Traveling Through Samaria

Where Are You Leading Us, Lord?  

Traveling Through Samaria

“When the days drew near for [Jesus] to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him…”    Luke 9:51-53a

If in his time on earth Jesus had ever filled out an IRS Form 1040, what occupation might he have listed, right behind his signature, on the bottom of page 2?   “Son of God?”  “Long-Expected Messiah?” “Savior of the World?”   

Any of those responses would have been accurate, of course.   But, they’d never have “registered” with the Roman empire’s tax authorities.   I think something more on the order of “itinerant preacher” or “traveling healer” might have made the most sense.   Whoever Jesus was, whatever Jesus did, he was always on the move.

Traveling Man

Although there’s a hint in Mark 2:1 that Jesus had a home in Capernaum, his ministry seems to have been  described best by his stark contention that “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20).   Jesus was, in short, a traveling man.

And that was true from the very beginning of his time on earth.   Jesus was born while Mary and Joseph were away from their home (Nazareth), having traveled under orders to their ancestral village, Bethlehem.  Matthew’s gospel tells us that because of the treachery of King Herod, his parents had to flee to Egypt when Jesus was merely an infant (Matthew 2:14-15).   The lone scriptural story we have of Jesus’ childhood occurs in the context of his family’s annual pilgrimage from Nazareth to Jerusalem, for the Passover (Luke 2:41-51).

From the very beginning, to the very end of Jesus’ earthly story, as related to us via the four gospels, he was on the move.    Jesus’ life was not a settled existence of comfort and ease.   Jesus had places to go, people to see, his Father’s will to accomplish, God’s rescue mission to pursue.   Jesus didn’t wait for life to come to him; he was forever going out to meet whatever or whoever was on his path.

So the story of Jesus’ life, as the gospels tell it, has a breathless, constantly changing quality to it.   The pace of Mark’s gospel (which we’re focusing on this year in our lectionary) is especially relentless and fast-moving.  “Immediately” is one of Mark’s favorite vocabulary words!

Jesus travels to the Jordan for his baptismal “inauguration” in ministry, then treks into the wilderness to be tempted for 40 days and nights, then begins three years of perambulating ministry—never staying any one place for long, always feeling the tug of the Cross, eager for the dramatic final leg of the journey.   Along the way Jesus gathers followers who—literally (but also metaphorically) follow him---trace his steps, travel where Jesus travels, on the move with their traveling Master.

The Gospels as Travel Narratives

This gives a “travel narrative” quality to the four gospels.   The evangelists (writers/editors of the gospels) even use this on-the-move character of Jesus’ life and ministry as a principle of organizing and interpreting Jesus’ teaching, preaching healing, saving activities.   As this happens, implications are constantly drawn out for the continuing faithful lives of all Christ’s followers, in every time and place.

In his book, Tell It Slant (2008, Eerdmans)[1] Eugene Peterson points out that the center of Luke’s gospel is an extended travel narrative (Luke 9:51-19:44) in which Jesus and his followers leave the familiarity of Galilee (in the north) in order to spend significant time moving through the unfamiliar territory of Samaria (in the middle) before the final chapter of Jesus’ story unfolds in Jerusalem (in the south).

Peterson finds significance in the fact that so many of Jesus’ greatest parables and teachings on prayer are “located” in this Samaritan portion of the journey.  “It is while traveling through Samaria…that Jesus takes the time to tell stories that prepare his followers to bring the ordinariness of their lives into conscious awareness and participation in this kingdom life.”  (pp. 15-16).    Peterson finds two things especially intriguing in this Travel Narrative:

“First, it deals with what takes place ‘in between’ the focused areas of Jesus’ life and ministry, Galilee and Jerusalem.   Jesus and his disciples are traveling through the unfamiliar and uncongenial country of Samaria…(which) is not home ground to Jesus and his companions….They don’t know these people and have little in common with them….[Jesus and company] are outsiders to this country and this people”  (p. 17).

Implications for Our Traveling

Peterson perceives an analogy here between the Samaritan part of Jesus’ journey and the portion of our faith-journeys that happens “between Sundays,” i.e. in between our weekly “set-aside, protected time[s] and place[s] for prayer and prayerful listening among men and women who are ‘on our side.’”   In fact, most of our lives of discipleship play out during the other six days of each week, away from the church building, sort of like traveling through Samaria.   The gathered church that we experience on Sundays lives out most of its days as the scattered church in the world during the remainder of each week.   “We spend most of our time with people who are not following Jesus as we have been, who do not share our assumptions and beliefs and convictions regarding God and his kingdom.”  (p. 17)

