Pilgrim Preaching

Home for Christmas

Christmas | John 1:1-18

In "The Pivot of John's Prologue," New Testament Studies 27 (1980) : 1-31, Alan Culpepper argues that the prologue is a chiasm with a center point at v. 12b: "he gave power to become children of God." For those who have Microsoft Word or a Word Viewer, here's a look at the chiasm Culpepper outlines.

I've always liked this way of reading the prologue, probably because I think the whole gospel's point is to give us power to become children of God. If that is true, it makes sense that John would shape the prologue to highlight this gift and the difference it makes. Jesus' interest in giving "power to become children of God" may also be why Jesus is always referring to God as Father in this gospel: Jesus wants to say something about the kind of relationship with God that he knows and is eager to share with the rest of God's children. He makes this sibling connection between himself and his followers explicit at the end of the gospel when he tells Mary to take word to the disciples, "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God" (John 20:17b).

How about this for a way to understand the incarnation? God's premier child comes to bring his brothers and sisters to the home where we belong—or better, he comes to bring home to us. Late in his ministry, Jesus says, "Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them" (John 14:23). To make this home for all of us ("all of us" meaning Father, Son, Holy Spirit and humanity together—no wonder we need "many rooms" [John 14:1]), Jesus takes up residence in a few different rooms of his own: rooms—or space at least—in Bethlehem (Luke 2), Egypt (Matthew 2), Nazareth and various other points between Galilee and Jerusalem, ending up (again) without any room at all, crucified on a hill outside the holy city. All of it is to give us power to become children of God.

The Spirit of Our Lord

Pentecost C
Acts 2:1-21
Romans 8:14-17
John 14:8-17 (25-27)

The Lutheran Book of Worship liturgy has a phrase that sounds canonical to me, except I haven't been able to find it in the Bible. One of the eucharistic prayers contains these words: "Send now, we pray, your Holy Spirit, the spirit of our Lord and of his resurrection, that we who receive the Lord's body and blood may live to the praise of your glory and receive our intheritance with all your saints in light." It's that phrase, "the spirit of our Lord and of his resurrection," that I like so much. I still half expect someday to find it in tucked away a Pauline letter.

A thought experiment for this week: How does it change things to say "the Spirit of Jesus" every place where "Spirit" is in this week's texts? I may be playing fast and loose with the finer points of Trinitarian theology here, but I am trying the experiment as a way of reminding myself that the Spirit is one with the Father and the Son. If Jesus can say, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9), is it not also true that whoever has seen Jesus has seen the Spirit?

We have all heard people refer to themselves as "spiritual but not religious." The phrase means different things to different speakers. Mostly I think it means, "I don't want to 'sign on the dotted line' of a denomination with all its doctrines and rules, but I do want to connect with something beyond what I can see and something beyond what makes a capitalist, materialist world go around." If this is the case, then I'm all for being spiritual. Yet when Christians talk about the Spirit, we mean nothing more or less than "the Spirit of our Lord and of his resurrection." For Christians, to be "spiritual" is to be connected to Jesus, who has shown us the Father, or to put it another way, who has "made God known" (John 1:18) to us.

So when we discern or "test the spirits" (1 John 4:1), we do so by measuring what they say about Jesus. The scandal of particularity—that God is fully present in one Jew living in 1st century Palestine—continues as the Spirit becomes our link with God. Pentecost celebrates a particular Spirit made manifest in the world and in the church. Not just spirit or spiritual experience in general will do here. On Pentecost, we mark the coming of the Spirit of our Lord. We celebrate that those things we know from Jesus' biography—a fierce refusal to compromise with the world's other powers, the free offering of love, healing and forgiveness to all kinds of people, the willingness to suffer for the good of others—all these things are still available to us because Jesus is still available to us, through his Spirit.

Getting on the Same Page

Seventh Sunday of Easter
John 17:20-26

Anyone who has ever had even a little ambivalence about the ecumenical movement or about the capacity for truth telling in ecumenical dialogues and agreements between church bodies can probably remember hearing John 17:20-26 used in response to their questions. "We have to seek unity with every Christian on earth. It's what Jesus wants. In fact, he wanted it so much he asked God to make it happen. He prayed for his followers, "that they may be one, even as we are one" (John 17:22).

The effect of this speech is that people who have misgivings about an ecumenical initiative are put on the side of those who are against what Jesus wanted and prayed for. The text stretches like duct tape over the mouths of anyone who would say, "But... but...." until the one quoting the text can say, "There, that's better. Unity. We speak with one voice." If this is the only way we can use the text, it is surely better for the cause of unity in the church—and the honoring of all members of the body of Christ—if we focus our attention this week on one of the other readings.

I am, however, not ready to give up on the gospel reading. Looking at it closely, I see that Jesus does not say, "Silence questions among them." Or, "Grant that they agree on everything." It helps to notice that Jesus is praying here for followers who will believe because of the witness of the apostles. At another place, Jesus refers to such people as, "Those who have not seen and yet have come to believe" (John 20:29).

