A Review of the Book "Melissa" by Alex Gino

Title: Melissa (previously published as George)

Author: Alex Gino

Publisher: Scholastic

Year: 2015

195 pages

From the Back: When people look at George, they think they see a boy. But she knows she's not a boy. She knows she's girl. George thinks she'll have to keep this a secret forever. Then her teacher announce that their class play is going to the Charlotte's Web. George really, really want to play Charlotte. But the teacher says she can't even try out for the part...because she's a boy. With the help of her best friend, Kelly, George comes up with a plan. Not just so she can be Charlotte - but so everyone can know who she is, once and for all.

Personal Thoughts: Before I give my thoughts about the book, I want to give kudos to Alex Gino and Scholastic for republishing this book under its proper name. Because the story isn't about George. It's about Melissa.

    At first, it seems like the story is about a tomboy trying to find her place in the world. But it doesn't take long to realize this story is about a transgender girl trying to figure out what's going on in her life, trying to figure out how to tell the people she loves, and trying to figure out how to live as her authentic self.

    Gino weaves an excellent tale about what it's like to be a young student learning about their gender identity and the struggles that they have in their life at school and at home. For anyone who is transgender, whether school age or adult, it is easy to relate to the struggles that are found in this story. Melissa knows who she is but the world is telling her she is something else. And when she tries to be herself, she runs into bullies, into teachers who don't listen, and parents who don't listen.

    Thanks heavens for Kelly, Melissa's best friend. We all need a Kelly in our lives, but especially kids in the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, and even more especially transgender kids. Kelly is the best ally a kid like Melissa could ask for.

    Being that this is a young adult book, it was a very easy read but it was super well done and I think everyone could use an easy read that gives insight to what it means to be a school-aged transgender person. Whether you are an ally wanting to get more of an understanding, or someone who is questioning their gender and wants someone to relate with, go and pick up Melissa at your local library or book store. You won't regret it.

When is an Ending Not the End?: A Sermon for Resurrection Sunday

May only truth be spoken and truth heard. Amen.

According to Jewish law, the body of the deceased is to be washed thoroughly, wrapped in a simple white shroud, and buried. All this is to happen within 24 hours of death.

 

Also under Jewish law, no work can be done on the Sabbath.

 

So when Jesus died as the Sabbath began, the disciples weren’t allowed to tend to his body. Jesus was placed in his tomb but the ritual of cleansing the body did not happen.

 

At the beginning of chapter 16 of Mark, the women who were part of the Jesus’ entourage – Mary Magdalene, James’ mother Mary, and Mary’s half-sister Salome – headed to Jesus’ tomb to complete the Jewish burial ritual.

 

They go anticipating what will be, and what they will need to do. They talk about the plans they have for how things will unfold: Who will roll away the stone? And likely the other details too. Who will anoint Jesus’ body? Do we need someone to keep watch? (another part of the Jewish burial ritual)

 

We can imagine the conversation unfolding as they make their way to the tomb. Conversations many of us have had as we make our own preparations and funeral arrangements for a loved one. We know what it is to be overwhelmed by our grief and to be focused, almost singlehandedly on the tasks at hand.

 

When they got to the tomb, the stone was moved and there sat a young man dressed in a white robe.

 

This man told the women that Jesus wasn’t there, that he has been raised and isn’t there. He then told them to run and tell the disciples that Jesus will meet them all in Galilee, just as he promised.

 

Mark tells us that the women ran away and told no one about what they saw.

 

And then the Gospel just ends.

 

Mark’s version of the resurrection is anticlimactic to say the least. Like much of the rest of his gospel, it is brief and leaves us… wanting.

 

It is believed that monks, as they were transcribing this Gospel, didn’t like the sudden ending and wrote in the “shorter ending of Mark” and the “longer ending of Mark” that adds in details about Jesus’ appearance to the disciples post-resurrection.

 

Let’s imagine for a moment though that Mark knew exactly what he was doing. That he crafted an incomplete ending by design. That he left the story hanging on this moment of failure and disappointment for a reason.

 

Why would he do that?

 

Maybe because he knew that no story about death and resurrection could possibly have a neat and tidy ending.

 

Maybe because he believed that this story isn’t over yet, and he writes an open ending to his gospel in order to invite us to jump in and take up our part in continuing it.

 

Are you ready to take up where Jesus left off?

 

Will you run in fear or will you proclaim the good news in word and action?

 

Author Madeleine L'Engle wrote, “The disciples did not bother to try to understand the resurrection body. They doubted, and then they believed. They believed something so wonderful that it changed this broken, fragmented, beaten-down little group of men and women in a moment from depression to enthusiasm, from despair to new life, vibrant and unafraid."

