Puppet Show: The Serpent Lifted Up

Gospel Puppet Show

March 18, 2012

Asha, Moses, Jesus, Nicodemus,   Boy: Asa,  

Asha: How many of you like snakes?  It is very easy to be afraid of snakes, since some of them are poisonous.  Today, I want us to learn something from our Bible stories.  And we have stories about snakes and about Christ.  But I’m going to have the puppets help me tell the stories.  Moses, are you around?

Moses: Here I am, can I help you.  I’m quite busy now.

(Release the snakes over the front of the puppet theatre)

Asa:  Ouch, I am so sick;  I got bit by a poisonous snake.  Can you help me Moses what shall I do?

Moses: Asa, you need to go over to the clinic; I prayed to God and God sent us a cure for the snake bites.

Asa:  Okay….ooooh this hurts so much and I’m getting drowsy.

Moses:  Hurry over to the clinic.

Asha:  Moses what happened?

Moses: We had some people who were complaining so they decided that they wanted to take a short cut and sure enough they walk right into a valley of poisonous snakes.

Asha: What did you do? 

Moses:  I prayed to God and he told me to make a snake out of bronze and put it up high so everyone can see it.  And he said that everyone who was bitten by a snake could look up at the bronze snake and ask God for help.

(put up the snake pole)

Asha:  What happened?

Moses: Well, you can see that I put the bronze snake up on a tall pole and sure enough when people look up they are being cured.  Well, I’ve got to go.

Asha: Thank you Moses.  I hope everyone prays to God for a cure.

      And now I think this will help us with our story about Jesus.  Remember that the snake was lifted up on a pole and everyone who looked at the snake and prayed to God got better.

(Nicodemus appears)

Asha:  Well, hello!  Who are you?

Nicodemus:  My name is Nicodemus.  I was just talking with my friend Jesus.  Jesus, could you come and meet my friend Asha, and all of the boys and girls?

Jesus:  Hello, Asha and boy and girls.  I hope you are here today to learn something.  Did you learn about the snakes from Moses?

Nicodemus:  Jesus and I were talking and he told me that God really loved this world.

Jesus:  That is true Nicodemus.  God does love this world.  God created the world so God loves the world.

Nicodemus:  But how much does God love the world?  There are lots of things that are sad that happen in this world?  How does God love a world with people who are sometimes sad?

Jesus:  God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son to this world.  And just as Moses lifted the bronze snake to save the people from their snake bites, the Son of God will suffer by being lifted up on a cross.  And anyone who looks with faith in Christ’s love for us will live again even after they die.

Nicodemus: Well, that’s really salvation.  One kind of salvation is being saved from snake bites, but the saving of our lives after we die is a most wonderful salvation.

Asha:  Wow!  That really is salvation.  And that means that God really loves us.  Girls and boys, can you remember how much God loves us?  Let us all say together, “Thank you God for loving us!”  “Thank you God for sending your Son Jesus.”  Amen.

John 3:16 As Evangelical Graffiti?

4 Lent             March 18, 2012  

Numbers 21:4-9  Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22

Ephesians 2:1-10   John 3:14-21

Lectionary Link

  

  Probably anyone who has watched a televised sporting event has at times seen a spectator holding a sign: John 3 colon 16.  Or John 3:16.  Tim Tebow, a quarterback has worn John 3:16 as eye shade when he plays football as a way of telling people about his personal Christian beliefs.  Displaying John 3:16 is a way for an avid evangelical Christian to mix a love for sports with the requirement of his piety to always be evangelizing.  So while watching golf shots, home runs and touch downs, the evangelical Christian sports fan can be evangelizing. (One may often wonder if in our sports crazed culture whether people actually love their sports and sports heroes more than Christ).   The most famous John 3:16 sign man was the rainbow man who wore a rainbow wig in the 70’s and 80’s and a John 3:16 tee shirt to major sporting events.  Of course in a biblically illiterate culture Jn period 3 colon 16 might be a foreign language.   But it is a code reference to all evangelical Christians about perhaps for them the most important verse in the Bible.

  I would not disagree with evangelical Christians about the importance of this verse and I think that all Christians are called to be evangelical in the sense of being ready to live in their lives and speak with their lips the good news about God’s love in Christ.  Each of us has a different way to be evangelical and we can share the good news in ways that are compatible with the gifts of our personalities.  Evangelical can be regarded to be a negative word if it means that you have to be “hell fire and brimstone” preachers or if you have to be persons who are obnoxiously wearing one's brand of religion on one's sleeves in a very pushy way.  It is something oxymoronic to be presenting “good news” in an off putting way. Some evangelicals do seem to have bad news.

