all that was to happen to him, came forward and asked them, ‘Whom are you looking for?’”

This is the Son of God. He could disappear without a trace. He could flee into the night, like his disciples do. This is the eternal Word of God made flesh, through whom all things were made. He simply says, “I AM” and the police go tumbling to the ground. I’m pretty sure that he could fight them off.

But that isn’t what he does. Knowing that they’re looking for him, he comes forward and asks, “Whom are you looking for?” And John the narrator adds that this was to fulfill the promise he had made, not to lose a “single one” of those whom God had given him.

This is the courage of Christ: to step forward, knowing full well what that means; to sacrifice himself to save people he already knows will not live up to his love; to give his life to protect the very people who will let him down, people who are imperfect at best, and downright disgraceful at worst.

He looks at the people around him, imperfect as they are. He looks at Judas, who has already betrayed him, and Peter, who is going to deny him; he looks at the disciples who will abandon him and the close friends who do nothing to help him; he looks at the soldiers who arrest him and at you and me, who still remember him—at all these people living human lives, sometimes good but not never perfect, not by any means—and he takes a step forward, to die to for us.

It’s easy to understand what that meant on that night. He was arrested, they went free. It’s harder, sometimes, to make sense of what it means for us. There are a dozen different ways to understand the meaning of the crucifixion, and the sense in which Jesus dies for us; you may have read four or five different options written down on Michael’s purple cards, this Lent.

But tonight, we don’t have to understand the effects of that act. Tonight, we can simply feel the love behind it. Tonight, we can simply stand at the foot of the cross, looking on the courage of Christ, who chose to die for each one of us, and we can think about what the choir sang during communion last night—one of my all-time favorite hymns:

What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss
to lay aside his crown for my soul, for my soul,
to lay aside his crown for my soul!

Sermon — April 13, 2025

The Rev. Greg Johnston

Lectionary Readings

Every year, when we reach this moment, I’m struck again by the emotional weight. It’s one thing to sit down and write a Palm Sunday sermon at my desk, knowing in theory that we will have just read the story of Jesus’ suffering and death. But it’s another thing entirely to hear that story read aloud, and then to open my mouth to speak. Palm Sunday has an extraordinary emotional range: it plummets all the way down into the depths of human suffering from the heights of a parade.

A parade. Or a procession. Or maybe a protest. What Jesus and the disciples did on Palm Sunday contains elements of all three. Each of these things is different from the others, and yet there’s something that’s the same: processions and protests and parades all do something to form us into a people who have a shared past and belong to a certain place, and for one reason or another, human beings love a good parade.

So this spring, for example, our neighborhood will host an extra-exuberant Bunker Hill Day parade, commemorating the 250th anniversary of the battle. Like any patriotic march, Bunker Hill Day remembers the past, but it’s really about the present. It’s forms a shared identity, for the people who live in the neighborhood today. It maintains a connection for people who grew up here and come back for the day. It connects us all to the events of the past in a way that speaks to the present: this is the home of a people who fight against tyranny.

Religious processions work in a similar way. In the English countryside, on a “Rogation Day,” the whole community would gather to process around the borders of the parish, asking God’s blessings on the land, and tying the people to the land. In August you can attend processions three days in a row, in honor of Saints Lucia and Leonard and Anthony, in which their societies process around the streets of the North End, connecting the stories of the saints of the past to the identity of their people in the present and, maybe more important, laying claim to the neighborhood in which they or their ancestors lived. And just this morning, you joined in a procession around this very church, a reenactment, in a way, of that day on which Jesus entered Jerusalem as he prepared to face his death.

Jesus’ Palm Sunday ride has the celebratory feel of a parade. It has the religious elements of a procession. But really, it was more like a protest. After all, a parade is an official celebration. A procession gathers a whole community. But Palm Sunday was a divisive, political act.

The Gospel of Luke tells us that it’s not the crowds or the people as a whole who cry out and chant along the way, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” It’s the disciples in particular, Jesus’ own supporters. And they’re making a political claim. Blessed is the king, they say. But Jesus isn’t on the throne. Only Rome could appoint a king within the bounds of its empire. And for a crowd of Galileans to declare Jesus a king was a political act, a rebellion against the rule of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor. Not everyone is on board. There are counter-protestors! The Pharisees tell Jesus, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop!” (Luke 19:39) They know how the Romans will react.