The second thing that intrigues Peterson about Luke’s long Travel Narrative “is how frequently Jesus tells stories, the mini-stories we name parables.”   Why is this significant?   It’s because the parable, “is a way of saying something that requires the imaginative participation of the listener….a parable involves the hearer.”   Moreover, Jesus’ parables in the Travel Narrative are not overtly religious in their language or focus.   “They are stories about farmers and judges and victims, about coins and sheep and prodigal sons, about wedding banquets, building barns and towers and going to war, a friend who wakes you in the middle of the night to ask for a loaf of bread, the courtesies of hospitality, crooks and beggars, fig trees and manure” (p. 19)

Peterson perceives a mission strategy in Jesus’ preference for story-telling while traveling through Samaria.   “Samaritans, then and now, have centuries of well-developed indifference, if not outright aversion, to God-language—at least the kind used by synagogue and church people….So, as Jesus goes through Samaria he is very restrained in his use of explicit God-language….Jesus circles around his listeners’ defenses.  He tells parables.  A parable keeps the message at a distance, slows down comprehension, blocks automatic prejudicial reactions, dismantles stereotypes.  A parable comes up on the listener obliquely, on the ‘slant’” (p. 20).[2]

There are profound implications here as we live out our own Travel Narratives as disciples of Jesus.   As we achingly seek out ways of sharing Christ with those (“Samaritans”) around us, might we not discover that engaging stories will usually be more winsome than compelling arguments?   (Please tell me:  How likely is it that we will argue anyone into the Kingdom of God?)  In our own Monday through Saturday journeying—in which we can’t always presume a shared God-story with the “Samaritans” around us—how might we cultivate Jesus’ art of spinning yarns (parables) that crack open the Good News in fresh ways?

A Church That’s Going Mobile

This month’s Bible study, as you may have noticed, reiterates themes from last month’s Bible study (“Toward a Church That’s All About ‘Going’”).   One of the biggest challenges before us, it seems to me, is this:   “How do we jack up the church and put wheels under it?”    How is God un-settling us in order to equip us for “going mobile” with the Good News of Jesus Christ?

If the church is the only Body the Risen One still has in this world—ought we not pay closer attention to how Jesus himself lived in this world?   As we do so, we will notice, time and again, how Jesus was always on the move.   He did not wait for people to come to him; he was always heading out and meeting someone new, wading into the muck and mud of life, walking right up to hard questions and prickly controversies.   This Traveling Man still calls us to be a traveling church, does he not?

Bishop Larry Wohlrabe
Northwestern Minnesota Synod
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
God’s work.  Our hands.

For reflection and discussion:
1.      What strikes you about the notion that Jesus was primarily a “traveling man?”
2.      How is it for you, “traveling through Samaria” each week?   What is it like for you, living alongside folks who may not share your commitment to following Jesus?
3.      Why might stories (parables) be more effective than arguments, in sharing Christ with others?
4.      What are some of the reasons why it’s so challenging to “jack up the church and put wheels under it?”

This is the fifth in a series of monthly Bible studies during 2012 focused on the question:  “Where Are You Leading Us, Lord?”   These columns are designed to equip the disciples and leadership groups such as church councils, for faithful and fruitful ministry.   Feel free to use the column for personal reflection or group discussion, e.g. church council meeting devotions/discussion.

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[1] Eugene H. Peterson, Tell it Slant:  A Conversation on the Language of Jesus in His Stories and Prayers, Eerdmans, 2008.

[2] This explains the title of Peterson’s book, Tell it Slant.

Still My Favorite Easter Quote

If Christ is risen, nothing else matters. And if Christ is not risen—nothing else matters.   

Jaroslav Pelikan (1923-2006)  Quoted in the Yale Department of History Newsletter, Spring (2007), 3.

No Way to Run a Resurrection

Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, Moorhead

Easter Sunday—April 16, 2006

Mark 16:1-8

Are you as annoyed as I am with movies that have strange, jarring endings?

When I buy my ticket and popcorn and get all settled down in my comfy theater seat, I want whatever movie I’m watching to “end well.”  

I want there to be a sunset, with birds singing and the orchestra swelling.  I want the boy to get the girl, the woman to win her man.  I want all the bad guys to get what they’ve got coming, all conflicts to be resolved, all tensions released.  I want closure.  I want all the loose ends tied up.  I want “happily ever after” endings to my movies.

It drives me nuts when a movie director thinks he needs to throw me a curve ball at the last minute--concluding a film with a straight-out-of-leftfield “zinger.”

M. Night Shyamalan is an Indian-born movie director whose films often feature these kinds of disturbing endings.  He directed movies like Signs, The Village, Unbreakable and (perhaps most memorably) The Sixth Sense.    

