April 23, 2023 Easter 3 Matthew 28:16-20

I’m sure you’ve all had a day that you wished would last forever. Maybe it was a party or celebration. Maybe it was a day at an amusement park, or a day in nature. Maybe it was time with loved ones. Whatever it was, you wished it would go on forever, but it was all too short a time.

The stories after Jesus’ resurrection in the Bible are all the same way. We wish they would be long and detailed. We wish they’d answer lots of questions. We wish Jesus would linger. But they are all brief, and they leave us wanting more.

When it comes to Matthew’s gospel, while he is brief, he packs loads of meaning into just about every word. The five verses of our gospel reading today cover a multitude of themes and they all interact with each other. We aren’t going to cover them all, but at least a few of the major ones. Let’s start with verse 18 where Jesus says to the disciples, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” That’s a pretty bold statement to make! ALL authority in heaven and earth has been given to ME… Jesus appears to have risen from the dead with a huge ego! But that is certainly not the case.

We need to remember back to 4:8-9 when Jesus is being tempted by the devil. The devil shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor and says to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” It is easy to imagine that as Jesus literally falling down before a man in a red suit with horns and a pitch fork. But that’s us imposing our imagination on the text. It is a test to see if Jesus will live by the ways of the world, or will Jesus live by the ways of God? If you want to imagine this scene imagine the devil professional, well groomed, and in a business suit. Will Jesus use what he has in service to himself or will he be in service to God’s kingdom regardless?

Move to the crucifixion scene, the key scene in understanding everything of Jesus’ ministry. What are Jesus’ last words? “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus has been faithful. He’s done everything perfectly right in life. He has trusted and obeyed. And what has it gotten him? He's a failure. In fact, he’s a complete and total failure. None of his disciples followed any of his teachings. All of his followers fled. Even his closest followers: Peter, James, and John couldn’t even stay awake for an hour to be with him when he asked him too and he was in deep distress.

Jesus had been a total failure. No followers. Rejected by the religious leaders. Rejected by the Romans. Rejected by the crowds. Even the criminal element of society mocked and rejected him. What a waste of a life! What a waste of all that potential! Why didn’t Jesus use at least some of it to do something of enduring value? He would die and be forgotten – a nobody crushed in the machinery of the Roman Empire.

And then, dying, Jesus even feels abandoned by God – God to whom he has been faithful. Why?

It is often suggested that when Jesus was dying he did not know about or expect there to be a resurrection. This was it. The end. If Jesus had expected something like that his last words would have been something along the lines of, “Don’t worry everybody. I’ll see you all at Starbucks at 10:30 on Sunday!”

St. Paul wasn’t exaggerating when he wrote to the Philippians that they should have the same mind as Christ, who, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:6-8)

That is the faithfulness of Jesus. That absolute selflessness is the mind of Jesus which then allows him to appropriately say, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” God has given that to him, not the devil. The devil’s way would be for Jesus to take it for power’s sake. But he would not have truly had it. Jesus’ way was to be given it through obedience. Then it was truly his.

Self-preservation and self-interest are deep parts of ourselves. But they ultimately take us away from God. We struggle with this. We will always struggle with this.

And we should know that we are not alone in this.

When God asks us to do difficult or seemingly impossible things we are often tempted to say, “God, is this really you? Is this really your will? Give me proof.” People have been doing that for as far back as the Bible records.

What would it take for you to have sure and certain proof for the historic reality of the resurrection of Jesus? Seeing him face-to-face? Touching him?

Our translation does us a disservice when it translates Matthew 28:17 as, “When [the disciples] saw him they worshipped him; but some doubted.” Nope. It’s not that some doubted. Although we could still exclaim, “What more proof do you want than the man standing in front of you as real flesh and blood!?!” It is more literally, “Whey the disciples saw him they worshipped but had some doubts.” It’s not that some doubted. It’s that they all had some doubts.

Our gospel writer Matthew is trying to get across to us that faith and doubt are not opposites. Doubt and faith go hand in hand. Don’t beat yourself up when you are unsure of things. Matthew doesn’t actually say this. We find this in the letters of John; that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but fear. I don’t mean minor fear, or healthy fears. I mean fear that keeps you from doing anything for God and instead just doing life safely in the eyes of the world.

