Words that Echo Still

            The week we call Holy begins.  According to the Gospel of Mark it begins with the shouts of a crowd.  They spread cloaks and leafy branches on the road before Jesus as he enters Jerusalem. He rides a humble beast of burden rather than the mighty steed of a conquering war-rior. On Friday the week comes to an end with a solitary, anguished cry of abandonment.  In be-tween the Palm Sunday shout of “Hosanna,” (which means “Save Us we beseech you”) and the loud cry before Jesus took his last breath many words are spoken.  Reading Mark 11-15 allows us to hear them all in context.  We are invited to follow Jesus from Bethany into Jerusalem and back and forth to teach in the Temple. We watch and listen as he shares the Passover with his disciples. We are there as he prays in the Garden of Gethsemane before his arrest. We stand in the shadows as Peter warms himself by a fire outside the high priest’s house. We witness Jesus on trial before religious and civil authorities. Finally we follow to Golgotha.  Some of the words spoken along the way stand out to pause over and ponder:  Why was this One who came in the name of the Lord called “blessed?”  What do the words he uttered during that last week of teaching and controversy have to say to us today?  I end with Jesus uttering the haunting quote from Psalm 22 in Mark 15. 34.  If you take the time to read Psalm 22 in its entirety sometime this week, you will discover it points to the discover that awaits in Mark 16. All the quotes below are from the Gospel of Mark in the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

“Hosanna!”

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”

“Is it not written,

‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’?

But you have made it a den of robbers.”

“Whenever you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone;

so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.”

“Have you not read this in scripture:

‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone;

this was the Lord’s doing, it is amazing in our eyes’?”

“Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s,

and to God the things that are God’s.”

“He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”

“The first is,

‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one;

you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,

and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’

The second is this,

‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

There is no commandment greater than these.”

“Beware that no one leads you astray.

Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray.

“When they bring you to trial and hand you over,

do not worry beforehand about what you are to say;

but say whatever is given you at the time,

for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.”

“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”

“And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”

“Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me…”

“Surely, not I?”

“Take; this is my body…This is the blood of the covenant,

which is poured out for many.”

“You will all become deserters; for it is written,

‘I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.’

But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.”

“Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me;

yet, not what I want, but what you want.”

“Keep awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial;

the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

“Are you the Messiah the Son of the Blessed One?”

“I am;’ and

‘you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power,’ and

‘coming with the clouds of heaven.’”

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Responding to a One Sentence Sermon

Tom Troeger, the insightful, retired teacher of preachers remembers watching The Tonight Show hosted by Johnny Carson one night when “the famous actor Orson Welles read from Genesis 9: “Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood,” he began. “When the bow is in clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth,” he concluded. Troeger recalls that “when Welles finished reading, he preached a one sentence sermon. These may not be the exact words,” says Tom, “but they are close: ‘God is not going to destroy us, but it remains to be seen whether or not we will destroy ourselves.’ Whenever I see a rainbow in the sky,” writes Troeger, “Welles’s sermon returns to me.”[i]

Given the length of time both Welles and Carson have been dead and gone, it is likely that Welles was referring to the threat of nuclear annihilation, a threat many thought was contained by treaties and pledges across the years. A dozen years or so ago the threat was raised again by the term “weapons of mass destruction.” A couple of years back it was brought forward again when two world leaders compared the size of the red buttons on their desks.

“God is not going to destroy us, but it remains to be seen whether or not we will destroy ourselves.” Hardly a week goes by without being reminded that destruction in the blink of an eye on a global scale is the least of our problems. Almost daily we are confronted with the evidence showing how we might gradually destroy ourselves a few lives at a time. News from the last 72 hours tells the tale: a speeding car crashes taking the lives of a handful of teens; a mother locks four children into their rooms and sets the house on fire; six Asian woman and two men are gunned down in Georgia; the trial of a white police officer accused of killing a black man begins; the body count after a coup in Myanmar rises; a report is released on the greed that contributed to opioid related deaths across the land; and the death toll from Covid 19 continues to climb. And on it goes.