But Jesus doesn’t stop them. Nothing can stop them. They’re saying what they say because they believe it to the core. And if they were silent, the very stones would shout out. (19:40)

The disciples’ rally may seem pointless. Protests often do, especially in a one-party state like ours, where liberals and conservatives alike often sense there’s no use trying to persuade politicians. And that’s in our society, where “the right of the people peaceably to assemble” is constitutionally guaranteed. How much more pointless would protest seem in an empire like Rome, where the only guarantee is that the powers that be will come down hard on anyone who dares oppose the empire?

But protest isn’t pointless. It wasn’t pointless then, and it isn’t pointless now. Because an act of protest, like a parade, or a procession, isn’t only about what it does out there. It’s also about what it does in here. It’s not only about changing the world, it’s about changing the people who participate.

In the short term, you might say the disciples’ protest doesn’t do much. It’s counter-productive, really. The disciples’ claim that Jesus is King leads directly to his death. It’s the very charge that the Romans put over his cross. And the group of people brought together by this movement seems to fall apart. Their peaceful protest on the road leads to violence in the Garden. The people who gather with Jesus around the Table abandon and betray him by the next day. He faces his last moments alone, except for the bandits hanging on either side and the faithful women who have followed him to the end. And it seems that all that energy and momentum, all those chants and songs and cloaks laid on the road, have gone nowhere. Jesus dies on the cross, and the movement ends, and on the Sabbath they rest.

But the story doesn’t actually end there. I’m not going to jump ahead to next Sunday’s events; I don’t want to spoil them for you. But even when Jesus is dead, the movement isn’t gone. On the day after the Sabbath, the women return to the tomb together. They hear remarkable news and they go and find the apostles, who are together. The community that they built out on the road hasn’t scattered to the four winds. They came all the way from Galilee to Jerusalem together, and they are together still, even though Jesus is gone. The group of individuals who walked, and sang, and chanted all that way have become a people. A people who will go on, even after their darkest days, to do incredible things.

Those individuals who laid their cloaks down on the road have become a people, and this is the place in which the memories of the past will become a new reality in the present. And we, who processed around this church, have become a people, and this is our place. So may the same Spirit who drew them together on the road and sent them out into the world draw us together today, and send us out as well, to love God with all our hearts and souls and strengths and minds; and to love our neighbors as ourselves; through Jesus Christ. Amen.

Lectionary Readings

“But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples… said,
‘Why was this perfume not sold…and the money given to the poor?’” (John 12:5)

I have to say, I’m pretty sympathetic to this question. Leave aside, for a minute, the parenthetical remark about Judas, and imagine yourself in the room.

Jesus and his disciples have come to dinner with Mary and Martha and Lazarus. They’re reclining around the dinner table, as ancient people did for formal meals. It was a normal thing to do to offer water for your guests to wash their feet before the meal, or to have a servant wash them, or even to offer to wash them yourself. In a dusty place where people wear sandals, this is a basic way of making people comfortable as a host, the local equivalent of asking “Can I take your coat?”

In a place and time without commercial soap production, oil was often used to wash or bathe. washing the feet with oil might be a step above washing with plain water, but it was probably a normal thing. Using perfumed oil would be even more luxurious, but not bizarre.

Mary does do something a little strange. Rather than scraping off the oil with a metal scraper like you might see in a museum, or with a cloth or a towel, she wipes the oil from Jesus’ feet with her hair. Which is odd. But in another way, it’s perfectly in character, because this is Mary we’re talking about, and this Mary—not the mother of Jesus, but the sister of Martha and Lazarus—this Mary is known for her single-minded, almost over-the-top devotion to Jesus, which sometimes comes at the expense of the practicalities of life. You might recall the other story of Mary and Martha, in which Mary leaves Martha alone to do all the work of hosting Jesus and his other disciples, while Mary sits attentively at his feet. (Luke 10:38–42)

And so perhaps it comes as no surprise that Mary acts this way. She doesn’t offer a bowl of water to Jesus to wash his feet. She doesn’t have a servant carry out the task. No, Mary’s going to wash his feet herself, and to wipe them off with her own hair; this kind of whole-hearted attention has Mary written all over it.