Even if you never saw The Sixth Sense back in 1999, you probably remember the TV advertisements for it, featuring a terrified little boy whispering:  “I see dead people.”   That movie—The Sixth Sense—has a classic unpredictable, “twist” ending to it.  The first time I saw it—I was blown away.

In our gospel lesson from Mark 16 we meet three women who are terrified—not because “they see dead people”—but because they DON’T see dead people, one dead person in particular.

At dawn, with the sun just peeking over the eastern horizon, they make their way to a cemetery to the fresh grave of a friend, to use spices and ointments to stave off the stench of death—but the corpse they come for is gone.  

How unsettling.   Dead people usually do others the courtesy of staying put—but not this Dead Person named Jesus.

He’s missing—and in his place a young man dressed in white—a complete stranger--stands there, delivering a wild message that shakes these women to the core of their being:  ‘Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. ⁷But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.’

That’s it.  That’s all they get, these three women.   There’s no earthquake here, no angel descending from heaven and splitting the stone in two, no Roman guards shuddering and playing dead.   These women don’t actually encounter the risen Jesus.   They don’t even poke around inside the tomb a bit to check things out for themselves.

No.  None of that.   These women just hear what the man-in-white has to say, then turn tail and run.

And here’s the sentence with which Mark the evangelist concludes his gospel:  So [the women] went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

That’s it.  That’s all Mark wrote—sort of a “THUD” of an ending—a DUD of an ending--if you ask me.   The last word of Mark’s gospel is “afraid.”   No gentle sunset, no birds singing, no orchestra swelling, no closure achieved, no “happily ever after.”   None of that—Mark’s final word is “afraid.”

This is no way to run a resurrection—no way for a gospel to end.   There has to be something missing here, wouldn’t you agree?

Apparently, in the first few years after Mark’s gospel began to circulate in the mid-first-century, others thought they needed to tidy things up a bit--take another run at it.

And so, in no time, several alternative endings were suggested for Mark’s gospel.   Look for a moment at page 55 in the NT portion of your pew Bible, and you’ll see a shorter ending, a longer ending and all sorts of footnotes. 

The guys who copied and transmitted Mark’s gospel practically went nuts trying to give this gospel a better ending—trying to do what Mark for some reason didn’t do.

But I’m afraid it was a lost cause.  None of those “alternative endings” has ever caught on.  None of them have rung true with the authentic voice of Mark himself.   They all fall into the “close, but no cigar” range of acceptability.

For my money, the ending we seem stuck with is the ending Mark intended.   Like M. Night Shyamalan, Mark wants us to squirm a bit—wants us to feel—to feel just a bit the way those women probably felt.

I think that’s one reason why Mark ends his gospel in this fashion.   As Pastor Nancy said so well in her Easter letter to the congregation, “If I were one of those women who had come to the tomb on  Sunday morning expecting to embalm my loved one, and met a young man who told me he was alive, I would be so scared I would run away.  And I wouldn’t tell a soul, at least not for a while.  My heart would be pounding so hard I would not have the breath to speak.”

Yesiree, despite how unsettling it is, Mark’s ending gets some things exactly right.  If God has raised up Jesus from the grave—well then everything is up for grabs.  Life and death, heaven and hell, the past—present—and-future,  everything has turned.   How could the first witnesses to such a revolutionary moment in human history be anything but terrified, struck dumb, beside themselves with fear?

So might we, appropriately, shudder on this Easter morning.  I’ve always been glad that all four verses of  that old spiritual Were You There? make reference to trembling—including the last verse, the Easter verse.   We tremble—and not just in the face of Jesus crucified, dead and buried.   “Were you there when God raised him from the tomb?…   Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.”

We tremble, because nothing is the same for us, for you and me, either.

There is Someone who has loved us to death—his death—and come back from death to love us forever.  He’s loose in the world.   He’s on the move—in fact, as the man-in-white tells the women:  “he is going ahead of you to Galilee.”

Where is the risen Jesus in Mark’s last chapter?  He’s nowhere to be seen—not because he’s playing peek-a-boo with us, but because he’s out ahead of us.

This brings us to the other reason Mark may have had in mind by penning such a disturbing conclusion to his gospel.

Sometimes, when a movie director ends a film with a “twist,” it’s a clue that the studio’s marketing department has gotten into the act.  They’re preparing the crowd for a sequel!

What if that’s happening, too, at the end of Mark’s gospel?   That last sentence about the women fleeing in fear—doesn’t it just scream out for a “sequel?”

But Mark never got around to writing a sequel to his gospel (unlike Luke, another gospel-writer who went on to write the Acts of the Apostles).   Did Mark just run out of time or ideas or material?