 

But when you don’t get to hear the resurrection part of the story, as with how Mark ends his Gospel, we are left alarmed and afraid.

 

The women are alarmed, anxious, and afraid. Their friend, their teacher, the Son of God has been killed by the very empire he came to redeem, and now his body is not where they had laid it.

 

What do we do when God is not in the place we expect and have been told and taught to believe God will be?

 

What do we do when God isn’t there and we are unsure where God has gone… where God’s been taken to, how or when or if God will be returned to us?

 

How do you respond to an empty tomb?

 

It is human nature to want clean endings, to want closure. But it was no accident that Mark left his Gospel unfinished.

 

That’s because the story is just beginning.

 

It’s only the beginning; this story isn’t over.

 

It’s only the beginning, and we have a part to play.

 

If you wonder why there is still so much distress and pain in the world, it’s because God’s not done yet.

 

It’s only the beginning, and Mark is inviting us to get out of our seats and into the game, sharing the good news of Jesus’ complete identification with those who are suffering, and his triumph over injustice and death with everyone we meet.

 

If you do not like the end of Mark’s gospel, then write a better one…with your life!

 

You are the end of the Gospel!

 

You want to experience the resurrected Christ? Live as he lived, love as he loved, forgive as he forgave, and believe as he believed and you will experience Jesus.

 

Repent and believe. Turn from your ideas, your expectations, your ideas, wants, desires, and ways - die to your old self - and believe in this good news of new and abundant life.

 

Walking into the newness of resurrected life means and requires us to leave part of ourselves behind. Our old selves. Old ways. And sometimes this happens without our being ready or even wanting to.

 

Sometimes it means leaving things we are not ready to leave behind.

 

Today is not the end of the story. Today is the beginning. The beginning which is not yet known and still unwritten. We don’t know where God… where Jesus is leading us.

 

But we know, and God has promised to prepare a place for us and us for the place where we are going.

 

That is the good news on this Easter morning. Just as Jesus has told us before, Jesus tells us now.

 

Resurrection, new life, often doesn’t look the way we expect, anticipate, or plan. In fact, it very likely will alarm us.

 

Do not be afraid. Follow where Jesus is leading… where Jesus is going… where Jesus is waiting for us to see him and to continue living into the new life we have been given.

 

Mark wants us to know that Jesus’ death is only the beginning. The rest of the story is unfolding before our very eyes and through our lives.

 

We don’t get closure to this story, because it is still ongoing.

 

Mark’s Gospel is “The beginning of the good news” (1:1). Our story is its continuation.

 

Amen.

Resources:

pulpitfiction.com

Always Carry a Towel: A Sermon for Maundy Thursday

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord. Amen.

 

Today we enter the three sacred days. This is the ancient Triduum – Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. After the emotional roller coaster of Lent, we take an extreme journey over three days that will undoubtably leave us broken.

 

Jesus knows that things have come to a head. He knows that his final hours are upon him. He knows that tonight he is having his final meal with his friends. And while they might not completely understand, the twelve around the table could feel the solemnity of these final, dark hours.

 

Jesus knew his time among humans was coming to an end and he wanted to leave his disciples with something special, something to show how much he loved them. This brings us back to the prophet Elijah who, as he was to depart the world in a final blaze of glory, offered Elisha “a double share of his spirit”. As the chariot of fire drives off, he leaves behind a mantle, the mantle he just used to part the waters of the Jordan.

 

Perhaps the people around the table on this night were hoping that Jesus would leave them something like that, a memento of sorts filled with Jesus’ power to heal and to perform miracles. Some token of greatness that they can take with them after Jesus leaves them (which of course they continue to deny will happen.)

 

And what does Jesus leave them? A mandate and a towel.

 

Maundy comes from the Latin mandatum, which means mandate. And the mandate that Jesus leaves his disciples with, and us with, is to love one another. Not just in simple (or grand) actions, but in authentic feeling, deep engagement, and generous action. Love is the litmus test of Christian witness. Our love for each other is how the world will know who we are and whose we are. Our love for each other is how the world will see, taste, touch, hear, and find Jesus. It’s through our love that we will embody Jesus, make Jesus relatable, possible, plausible, to a dying world.

 

Sounds hard, right? But here’s our saving grace: Jesus doesn’t leave us alone and bereft. He gives us a road map, in the second half of his commandment: “As I have loved you.” Follow my example, he says. Do what I do. Love as I love. Live as you have seen me live. Weep with those who weep. Laugh with those who laugh. Touch the untouchables. Feed the hungry. Welcome the child. Release the captive. Forgive the sinner. Confront the oppressor. Comfort the oppressed.