And she does it lavishly. And that’s where the grumbling begins. Mary doesn’t dry Jesus’ feet with her hair because she can’t afford a cloth. She doesn’t offer him a bowl of plain water with apologies for her frugality. No! She anoints his feet with perfume, she washes his feet with a whole pound of oil infused with nard, an exotic aromatic plant. Try to picture a pound of perfumed oil. 16 ounces or so, about a pint. That’s a very high perfume-to-foot ratio. By Judas’s reckoning, this is 300 denarii worth of foot cream—ten months’ wages for a laborer like one of the disciples—and there it is, poured out on Jesus’ feet, and dripping onto the floor.

People often criticize churches for spending money less than immediate needs. Rather than feed the hungry, we repair bells, and refurbish organs, and restore stained glass. There’s an answer for this: These things last for decades, and they enrich our community with beauty. There are neighbors who never walk through these doors who’ve told me that they love to hear our bell ring again. There’s a caretaker who visits a parishioner who likes to stop and look at the stained glass, even from the outside. Anyone can come and hear a brilliant organist play a beautiful instrument any time, free of charge.

But this perfume? It’s poured out on Jesus’ feet, and the fragrance fills the house for a night, and then it’s gone. 300 denarii down the drain, never to be smelled again; that’s ten months’ wages of operating money, not a capital expense. (If you’re laughing and you haven’t served on the Vestry yet, I’ve got a great opportunity for you.)

So I’m sympathetic to what Judas has to say: ‘Why was this perfume not sold…and the money given to the poor?’” Some of you might be sympathetic as well. This isn’t good stewardship of the gifts that Mary has been given. Having heard everything that Jesus has to say, wouldn’t you think that he would want that money to help someone else, rather than be poured out on his feet? But no, Jesus says, “Leave her alone… You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” (John 12:7–8) And thereby he provides an easy quote, which the Church has used for two thousand years to justify spending money on itself, in sometimes frivolous ways. It leaves me with a little bit of an ick.

I’m pretty sure that John the Evangelist felt that ick as well. Because while stories like this appear in all the Gospels, it’s only in John that we get the details about Judas’s motives. In Matthew and in Mark, the disciples in general criticize the waste. And Jesus responds in the same way: “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” But I get the sense that John isn’t totally convinced. And so he notes that it was Judas who asked this question, and, oh, by the way, it wasn’t in good faith—Judas is just going to steal the cash. Jesus gives a theological response, and it reads as if John thinks it’s a little weak, so he bolsters it with an ad hominem attack.

But I don’t think Jesus is giving us an excuse. It just doesn’t make sense that the Jesus who begins his ministry in the Gospel of Luke by saying that “the Spirit of the Lord has anointed [him] to bring good news to the poor” would end it by being anointed by Mary in order to deliver the dismissive bad news that “you’ll always have the poor with you,” so you don’t need to lend a helping hand. But if that’s not what it means—then what’s going on instead?

Something like a thousand years before, the rise of the great King David had begun with his anointing by the prophet Samuel. Samuel goes to try to figure out which of the seven sons of Jesse God has chosen to be king, and one by one the Spirit rules them out, until the youngest is called in from where he’s been keeping the sheep. Samuel takes a horn of oil, and pours it on his head. He anoints him. In Hebrew, he yimshah him; and this is where we get the word “Messiah,” “anointed one.” In Greek, he echrisen him, and this is where we get “Christ,” “anointed one.” David is the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed King. And ] people in Jesus’ day were hoping for a new Messiah, a new Christ, a new Anointed King.

And now, six days before the Passover, before the great national feast, which celebrates the people’s liberation from an oppressive Pharaoh’s rule, Mary anoints Jesus. And the very next day, what we call Palm Sunday, Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem takes place. It’s as if Mary is Samuel, and this anointing is the beginning of Jesus’ rise to power.

Except… it’s an anointing turned upside down, the anointing of a king who will turn the whole idea of kingship upside down. Samuel sought out David, but Jesus comes to Mary instead. Samuel needed the Spirit’s guidance to recognize the future king, but Mary is full of single-minded devotion. Samuel anoints David’s head, Mary anoints Jesus’ feet. David’s anointing begins his ascent to the throne, Jesus’ anointing begins his ascent to the Cross. David’s is a royal ritual; Jesus’ is a preparation for burial.