These few verses can make our head spin because there is so much going on in them. But we have two more issues that we need to bring into the mix as well.

We have Jesus’ authority in heaven and earth, disciples worshipping and yet still doubting, and to that we add the command to baptize and teach.

If you were here last week you may remember that I said teaching was a big deal in Matthew. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is not called a sermon. It is called a teaching. Jesus equips his followers to do all sorts of things, but he never tells them to teach. Last week we read that the guards at Jesus’ tomb were told by the religious leaders to go out and teach lies about what had happened.

And this week, in the very last sentence of Matthew’s gospel and among the last words of Jesus are the command to teach.

Why now? And what are these still-doubting disciples supposed to teach?

The reason they weren’t authorized to teach before is because they didn’t have the truth. The truth they needed to teach was the crucifixion. And that is a very odd thing to be able to teach! We’d think it would be the truth of the resurrection they are to teach. But nope. It’s crucifixion.

Matthew’s gospel is full of contradictions, contrasts, and twists and turns. They continue all the way right here to the end. There is one final contradiction.

Jesus’ final words are, “I am with you always, to the close of the age.”

And so we have doubting disciples now commanded to teach a message of crucifixion about a resurrected Lord who is with them even though he isn’t.

Hmmm. That’ll make your head spin!

And yet, is that not the truth we all live?!

I get so frustrated when Christians are taught that if their prayers weren’t answered it was because they didn’t believe surely enough and still had doubts. I know full well where Jesus’ own teachings suggest such things. They’re even in Matthew’s gospel! But that’s just it. I think Matthew gets at the deepest truth of Jesus by teaching us about Jesus within our own doubts and fears. This gospel does not come down from the sky in perfect divine form – to pristine and perfect to be touched or questioned. This gospel comes to us from within our own reality. It invites us to join in an authentic struggle.

And it is in that authentic struggle that we find the risen Lord right there alongside us – right with us in the beliefs and the doubts and the uncertainty and the fear and the confusion, and everything there is about being alive.

We’re not done with Matthew’s gospel even though we’ve reached the end. In the next several weeks we’re going to go back and look at the Sermon on the Mount, which we skipped over earlier. But if nothing else, learn from Matthew’s gospel that our Lord does not stand above us with a frown judging us as lacking because we fall short, or because life makes a mess of things – even our purest and most selfless desires. And instead realize that in the incarnation God came to be with us – with us in the mess and the confusion. And that God wants to laugh with us and weep with us, and succeed with us, and fail right along with us. Because that is how God truly loves us.

April 16, 2023 Easter 2 Matthew 28:11-15

Last Sunday we had the Easter story, except that we only read part of it from Matthew’s gospel. It’s too much to do all at once. So this week we have Easter, Part 2; and lets call this the “Anti-Easter” story. We have to remember all the way back to the Pre-Easter story where the religious leaders go to Pilate and say, “Sir, we remember what that imposter says while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ Therefore command that the tomb be made secure until the third day; otherwise his disciples may go and steal him away, and tell the people, ‘He has been raised from the dead,’ and the last deception would be worse than the first.” Pilate said to them, “Take a guard of soldiers; go, make it as secure as you know how.”

If you were here last week you know how effective that guard was, especially when confronted with one solitary angel! Plus, Jesus had somehow left the tomb before the stone was rolled back. So much for a guard! Today as we read Part 2 we have the coverup story.

I think it is important to note that Matthew’s gospel is the only one that includes anything about these guards. And, in full disclosure, it is important to note that most critical biblical scholars doubt there is historic reality behind this account of the guards. It appears to be something created by Matthew. He uses it to teach a very important point, which we will get to. But it does not bear marks of historic authenticity. While it is impossible to prove or disprove the resurrection of Jesus, the more central story of women coming to the tomb and finding it empty, then sometime later people have encounters with the resurrected Jesus does bear markers of historic reality. We can talk about that after worship if you’d like. The guard story does not. However, as I said a moment ago, Matthew seems to have created it as a contrast to the women at the empty tomb to teach some important points.