 

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” This is Jesus’ mandate. It sounds hard but don’t worry because Jesus is going to equip us with the only thing we will need – a towel.

 

A towel: something used to dry dishes, wipe tables, mop up sweat, and dry away tears. While the mantel of Elijah’s power parts water, Jesus’ mantel is a tool of mundane work, a tool of humility, hospitality, and hope.

 

In Jesus’ time, foot washing wasn’t an unusual activity. People walked around in sandals or barefoot and so their feet got dirty and dusty. When they would go into a home, whether theirs or as a guest somewhere, they would be given a bowl to wash their feet off so as not to drag all that dust everywhere through the house.

 

By proceeding on all fours around the table, washing his disciples’ dust-encrusted feet, Jesus is offering one of the oldest forms of hospitality. In this humbling act, Jesus is at the same time showing his love for his friends, showing his friends how to love others, and allowing his friends to experience what it is like to be served.

 

To be on the receiving end of service can make you feel quite vulnerable. It forces you to let go of control, to let someone else do something for you that you know you could easily do yourself. Or maybe if you can’t do it yourself, the vulnerability lies in admitting that fact and accepting help.

 

By experiencing this vulnerability, Jesus’ disciples will better understand how to care for others without coming across as condescending. By being on the receiving end of service, we learn how to take care of the small and mundane details instead of seeking out glory in a spectacular show of allowing ourselves to be cared for.

 

Which leads us into a lesson of humility. Many of us resist the vulnerability of being cared for, preferring to remain in control of everything that happens to us. We prefer to choose what gifts we accept rather than admitting our dependency.

 

How hard is it for us to receive a gift? It brings out a vulnerability in us that really we’d just rather avoid. We would prefer to be like Peter, saying that we would never ask a friend to do such a menial thing as wash our feet. But if we can’t even accept the small gift of clean feet, how on earth are we going to accept the greatest gift of all – the cleansing of sin through death on a cross?

 

In all of this talk about vulnerability in giving and receiving hospitality, there is hope and a lesson to be learned in reconciliation. Jesus doesn’t just wash the feet of his friends. He also washes the feet of his betrayer. Loving those with whom we agree is the easy part. Loving the rest of the folks we come in contact with is a much harder proposition.

 

Jesus could not be clearer: People will know we are disciples of Christ quite simply by our loving acts — acts of service and sacrifice, acts that point to the love of God for the world made known in Jesus Christ.

 

And it will all be done with a towel.

Amen.

Resources:

"Feasting on the Word" edited by David Bartlett & Barbara Brown Taylor

journeywithjesus.net

workingpreahcer.org

"A Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams

A Review of the Book "A Gospel of Shame" by Frank Bruni & Elinor Burkett

Title: A Gospel of Shame

Author: Frank Bruni & Elinor Burkett

Publisher: Harper Collins Publishers

Year: 1993

265 pages

From the Back: The relentless crescendo of revelations of sexual abuse in its Catholic churches has rocked the nations. Just how wide-spread is child sexual abuse by the Catholic clergy? And why hasn't the Catholic Church done more to stop it? Journalists Frank Bruni and Elinor Burkett provide the answers to these questions and more. The answers, however, turn out to be infuriating and heartbreaking, difficult to accept but impossible to dismiss. The authors thoroughly document dozens of cases across the country and reveal how this heinous abuse of trust has been tacitly sanctioned by the Church's silence. Containing unforgettable accounts of individual and institutional cover-ups, A Gospel of Shame will serve those who need and want an analysis of the scandal that is currently rocking the Catholic Church.

Personal Thoughts: The Catholic Church has a horrendous reputation. Very often, when people talk about Catholic priests, the conversation also includes the topic of child molestation and sexual abuse. I have heard these things for most of my life and became hyper aware of it the closer I got to becoming a priest myself. I wanted to know more about it and how things got this bad. I found A Gospel of Shame at a book fair and snatched it up.

    The book contains stories from survivors and their families, their lawyers, and anyone else brave enough to share their story. I will admit, it took me a very long time to read this book because of how personal the accounts were and how much detail was contained in these few pages. It became increasingly difficult to read about how the church, from top to bottom, covered up these events, and that the most common solution was to simply move the priests to different parishes while sweeping the sexual abuse under the rug.