“I am about to do a new thing,” God says. (Isaiah 43:18–19) And Jesus is a new thing indeed. He’s going to be a new kind of king, he’s going to make the people around him a new kind of people.

We often think, in our democracy, that people hold certain ethical beliefs, and these lead them to political views, that then lead them to support certain leaders. I’d suggest to you that it really works the other way around: people choose to follow a charismatic leader, a person they come to trust, whose own priorities can reshape their views about policy or morality. And I often worry that the church sounds too much like Judas or the other disciples who scold, who tell people, with good intentions, what they ought to do in the name of Christianity; and too little like Mary, who lets her whole life be transformed and restructured by the choice to follow Christ.

Mary doesn’t sell the perfume to feed the hungry or clothe the naked. It’s true. She wastes it all to express her devotion to a king who bends the knee to wash his people’s feet; who tells her that she’ll meet him when she feeds people who are hungry, and visits people in prison; whose followers, in the Book of Acts, would sell not only a jar of perfume but everything they had and distribute the money to those who were in need. (Acts 2:44) It’s an anointing turned upside down for a man who turns kingship upside down, and whose people the Romans would one day accuse of turning the world upside down. (Acts 17:6) May God give us the strength so to pour out the perfume of our hearts in service to God’s love, that we may one day stand accused of turning the world upside down. Amen.

Lectionary Readings

It may come as no surprise that I, your seminarian, was a bit of a “church kid” growing up. I was in church pretty much every Sunday up until the age of fifteen, when I got confirmed. After I got confirmed, my attendance was sporadic but still pretty steady. Even so, I was still going to youth events around the diocese and to Christian summer camp. My point being, I have been around the block a few times. 

My whole childhood and adolescence I had gone about with the assumption that Lent was certainly somewhere in the Bible. Maybe we just read it in church during the summers when I was away at camp. Or that we read it on a Sunday that I just happened to miss every three years. Maybe it was in part of the Bible that wasn’t in any Bible study type curriculum. It was never something pressing enough for me to go and check in about it with anyone. I was very content knowing that it was in there somewhere. 

Eventually, I got to seminary and began my classes in the Bible, with this pondering about Lent somewhere in the back of my mind. My first semester, I get through my class on the gospels…and, no Lent. No big deal, it is probably in the other part of the New Testament, which we were taking in the second semester. I get through the second half of the New Testament and…weirdly enough….no Lent. A bit strange, but maybe it is in the Old Testament. Got through that class too, and you may have already guessed….still no Lent. You can fact check me on this one, Lent does not *strictly speaking, appear anywhere in the Bible. 

So if not the Bible, where does this whole season of great importance come from? It seems that the very earliest Christians observed a kind of fast in the days immediately preceding Easter Sunday, but it was only a few days long. Eventually it would get a bit longer, and then at some point it was lengthened to mirror the 40 days that Jesus spent in the wilderness. 

Lent would eventually take on a few different meanings. One important ancient Lenten tradition was that those who had committed notorious sins would be restored to the Christian assembly around Easter; Lent was a period of time for them to make amends and repent of what they had done. In this way, Lent became a time when Christians would try their hardest to work out their differences and overcome any strife within their community. 

However, even those who were not guilty of notorious sins would still take time during Lent to take a good look at the way they were living their lives. Maybe they did not do something notoriously bad, but maybe there are ways in which they would like to live differently. These people would take on practices that many people retain today: fasting, reading scripture, and self-examination. Lent became, in big and small ways, about repairing your relationship with God and your fellow Christians. 

And so, our gospel lesson today is quite timely. We are smack in the throes of Lent, and there is a wonderful sermon in this story about the younger son. This younger son repents of the bad ways he decided to live his life–a very appropriate Lenten story. In many ways, we are the younger son, and Lent is a time where we recognize our affinity to the younger son. It is a time where we intentionally take a look at our lives; a time of fasting, repentance, and sometimes even lamenting. Our own practices of Lent mirror the son’s words and actions when he turns from the error of his ways and goes back to his home. 

Just as we have this similarity to the prodigal son, we are the recipients of the same kind of love of God that he receives from his father. In the parable, the father seems to be a stand-in for God, and the father welcomes back his son with a celebration that is almost unthinkable in its scope. He brings out a fine robe–which is soon-to-be soiled, since his son has just been working in a pig sty; he brings out a ring to put on his son’s finger, and sandals for his feet–totally unnecessary at the moment; and he summons up a fatted calf to be killed–one of the most prized foods available to him. He easily could have given his son a normal robe and regular food and it would have been a kind gesture. 