 What we can say from our Gospel lesson is that the writer of the Gospel of John was evangelical, that is, the writer used a narrative about Jesus to present good news.  The target audience included non-Jews, followers of the sect of John the Baptist and other Jews who had not yet come to embrace Jesus as the Messiah.

  Since the Gospel of John was the last Gospel to come to textual form it includes some significant differences from the other Gospels.  In John there are no exorcisms, which probably means that such a practice was not a familiar method of healing for their readers.  There are no miracles in John; John uses a different word, he calls the special acts of Jesus, Signs.  As signs, the teachings about Jesus that occur within the story are more important than the particular uncanny event of the story.

  Also, there are more red letters in the Gospel of John.  In some Bibles, the words of Jesus are printed in red letters.  John’s Gospel has long discourses of Jesus with highly developed theological thinking.  Logically, one might assume that the earliest Gospels and sources would include more words of Jesus than Gospels that were written later.

  Since John’s Gospel was written much later than the other Gospels, the writer had to account for the fact that world had not yet ended with the coming of the Son of Man in the clouds.  The coming of the kingdom of heaven in the earlier Gospels has become in John’s Gospel an already happened parallel kingdom of God which was known by the presence of the Holy Spirit.  And so in the Gospel of John Passion narrative, Jesus can confidently say to Pilate, “If my kingdom were of this world, the world of Roman military power, then my angels would come and fight in your world of soldiers.”

  The Kingdom of God as having already arrived is the Good News of the Gospel of John.  Jesus promised Nicodemus that a person could be born into this kingdom by water and the Spirit. 

  In the Gospel of John, there is a great contradiction that is presented in this way.  Jesus said that his followers were to be in the world but not of the world.  They were not supposed to love the things of the world.  But in our famous Bible verse that we’ve read today, it states that God so loved the world that God gave his unique Son so that whoever believes in the Son will have everlasting life.

  So how is it that God can love the world and we cannot?  The way in which John’s Gospel deals with this contradiction is to propose that people can experience another kind of life or world within this world.  The Kingdom of God is no longer portrayed as an end of this world; it is a parallel world of God’s Spirit that we can know in this life.  So within our natural lives, we can experience abundant life, or the life of God’s Spirit, whom to know is also everlasting life or eternal life.

  The Gospel of John, like no other Gospel, presents Jesus as a person who represents most fully the life of parallel existence.  Jesus is the Eternal Word of God but he is also Jesus of Nazareth.  He is proclaimed to be the coincidence of God and Humanity in one person.  And the way that John states the good news is to inform us that we as human beings need to know how to live in parallel worlds simultaneously.  We need to live in the world of Spirit and Word as members of the Kingdom God, even while we live in very earthly and external kingdoms of this world.  The truth of this presentation is the truth of our lives; all of us have to come to know our interior lives in certain ways and their relationship to our exterior worlds. 

  The Gospel of John is trying to convince us that we can know in a significant way that our interior life is an experience of the comforting presence of God’s Spirit.  And in knowing this, we can relate to our exterior world with a motivation of God’s love for us and the comfort of God’s peace.  And even when the challenges of life present themselves, we can experience the Signs of living from our birth into the Kingdom of God.

  So here is the logic of John’s good news; God so loved the world.  How much?  He gave his unique Son, just as Abraham was willing to give his only son Isaac.  How much was God’s love?  How much was God willing to be identified with human experience?  Well, lots of people would say that death in some way expresses the completeness of natural life.  And God loved the world so much that God was willing to take a complete identity with human death.  And if God could deal with human death, then we would have an ensign or a symbol for us to look at as each of us contemplates the deaths of our loved ones and ourselves.

  So the death of Jesus was an elevated symbol of the fullness of God’s identity with human experience and gives us a place to glance to know that life continued after the death of Jesus.  There is an afterlife to Jesus. It is the Risen Christ known through the Spirit of God.  And there is an afterlife for us, because we know that there is something greater than death.

  The healing experience, the saving experience for the children of Israel who were plagued by poisonous serpents was to look at the bronze serpent lifted up on a pole.  The plague of the snakes came because of their disobedience; but the gift of healing came simply by looking in faith upon the uplifted bronze serpent.

  The writer of the Gospel of John took this story of the lifted bronze serpent and stated, “this is how the cross of Jesus functions for our spiritual lives.”  God’s life in the divine Son dies before our very eyes and yet only initiates another order of healing or salvation life, the life of resurrection, the life of the Holy Spirit, abundant life, eternal life even now as we live.

  This is the good news of the Gospel of John: we can know that God loves the world better than we can.  When we love it, we have the human tendency to linger our love into idolatry and we can lose our enjoyment of the world.