    Bruni and Burkett did an amazing job of bringing forth these events with all the sensitivity they deserve while still being forthright with the unacceptable answers from the Catholic Church about the criminal events taking place within its walls. As difficult as the topic is to explore, I think it's important for the world to understand what happened and how the church worked so tirelessly to cover it up. Without that knowledge, there would be no way to fight for change.

The Joy of Vocation: A Sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Lent

This sermon is heavily borrowed from the Barn Geese "Seeds of Joy" resource.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord. Amen.

 

Have you always known what you were meant to do in life? Your goals? Your aspirations? Were they constant throughout life, or ever-changing? Did everything go as planned or do you look back over your life and wonder how you ended up where you are today?

 

This is certainly not where I thought I’d end up, that’s for sure! When I was a kid, I wanted to be things like a police officer or a librarian. As I got older and headed into university, I thought for sure I’d be a high school chemistry teacher. After flunking out of university, I felt lost and settled on banking and accounting because I seemed to have a talent with numbers and loved the organized details of the business world.

 

But nothing ever felt quite right. Do you know what I mean? I never felt like I fit in, like I was where I was supposed to be. I couldn’t find the joy in my vocation. As they say, I was just in it for the money.

 

A vocation in more than just paid work. It is who you are called to be and what you are called to do across all the parts of your life – not only in professional work, but also in your family and friendships, community engagements, relationship with the earth, search for meaning, and pursuit of justice. It essentially amounts to a sense of calling. Vocation is work that is meaningful to the person who engages in it. In ministry, whether clergy or lay, vocation is often preceded by a spiritual calling from God to engage in a particular type of activity or function or even turn that vocation into a profession. Vocation should be something in which we feel joy, that makes us feel alive to the reality that we do not merely exist, but we are “called forth” to a divine purpose.

 

This vocational summons is often against the will of the one who is called into service. Abraham at first doubted that God’s covenant with him could be fulfilled. Moses complained that the Israelites, to whom God sent him, had never listened to him and therefore neither would Pharaoh, “poor speaker that I am”. Jeremiah, the Hebrew prophet, not only resisted the call, but continued to complain that God had overpowered him and placed him in an impossibly difficult circumstance, even protesting that God’s call had made him “like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter” (Jeremiah 11:19). Jonah attempted to flee from the Lord to Tarshish, rather than going to Nineveh where he had been called. Even Jesus prays to be delivered from his appointed calling.

 

Have you ever felt called to a vocation that seemed strange or out of place? Where you doubted that you were understanding the call correctly?

 

Everyone engages in vocational discernment at some point in their life, wondering where God is calling them to be or to do, whether this career is right for them, or what their role is in the community. Questions like “is this all that there is?” or “Where is the joy in this work?”

 

Presbyterian theologian Frederick Buechner wrote, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” This quote invites us to do something that we often don’t: to bring the question of our deep gladness to the question of what we’re going to do with our lives.

 

There are all sorts of reasons why we might disconnect our sense of joy from our sense of God’s call. For one thing, prioritizing joy in one’s work or service can feel privileged, even selfish. It can seem superfluous, especially when juxtaposed with the world’s deep hunger. Why should my joy matter if I’m in a position to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, free the captive? Shouldn’t their need trump my joy?

 

There are certainly situations in which another person’s urgent need can supersede the need for personal gladness. But the reality of burnout tells us that this isn’t good for us. Over the long term, prioritizing others’ needs at the cost of our own leaves us exhausted and disillusioned by the bottomless hunger of broken systems and people.

 

We need deep gladness to sustain us. Perhaps this reveals a deeper reason why we don’t prioritize joy in our work: we’re afraid of what will happen to us when we allow our joy to guide us into the hungriest parts of the world. Joy might take us to the places where the world is gasping in pain. It might bring us to the places where systems of trauma and abuse have already taken a terrible toll and stand poised to take even more. These places are just like the one where Jesus is standing in today’s gospel. What will happen to our joy there? Will it be swallowed whole? That breathless question leads us into today’s text from John 12.

 

This scene occurs just after Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The whole city is talking about Jesus. In the verses leading up to this morning’s gospel reading, the crowd that witnessed Lazarus’ raising was testifying, and their story was compelling. Now, these Greeks want to see Jesus! Everyone wants to see Jesus! It’s all very glorious and shiny. But Jesus can perceive the cross in the near distance. He recognizes that he has arrived precisely where God has called him to be. Here, he will be led into pain, suffering, and even death. The world’s deep hunger is about to gulp him down. Where do we perceive joy in this scene?