Moreover, the father pays no attention at all to anything his son wants to say about the bad things he has done. If you noticed, the son begins his apology speech to his father, and is interrupted by his father’s requests for the fine robe, and the fatted calf. The father does not care, seemingly at all, what the son wants to say in apology for squandering his inheritance and ending up in such a sorry state. 

And this is the same love with which God treats our mistakes. In this story, we recognize that there is nothing we can do that will ruin God’s love for us. We recognize that God is always ready to run out to meet us on the road, and excited to kill the fatted calf for us. It is a reminder, during this season of repentance, that God loves us in a way that is practically unimaginable. 

And, there is another brother in this story. The very angry, very responsible older brother. To really capture the anger of the older brother, I think it is important to revisit what is actually happening. The younger brother: 

And the cherry on top. The fatted calf–as with everything else the father gives to the younger son–rightfully belongs to the inheritance of the older brother. The older brother’s anger has many justifications. He is the responsible one, who works to maintain what he is given. In the story, if he did what his younger brother did, then both of them would be starving and out of luck. The younger son has something to come back to only because his older brother did the responsible thing.

I suspect that, many of us here, at some point, have been in the position of the older brother. Whether that is dutifully doing your job while your coworkers seem to slack off; taking the time to volunteer to help the community when other people do not; keeping the house clean while whoever it is that you live with continues to be a slob; or maybe something closer to the actual story of the parable. Examples abound of moments when we play the role of the responsible older brother. 

And so, our gospel lesson today is quite timely. We are smack in the throes of Lent, and there is a wonderful sermon in this story about the older brother. In this kind of sermon, we are invited during this time of Lent to a time of forgiveness. It is an incredibly difficult kind of forgiveness. So hard in fact that we do not actually get to see the older brother achieve it in the story. It is not an easy invitation to respond to, but it is a timeless kind of Lenten invitation none the less. 

In this sermon about the older brother, I think it is important to point out two things. The first, the father actively seeks out his older son when he realizes he is not at the party. The father goes to his older son, who is angry, and is standing in the field outside the party. Just as the father meets his wayward younger son on the road, he goes out to find his angry older son standing in the field. It is a different kind of example of God’s love for us. It is a reminder, during this season of difficult forgiveness, that God will constantly seek us out to be with us, even when we are angry and refusing to go into the party. 

The second thing I want to point out is what the father actually says after his older son is finished yelling at him. The father would be within his rights to reprimand his son, to tell him he is being selfish, to get angry back and yell back at his older son. He does none of these things. He does not return his son’s anger with anger, or even express disappointment about how his son is acting. Rather, he responds with a calmness and love for his older son. In a way, he even gives his older son what he wants. The chief complaint of the older son is, essentially, “you didn’t even give me a young goat to celebrate with my friends”. His father seems to tell him in response “you never even needed to ask for a young goat, it was yours this whole time”. There is a deep love for his older son even when his older son is yelling at him and overwhelmed by anger. 

And so our invitation for Lent remains much the same as it did for the earliest of Christians. We should repent, take stock of the ways we might consider living differently, and turn back to our Father–much like the younger son in our lesson today. We should also try and forgive, even though it is incredibly hard, just like the earliest Christians did during Lent, and just like the older brother is invited  to do in our lesson today. All of this, with the knowledge that in our repentance, God is already running to meet us. With the knowledge that in our trying to forgive, God is already there with us. In the name of the one who loves us first. Amen.

Lectionary Readings

Sometimes, when reading the diverse library of ancient texts we bind in one book and call “The Bible,” you’ll read something strange—something that so clearly comes from a different place and time that it can seem impossible to understand without a lot more context. Sometimes, you read something that speaks so clearly to the kinds of questions we ask here and now that it reminds you, suddenly, that in the timeline of human existence, 2000 years isn’t that long at all—that people in the ancient world felt the same things and thought the same things that we do now. And sometimes, these two experiences—this out-of-context strangeness and this sudden familiarity—happen at the very same time.