You’ll remember from last week there were two women who go to the tomb. Remember that women aren’t allowed to own property, have no voting rights, no political say, their evidence is hardly admissible in court; and then these women aren’t even Roman citizens but Jews, making them even lower. They have no strength, no weapons, and no standing.

Both the women and these burly guards experience the angel and the earthquake. We are told the men are so terrified they shook and became like dead men. Whereas we aren’t told how the women feel. They are presumably afraid, but not as much as the men.

The women hear the message and then they run to tell the disciples. The women run one way, towards Galilee. What do the guards do? They run the other way. Verse 11 tells us that some of the guards go into the city and tell the chief priests.

The women’s message is that Jesus is alive and heading to Galilee, where it all began. The guards message is that the dead guy they were guarding has escaped! They probably left out the part that they were so terrified they shook while the women weren’t all that fussed.

On the way the women meet Jesus. They lay hold of him and worship him. Jesus also says not to be afraid but tell the disciples and keep going to Galilee. The guards tell the chief priests… who do what?

What did they do when Jesus was teaching in the temple complex? They held a consultation about him. What did they do when they had arrested Jesus? They held a consultation. What did they do when Judas returned the money? They held a consultation.

So what did they do here? They held a consultation! This Jesus fellow is certainly causing them a lot of headaches! They would have loved to have Zoom to speed up all these consultations!

What did they do in their consultation? Verse 12 tells us they “devised a plan.” What did they do at all their previous consultations? They devised plans.

How much did they give Judas to betray Jesus? You know the answer to this, 30 pieces of silver. That’s the value of an injured slave according to Exodus. An injured slave isn’t worth much. Who would want one? So Judas betrayed Jesus cheap!

Now what do these “consulting” and “planning” leaders do? They offer a “large sum of money” to the soldiers. We aren’t told how much. But it is certainly hush money. The religious leaders then tell the soldiers to lie: that they fell asleep and the disciples stole the body. And, if the whole scheme catches up with them, and they get into trouble with Pilate the governor, the religious leaders promise to keep them out of trouble.

Schemes, hush money, lies… I could make a cheap crack about politicians but it would hardly be funny. It would hardly be funny because this is how the world works.

We are just a few verses from the end of Matthew’s gospel. And we are still strongly seeing a theme that Matthew has had from the beginning. It is a contrast of kingdoms. It is the kingdom of God vs. the kingdom of this world. And the kingdom of this world includes: evil, the Roman government, the Jewish leadership, and the human point of view overall.

The human point of view, or the kingdom of this world, is all about protecting yourself, getting ahead, and staying alive. It makes the human intellect supreme. It warps facts to suit its needs. And it insists that the logical human point of view must be God’s point of view. In other words, it makes God into the human image.

In the kingdom of God everything is reversed. There we learn that humans are made in God’s image – not the other way around. In the kingdom of God we learn that God’s sacrificial love is ultimate power, not self-preservation. In the kingdom of God all are equal. Things like money, looks, gender, brains, age make you neither higher nor lower than anyone else.

Both kingdoms require hard work. One leads to exploitation and a dead end, and an endless lack of satisfaction. The other one, God’s kingdom, leads to wholeness of life.

It seems to be an eternally ironic truth that the more you give of yourself – the more you use your power in support of others – the more fully you become your truest self. Selfishness is the path to self-annihilation. Self-giving is the path to wholeness.

There are two more points to make about these verses. First, our translation says that the soldiers took the money and did as they were directed. It would be more literally translated that they took the money and did as they were “taught”.

Teaching is a key point for Matthew. The Sermon on the Mount is not introduced as a sermon but as a teaching. All throughout the gospel Jesus teaches. At one point he sends his disciples out to: spread the gospel, and to heal, and to cast out demons; but interestingly he does not give them permission to teach. Next week we will discover that Jesus’ final sentence to his disciples is the commission to go out and teach.

It is only with the crucifixion behind them that they know enough to teach, and can now teach the truth.

But what about these soldiers, representing the kingdom of this world? They are instructed by the religious leaders to teach lies – a lie that the body of Jesus was stolen by his disciples.

And that takes us to the final point. Why did the women see the angel and the empty tomb and believe, yet the soldiers also saw the angel and the empty tomb and they did not believe? They both had the same evidence. They both had the same experience.