  And so in knowing a birth by God’s Spirit we can love our world in the Spirit without falling into the idolatry of addiction, and we can learn proper enjoyment so as to be able to discover what is truly good in our world and in our lives.

  Today, let us embrace perhaps the six most positive words of the entire Bible: “For God so loved the world!”   Now you don’t have to go around wearing John 3:16 signs but these six words can help us live with optimism and make us good Episcopal Evangelicals whose favorite words might be: “Preach the Gospel always and if necessary use words!”  Amen.

A Saving Glance at the One Lifted Up

4 Lent    B         March 18, 2012  

Numbers 21:4-9  Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22

Ephesians 2:1-10   John 3:14-21

 Lectionary Link

  We are familiar with serpents and healing because the American Medical Association uses the symbol of two serpents entwined around a rod.  This came from the Greco-Roman medical tradition.  The ancient myth of Aesculapius encounter with a serpent healing another serpent is the origin of the association of serpents and healing.  The habit of a snake literally resurrecting itself from it dead skin could be the inspiration for the regenerative powers associated with the snake.  The Greek word pharmakon can mean both poison and remedy.  Certainly the theory behind vaccination is to take some of the “poison” and it is a remedy in that the body builds immunity to the actual disease.

  Whether the healing serpent of Moses is related to the Greek mythological notion of the healing serpent, can not be ascertained. 

  The people of Israel, while they wandered in the wilderness toward the Promised Land, are portrayed as immature sheep and always ready to mutiny against God and their leader.  For their mutiny and their rebellion, they are often punished.  One of the punishments was a plague of poisonous serpents.

  Moses, the leader, is the patient father, who is always interceding with God on behalf of the rebellious people.  And when the plague of snakes occurred, Moses was given the remedy.  He was to place a bronze likeness of the serpent on a pole in the middle of the camp.  And those who looked at the serpent were to be healed.  “That’s stupid Moses!  Why would looking at the serpent cure me?”  The cure was not based upon rationality; the cure was based upon simply accepting God’s healing provision.

  One of the consequences of being biblically illiterate is that one misses the symbolic system that functions between the Old and New Testaments.  And if we don’t understand the symbolic system, then we cannot make sense of the meanings and methods of what the Gospel writers were trying to communicate to their communities.

  In the long discourse that is presented between the Pharisee Nicodemus and Rabbi Jesus, there is a comparison made between the cross of Jesus and Moses’ serpent upon the pole.

  Just as God wanted the Israelites to recover from their rebellion and resulting punishment by simply looking at God’s healing grace given for them, so the early Christian believed that God did not condemn people in their sin, alienation and rebellion; rather God wanted people to simply look in the direction where they might be saved or healed.

  So looking at Jesus lifted up in his death upon the cross was viewed as God's way to bring us health and salvation.

  It is a rather irrational act.  Foolishness to the wisdom of the Greeks; A stumbling block to the Jews, as St. Paul said.  It may seem ridiculous to us.

  But the essence of the Gospel is that God acts with grace to let us know that we have found favor.    We would rather say that we deserve God’s favor because we are good and we have done some good things.  It is admirable to be as good as we can and to do as much good as we can, but it isn’t our “good natures” or our “good deeds” that qualifies us in God’s sight.  God created us good, so goodness is an act of God, and when we depart from goodness in our nature and acts, it does not remove from us the original goodness in which we were made by God.

  So seeing Jesus upon the cross is simply understanding that God’s creation and God’s redemption are but God’s affirmation of our goodness and favor and acceptance.  That means it is up to us to accept the grace of God both in creation and redemption.

  This portion of John’s Gospel contains the most popular evangelical bible verse of all time: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.”

  I think that the people who push the born again experience often do something that shifts the focus from God’s grace to the importance of the human decision.

  If someone offers me a million dollars; what is more important, the generosity of the giver, or my decision to take it?

  Some times the born again people think that we should celebrate the fact that we receive God’s grace even more than the generosity of God who offers us the grace.

  Yes, it is important that we receive God’s grace and it appears to be a very irrational decision to do so.  We would much rather believe in our own ability and circumstances for our salvation; but the experience of the generosity of God, and our acceptance of it is the very essence of the Gospel.

  So today, let us trumpet and highlight the grace of God’s creation and redemption, and let us simply accept it, and not trumpet our acceptance except with thankfulness to God who is the giver of all.

  God’s generosity does not make us proud Christians who are certain that our choices and ways are best; God’s generosity humbles us with thankful hearts and with joy that comes in an indescribable way.  And that is the experience of the Good News.  God in Christ is the Good News and we have the privilege to be caught up in that.  For us to reduce all of this to my church is better than yours, or my salvation is more complete than yours, is to misunderstand the generosity of God.

