January 13, 2019 Jesus in the Temple at 12 Luke 2:41-52

The first question I have every time I look at our gospel reading for today is why does Jesus stay behind in Jerusalem?  He does it without asking or informing his parents.  If Jesus is the sinless one, then hasn’t he just broken the commandment to honor is father and mother? 

That problem with Jesus’ actions take us right to the heart of the matter.  And let’s just dive right in, because simple as this Bible story is, it points to something deeply profound, a teaching for all that ages and probably why it’s in the gospel at all.  The gospel writer Luke was unlikely to include a story about Jesus’ childhood simply because it was cute.

Let’s be sure t remember something about the story so far.   Jesus’ parents are good Jews.  Parenting?  Well, that’s another story.  At least in the movie Home Alone the parents recognize they’d left their kid within a couple hours; while it took Jesus’ parents all day.  But, that aside, were good Jews!  They follow all the religious laws: Jesus is named and circumcised when he is eight days old.  They’ve also offered the proper sacrifices for him and dedicated him the way first born Jewish males are supposed to be.  In today’s reading we learn that like all good Jews, they travel to Jerusalem for Passover.  They practice all the expected pieties.  But somehow they and their son start to diverge.  If going to Jerusalem for Passover is all that God wanted from his people then why does Jesus stay behind?

This is really a story about piety.  At first faith the way Joseph and Mary practice their faith is very appealing.  You simply do the right things and God blesses you for it.  I’d argue that is the basis of faith for many people who call themselves Christian in American today.  They want to live in a way that pleases God, and as a reward for pleasing God they can expect to live a good and prosperous life.  Sure, bad things may happen but God will be there to help you through the difficulties.  Even if it feels like everything is falling apart it is believed that God will give the emotional strength to endure.  We have a name for faith such as this.  It’s called the “prosperity gospel.” 

Ultimately it is horrible!

Jesus staying behind in Jerusalem is in no way criticizing his parents’ piety, but he is pointing to something deeper.

I’m currently reading Kate Bowler’s book, Everything Happens for a Reason, And Other Lies I’ve Loved.  She started her career studying the prosperity gospel in America.  She was a 35 year old woman, brilliant professor and theologian, was married and had a little boy, and in 2017 was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer that started in her intestines and spread throughout her body.  She’s still alive.  Her cancer appears to respond to treatments somewhat, but of course she’ll never beat it and she’ll never live to be old.  The book’s title pretty much says it all, but she goes into something much deeper and more profound.  Because the prosperity gospel, good religious piety, and the way we understand ourselves as citizens of America all link. 

She writes, “Fairness is one of the most compelling claims of the American Dream, a vision of success propelled by hard work, determination, and maybe the occasional pair of bootstraps.  Wherever I have lived in North America, I have been told a story about an unlimited horizon and the personal characteristics that are required to waltz towards it.  It is the language of entitlements.  It is the careful math of deserving, meted out as painstakingly as my sister and I used to inventory and trade our Halloween candy.  In this world, I deserve what I get.  I earn my keep and keep my share.  In a world of faith, nothing clung to can ever slip away. (Pg. 8)

“There is something so American about the ‘show-and-tell’ of our daily lives.  A big house means you work hard.  A pretty wife means you must be rich.  A subscription to The New York Times shows you must be smart.  And when you’re not sure, there will always be bumper stickers to point out who has the honor roll student and who finished a marathon.  America likes is shopping malls big and its churches even bigger, and every Starbucks in every lobby proves that Jesus cares about brewing the best. (Pg. 20)”

Isn’t that really living a life of piety?  It may not be exclusively religious piety, but it is American piety!  Work hard, make healthy choices, stay out of trouble – and all will go well in your life.  But if your life is falling apart, you must have done something wrong.  If your child is addicted to heroin or ends up in jail you must have failed as a parent.  If your house is foreclosed upon you must not have done your homework before you bought it, or you over-reached financially.  If you’re overweight, or you’re addicted to smoking or alcohol you must have a moral defect and lack will-power and self-control.  No, we don’t dare to say such stuff, but we believe it.

Aren’t all these things subtle and not-so-subtle messages from our society that you aren’t doing your American piety properly?

Now don’t mishear me.  I am not denying that actions have consequences.  I am not saying we should blame other people or the government or social systems for our ills.  There still needs to be accountability and responsibility.  But, the message is that if you do it right, life will be good.