This part of Jesus' prayer in John 17 is a request for the apostolic witness to be as faithful to God's true character as Jesus' own witness to the Father has been. In the prologue to the gospel, John writes, "No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known" (1:18). In chapter 17, Jesus prays that his apostles will continue the work he began to make God known. As the prayer is answered, those who hear Christians bear witness to their faith will come to know the very things Jesus made known to his followers: things like (a) how and how much God loved the world, (b) that the cross reveals Christ's glory, and (c) how eager Jesus is that all "may be with me where I am" (John 17:24).

Denominational and confessional divisions among those who name Jesus as Lord are sometimes a stumbling block to faith for unbelievers: "Christians cannot agree on anything even among themselves. How much of a handle on truth can they actually have?" When our divisions stop unbelievers from inquiring further, or when our idolatrous fascinations with internecine conflict turn people off from wanting even to keep company with us, repentance is called for. Yet at least as big a problem—and arguably the problem addressed by these verses of Christ's prayer—is our failure to tell the story of how and how much God loved the world. God wants to know and to be known by God's people. Jesus wants all of God's people with him where he is. The book of Revelation pictures us all exactly there, gathered around Christ and joining in song. For this dream to come true, Jesus prays, "As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me" (John 17:21).

Enough

Sixth Sunday of Easter
Gospel: John 14:23-29

Speaking about how human beings spend their time and thus may be pictured in novels, E. M. Forster says, "When human beings love they try to get something. They also try to give something, and this double aim makes love more complicated than food or sleep. It is selfish and altruistic at the same time, and no amount of specialization in one direction quite atrophies the other" (Aspects of the Novel [Orlando: Harcourt, 1927] 50).

On the verge of his departure from them, Jesus says to his loved ones, "If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I" (John 14:28b). This is so hard! How can the disciples rejoice that Jesus is leaving? What makes possible that kind of atrophied selfishness and robust altruism?

When all you can see is scarcity, the temptation is to hold on to what you have even tighter. "No, Jesus, you can't go! Stay here!" Like Mary at the tomb, we cling to our Teacher, Lord and Friend. That makes perfect sense in this world's economy. We cannot rejoice at the news that things are changing.

But in the economy of the whole new age, the age inaugurated by Jesus' death, resurrection and ascension, things are calculated differently. Here it is possible to release Jesus so that he may be reunited with the Father and still to rejoice. The variable that changes an economy of scarcity (If Jesus rejoins the Father, will he still care about us? Or: If Jesus loves you, then will there still be enough love for me?) into an economy of abundance (an economy of abundant life, one might say) is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit makes the power, love and presence of Jesus available to the disciples in his absence. The Holy Spirit also makes the power, love and presence of Jesus available to us who live centuries later than the disciples. The Holy Spirit is, after all, the reason we know Jesus at all.

And speaking of knowing Jesus, one of the things we know is that there is enough of Jesus to go around. Jesus takes time to listen to the woman with the hemorrhage, and still, he can give Jairus' daughter back to her parents, alive and ready for lunch (cf. Mark 5:21-43). The story demonstrates what "enough" means, even when, in the midst of it, we think that time or some other commodity is running out. Jesus, by means of his Holy Spirit, finds time, place, love and life enough for all of us.

No Fear

Fourth Sunday of Easter
Psalm 23
John 10:22-30

I'm preaching Sunday on the 23rd Psalm and John 10 at the Baccalaureate service for Concordia College's graduation weekend. I have thought all week that I would (a) get the sermon done and then (b) write a weblog entry. The sermon gets higher priority since I have to actually be present and looking at people when the sermon is encountered, as opposed to being able to hunker down behind the keyboard after the blog is updated. Alas, the sermon is not yet done (Fri. at 10:00 p.m.) and I'm about to leave internet access for the weekend. So there's no weblog entry, except for this one.

Here's the idea I'm working on: Jesus is always getting in so much trouble. Even this gospel reading, a text with all sorts of good news in it for his followers ("my sheep hear my voice") is edgy. Following him means pasture, rest, and also .... well... living with the results of this edge in his voice and his actions. Can't he lighten up just a little on the speaking truth to power stuff? Apparently not.

I want to talk about why Jesus is not going through his life scared (he knows the Father can be trusted: "you spread a table before me in the presence of my enemies") and why following him means we need not go through our lives scared either ("No one will snatch them out of my hand.") What might you be able to do if you were convinced that no one could snatch you out of Christ's hand?

Grace Upon Grace

3 Easter C
April 24, 2004
John 21:1-19

It is common to compare the great catch of fish in John 21 to the story of a similar catch early in Jesus' ministry according to Luke 5:1-11. Peter plays a central role in each. In Luke, the great catch accompanies the call of the first disciples. When Peter witnesses it—and the power of God available to Jesus that it implies—he is struck by his sinfulness and says to Jesus, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man." In John, the great catch accompanies Jesus' call to Peter to live out the love that he has for Jesus ("Do you love me?... Feed my sheep."). That call is issued three times, paralleling the three times that Peter had earlier denied even knowing Jesus, let alone loving him.

Whatever the connections between Luke and John here, thanks to Gail O'Day's insightful commentary on John, I was reminded of another companion text to the last miracle of Jesus in John's gospel. It is the first miracle of Jesus in John's gospel, namely the changing of water into wine at the wedding at Cana (John 2).