The resurrection is the key miracle of Christianity. It is also the most controversial and hardest to believe. It is just too counter to our experience for it to possibly be true. The four gospels in the Bible struggle with it. Jesus is resurrected, real flesh and blood. He can be seen. He can be touched. He can eat. In John’s gospel he even cooks breakfast. But he can also come and go through locked doors. He seems to appear and disappear without regard to the laws of physics.

We’re going to look at doubt more next week. But for this week we acknowledge that facts do not equal beliefs.

Believing in Jesus, or maybe I should say orienting your life to be in God’s kingdom, does not come about by having the right facts and evidence. You cannot make believers by facts. Faith is not something we control. Faith is not something a person comes to by analysis and conclusion. Faith is God’s work. It is God’s gift.

We are not given an answer as to why the women believe and the soldiers do not. Instead, we are given the invitation to live the resurrection reality. With that as our goal we can understand all of what Jesus did. We can understand why the crucifixion is actually an expression of power. We can see that God’s love does lead to restoration. We can live without fear knowing that death is not the end. It is not to be feared. It too is within God’s grasp, and so we live knowing God’s triumph is ultimate.

April 9, 2023 Easter 10:30 Service Matthew 28:1-10

 Matthew tells the resurrection story deliberately leaving a huge hole in the action.  But to get the impact of that hole we have to realize that Matthew tells the entire scene with irony and humor; almost slap-stick humor.  I get frustrated when people can’t seem to see that the Bible’s writers are often playful and even silly.

We start, not with the morning of the resurrection, but the day before.  If you read Matthew’s gospel this last week going through the events of Holy Week day-by-day you’ll remember that on Saturday the religious leaders go to Pilate and ask to have the tomb of Jesus guarded.  They ask for this guard to ensure that the disciples don’t slip in at night, steal the body, and then say Jesus was resurrected.  Pilate gives them an unspecified number of soldiers to guard the tomb.

Never mind that all the disciples fled like cowards the moment Jesus got arrested; this despite their promise to him that they would be with him regardless of what happened!  There’s also the twisted reality that when Jesus was alive no one wanted him.  We talked about that in the sermon on Good Friday.  And certainly no one protected him.  Now that he was dead he is heavily guarded!

I wonder what it would have been like to be a Roman soldier assigned to guard the tomb of a executed Jewish itinerant preacher?  This is no prestigious honor guard like those who guard the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  This is just plain silly.  If you’re a soldier what do you do when your shift ends and you go back to the barracks and tell the guys your assignment?  You, a Roman infantryman, about the most feared fighters in the world, were doing cemetery duty!  Only the Parthian Empire, directly to the east of the Roman Empire, had a military to give the Roman infantry pause.  And so, a battle hardened, fearsome fighter is given guard duty over a dead guy whose followers fled at the first sign of trouble.

Apparently they didn’t take into account the terror of a heavenly soldier!  Each of the gospels tells the story of the resurrection differently.  In Matthew’s gospel the women come to visit the tomb on Sunday morning.  When they arrive the tomb is still sealed with a great stone.  And then, there is a great earthquake and an angel of the Lord, descends from heaven and rolls back the stone.

You’ve probably heard me say before that the way angels are depicted in art and on greeting cards is laughable.  These beings are not sweet cherubs with halos and wings.  Angels are mighty warriors no one dares fight with.  Rather than thinking of an angel on a greeting card, picture an angel as Arnold Schwarzenegger in the old Terminator movies.  He’s a terrifying warrior afraid of nothing.  Plus, this angel’s got to be mighty strong to roll a great stone back all by himself.

How do the mighty Roman guards handle this warrior from heaven?  Well, they don’t exactly invite him to a tea party!  Matthew says, “For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men.”

Now there’s a funny thing.  The guys outside the tomb are acting like dead men.  How about the guy inside the tomb?

Notice that the women are also terrified, but not to the extent of these mighty Roman guards!

Now here is where we get to the big hole in the action.  The tomb has been sealed.  I just said the live guards outside the tomb were like dead men.  How’s the dead guy in the tomb doing?  Well, the stone has now been rolled back.  The very next thing that should happen is that the resurrected Jesus walks out.  But…

the tomb is already empty.  Where’s Jesus?