Or did Mark think that somebody else should write his sequel?   Did Mark want his readers to know that they would be writing the sequel to his little book, by what they did with the Good News of Jesus Christ—crucified, dead, buried, and risen?

Dear friends, I believe our elder brother in faith, St. Mark the Evangelist has given each of us a little “writing assignment.”   He ends his gospel in this jarring, unsettling way, because he wants each of us to draft our own conclusion—based on how we come to hear, believe in and follow this risen Lord Jesus Christ.

And where will we find this Risen Lord?   He’s always out ahead of us, “in Galilee,” that is:  in the mission field, in the place of service, wherever the Word gets shared, wherever the Risen Lord lives through you and me, his Easter People.

In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

A Church That's All About GOING

Where Are You Leading Us, Lord?  

Toward a Church That’s All About “Going”

Bishop’s Bible Study on Matthew 28:16-20

Based on a message Bp. Wohlrabe delivered at a Joint Lenten Service

Sponsored by the ELCA Congregations of Fergus Falls

“Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted.  And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’”   Matthew 28:16-20

Coming to Church

 I grew up in a church that was all about “coming.”[i]   Whatever kind of question or longing or concern you might have could be addressed if you would simply come—come to church.   Church was a place where you came to learn about Jesus, where you came to get close to God and your fellow Christians, where you came for the “straight scoop” about all the big religious questions, where you came to be nourished with God’s Word and Sacraments so that you could face all the ups and downs of life.

This church of my youth—which was all about “coming”, coming to church, coming to God—this church worked best for those who were already part of it.   In fact, we regularly thought of this church as our church, a church that sturdy, no-nonsense German Lutherans-- “our kind of people”--had built and sustained.

It’s not that others weren’t welcome.   Far from it!  Among many other good things we were doing—we were a church that engaged in “mission work,” especially in far-off parts of the world where folks very different from us hadn’t yet heard of Jesus.    We sent brave missionaries to those exotic places so that they could invite people to come—to come to Jesus, to come to faith, to come to church.   We gave some of our money so that churches could be started in those far-flung corners of the world so that Christians would have some place to come, too.

Closer to home, we honestly weren’t aware that we might have near-neighbors who didn’t know about Jesus.   In my little town in southern Minnesota everyone came to a church (or so we thought).  If newcomers showed up in town they certainly were welcome to come to our church.   We even left the doors to the church building unlocked on Sunday mornings.  If they really wanted to come to our church, no one would stop them.  Shoot!  We might even make space for them in one of the pews that weren’t already taken by some of our long-time, faithful church members.

I grew up in a church that was all about “coming,” and perhaps you did, too.  I am thankful for this church of my youth.  It’s where faith was planted and nurtured in my life.  I’m glad I came to church as a boy; it’s become a habit I haven’t yet broken.

I grew up in a church that was all about “coming.”

Going As Church

Today, I am growing into a church that is all about “going.”    This “going” church feels a lot messier than the church I grew up in.  Things aren’t all buttoned up and nailed down.   There is more movement in this “going” church….it’s a much more mobile and portable and (at times) chaotic than the church I grew up in.

This “going” church isn’t so much a place as it is a movement.   Hard to capture it in a snapshot—the church I’m growing into is best imagined in moving pictures, testimonies, interviews with real live people…because this “going” church is a people more than it is a place.   And these people are going somewhere, somewhere where Jesus already has gone, somewhere where God is leading them to go.

This church of today is less defined by what happens in just one place.  It is more about how the people who gather together every week are scattered into the mission field that is all around them.   Ideally, this church is aimed at those who AREN’T already part of it!

The church into which I am growing is a going church that continually sends people like me into the world to carry Christ and to be Christ wherever life takes us.   “Mission” isn’t one of many extra-curricular activities of the church.  No--“mission” is the flaming center of this church.

Today’s “going” church doesn’t just leave the door unlocked on Sunday mornings, in the hope that some stranger will happen by and enter.   Today’s “going” church goes to, intentionally seeks folks who haven’t yet heard the gospel in a believable way.  Through words and deeds and simply by “being” the Body of Christ in the world, this church goes to whomever Christ is beckoning us, whether that person is a near-neighbor or someone who lives far away.

Many of us grew up in a church that was all about “coming.”   But we’re growing into a church that is all about “going.”

And we believe that this isn’t just a fad that will be popular for a while before it fades away.  We believe that this is actually a return to the church God always intended  us to be.

Jesus’ First Word

Because after his resurrection, the Risen and Living Lord Jesus’ first word was:   “Go!”   “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.”  Be and bring forth a church that will be all about going.

And this isn’t just a demand Jesus lays on us.  It is an energizing invitation to be about what Jesus himself has always been about.