  Let us proclaim a generous God, who simply asks for us to give a receptive glance toward the divine grace today.  Amen.

Game Show between Moses and Jesus

Gospel Puppet Show

March 11, 2012

 Lent 3  Cycle B

Characters:

Moderator (stands in front of puppet theatre)

Moses

Jesus

Fr. Phil as Moderator:  Boys and Girls, you are invited today to a special game show.  Do you like games shows?  We have two special guests for our game show today.

And the name of this game show is: The Yes Challenge!   And what is the Yes challenge?  It is a game where you challenge a person to change a big NO! into a big YES!  And that is pretty hard to do.  Which word do you like best?  No?  or Yes?

Our first contestant is the most famous Lawman ever.  His name is Moses.  Let’s give a big hand for Moses, the Lawman!

Hello Moses, welcome to the show.  Tell us something about yourself.

Moses: Well I’m a Hebrew man who was born when our people were captive in Egypt.  But I was raised by an Egyptian princess and so I became a prince of Egypt.  But God called me to save my people from slavery in Egypt.   So I led all of my people out of the land of Egypt and God did some great things to save us.  And when we arrived at Mount Sinai, I went up and God gave me a set of rules and law for us to live by.  I have the 10 big laws written on these stones.

Fr. Phil:  Thank you Moses and good luck in the show.  And you are the great Lawman and you are on the side of the great NO.  Tell me about your challenge today.

Moses:  Well, the laws that I received begin with the most important word in the Law:  NO.  What is one of the first words a baby learns?  NO.  A parent has to say NO to a baby so a baby or child won’t hurt themselves.  So NO is the most important word in the Law.  

Fr. Phil:  And so Moses, what is your challenge today?

Moses:  My challenge is for someone to change my laws that say “NO, you can’t” into laws that say “Yes, you can.”

Fr. Phil: Your challenger today is the famous Jesus of Nazareth.  Let’s all welcome Jesus of Nazareth with a round of applause.  Jesus is not a stranger to any of us.  And he is also a good friend of Moses.  Tell us Jesus about yourself.

Jesus:  Well, I was born in Bethlehem into the household of Mary and Joseph.  But most people know me as God’s Son and Messiah.  I came to earth to tell people about God’s love.  Not everyone liked my message.  As you know, I died on the cross but I came back to life and when I left this earth I sent the Holy Spirit to be with each person.

Fr. Phil:  Jesus, you know that your friend Moses has a challenge for you.  He challenges you to change his “you can’t laws” into “you can laws.”  How do you think that you can change NO into YES?

Jesus: You know I added an eleventh commandment.  The eleventh commandments says, “Love one another as God has loved you.”  I think the way that we will turn the NO’s into Yes’s is through the power of love.

Fr. Phil:  Okay, Moses are you ready for your first challenge?  For 10 points what is your first challenge.

Moses:  My first challenge is this: Just say NO to many gods!

Fr. Phil:  That’s a good one.  Now Jesus how do you respond to this!

Jesus:  Just say Yes to the One God.  The word God means there is no one like the one.  So we can only say YES to the One God.

Fr. Phil:  (ding..ding..ding)  Good one Jesus, that’s 10 points for Jesus.  Good try Moses, what is your next challenge? For 10 points.

Moses: Don’t make any statues to worship.  Don’t worship anything in this life.

Fr. Phil:  Jesus what about not worshipping idols?

Jesus: Worship God the Creator.  If God created men and women and the world, how could anything that God created be greater than God?

Fr. Phil: (ding..ding..ding)  That a winner, Jesus!  10 more points.  What’s your next challenge Moses?  The score is 20 points for Jesus.

Moses:  You cannot work on the Sabbath, the day of prayer.  NO work on the Sabbath.

Fr. Phil:  Jesus, what do you say to this?

Jesus:  Say YES to prayer and worship and rest on the Sabbath.  Everyone needs a day of rest!

Fr. Phil:  Judges what do you say? (ding..ding…ding) Yes!  Another ten points for Jesus.  That’s 30 points now.  Moses, you’ve got a great law.  What’s next?

Moses:  How about this?  Just say NO to swearing and using God’s name in a wrong way.

Fr. Phil:  That’s are hard one.  What do you say, Jesus?

Jesus: Always use God’s name in the right way and live your life that shows that you believe in God.

Fr. Phil:  Wow!  (ding….ding…ding)  another 10 points for Jesus.  40 to nothing is the score.  Moses, don’t get discouraged.  What do you have next?

Moses: Well, this one isn’t exactly a NO!  Honor your parents!

Fr. Phil:  Honor your parents!  What do you say about that Jesus?