Take our Gospel today. On the one hand, you can probably tell that Jesus has something to say about a very common question: “Why do bad things happen to good people?” We asked this thousands of years ago; we still do today. But on the other hand, this story seems to have some context that we’re missing. There are other, less common questions that it raises: “What’s up with the Galileans whose blood Pilate ‘mingled with their sacrifices’?” or “What’s the deal with the tower of Siloam?” or… “What’s Siloam?” If Jesus is referring to these stories to make his point, it seems like it might be important to know more. So let’s start with some of the details about the tower of Siloam, and these Galileans, and then see what that context means for what Jesus is saying. Does that sound like a good plan?

Wrong! It’s a bad plan, I’m sorry to say. (I apologize, I set you up for that.) The sad reality is that there are no more details. There is no more context. In fact, we have no record of these events, other than in the Gospel of Luke. But, to be fair, we can still make some educated guesses to try to understand what he means.

So, some people in the crowd come to tell Jesus about “the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.” This is probably not literally true; you shouldn’t imagine some kind of gruesome ritual event, with Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judaea, literally mixing people’s blood with animal sacrifices. It’s a metaphor for massacre in the Temple, for the killing of some pilgrims who had come from Galilee, just as Jesus is, to worship in Jerusalem. These are presumably upstanding, pious people.  And yet they’re killed, during the very act of religious worship, by their own government. And Jesus asks: Do you think that this human punishment was a sign of divine disfavor? Do you think that simply because the government accuses someone of a crime and punishes them, they are necessarily evil? “No, I tell you!”

There’s a difference, Jesus says, between what’s “legal” and what’s “good,” between what is “illegal” and what is “evil.” Especially under unjust rule, the fact that something is illegal doesn’t mean that it is evil; in fact, the worst governments make it illegal to do many things that are good. Even without the details of the story, we can understand the point: Being punished by Pontius Pilate does not mean that these people are necessarily “worse sinners than all other Galileans.”

But Jesus goes on to make a second point about what we sometimes call “acts of God.” He refers to another story, about the deaths of “eighteen [people] who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them.” (Luke 13:4) Siloam is a neighborhood of Jerusalem; we hear about the “pool of Siloam” a few times in the Gospels. But we have no more details about this tower. It seems to be just the tragic story of a building that collapsed, injuring people walking by in the street. Maybe the builders did something wrong, but Jesus doesn’t point a finger. It’s an accident, a disaster, an awful thing that happened at random. “Do you think they were worse offenders,” Jesus asks, “than all the others living in Jerusalem?” (3:4) Were these people singled out by the hand of a vengeful God, who caused a tower to collapse just as they all happened to be walking by? No! It’s an accident, and it’s a tragedy; it’s not a punishment.

And so far, if all you have is these two stories and the rhetorical questions Jesus asks, this all seems straightforward enough. Jesus gives an answer to a that question that people asked 2000 years ago and still ask today: Why do bad things happen to good people? Is there a reason for everything? Is it all part of a larger plan? Or are some things simply random? And what Jesus has to say is that human beings do evil things to one another, and that’s bad; but it’s not a judgment of the victims. And disasters happen, and that’s tragic; but they’re the result of the laws of physics, and not an “act of God.”

But then, in both cases, Jesus goes on. “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.” (13:5)

And it’s here that finally historical context becomes the key.

It’s tempting to read this part out of context, actually. It sounds like a universal statement, as if it’s addressed directly to us. And depending on the way you look at things, you might take that one of two ways. Some Christians will read this and think it means that they should repent of their own, specific, individual sins, or they will “perish”—probably a way of describing some kind of eternal punishment. And so they’ll scrutinize themselves and others for signs of sin, lest they be condemned. Other Christians will read this and think it means that they should repent of their own, specific, individual sins, or they will “perish”—and therefore listen politely to the text and then file it away in the same mental drawer with the other bits of the Bible in which Jesus comes across as, well, not very Episcopalian.