We are growing into a church that’s all about going because we belong to a God who is all about going.

The God we meet in the Bible is a traveling God, don’t you know?   Not enthroned, aloof, out of touch—

God is always on the go throughout the scriptures.   God walks with our first parents in the Garden.  God accompanies Abraham and Sarah to a land he would show them.  God escapes Egypt with Moses and the Hebrew slaves.   God leads Joshua into the promised land.   God sojourns with prophets, priests and kings. 

And when the moment was right God went into the world—intimately, personally—in the flesh and blood of Jesus.

Jesus, who had no place to rest his weary head, was always on the go, forever gathering up a people who would be on the go with him.   Jesus was always moving—healing diseases, casting out devils, throwing parties for sinners, confronting opponents, recklessly proclaiming God’s rule over all things,  marching into the palaces of worldly power, trudging to the Cross, entering the grave, and on Easter morning getting up and going once again.

Our Lord Jesus calls us to be a going church, not to be something he is not, but to fall in step with him, the Going One, who is always going ahead of us, piecing back together the whole creation, aligning heaven and earth, beckoning us forward into God’s future.

I recently saw a great bumper sticker that read:  “Don’t look back.  You aren’t going that way!”

If Jesus drove a car, that could have been his bumper sticker.    

Now at first blush, this sounds pretty exciting, doesn’t it!?   We’re not a bunch of sticks-in-the mud.  We’re a church that’s all about going.  

Tempted to Turn Back

But chew on that a while, and questions will start to pop up.   It’s not easy, after all, to take a church and put wheels under it….to take a comfortable, settled people and make them mobile, send them out, have them go where Jesus is going.

For centuries, you see, we’ve been trying to get the church put together, nailed down, grounded, stable, secure.   And now we’re supposed to pry all that loose and have the church “go mobile?”  Really, now??

This “church on the go” sounds messy and downright scary.   Because if Jesus bids us go where he has gone…to move where Jesus wants us to be….we could find ourselves in a heap of trouble.  

Recently I read a new book entitled Simply Jesus.     The author, N.T. Wright, declared that “the story of 'how Jesus became king'…across the world [as related to us in the Book of Acts]...is anything but the smooth, triumphant process of a conquering worldly monarch, obliterating the opposition by the normal military methods. The methods of kingdom work are in accordance with the message of Jesus as king: that is, they involve suffering, misunderstanding, violence, execution, and in the final spectacular scene [at the end of the Book of Acts]...shipwreck."  (pp. 200-201).

Ponder that long enough, and we might get cold feet.  We might retreat behind the walls of our well-insured church buildings.   We might prefer being a church that’s all about “coming,” being at the center, getting folks to come to us and adopt our ways and be just like us.   

We might look back and think about where we’ve been and say:  “Let’s just try to be that kind of a church again—all buttoned up, nailed down, safe and secure.”

But remember that bumper sticker on the back of Jesus’ car:  “Don’t look back.  You aren’t going that way.”

For if it’s Jesus we’re following….our noses will always be pointed toward his future, toward God’s tomorrow, toward which our Lord Jesus, in the power of his resurrection said this word first:   “Go!   Go, therefore and make disciples of all nations.”

Bishop Larry Wohlrabe

Northwestern Minnesota Synod

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

God’s work.  Our hands.

For reflection and discussion:

1.      Was the church of your youth primarily a “coming” church or a “going” church?   Or was it both?

2.      Where is your church on the “coming” and “going” continuum right now?

3.      What energizes you about becoming more of a “going” church?   What concerns you about making this transition?

4.      Where and to whom is God calling your congregation to go TODAY?

This is the fourth in a series of monthly Bible studies during 2012 focused on the question:  “Where Are You Leading Us, Lord?”   These columns are designed to equip the disciples and leadership groups such as church councils, for faithful and fruitful ministry.   Feel free to use the column for personal reflection or group discussion, e.g. church council meeting devotions/discussion.

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[i] I’m indebted to Pr. Stephen McKinley who wrote the popular “Pastor Loci” column in the dear-departed Lutheran Partners magazine, for the language of a “coming” and “going” church.

Let's NOT Make a Deal

Moe Lutheran Church, Roseau, MN

March 11, 2012/Lent 3

John 2:13-22

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

In today’s gospel lesson we meet “scary Jesus”—a Jesus who’s out of control, itching for a fight. And because I’m never quite sure what to do with this scary Jesus, I usually avoid preaching on this text when it pops up in the lectionary….

….but not today, because I’m thinking that some of you might actually want to make sense of this startling story, and as a matter of fact, so do I!

So here goes!

We’re in the Temple of Jerusalem, early in the first century A.D., and it’s not just an ordinary day.  It’s Passover—a feast to remember God’s liberation of his chosen people when they were slaves in Egypt.