I’ve used this example before and I think it gets at what we’d expect.  I’ve always loved Snickers candy bars.  You’ll remember their advertising slogan, “Snickers really satisfies.”  I’ve always thought there should be a Snickers ad where the resurrected Jesus steps out of the tomb.  He has a smile on his face.  In his one hand is hold up a partially unwrapped Snickers bar.  There’s a bite taken out of it, and then Jesus says, “Being dead takes it out of you.  But Snickers really satisfies!”

Yet my idea for an ad wouldn’t work!  For despite the tomb being sealed with a stone AND guarded by soldiers, when the stone is rolled back by the angel the tomb is already empty!  (Apparently if Jesus had a Snickers bar he ate it sometime earlier.)

The resurrection of Jesus, the greatest event and miracle associated with him, happens offstage.  It’s like it’s a non-event.  What are we to make of this?  Is this resurrected Jesus a ghost; some disembodied spirit who can float through solid rock?

Matthew continues.  The angel invites the women to see the empty tomb.  He tells them that Jesus has been raised from the dead.  And then he tells them Jesus is going ahead of them to Galilee.  There they will see him.  Galilee is important.  Galilee is where Jesus’ public ministry began.

These two Marys are now the first witnesses to the resurrection.  They are the first evangelists of the resurrection reality.

As they go towards Galilee in fear and great joy they meet the resurrected Jesus.  What is his nature?  How did he get out of that sealed and guarded tomb?  Is he real flesh and blood?  Matthew gives us the detail that when Jesus says to them, “Greetings!” they take hold of his feet and worship him.

Well, he has feet they can take hold of, then he’s got to be solid and real.  He isn’t just a disembodied spirit, or some sort of a hallucination.

I think our translations fall short when they say Jesus first word to them was “Greetings!”  That sounds really formal!  The Greek word there is cairete,  which means more like “Rejoice!”  Greetings is not only stiff and formal, it also sounds weak.  Rejoice is a command – and a happy command at that!

Their world of fear, death, pain, limitations, and everything like that has just been completely overwhelmed with a new reality.  Resurrection!

All through Matthew’s gospel we’ve seen contrasts, inconsistencies, and contradictions.  That shouldn’t surprise us.  Matthew is a well-versed Jewish writer.  The ancient Hebrews often used contradictions and contrasts to teach a truth deeper than simple logic.  We see that here.

Matthew is not asking us to turn off our brains and receive this text like a fairy tale.  No, Matthew invites us to use our brains to embrace the reality that goes beyond human understanding.

Human understanding – all logic – leads to this undeniable truth.  You will die.  Death is death.  Death is the end.  Done. Finished.  Period.  No further discussion.

People miss the point when they assume that eternal life is a foregone conclusion.  As if when you die you automatically are somehow having eternal life.  It doesn’t work that way, at least not in Christian faith.  Christian faith is at its most powerful when we give death its due credit.

Think critically.  Think logically.  Think where the evidence takes you, and don’t speculate further.  All of experience tells us that when you die that’s it.  There is no scientific evidence for eternal life, resurrection, or anything of the sort.  All of what you can observe tells you otherwise.  Give your mind and your skills of observation their due credit.  Don’t be a scientific thinker for every aspect of your life and then automatically assume some fairy tales about eternal life when it comes to the power of death.

It is when we give death its due power that we can also recognize the jarring mystery and power of God.  You don’t automatically get resurrected.  You don’t automatically get eternal life.  Those things are impossible.

But for God all things are possible.

When we think we automatically get eternal life then we think it’s somehow normal, or within our power, when it is completely and totally beyond our power.  I don’t care how good a person you are, I don’t care how righteous you are, I don’t care how perfectly you eat and stay fit and all of that stuff; you’re still going to end up just as dead as anyone else.  Nothing you can do can get you eternal life.

That’s is God’s business.  That is God’s power.  That is grace.

The Easter message isn’t necessarily a happy little ending to a good man who was killed.  The Easter message upends our reality entirely.  Jesus should have walked out of that tomb when the stone was rolled back.  But he was already gone.  When he told the women to rejoice he wasn’t just telling them to be happy.  He was telling them that every reality they knew was now secondary to God’s power.  Resurrection is a surprise, a mystery, a new reality.