Jesus:  Well I agree with Moses.  Yes! Honor your parents.

Fr. Phil:  The judges are speaking in my ear piece and they say, “They’re both right!”  (ding, ding, ding, ding)  So both Jesus and Moses get 10 points for that Yes! Law.  The score is 50 to 10 now.  What next Moses?

Moses:  Well, I am going throw four quick NO….laws:  Don’t kill, don’t lie, don’t steal, and don’t hurt people’s marriages!  Those are four big “NO-NO’s”

Fr. Phil:  Jesus, that is quite a challenge.  What is your anwer?

Jesus:  Say YES to life, respect all life!  Say Yes to Honesty and Truth!  Say Yes to respecting the property of other people!  And say Yes!  to respecting marriage!

Fr. Phil: (ding..ding..ding..ding)  That’s a clean sweep Jesus.  That Forty more points for you.  You now have 90 points.  Okay Moses, you are running out of time.

Moses:  Well, I’m down to my last challenge.  I’m losing by a score of 90 to 10.  Can I bet 90 points on this last challenge?

Fr. Phil: Let me listen to what the judges are saying….Yes you can bet 90 points on this last challenge.  If you win this challenge you will win the game.  What is your challenge?

Moses:  Okay, here I go!  Don’t covet!  Don’t be envious or jealous of other people or the things that they have.

Fr. Phil: Moses is going for the win!  What do you say Jesus?

Jesus:  Be content with what you have and be gracious about the good fortune of other people!

Fr. Phil: (ding..ding..ding..ding)  We have a winner.  90 more points to Jesus so he finishes the game with 180 points.  Great game!  You both were good sports.  What do you have to say Jesus?

Jesus: Moses and I just did this game as a  way of teaching these boys and girls about God and how they should live.  Moses and I are good friends;  When we hear the word NO in our lives, we need to find a way to say YES to all of the good things that God has given us to do.  I have sent the Holy Spirit to be in you to help give you power to say YES and do all of the good things for your life.  Boys and girls can you remember that you have power to do good things in your life?  Can you just say, YES!

Fr. Phil:  Thank you Moses and Jesus.  Let give them a big hand and thank them for what they taught us today.

The Christian Edifice Complex: Body as Temple of the Holy Spirit

3 Lent B      March 11, 2012

Exodus 20:1-17  Psalm 19

1 Corinthians 1:18-25   John 2:13-22

 Lectionary Link

  Doctor Freud was one who reached into Greek tragedy to name unconscious and repressed forces of what he called the Oedipus Complex.  Being one who is too easily entertained by puns, I, of course, can not resist naming the unconscious forces that influence what we feel about buildings.  That unconscious force would be called, with all apologies to Doctor Freud, the Edifice Complex.  Certainly architects in their love of buildings could be said to have an Edifice Complex but when we look at the history of Israel, we might notice an Edifice Complex in how the people of Israel have felt about their Temple.

  We might pose for us the question?  What is that makes a place, a building or a location sacred or special?  Why is that people have psychological and spiritually moving experiences in certain places or buildings?  We can talk about the sense of natural awe of places; the majesty of the ocean or of the mountains or of places like the Grand Canyon.  Nature awe makes certain places special because they can evoke a feeling of the sublime, a sense of our own smallness in contrast with great expanse and great power.  The sense of being dwarfed by a place makes a place special.  But what about things made with human ingenuity and hands?  What about a building?  What makes the Capitol building in Washington D.C. special?  What would Rome and the Vatican be without St. Peter’s Basilica?  What is it that makes us stand in awe when we enter a great Gothic Cathedral Church?  A Church building or Temple or Mosque is made with human ingenuity and craftsmanship and they create an enclosed environment that seems to be a microcosm of the great expansive universe.  When they are built and when they house the human activity of both private and corporate prayers they come to be called sacred space, and a place where prayers seem to have a greater sense of apparent validity.  And becoming sacred space, such buildings become very important symbols in the identity of the community of people who come to these spaces.

  If a place can become a sacred space, can it lose its sacredness?  What has happened to old stately Gothic church buildings in city neighborhoods that no longer have members to attend the building?  If they can’t become historic protected sites, they can become “secularized” or made non-sacred spaces, even though there may be people still alive who still regard their sacred experiences in those place.

  What is the nature of sacred space?  Is sacred space the special dwelling place on earth of God in a temporal location or building?  Or is it designated as sacred because of the experience of faithful people who come to gather to prayer in a certain place?  Historically probably both have contributed to the designation of a place being sacred.