The way pious Jews of that day did that was to pack their bags and travel to Jerusalem.  So the city is teeming with the faithful, all of them heading toward the Temple which was their “access point” with God.  

If you’re an observant Jew at Passover time, the Temple is where you meet your God.

So Jesus is in this vast crowd of pilgrims, taking it all in—all the sights, sounds and smells of the Temple.

And Jesus doesn’t like any of it.   Jesus doesn’t experience the silence or solemnity or “gravity” of what a sacred space should be.  Instead Temple is a noisy, bustling hubbub.   There’s a lot happening there—and a lot of money is changing hands.

Because, you see, no one was supposed to come to the Temple empty-handed.  You were supposed to sacrifice something on an altar…whether you could afford a top-of-the-line bull or just a small dove that symbolized your gratitude to God.

No one was to come to the Temple empty-handed. 

And yet, with swarms of pilgrims converging on Jerusalem from all over Israel, they couldn’t all drag along their own oxen or sheep or crates of turtle-doves from home.  So an enterprising business had sprung up in the Temple, allowing you to purchase your sacrificial animal on-location. 

Think of it as the original “convenience store!”

But you couldn’t buy your sacrificial animal with filthy Roman money.   You couldn’t purchase the raw materials for a holy sacrifice to your holy God with a coin bearing the image of the pagan tyrant Caesar.

So before you bought your sacrificial animal, you had to “buy” some holy money, exchanging profane Roman coins for the image-less shekels that had “currency” only in the Temple.

And all of this was GOOD, mind you!   The purpose of this whole rigmarole was sound.

It may strike us as peculiar or arcane, but the intent of all this buying and selling was wholesome—because it was about connecting you with God.

All of this buying and selling in the Temple expressed good intentions….but Jesus was still not happy with any of it.   So Jesus staged his own one-man “Occupy” movement in Jerusalem’s Temple. He disrupted the sacred commerce in the holy place—evicted the sellers, turned all the cattle and sheep and doves loose.  What a holy mess!

Why did Jesus do this?   Here’s his explanation:  “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!”

In the original language of the New Testament, Jesus says:  “stop making my Father’s house an emporium.”

That is to say: “Stop making this point of access to my Father a ‘product’ that can simply be bought and sold.”  Stop giving the impression that connecting with God involves some kind of “deal.”

This story is not about the perils of conducting bake sales in the narthex or selling tickets to the lutefisk dinner after worship—though it has been used that way in the past by our Lutheran forebears.

No, there is something different, something far deeper here.  It is about how we connect with God, regularly, wholeheartedly, “savingly.”  It is about how God seeks us out, draws us to himself, opens up the channels of communication with us, so that God can do ‘vital business’ with us and send us back out into God’s world.

God intends for that access to be free and fundamentally open to all and not subject to anything that even looks like a transaction or control on our part.

Let me say that again:  God intends that our access to him be free and open to all and not even look like a transaction of any sort.

THAT’S at least part of what was bugging Jesus enough for him to “make a scene” here in Jerusalem’s Temple.   “Stop reducing this house of prayer for all people to an emporium catering to the few who can pay the price of admission.”

That gets us closer to what Jesus was up to here.   

But there’s even more.

And to understand that we need to ponder the other thing Jesus says in our story:  “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

Asked for a sign, a reason to take him seriously and not just condemn him for the mayhem he had caused, Jesus cryptically responds:  “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

At first Jesus’ words simply sail right past his questioners.  They hear “temple” and can’t think beyond the brick-and-mortar edifice that took nearly five decades to construct.

If it all came crashing down--all the walls and pillars and furnishings and roof—if an earthquake reduced it all to rubble, Jesus could construct a new Temple in just 72 hours.  

Yeah, right!

But as usual, the literalists in the crowd were missing the whole point of Jesus’ words.  Jesus reference to “three days” was a dead give-away.   Jesus wasn’t speaking of a chunk of real estate here.

Jesus was speaking of himself, the Word made flesh (John 1:14)--God’s own truth-filled, grace-overflowing presence “tenting” (again, 1:14) among us.

Jesus upended business-as-usual in the Temple because he was making this old bricks-and-mortar Temple obsolete.  Jesus, from here on out, would himself be the one, the only point-of-access between God and us.

In Jesus, the Temple would no longer be a block of real estate in Jerusalem.  

In Jesus, the Temple, the location where God meets us, would forever be “out-and-about,” in the world.   Rather than being a destination for us to get to, this “Temple” was coming toward us, making a pilgrimage in our direction, hunting us down, seeking us out, making God freely and fully available to us, with no transactions, no buying-or-selling necessary for God to do vital business with us.