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"The abundant catch of fish and the breakfast on the beach both suggest that Jesus' gifts continue even after the events of 'his hour.' This story is a narrative testimony to the truth of the community's testimony in 1:16: 'From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.' The vast quantity of fish in the disciples' net and the gracious meal of bread and fish show that God's gift is available in the risen Jesus just as it was in the incarnate Jesus. Just as Jesus' ministry was inaugurated with a miracle of unprecedented abundance (2:1-11), so, too, is the church's ministry. John 21:1-14 is thus a story of celebration for the post-resurrection community, because it demonstrates for the community that its life is grounded in an experience of God's fullness and unprecedented, unexpected gift." —Gail R. O'Day, "John," New Interpreter's Bible 9:864 (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996).

One gets the sense from that catch of fish, and then the invitation from Jesus to come and have breakfast, that the resurrected Lord has more and more gifts he wants to give his followers. Jesus quite literally feeds a few of his sheep, the fishing disciples, and then he provides for his other sheep by reminding Peter that love for Christ is shown in a life that shares God's overabundance of grace with others.

The Thomas Text

I don't know why the story of Thomas appears every year on the Second Sunday of Easter. It seems like we could get the Road to Emmaus once in a while on that Sunday. I smiled at Michael Stadtmueller's comment that interns always get (or have) to preach this Sunday. Given the repetition of the lectionary here, at least first call preachers will always have a usable sermon in the file for the Second Sunday of Easter.

Here is a short reflection on Thomas that I wrote for the back of the Augsburg bulletins in 2005. It is their copyrighted material, but until they pay me for it (which hasn't happened yet), I'm not going to get in a hurry to disappear it from the blog.

Are We Having Fun Yet?

5 Lent C (2004)
John 12:1-8

Richard Burridge (Four Gospels, One Jesus? [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994]) and other commentators talk about the Markan sandwich, "where one story provides the 'filling' between two pieces of 'bread'" (39).  Looking at this week's gospel, I notice a Johannine sandwich.

Look at what happens just before the dinner-and-anointing scene: the authorities plot to kill Jesus. And after: the same authorities plot to kill Lazarus. There is danger on every side now, so that "Jesus no longer walked openly" (11:54). There is danger, too, within the inner circle, as we find out from the parenthetical comment about Judas in 12:5.

In the context of all this plotting and imminent betrayal, Mary, Martha and Lazarus invite Jesus and his friends to dinner. In the parable of the prodigal son, the father said to his elder son, "We had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found" (Luke 15:32). Here is another brother, back from the dead. This time, the brother and his sisters are celebrating.

But who would sandwich a party between so much that is going so wrong? How can you celebrate in the midst of all that danger? The first answer that pops into the minds of pop psychologists is "denial." "They just don't get it," we might say. "They are fooling themselves; they are in denial." I think that's the wrong answer. It is not denial that fuels the celebration. Jesus is clear on the fate that awaits him (cf. John 12:8). He talks about his burial and he says that Mary understands that he is about to die. Jesus is not in denial about the danger. He just doesn't fear it.

"God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear..." (1 John 4:16b-18a) The author of 1 John is talking here about not fearing punishment from God because God abides in us and loves us. Yet the love of God does even more than just allay our fear of a righteous God. It banishes fear of other threats, whether they come from enemies like cancer, or terrorists, or (as in the case of Jesus) your own government.

In a sermon preached at Duke Divinity School chapel in 1996 or so, homiletics professor Richard Lischer told this story.

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"Our friend had already done two full courses of chemotherapy and through it all had somehow managed to complete a doctoral dissertation at U. Va. She had done it. To celebrate she and her husband rented a VFW hall, hired a band, and threw one of the biggest parties I've ever seen for the whole church and half the community. Two days before graduation her doctors confirmed that the cancer was back. The experimental treatments would begin the day after graduation. Only a few of us knew it, and my guess is we would have limped through the ceremony and canceled the party. "But she had the party. And I tell you I have never heard the gospel of God's Yes preached more powerfully than I saw it danced on the floor of the VFW. An outsider would have seen only the vintage 1960s, arthritic gyrations that we were all doing, but this was a woman of faith and she danced her Yes in the grip of the No. And that's the way we do it. The best celebrating is done in the face of the enemy, the best dancing on the devil's dance floor. "You can't always separate the Yes from the No but at least one person has done it definitively. Because of the resurrection of Jesus, we trust that there is this distinction, and that it holds true for us." Richard Lischer, sermon on 2 Cor. 1:15-22, privately printed.

Martha who served, Lazarus who came out of the tomb and then to dinner when called, Mary who spent a year's salary on the best party favor ever, Jesus who loved them all, along with loving the rest of us—this is what they know: The best dancing is done on the devil's dance floor.  Perfect love casts out fear.  It does so by offering a security that all the carefulness in the world cannot match.

Resurrection Across the Miles

6 Easter A (2005)
John 14:15-21
Back of the Bulletin

Throughout his earthly ministry, Jesus moved toward people in need rather than away from them.