Hear Kate Bowler one more time, “What would it mean for Christians to give up that little piece of the American Dream that says, “You are limitless”?  Everything is not possible.  The mighty Kingdom of God is not yet here.  What if rich did not have to mean wealthy, and whole did not have to mean healed?  What if being people of “the gospel” meant that we are simply people with good news?  God is here.  We are loved.  It is enough.” (Pg. 21)

Those are truth-filled words that free us.  Those are words that go underneath the piety of following the Jewish rituals of Jesus’ day or the piety of Americanism today.  We call ourselves the land of the free and then we live lives that are completely enslaved!

In our gospel reading we see Jesus at age twelve focusing his life on something beyond religious piety and on what God was doing.  That became his singular purpose.  It did not negate the good piety of his parents, but it did point to something deeper. 

Here is what was true then and what is true now.  It is the message Jesus embodied and taught:

God is in charge; always has been, always will be.  And God is drawing creation forward into the fullness that God has always had for it.  You are part of that fullness.  You are known to God, you are loved by God, and you are wanted by God.  But life is not all about you.  It is about what God is doing.  And God invites you to participate in his work, his plans.  That’s how God gives you value.

There is nothing in God’s work that is going to trap you into feeling like a failure because: you got cancer, or your life is short and full of pain, or because your child dies from a drug overdose.  And God’s not going to exhaust you in the pointless societal rat-race called success.

What’s the point of being a Christian if it doesn’t lead to a healthy, easy, prosperous life?  That’s the question many people will ask.  The problem is that it’s the wrong question, the wrong way of thinking.  Ask it and you’re guaranteed to get a bad answer.

The point of Christian faith is to be freed from the dead-end tortuous stupidity most people devote their lives to.  Instead it invites you to see your value as secure in God and offers you true freedom.  It gives you confidence because the future does not rest in your hands, or your goodness, or your piety in whatever form it takes.  The future rests securely in God.  That is an eternal truth God invites you into.  It is the good news we proclaim and how we live.

January 6, 2019 Epiphany Matthew 2:1-12

We humans like to domesticate things.  The first thing we appear to have domesticated is dogs.  They’ve been domesticated so long there’s no way to trace exactly what their wild ancestors were.  We also domesticated cattle, sheep, cats, and all sorts of creatures.

We also like to domesticate the geology around us.  None of us lives in a natural environment – at least I don’t think any of you live in a cave.  We shape the world to our liking.  We domesticate it.  It is no surprise then that we also like to domesticate God and the Bible.

Neither of those domestications are all that smart.  While Christianity is based on the belief that Jesus of Nazareth was God come to life as a human that is God coming to us – not us domesticating God.

And of course the Bible is among the wildest and most out of control writings in human history.  We, however, try to domesticate it into a tame book of history and good advice.  Not so!  You’ve heard me say before that the traditional Christmas pageant is a highly domesticated story.  Stars, angels, shepherds, Wise Men, and a stable with Joseph, Mary and a baby lying in a manger. 

There’s nothing wrong with it in and of itself, but it is wrong when that gets in the way of what the Bible’s authors actually intend.  There are two versions of Jesus’ birth in the Bible.  One is in Luke’s gospel.  One is in Matthew’s, which we read today.  Both authors tell a story of darkness, mystery, and fear.  Both gospel writers include satire in the stories (always easy to lose sight of that).  And Matthew’s gospel is more about fleeing threats and killing than anything else. 

So, let’s look at Matthew.  Matthew suggests that Jesus was born in a house – actually Joseph’s house – in Bethlehem.  Bethlehem was a dusty hamlet of no consequence.  You know how you drive into city or village and there’s a sign saying, “Home of….” And then they list some famous person who was born there?  Or maybe they list their high school’s sports titles.  Have you ever seen a sign that lists some high school sports triumph from like 45 years ago?  I find myself thinking, “And since then…?” 

Well, if there had been such a sign in Bethlehem in Jesus day it would have been a very worn and rotted sign that said, “Welcome to Bethlehem.  Birthplace of King David” and then listing his birthdate 1000 years before.  Never overestimate the importance of Bethlehem.  Nothing of significance had happened in it for over 1000 years!

Jesus is born.  Matthew gives nothing about shepherds and angels, just another baby in just another house in just another village.  Unknown to the inhabitants of that house some astrologers from far to the east -probably Parthia- are looking for them.  These astrologers have seen a star.