We are tired of the numbers. We are tired of the all too familiar phrases that attempt to explain or excuse what has happened. We are tired of being reminded that merely sending our “thoughts and prayers” to the people who live under the latest bloody push pins on the map is not enough.

Each of us can be a part of the answer to the second half of Orson Welles’s one sentence sermon. Be-ginning with our children and grandchildren, we can teach the value of life, model and reward anger management, provide tips and tools for coping with disappointment and adjusting to circumstances beyond our control. To our “thoughts and prayers” we can add letters and calls to those with power to legislate change. We can add our voices to those calling for common sense steps to minimize the possibility of mass shootings and insist that those purchasing weapons receive training to ensure they know how to use them wisely.

Tom Troeger, the retired teacher of preachers, couldn’t help but offer a critique of the twenty-word ser-mon by Orson Welles. He wrote: “Like most good sermons, it is true and not true at the same time—for a good sermon never covers all the truth about God, though foolish preachers often make the attempt.” Troeger explains: “Welles’s sermon is true because it reminds us of how much trust God has placed in us: whether or not the human race will survive is in our hands. But the sermon is not true because it appears to make God only passive: God will look at the rainbow in the sky and remember not to act against us. But this says nothing about how God will pursue us with grace and love…God does more than promise not to destroy us. God persistently supplies us with resources to move from brutality to compassion, from violence to peace…God calls us to a new way of being and acting that we can embrace by following Christ.”

During Lent we are called to consider what it means to follow Christ, who spoke the truth to power, who taught that the cost of discipleship sometimes involves the relinquishing of rights and the accep-tance of costly responsibilities. As Holy Week nears, we are called to live Christ’s way: “When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we speak kindly.”[ii]

[i] All quotes from Thomas H. Troeger, Sermon Sparks, Nashville, TN, Abingdon Press, 2011), p. 53-54
[ii] I Corinthians 4. 1b; 13a

 

In the Aftermath of Choosing

In the aftermath

of choosing calling over career--

one must learn

not to listen to the voices

that do not understand the choice to follow

one who came to serve rather than be served.

At a time

when the false intimacy

of friends in type only

is celebrated as meaningful--

choosing to invest oneself in

deepening consecrated relationships

forged in vows

spoken over golden rings

pledged as prelude to cleansing waters poured

and

“I dos” and “I wills” followed by the weight of praying hands

is an act of faithful defiance!

In a world

where success is measured

in well decorated square feet

self-parking horsepower

and the amassing of unnecessary amenities--

choosing the road less traveled

shouting blessings at a donkey-riding teacher

with no place to lay his head

(despite talk of a many-roomed mansion)

is comprehensible

only to those who have chosen the Jesus Way:

“…whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant,

and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave.”*

(Written in honor of Bill Carter on his 53rd Birthday in 2013)

*Matthew 20. 26-27 NRSV

 

Another 2021 Lament

Good Shepherd of every far-flung flock:

Unlike mingled sheep visible on rolling hills in pastoral peacefulness,
with only colorful bursts of dye to proclaim to whom they belong,
our landscape is marred by dangerous divisions
armed with sharp slogans emblazoned on T-shirts, hats and flags.

Unwilling to transform principled words into practical acts of mercy
the haves conspire to prevent the have-nots from having enough;
the powerful plot to expand their power over the powerless;
the fortunate few work to preserve the misfortune of the unfortunate.

Unable to accept that you care for and provide sustenance for all that draw breath,
fences keep some from the gifts meant for all,
walls prevent those with plenty from sharing with those in want,
resources are stockpiled and guarded instead of disbursed and distributed.

Let your footsteps shake the ground of your garden all day long, O God.
Let your voice be heard by those who hide from you in the shadows.
Let your power to create and transform loose to provide yet another restart.
Let your will be known and done here and now on earth as it is in heaven.

Trusting you hear us when we pray, we listen for your answer.
Knowing you will ask us to be part of the solutions we seek
We ask for wisdom and courage to speak and to live as you have taught us,
Confident your Holy Spirit will provide our words and guide our steps.

Amen!