But in fact, this is not addressed to the “you” of the reader, the individual modern Christian hearing the text. It’s addressed to the “you” of the story, the group of people who come to him and tell him this story about what Pilate did. And it’s here that the historical context comes into play. Jesus was living in a time that was building toward rebellion, a time of increasing patriotic fervor and nationalistic spirit. Just a few decades after his death, this nationalism would explode into an open revolt, a Jewish War against Rome that very quickly developed into a civil war among Jews well. Many of the people who hear the news that Jesus is the Messiah are ready to start things off. They think that he’s the one who will lead them into war. And he tells them, “No, unless you repent—unless you change your hearts, unless you turn aside from the path you are on—you will perish,” not metaphorically, but literally, in the very same way that the people in those two stories did (that’s what “just as” means). Some will fall to the Roman soldiers’ swords. Some will be trapped in a city reduced to rubble. But unless they turn away from the idea that God will save them through war, one way or another they will be destroyed. By the time Luke writes it down, this has already come to pass. And this is not a divine punishment, per se; it’s a natural consequence of what they want to do, and if you aren’t sure what the difference is, ask one of the parents of the toddlers at Coffee Hour, if you can catch them.

That’s a very specific message for a very specific time, but there is a broader message here, one that really is for each of us. There are times when nations are headed down a self-destructive path. It may well be the case that humankind is on that road; it certainly has been before. And it’s definitely true that in our relationships and friendships, in our church communities and in our individual lives, there are times when we are stuck in toxic patterns, headed down a path that can only lead to the destruction of those relationships and those parts of our lives.

But the good news of Lent is that there is always time to turn away. There is always time to repent from our patterns of self-destruction, and return to the way of love. Jesus wants that desperately for us. Because in a world that’s full of people who want to cut your fig tree down, Jesus is the gardener who begs them to hold off for one more year, so he can put some fertilizer down and see what grows. “God is faithful,” Paul says, and God wants you to find the “way out,” and God invites each one of us, again and again, to turn back.

Friendships and families, churches and nations—these things we build together are fragile, and they’re hard. They are the places where we practice what it is to love one another, and sometimes we don’t do that very well. But that’s why we say the Confession every week. That’s why Lent comes every year. Because we need the constant invitation, again and again, to change our hearts, and turn toward the love of God.

Lectionary Readings

The word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision,
“Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield;
your reward shall be very great.” (Gen. 15:1)

If I had to identify the most pervasive scams of 2025, I’d pick two. The Scammy Award for Most Pervasive Con would be split between the “‘I’m Your Pastor’ Gift Card Email” and the “‘Notice of Toll Evasion’ Text.” You may have encountered one of these. I actually received them both this week. Both of them are designed, like all scams are, to exploit human emotions.

The pastor scam preys on our goodness and our relationships. It’s been around for a few years now. You get an email from an account with a name claiming to be your pastor, who says they can’t talk by phone right now but they really need you to do them a favor to help someone out. They need you to buy a few hundred dollars in gift cards and send them the numbers by email, so they can give them to a person in need. If you buy the gift cards and sending the numbers, there’s no way to get the money back. You were just trying to help your pastor out, and you were robbed.

The more recent toll evasion scam preys on our fear of judgment. “You have an unpaid toll bill on your account,” one text message I got this week reads. “To avoid late fees, pay within 12 hours or the late fees will be increased and”—here’s the worst part—“reported to the DMV.” At this point, I get 3-4 of these a week. But you can understand how it would work. I might have missed a toll, you might think. Maybe my EzPass was on the fritz? I really don’t want to have to deal with the DMV, so okay, sure, I can pay ten bucks. (PSA, if you ever see one: these are both always scams. And anyway, in Massachusetts we call it the RMV, right?)

These cons have none of the charm of The Music Man. They’re a numbers game, spamming the world with so many emails and so many texts that surely someone will pay. But they prey on the same deep-seated human traits that were so well known to the con artists of old: the desire to be helpful to a person you love; the embarrassment of questioning a confident authority figure; the fear of being seen as the kind of person who doesn’t pay a toll, and the desire to avoid the DMV.

Many religions built on these same traits. But I want to suggest to you today that the good news that Jesus came to share is that we have things exactly the wrong way around. People often act as though God were an eternal con man in the sky. We often act out of the desire to please God by being helpful, or out of the fear of divine judgment. But in fact, in a world of wily foxes, the only thing God wants is the chance to protect you like a hen, sheltering her chicks under her wings.

It’s Jesus who gives us this image of the fox and the hen, of course. And there’s some irony in it. The Pharisees come to warn Jesus to leave Galilee, because Herod Antipas, who rules Galilee, wants to kill him. The warning is superfluous. Jesus is already on his way out of Galilee, toward Jerusalem. But he won’t find safety there. He’s already predicted that’s where he’ll meet his fate. The danger is real: Pontius Pilate and Herod Antipas really do think that Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem to seize the throne, and they see him as a threat.