May the power of God’s grace over death be the reality that you live – not an automatic foregone conclusion sort of power – but a startling power that equips us to live in a new reality this day and every day forward.  Amen

April 9, 2023, Easter 6:00 Service, John 20:1-18

“Whom are you looking for?” Jesus asks Mary Magdalene.  She’s looking for him, of course!  But in this somewhat comic scene from John’s gospel, she doesn’t recognize him.  There is a lot behind that question though.  It is a question for us as well.

“Whom are you looking for?”  Who are you looking for when it comes to Jesus?  Perhaps another version of that question is, what do you expect from Jesus?  It is a question for all of humanity and for all of time.

“Whom are you looking for?” is a question that comes up a number of times in John’s gospel.  It is first asked by Jesus all the way back in 1:38.  He asks it of his very first disciples when they come to him.  Though the NRSV translates it as, “What are you looking for?” it is the same question. 

Whom are you looking for when you come to Jesus?  Various people in John’s gospel come looking for various things.  Those first disciples are looking for the Messiah.  Some say he is: the Son of God, the King of Israel, the Lamb of God, the Savior of the World.

Indeed, he is all of those things.  What no one looks for though is the Crucified One.  That one is beyond human imagination, and really beyond human comprehension.  What sort of a God is it who gets himself shamefully arrested and killed, after all?  What does that say about God’s power and God’s ways?  What does it say about a God who will go through all this?

When Mary is in the garden looking for Jesus she is looking for the corpse of her dead rabbi.  She had been living in some sort of hope that Jesus was more than just a rabbi who would get killed.  But she had seen it.  He had lost.  He had failed.  End of story.  He must not be who she hoped he was. 

There is little wonder then when the resurrected Jesus meets her face to face she doesn’t recognize him.  It is only when he calls her by name that she does.

And yet, does she even then truly recognize him?  Right after she calls Jesus “Rabbouni” his next words are, “Do not hold on to me…”

Why?  Why should she not hold on to him?  Has he suddenly developed an aversion to hugs?

“Whom are you looking for?”  She is still looking for Jesus as she has known him, the old Jesus: the charismatic preacher and teacher, the worker of miracles, the great promise for the future, the triumphant one through power.

She is not yet looking for Jesus as the triumphant one through loss and death.  The crucified Jesus has revealed something new about God that has to be grasped.

I suspect that many people, us included, are looking for Jesus as someone who is somehow above the struggles and trials of life.  We are looking for a Jesus who is someone who will make everything better.  We want a Jesus who will take away our pain.  We want a Jesus who will –poof- make our struggles disappear; because we are good… because that is what God does for faithful people.  Just make life better, sweeter, more pleasant.  To this list my colleague Rev. Johanna Rehbaum adds, “We want a Jesus who makes sense, who doesn’t act against our logic and our scientific brains.”

When I was a child growing up my grandparents and many of that age from the World War 2 generation loved the hymn In the Garden.  It is a little hymn about a stroll with Jesus in a garden.  It is a sweet and gentle time.  The refrain goes, “And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own.  And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.”

That hymn was written by Justin Miles in 1913.  It is based on the encounter Jesus has with Mary Magdelene in the garden.  While I respect the way it had helped people develop faith and understand a relationship with Jesus, the hymn itself is theological garbage.  Jesus does not tarry with Mary.  He says not to hold on to him.  He sends her off with a message for the other disciples.  And she goes.

The hymn has pretty much fallen out of favor these days, and it is so theologically flawed that I’m not aware of any attempts to rework it into something better.

Ironically, the hymn’s greatest theological flaw is what made it so popular.  Mary Magdalene would have liked nothing more than to stay there with Jesus for the day gently walking and talking.  It would have been pleasant time with: nice Jesus, sweet Jesus, protective Jesus.  I think that is a yearning we all have deep within ourselves.  We’d like life to be a pleasant time with our loving God – a close walk in a peaceful garden with contentment and safety and goodness.  That indeed would be a nice life.