Here’s where the cleansing-of-the-Temple leaves us in John, chapter two.  

All the merchants, all the critters, all the sacrificial animals are cleared out. 

There is just one Sacrificial Being left in the Temple:  Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29).   Jesus is God’s “last man standing,” because Jesus is bringing in a New Regime, a fresh way of connecting with us—in which “business” (as we usually understand that word) no longer plays a role.

There are no more quid-pro-quos, no more “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch your back” deals, no more transactions.

Because in Jesus, God is now fully and forever, fundamentally available to us and to all people, for us and for our salvation. 

And where exactly is this Temple whose name is Jesus?

Well, for one thing, Jesus is always out ahead of us, beckoning us forward into God’s future.  I saw a great bumper-sticker on Facebook this past week.  It said simply:  “Don’t look back—you’re not going that way!”

Jesus is out ahead of us, meaning that wherever life is taking you, you can expect to find Jesus there.   But you gotta know where to look, because Jesus the new Temple is always surprising us, popping up where we’d least expect him:  in our points of deepest need…when we’re overwhelmed by all the “no”s of life, Jesus the new Temple meets us with a washing, and a feeding, and a forgiving, liberating Word.

Jesus also shows up in one another.   Jesus might run into you in the form of someone who needs you, someone who’s destitute or grieving or in despair.   Jesus the new Temple shows up always in flesh, not brick-and-mortar.

But most vitally, Jesus the new Temple is always with us to set us free.  

If your hope is rekindled, if you no longer feel stuck in sin, if you imagine that God has use for you, if it dawns on you that God isn’t going to let a little thing like death get you down—well then, Jesus the New Temple has caught up to you once again, not to make a deal with you, but simply to set you free, for once and for all.

In the name of Jesus.   Amen.

Testing Our Mettle

Zion Lutheran Church, Twin Valley, MN
February 26, 2012
Lent 1/Mark 1:9-15
Installation of Pr. Anne Pairan

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

Mark the gospel writer likes to keep things moving right along—he writes in a lean style that is always short and to the point.

So while Matthew’s and Luke’s gospels give us similar, but longer and more elaborate versions of the story of Jesus’ temptation, Mark wraps it up in just 34 words—the length of a Facebook update.

But even so, Mark conveys to us, in dramatic, strong language the core of this story sandwiched between Jesus’ baptism and his first sermon….and for our purposes we can further reduce it to three words I want to explore with you:   wilderness, temptation, and angels.

The Spirit, in the form of a dove, descends on Jesus when he is baptized in the Jordan River…conveying God’s blessing and power….but suddenly the scene shifts.  

The Spirit, who at first is a sign of peace and favor, suddenly becomes Jesus’ taskmaster.  “And the Spirit immediately drove [Jesus] out into the wilderness…” (v. 12)

When you and I hear the word “wilderness,” we probably think of the northwoods of our great state, perhaps the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.   We hear “wilderness” and we probably smile and dream of a time and place away from the hustle and bustle of work and commitments.   “Wilderness” is a place to retreat and renew and rebuild our scattered lives.

But this is not the wilderness that the Spirit drove Jesus into.   In the Bible, the wilderness is most likely a dry, god-forsaken desert area.   It is a place of danger, where you could easily lose your life to the scorching heat, thirst or wild beasts.

Most importantly, the wilderness is about extreme loneliness.  In the Hebrew language, the word for “wilderness” means, roughly, “word-less.”   Wilderness is devoid of human contact, it’s where you are utterly alone with your dark fears and morbid doubts.   Wilderness is to be avoided at all costs.

The Spirit of God drives the newly-baptized Jesus into the wilderness….which is to say:  the Spirit takes Jesus to that place where we all spend some time during our lives—a place of questioning and deep anxiety and utter extremity—a place where no one, not even God, seems to be present.

And what happens to Jesus in the wilderness?   He does not just go there for a quick overnight in a sleeping bag and a cozy tent; Jesus stays there 40 days, which is a biblical way of saying “a good long time.”    Jesus is in the wilderness 40 days, and he is not in a protective cocoon—Jesus is “with the wild beasts.”

But what chiefly happens to Jesus during his 40 days in the wilderness, with the wild beasts, is that he is tempted by Satan.

We tend to misunderstand this idea of temptation, mainly because we have trivialized it.   We’ve frittered away the idea of being tempted because we assume it has something to do with falling off our diet, or tipping the bottle too much, or cheating on a spouse, or getting your hand caught in the cookie jar.   Temptation is a great National Enquirer headline word—it is, too often, the stuff of juicy gossip.