  There is also something very practical about sacred places; they come into being because of what we call human institutions; such institutions are the overall organizations that can finance and develop the sacred building and provide for its up keep and for the worship activity associated with the sacred building.  Today, tourists can become very cynical when visiting the sacred places of the world.  Why?  One can go to Rome or Jerusalem and be put off by the apparent crass commercialization of all of the Holy Places.  Everything has a price and there is an entire trinket industry that lives off crowds who come to visit the sacred spaces.

  For the people who came to inhabit Palestine, Jerusalem became a holy city and what made Jerusalem a holy city was the Mount Zion where Solomon built the first Temple on the place where they believed that Abraham had been asked to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice.

  The Temple was completely destroyed when the Israelites were carried into captivity to the conquering lands of the East.  It was rebuilt under the direction of Ezra.  It went through many renovations and during the era of Jesus it was expanded as a part of a public works project supported by the Roman government.  So, lots of employment was provided for the people of Jerusalem in the Temple complex construction projects.

  Judaism and modern rabbinic Judaism had to develop different religious expressions in times when the Temple had been destroyed.  The followers of Christ developed into being able to thrive as a community of faith when the Temple was destroyed for the last time in the year 70 of the Common Era. 

  What did the sect of Christian Judaism become after the Temple was destroyed?  How did they understand themselves surviving without a Temple?  They understood that just like the Jews in a former time of being without a Temple, that God’s presence could not be limited or localized to a building.

  In the Gospel of John which was edited several decades after the Temple of destroyed, Jesus is presented as being offended by the crass commercialism of the Temple Complex.  Economics and Institutional politics were detracting from the worship focus of the Temple.  By protesting in such a way, Jesus was hitting at the source of revenue of many people in Jerusalem and such a protest would have offended both the Jews and Romans.

  Beyond our ability to know exactly what happened in the cleansing of the Temple, what we might discern is the purpose of reporting this event by the writer of John’s Gospel.  What this author is writing about in the early part of the second century is the process of mystification that took place in how the person of Jesus of Nazareth became the social reality of what we know to be the body of Christ or the church.  Here is the progression; the Temple of God’s dwelling on earth was transferred to the body of Jesus of Nazareth.  God’s presence dwelled most intensely in the body of Jesus whom Christians proclaimed as Messiah and Son of God.  And when the body of Jesus was no longer seen his body was mystically transferred to the fellowship or community of people who knew themselves to be in a continuing relationship with Jesus as the Risen Christ.  The Gospel of John states that Jesus is the Vine and his disciples are the branches as a metaphor for the inner relationship between Christ and the church.

  Today, we need not worry that much about our edifice complex with our holy places, unless they are distraction from the goal of being in communion with the risen Christ who dwells within us in a mystical way.

  Today, we are invited to know and experience the presence Christ in all of the times and places of our lives.  And following St. Paul, we are to know our own bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit.  So get used to being a nomadic temple to carry the presence of Christ into our world.  Amen.

Body of Christ; Temple of the Holy Spirit

3 Lent B      March 11, 2012

Exodus 20:1-17  Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 1:18-25   John 2:13-22

 Lectionary Link

  What is the United States of America?  Is it a geographical location?  Is it the citizenry?  Is it the sum total of the historical events of all of her people?  Is it the flag and all of the symbols of this corporate fiction?  America is nowhere specifically but everywhere in general and as such is a mystical body.  How do mystical or corporate groups come into being and become even more than the sum of their parts?

  The earliest writings of the New Testament are the writings of St. Paul.  In his writings one can find the development of the symbolism of the “body.”  For St. Paul, the individual body of the believer is the Temple of the Holy Spirit.  Remember St. Paul’s writings were written before the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in the year 70.  St. Paul also wrote that together, the followers of Jesus were being built as a holy Temple unto the Lord.  St. Paul also wrote that the church is, “The Body of Christ.”  The Eucharistic bread is the body of Christ, and when we partake of the Eucharistic bread we are participating in the dynamic process of mystification whereby we constitute the continuing body of Christ.  The symbolism of Paul and Peter and other

Christians were then placed into narratives of the life and sayings of Jesus of Nazareth.  This narrative or story was an effective way of teaching the beliefs of the early church about Christ and about the identity of the church.  These teaching narratives are what we call the four Gospels.

  This is but a prelude for understanding our Gospel reading from John.  The Gospel of John was the last Gospel to be written with portions of it coming from perhaps as late as the first two decades of the second century.  Since it is the latest, one can expect that the theological reflection and symbols of John’s Gospel are most highly developed.  The writer uses the same technique as a historical novelist; the writer writes later practices into a former narrative as a way to illustrate and explain the origins of certain practices.  The writer of John’s Gospel already knows what has happened in the 6-8 decades after Jesus lived.