Whom are you looking for?  If that is the god you are looking for you won’t recognize the real Jesus.  The real Jesus does not rescue you from life’s problems, nor does he solve them.  Instead of that Jesus willingly gets down with you wherever you are in whatever state you are in.  God never says come up to my level.  God comes to your level.

Whom are you looking for?  That’s a very different version of God than we would expect.  God is bigger and better than anything earth can provide.  God is mysterious, perplexing, enigmatic, and wonderful all the same.

Whom are you looking for?  How about the Abiding One?  One of the key words in John’s gospel is the word abide.  It appears 34 times!  People are always asking where Jesus is abiding, dwelling.  He is always abiding with people… wherever, however.

The resurrected Jesus does not save us from the problems of the world.  The resurrected Jesus abides with us in those places.  God came to save the world, but not by erasing its principles and making it into a sweet nice place for everyone.  God is saving the world through authentically entering it and inviting his followers to live by love, even when it makes no sense.

There are a lot of hymns based on John’s gospel.  While In the Garden gets John’s gospel wrong, one that gets it right is Abide with Me.  We sang that at the 8:30 service a few weeks ago.  We’re going to sing it again this morning.  It is also a sweet hymn but one that has solid theology behind it.  And despite being a couple hundred years old it is showing it has what it takes to endure the test of time.  Though it is not an Easter hymn, it is proving to be an abiding hymn.

Whom are you looking for?  Who is Jesus?  Who is this resurrected Jesus?  How does he work in our lives?  What does he do for us?  This hymn answers those questions.  He is the Abiding One.  Because he is the Abiding One we are, like Mary Magdalene, sent to proclaim his resurrected abiding presence. 

April 2, 2023 Palm Sunday Matthew 26:1-16

 Today we find ourselves right back at a very uncomfortable topic when it comes to our faith, and that is money.  Jesus talked about money more than anything else.  Quite likely that’s because money is the one idol that is more likely to draw people from God than any other.  Money can fool us into thinking we have power.  Money can fool us into thinking we are safe.  Money can fool us into thinking we are important.  And yet, money in and of itself is not necessarily bad.  It is an efficient way of transferring value from one person to another.  It can build and connect communities.

In our gospel reading we find a huge contrast with money.  We see the woman anointing Jesus with some very expensive ointment.  And we see Judas agreeing to sell Jesus out for a very small sum of money.

First the woman.  This scene will raise our eyebrows for any number of reasons.  We are told it takes place in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper.  Bethany is about two miles from Jerusalem by taking a road across the Mount of Olives.  We know nothing about Simon the leper other than this bit.  Consider that Simon may have been a leper who was forced to leave his home.  We do not know if Simon was alive at the time or not.  Jesus may have cured him, or again, he may have died beforehand.  All we know is that Simon was a leper, a sufferer from some sort of a skin disease.

And then this woman comes to Jesus.  We know even less about her.  Some say she is Mary Magdalene.  Some say she is Mary the sister of Martha.  All four of the gospels have some sort of story of Jesus being anointed by a woman, but each tells the story quite differently.  In this case we have an unnamed woman who simply seems to appear out of nowhere.  Maybe she’s from the street.  Maybe she’s a member of Simon’s household.  Who knows?  What we do know is that she anoints Jesus and Jesus alone with some extremely expensive ointment.  She pours it over his head.

Why?  What is the purpose?  Some see this as an act of coronation; the anointing of a king.  Matthew doesn’t use that language though.  It is simply an expression of devotion; a very extravagant act of devotion!  There are certainly some sexual overtones to the whole scene, but the woman probably doesn’t have any specific motive in mind.  She is someone who finds herself in Jesus’ presence.  She has been deeply moved by him.  And she wants to do something to express herself to him.  As a woman she probably had very little means available to her.  But she’s going to do whatever she can.  She doesn’t care about the cost.  She doesn’t care about how it looks to others.  She doesn’t care what social implications it might have.  She is going to express her devotion to him.

It is probably worth speculating on that perfume for a couple moments.  It was surely a treasured possession.  Matthew’s gospel doesn’t give it a specific cost.  Other gospels say 300 denarius, or roughly a year’s wages!  She may have had the bottle for years.  Someone may have given it to her.  It is hard to believe that she would have ever had enough money to go out and buy such a thing.