But in the biblical worldview, and in the language of Christian faith and life, temptation is always about something broader, deeper and more dangerous.   Martin Luther in his Small Catechism explanation to the Sixth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer—“Lead us not into temptation”—has this to say:  “God tempts no one to sin, but we ask in this prayer that God would watch over us and keep us so that the devil, the world, and our sinful self may not deceive us and draw us into false belief, despair, and other great and shameful sins.  And we pray that even though we are so tempted we may still win the final victory.”   

What does it mean to be tempted?   Temptation is about something far, far worse than falling off your diet or reneging on your no-smoking pledge.   Temptation is about doubting your God-given, God-claimed identity.  Temptation for Jesus in the parched wilderness was about being distracted from his mission, side-tracked on his path to the Cross, for us and for our salvation.

So what we need to picture here is a battle royal out in the wilderness.   Satan, whose name means “adversary,” assaults Jesus repeatedly over the course of a forty day period.   Mark doesn’t give us a blow-by-blow account, but maybe that’s OK.  Mark’s narrative leaves a lot to our imaginations, and perhaps that helps us identify with Jesus all the more.

Because we, too, have our own “good long times” in the wilderness of doubt and despair.   You and I also are pressed to the max, pinned to the wall, by all the “wouldas, couldas, shouldas”—all the ways we doubt ourselves and despair of trusting that God is with us.

This is where the Spirit drives our Lord Jesus….into the wilderness, with the wild beasts, to be attacked and assailed by his adversary for days that stretched into weeks that extended beyond a month:  Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness—which we ponder at the start of our 40 days of Lent.

What was God up to here?   Why did the Spirit “drive” Jesus into the wilderness?     What good, if any, did this episode do in the longer narrative of Mark’s gospel?

Richard Swanson, a seminary classmate of mine who teaches the Bible at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, encourages us to think of temptation as testing.[1]  

Swanson asks:  What if “the satan,” the adversary here is someone who actually serves God’s purposes?

There is a biblical precedent for this possibility, in the Old Testament Book of Job.  In the first chapter of Job, Satan is pictured among the heavenly beings in God’s royal court.   God allows Satan to test the genuineness of Job’s faith by permitting misfortunes to fall upon Job.

Professor Swanson wonders whether the satan is sort of like a building inspector, whose job it is to make sure that a building has been constructed “straight and true.”   The tempter who is really a tester, takes the full measure of Jesus’ faith and trust, for the sake of all the challenges that lay ahead of him, culminating in the greatest challenge of them all:  the Cross.

So what is the outcome of Jesus’ forty days of testing in the wilderness?   Mark doesn’t come out and tell us, exactly, but there are two things we do know.   First, Jesus was “waited on” by angels.   God’s heavenly messengers are dispatched, like waiters in a restaurant, to see to Jesus’ needs in the wilderness.    This place of utter desolation and loneliness isn’t finally bereft of God’s presence, God’s care, God’s keeping.   Jesus may be the only human being in sight—but angels are present, serving him.

Second, we know that Jesus didn’t succumb in his 40 days in the wilderness.   Jesus doesn’t die in the desert.   He comes through this wretched time of testing, and he takes up his calling to announce God’s Reign over all things:  “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

These are the words of Someone who knows whereof he speaks.   Jesus has seen God’s word, God’s will and God’s ways attacked—but God has not been defeated.   Satan, the adversary, is no match for the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This whole story, brief as it is, has a biblical rhythm to it.   Jesus is reliving the story of ancient Israel, God’s chosen people who escaped through their “baptism” in the Red Sea, were tested for 40 years in the Wilderness of Sinai, and emerged eventually to enter the Promised Land and live out their days as a sign of God’s glorious and gentle rule over all things.

This whole story, brief as it is, has stamped itself on our lives, as well.    There is a divine template here that reminds us of the rhythm that marks our lives as well.

Our Baptism into Christ doesn’t place us under a protective bubble.   Rather, our Baptism leads us into wilderness times and desert places where we feel dry and bereft, often for a “good long time”—abandoned by our neighbors, seemingly forsaken even by God.  

But God is never absent from such times of temptation.   God uses the adversity that comes to us to “test our mettle” and refine our faith, more precious than gold.

Pastor Anne, you are called to do what angels do best:  to be a messenger of God’s faithful, saving presence to these people, when their faith is under fire, their trust in God tested.  

When they are in the wilderness, serve these folks the same life-giving Word of God that sustained our Lord Jesus in the desert.   Proclaim to them the nearness of God’s Kingdom, God’s gentle and glorious rule over all things, in Christ Jesus.  Amen.

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[1] Richard W. Swanson, Provoking the Gospel of Mark (Pilgrim, 2005) pp. 133-136.