  What did the church of John’s Gospel know?  They knew that the temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed.  They knew that Christians had separated from the synagogue around the year 80.  They knew that their community consisted of both Jews and Gentiles.  They knew that they could no longer see and touch Jesus, but they were fascinated and baffled that his teachings and his Spirit could still be a current reality in their lives.  They were trying to make sense of how Jesus, who had died and could no longer be seen, could be such a vital part of their experience.  They were trying to teach and explain why the reality of Christ was so real even though Jesus of Nazareth could no longer be seen.  So they used the narrative and the sayings of Jesus as a way of teaching about the reality of their current experience of the risen Christ.

  The temple in Jerusalem was the sacred dwelling place of God.  If God resided anywhere on earth, in the Hebrew religion, God resided in the holiest of Holy in the inner sanctum of the temple.  But God’s people had to face a rather stark question?  Why would God let the residing place of God on earth be destroyed?  Why would God not protect the divine place of residence on earth?  The answer to this question had been given before by the prophets.  They said if God’s priests and people profane God’s house then God would not honor them with the divine presence.  In some way, when an old paradigm in religion does not work, then an explanation must be given for a new vision of faith, a new vision of what God is now doing in this world.

  So how do we understand the symbolism in the narrative of Jesus cleansing the temple?  The Body of Jesus of Nazareth was the place where the fullness of God’s dwelling could be found; and when this body was destroyed, it was rebuilt in three days.  The body of Jesus was resurrected and became known in the experience of each follower of Jesus, who knew his or her body as the temple of the Holy Spirit.  And collectively, the early followers of Jesus knew their gathering as the continuing presence of Christ on earth, because he was resurrected and alive in their midst.  Is this myth or fiction?  I would say it is mystification.  No less than the fiction of the reality of our country, but this is the spiritual reality of the church.  How can one deny the reality or the realness of this experience if we and billions of others throughout the age have partaken of this reality of the risen Lord?  If this is but myth and fiction, then it is pretty powerful stuff.  There has been no more powerful trans-historical reality than what we have called the body of Christ.  One may deny its relevance but it is sheer denial, because one is born into the reality of risen Christ whether one knows it or not.  Two thousand plus years of the realness of Christ in the lives of people from all around the world cannot be dismissed simply by personal denial.

   Today, you and I may not teach the reality of the risen Christ in our lives in the same way in which the early church did.  And we are free to look for new metaphors and new language to tell about the reality of how God’s presences have touched our lives.  Some people use the Bible to limit how we can talk about God and Christ; I believe that Bible provides us with early models of how to talk about the reality of Christ in the hope that you and I will be inspired to find the reality of Christ in our lives within the very tapestry of our history and life experience in our time and place.

  If this Gospel teaches us anything, it teaches about God doing new things.  The temple building may have been destroyed, but God’s residence within human experience did not pass away with the destruction of temple building.  The body of Jesus was crucified on the cross and placed in a tomb; where did God reside more intensely than in the body of Jesus?  But when the body of Jesus was taken from this life, did God lose the divine residence in life forever?  Indeed not, in fact a new understanding of God was born and in that understanding God resided everywhere but especially intensely in the lives of those who intentionally invite God to be found and known in their lives.  And so God dwelling in the temple in Jerusalem, gives way to God residing in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, gives way to God residing everywhere but especially in hearts that wish to overcome estrangement from God.

  I believe that this new teaching was the old teaching; why?  Because God’s residence with us has been from creation; it has just taken a very long time for us to come to know it.

  Jesus Christ made this intention of God from creation fully known and that is our Gospel truth.  God wants to make the divine reality known in each and everyone of us.  Let us today in this Eucharist be renewed in being the body of Christ, the continued presence of Christ in our time and place.  Amen.

Jesus, as Subtle but Profound Messiah

2 Lent B      March 4, 2012

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 Psalm 22:22-30
Romans 4:13-25  Mark 8:31-38

 Lectionary Link

   In Church history, the apostle Peter became quite a heroic leader for the early Jesus Movement.  But Peter is remembered in the Gospels for more than his heroism.  The Gospels do not always present him in his heroic mode.  One might say that he is presented in his learning mode.  In the Gospel presentation, Peter like all of the disciples is presented in the process of learning from Jesus.  It is sometimes surprising that the disciples are often presented more like Snow White's seven dwarves than as Christian heroes.  So to use metaphors from education, they are presented as stumbling students and not as learned professors.

  Why would the early Christian writers present the disciples living as students of Jesus in such   unenlightened states?  We are tempted to read the Gospels as a blow by blow historical narrative rather than seeing that the writers had teaching points that they wanted to get across to their readers or listeners.  The Gospel writers used narrative scenarios/events in the life of Jesus and his disciples to instruct their readers about their teaching points.