I typically imagine this star as an obvious and bright object appearing in the sky, and it leads the Wise Men like a carrot to where Jesus is.  Not so.  Ever looked at the night sky in a truly dark place and realized the countless dim stars that are there?  Even now many of them are not counted or named. Other than Matthew there is no historical mention of a new star appearing at that time.  Some suggest a comet, but that’s a stretch.  What you have is a number of astrologers, court priests, again, probably from Parthia, noticing something and deciding to follow it.  In those days it was a common belief that when people who would become great kings were born a new star would appear.  Matthew is building on that. 

The Bible makes no mention of how many of these wise men there were or how long it takes them or anything.  Just, sometime later they arrive in Jerusalem seeking where the child who has been born King of the Jews.

These astrologers are not an innocent appearance.  The vast Parthian Empire existed to the east of the Roman Empire.  Here’s a piece of first century history I always forget: The Parthian Empire was larger and more powerful than the Roman Empire was at that time.  Two global super-powers side by side.  Rome’s eastern territories, like where Jesus was born, was of tremendous military significance to Rome.  If the Parthians ever conquered them Rome would lose their land infrastructure around the Mediterranean Sea.

These were very dangerous, very unsettled times.  And from the perspective of Herod in Jerusalem, when court priests of the chief enemy empire show up talking about the next King of the Jews, he sees a threat on many levels.  He hatches a plan to both save his own legacy but also keep the these Parthian astrologers from doing too much spying.  That’s a whole different topic.

For us, we want to focus on these enemy ambassadors as they make their way to the dusty hamlet of Bethlehem, five miles from Jerusalem.  They show up – again, who knows how many - and I doubt their appearance was welcome.  The gifts they bring are highly symbolic.  Gold, a gift fit for a king.  Frankincense, an incense used in religious rituals, a gift fit for a High Priest.  And then downright unnerving, myrrh.  You may remember well that myrrh was used as an embalming spice in those days.

Picture this – you are parents of a newborn.  You’re at homing having dinner and there’s a knock at the door.  A group of travel worn and unkept foreigners are there asking to come in and give gifts.  Now these gifts are not the hottest items currently selling on Amazon.  No, they’re strange.  Strangest of all they give you a coffin for your child.

How about putting that in a children’s Christmas pageant – dirty foreigners bringing in a coffin?  Nope, we don’t want a realistic nativity scene!  Keep it domesticated!

Do you get a sense of how weird this all is the way Matthew tells it?

The foreigners then leave, double crossing Herod, which puts him in a tyrannical rage.  Joseph, Mary, and newborn Jesus have to uproot from their home and flee to Egypt as political refugees.  It is a dark and difficult story.

We use the arrival of the Wise Men to note the revelation of God to all the nations of the world.  Right from his birth Jesus is opening God’s grace and mercy to the whole world.  God’s grace and mercy are not national possessions, or the possessions of any exclusive religion.  They are God’s boundless openness and desire to gather all things into his goodness.  No limits, no boundaries, no gatekeepers.

God’s actions in the Christmas story are good and wonderful.  It is a beautiful story.  But it is not good news for all.  The powers that be – represented by Herod – do not like it.  This innocent little baby in a dusty village where nothing ever happens poses a threat.  It must be eliminated.  If you know the story well you know that Herod orders the killing of all the babies in and around Bethlehem two years of age and younger.  That is why Joseph and Mary flee to Egypt.

            What is the actual historical truth behind it all isn’t important.  The story speaks the truth of the way earthly power doesn’t want God’s goodness. 

It seems to be human nature to want to draw lines and categorize people as in or out, good or bad.  We see: races and nations, assets and liabilities, resources, potentials, good and bad, smart and stupid, riches and poverty.

            But I think God just sees a world in need.  It is a world in need of what God has to offer.  If the world would accept it, it would be better on the whole.  But those who hold power in the world, in other words those whom the world’s systems favors don’t like it.  To them it means loss.

            I pray that we have the sight to see what God is really up to.  I don’t think Epiphany is about what you do.  It is about seeing what God is doing and rejoicing in it.  Right from Jesus’ birth his is attracting all nations of the world – even the enemy pagan Parthians.  Ironically they worship him while Herod, representing the Roman Empire, seeks to kill him. 

May you recognize God’s star at its rising, for God is doing that all the time.  I’m not talking about literal new stars.  It is God’s actions at work, and they may be things few other people see.  But may you to see God’s goodness come to life.  And may it nurture your faith for ever new revelations of God to the world.