I think it is safe to say that it was her most treasured and valuable possession.  She decides to use it – all of it – in an act of complete devotion to Jesus.  She’s holding nothing back.

Every bit of our logic, our common sense, our sense of responsibility is offended.  This is waste, pure and simple.  Loads of impoverished starving people could have food in their bellies for the value of what she just foolishly dumped all over Jesus’ head.

The disciples are understandably indignant.  Jesus’ response can leave us perplexed.  “You always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.  By pouring this ointment on my body she has prepared me for burial.”

Given that we know Jesus is going to be arrested the next day, and executed the day after that, it makes at least some sense to us.  But to the disciples at that time it made no sense whatsoever.

The very next scene is Judas going to the authorities to sell Jesus out.  Matthew doesn’t say it explicitly, but the fact that it’s the very next scene suggests that this act is what makes Judas turn against Jesus.  He does not understand devotion to a rabbi who would allow such things and then say such things.

I think it is important for our own understanding that we’re in the same boat.  I think if we really immerse ourselves in the way Matthew is telling us about Jesus we’re somewhat uncomfortable and confused.  What’s right?  What’s wrong?  Where’s the logic in this?  Part of us understands Judas if he’s indignant.  Part of us doesn’t want anything to do with being like Judas because Judas is, well, Judas!

Logical or not, the next scene does portray Judas in a terrible light.  He sells Jesus out for 30 pieces of silver.  You may remember that 30 pieces of silver is what you have to pay the owner of a slave for injuring him or her.  It’s a paltry sum.  We are definitely distant from Judas here.  While many people can be bought for money – even if it means harming someone else – they’re not going to be bought off for such a cheap price.

And so the scenes make a great contrast.  In the first scene an unnamed woman gives to Jesus as extravagantly as possible.  In the next scene one of Jesus’ hand-picked twelve disciples sells him out for a paltry sum.

We could reach a very rational conclusion about money from all of this and say that it’s about motive.  The woman was giving generously and Judas was acting greedily.  But I think that comes up a bit short.  It’s close but not as close as it could be.  If it were about motive and Judas being greedy, then Judas could have certainly gotten more for Jesus than 30 pieces of silver.  Given how badly the religious leaders wanted to get their hands on Jesus at a time that he was away from the crowds they were certainly willing to pay more.  (And it would be wrong to suggest that Judas wasn’t skilled at negotiating for more.)  No, it’s more about value.

To the woman Jesus was of immense value.  She was going to give to him as extravagantly as she possibly could.  And to Judas, Jesus was as worthless as an injured slave.

I think those are the principles we should put to work when we think about the way to use money.

If faithful use of money was all about finding the most practical application of it, in other words, finding the way to do the greatest good at the least cost, then I think life would be pretty boring.  I would have to preach that none of us could use money for anything of our own enjoyment as long as someone in the world was suffering want.  It would be to preach that we could never have any fun until all the poverty and malnutrition in the world was eliminated.  Then and only then could money be faithfully used for a less than utilitarian purpose.

If that were the lesson then Jesus would have gently talked to the woman saying, “I know you intend this as a wonderful gesture, but it would be better if you had sold it and given the money to the poor.”  But of course that is the line from the confused disciples, not from Jesus.

No, it’s not about practicality.  It’s about where we see value.  The woman valued Jesus.  Judas did not.

When we value Jesus highly our financial stewardship will automatically come into line.  Perhaps we shouldn’t ask, “What would Jesus do?”  But instead ask, “How can use what I have to show that Jesus is the most valuable thing in my life?” 

Then it’s not about greed.  It’s not about ruthless practicality.  It is about using the power of your money to convey to the world the value of Jesus.  Value Jesus above everything else and everything else will come together. 

And if that is too nebulous an idea, then remember what Jesus valued: friendships, constructive community, recognizing those the world often overlooks, seeing money as an opportunity to build the kingdom of God rather than as a tool for self-gain.

The unnamed woman is unnamed because it is an invitation to be us.  Judas is named as someone we can be sure to not be like.  She valued Jesus.  She showed it.  She did a beautiful thing for him.  And we have the same opportunities ourselves.