  A more direct method of teaching might be just to write a more intellectual treatise on why Jesus of Nazareth was the messiah in the setting of his time. (Modern theologians and preachers could bore you to death with such scholarly presentations with fifty pages of footnotes copiously citing all sources for all of the theories and counter theories).    But just as Jesus used the indirect method of parables to teach his listeners, the Gospel writers used the story or narrative of Jesus and his disciple to teach their message to their listeners.  The narrative method of teaching has the advantage of catching the reader or listener in the immediacy of what could be called a primary naiveté, an immediate response to story rather than thinking about what the writer wants us to learn from the story.  Using stories to teach is an effective and tricky method way of teaching and lots of really witty people have done it from Mark Twain to Will Rogers to Garrison Keillor.

  A topic du jour for the writer and readers of our appointed Gospel has to do with the nature of the Messiah.  What is the nature of the Messiah?  Peter was a Jew and a famous follower of Rabbi Jesus.  Peter came to understand that Jesus was the Messiah but he had to learn about the nature of the Messiah.  For many Jews in years before and after the appearance of Jesus, there was an expectation for a great figure like David who would arrive on the scene and lead the people of Israel to independence and greatness.  At the very least, the Messiah would bring deliverance to a captive people Israel.  In this regard, one would have to say that such a Messiah did not arrive to the people of Israel until our modern era; the 1948 declaration that re-established the State of Israel and the string of military victories whereby Israel has protected and expanded their borders.  And now Israel has that kind of Messianic power in possessing nuclear weapons.  A triumphant militaristic Messiah Complex with weapons even greater than King David had has now come to Israel.

  Peter, the great leader of the church, is presented as one who understood the Messiah to be more of a triumphant military figure.  But the Christian movement was not successful because the early Christians possessed armies and weapons.  The Christian Movement was successful because it showed itself to be the Kingdom of God on this earth through a strange counter-logic, the logic of suffering.

  In the Socratic-like dialog of the Gospel conversation, Jesus was teaching another kind of meaning for the Messiah than the meaning that Peter wanted.  Peter in his lack of understanding is stating the view of many of his fellow Jews about the nature of the Messiah.  “Jesus began to teach his disciples that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.”  And what did Jesus say about this militaristic view of the Messiah?  Well, he said to Peter, “Get behind me Satan.  You are thinking in a very logical human way, but that is not the way of the Messiah.”

  What is the way of the Messiah as it came to be understood by the writer of the Gospel of Mark?  The way of the Messiah is the way of taking up one’s cross.  The kingdom of God is an interior process within the lives of people who are progressively changing their lives through the power of death and resurrection.  The transformation of the world happens one person at a time as each person realizes this process of repentance that can take place within one’s life.

  The literal cross of Jesus and the meaning of the resurrection of Jesus had become in the early community an interior spiritual methodology.  How can I change my life?  How can I quit doing things that I don’t want to do?  How can I do things that I want to do?  The death and resurrection of Christ became the symbol of the interior change in the lives of people and it was anchored upon this person, Jesus of Nazareth.

  Why was this message of Jesus catching fire and spreading?  Why did many people suffer so much and endure suffering because of this message?  Where did they get the courage to suffer so much?  People with this interior courage stood against the Roman power; they had courage to confess Jesus to be the Son of God and Messiah even while the Roman citizenry professed their Caesars to be divine beings with divine lineages.

  We can understand the Gospel for today as a teaching tool.  You and I live in an age when we’ve seen what we call Christianity become associated with a series of world empires.  We’ve seen Christianity expand because of colonialism.  Today, you and I have to admit that our context is much different than the context from which the Gospel writers wrote.  We understand the more militaristic messianic notion because we live in the nation of a world power that protects our Christian rights.

  I believe where you and I can reconnect with the intended meaning of the Gospel of Mark is to deny our “group identity” and receive this Gospel in the personal mode. 

  The laws of the Empire, even the American Empire can force upon me lots of behaviors in my life, but as all of us know, the laws of our Empire cannot reach the places in me to transform my life.  We can be law abiding citizen and still not know the sense of esteem that would be called abundant life.  And this is where we come to the genius of the Gospel; it is a way of grace given for the transformation of our lives in a way that cannot be accomplished by the external laws of our country.  And that is why it is relevant good news for us today.

  This Gospel is an invitation to the gradual transformation of our lives so that we can know the sublime experience of abundant life which cannot be accounted for in any other way except through knowing the gift of God’s grace.  I believe that the Gospel invites us to this subtle, but profound experience of the Messiah today.  Amen.