But Jesus isn’t there to launch a coup. He’s not there to outfox Herod. He says that he’s the other half of a pair familiar from folk tales around the world: If Herod is the fox in this story, then Jesus is the hen. Even in the city, we know who wins that fight. But Jesus isn’t worried about Herod’s threat to himself. He’s talking about his chicks: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem!” he laments. “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.” Herod isn’t only a “fox” because he wants Jesus dead. He’s a fox because he’s preying on the people, exploiting and oppressing the beloved chicks of God. And Jesus the hen isn’t only the victim of this predator; he’s the one who’s going to protect his people from the threat.

This is the pattern all throughout our readings today. Again and again, you see the enemies who attack and exploit the people of God and the God who tries to defend and protect them.

So our Psalm today repeatedly invokes the “evildoers” who “came upon me to eat up my flesh,” the “army” that is “encamp[ed] against me,” the “war” that “rise[s] up against me.” (Psalm 27:2-4) And the Psalmist turns again and again to God for safety: “The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid?” (Ps. 27:1) The two sides don’t act in the same way. God is not an avenging warrior, but a shelter and protector.

Paul makes the same kind of rhetorical move. There are those who are the “enemies of the cross of Christ,” whose whole purpose is shaped by “destruction,” whose minds are set on “earthly things.” They seek satisfaction and chase after glory. But “our citizenship is in heaven,” Paul writes; our highest allegiance is not to any ruler or nation on earth, but to God, and it is from there, from heaven, that we await a “Savior.” Not someone to destroy our enemies but, again, someone to save us from them. Someone who can say to us, as God says to Abram, “Do not be afraid…I am your shield.” (Genesis 15:1)

These are not symmetric pairs: fox and fox, army and army, enemy and ally. We get the fox and the hen, the army and the refuge, the enemy and the Savior. There are the all the forces of evil and death that do their best to destroy humankind—and there is a God who wants to shield us from them.

And this is what Jesus is going to do. He has a little time, for now, for small miracles: he can cast our demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, but then he’s got to go on to finish his work. The fox is near, and he needs to go gather his chicks, to protect them not only from Herod, or from Pilate, but from the greater power of Death itself. He will shelter the chicks from that fox. His disciples and the people will be safe. But he himself will die, just as the Pharisees tried to warn him that he could. On Good Friday, he’ll die; and on Holy Saturday he’ll rest in the grave; and then on Easter Sunday, on the third day, he’ll finish his work. And in some mysterious way, just as the hen’s self-sacrifice might protect her chicks from the fox, Jesus’ death and resurrection work to overcome the power of death. Jesus goes, of his own free will, to die, and he rises again, and opens the way for us to rise. This is how he resists evil; how we wins the ultimate victory at the very moment that he seems to fail.

Technology has changed. New forms of government have come and gone. But Jesus lived in a world made of human beings just like us. He lived in a world of people who saw raw power as the measure of a leader’s strength. He lived in a world whose rulers tried to dominate the people of neighboring lands. He rejected those rulers, those foxes who used their cunning for their own gain. But he also rejected their way. He didn’t respond to violence with violence, or to power with power. He stretched out wings of love, not to push against his foes, but to protect his people from harm. When given the choice, Jesus chose the side of the weak and the powerless, not the mighty and great.

And this is true for you. God is not an eternal Santa Claus, making a list and checking it twice. God is not working on the same emotions as a scammer does, not trying to manipulate you into doing good deeds, or to scare you away from bad ones. God is trying to protect you, to give you some shelter and some strength. And there’s only one thing that God needs us to do: not to run away.

“How often I’ve desired to gather you together,” Jesus says, “and you were not willing!” And that’s the work we have to do. Not to scatter through the world like chicks. But to accept the hen’s embrace, to shelter under her wings. To accept protection, and to try to live with the courage that it brings: to know that even though the world is full of foxes, full of struggles and pain, there is another and a better way than the way of cunning domination. There is a way of love that leads through the cross all the way to the empty tomb, because on the third day—at the end of the long journey of Lent, at the end of the long journey of this life—Jesus will finish his work.