 

Over the last few weeks, we have been talking a lot about joy and have touched on the truth that suffering and joy are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they might even been connected, “Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice,” we hear in this week’s psalm (51:8). As Jesus grapples with the impending reality of the cross, he holds fast to God’s call, to his purpose. The profound joy of that purpose is written into every line of the gospel that has led up to this moment.

 

You’ve heard me say before that joy thrums throughout Jesus’ life, overflowing into actions every time he heals, casts out a demon, prays to God, speaks with his disciples, and teaches in the synagogues. These are not things he is required to do out of sheer obedience to God’s will. These are the things he is privileged to do because he is God’s incarnate, enfleshed Child. He can walk and speak and touch as God never has before or since, and he can love up close. That is what he spends his whole life doing: loving. Here is the nexus of Jesus’ deep gladness and our deep hunger: God loving us up close. Jesus is so deeply in contact with this divine love that the very voice of God, which speaks in this gospel scene, is no longer something he needs to hear, because his life resonates with those frequencies all the time. God’s call is written on his heart (Jeremiah 31:33).

 

Following God’s call to the place where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep hunger doesn’t guarantee that you will be happy, popular, or even respected. It does offer a lifelong opportunity to follow Jesus in this particular way: to pay attention to the intersections where the work and play that make us most joyful meet the places where the world needs us most.

 

Imagine that the thing God wants you to do is to live with joy, to be guided by it (John 15:11). Imagine that such joy is not selfish but is actually the thing that leads you deeper into the will of God. Imagine that following such joy might lead you deeper into selflessness. How might your life change if you internalized God’s desire for your joyfulness as well as for your service? How might it transform the way that you think about your vocational call?

 

Perhaps a savoring of joy can lead us to the place where we no longer need to hear the voice of God thundering assurances of the rightness of our path from heaven. Perhaps we, too, will perceive the harmonies of God’s call resonating within us—I am your God, and you are my people—the notation etched onto our very hearts.

 

Amen.

Resources:

Barn Geese Worship

A Review of the Book "Hench" by Natalie Zina Walschots

Title: Hench

Author: Natalie Zina Walschots

Publisher: Harper Collins Publishers

Year: 2020

399 pages

From the Back: Anna does boring things for terrible people, because even criminals need office help and she needs a job. Working for a monster lurking beneath the surface of the world isn't glamorous. But is it really words than working for an oil conglomerate or an insurance company? In this economy? As a temp, she's just a cog in the machine. But when she finally gets a promising assignment, everything foes very wrong, and an encounter with the so-called hero leaves her badly injured. And, to her horror, compared to the other bodies strewn about, she's the lucky one. So, of course, then she gets laid off. With no money and no mobility, with only her anger and Internet research acumen, she discovers her suffering at the hands of a hero is far from unique. When people start listening to the story that her date tells, she realizes she might not be as powerless as she thinks. Because the key to everything is data: knowing how to collate it, how to manipulate it, and how to weaponize it. By tallying up the human cost these caped forces of nature wreak upon the world, she discovers that the line between good and evil is mostly marketing. And with social media and viral videos, she can control that appearance. It's not too long before she's employed once more, this time by one of the worst villains on earth. As she becomes an increasingly valuable lieutenant, she might just save the world.

Personal Thoughts: So many books are centered on the heroes. Everyone wants to hear about the good guys winning over the bad guys and all that. But what about the villains? Actually, what about all the hench people who are actually the ones doing all the dirty work and getting none of the glory? Don't they deserve a moment in the spotlight?

    Hench is a whimsical story about the behind the scenes action in the lives of criminals told from the point of view of hench people. The main character, Anna, is an office administrator, processing all the paperwork that goes with doing villainous acts. What she discovers is that despite what the media shows to the public, about how scary and dangerous villains are, it is in fact the heroes that are more destructive and cause more casualties.

    This isn't a book I would have likely picked up off the shelf but that is the great thing about receiving ARCS. However, it turned out to be a fun story to read with quite enjoyable characters and just enough mystery to keep the plot moving forward quite nicely.

The Joy of Transformation: A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Lent

Photo by Suzanne D. Williams on Unsplash

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord. Amen.

 

Today’s gospel reading seems to come out of nowhere. Last week we were in Jerusalem where Jesus was tossing tables, and now we’re talking about a snake on a stick. How the heck did we get here?

 

The passage today is the end of a conversation Jesus had with the Pharisee Nicodemus, a conversation that we heard last year during the 2^nd week of Lent. As a Pharisee, Nicodemus is an educated man, a “pillar of the community.” The Jewish leaders are pretty ticked off at Jesus, so, as Jewish leader himself, Nicodemus wants to have a conversation with him. And he comes to see Jesus in the darkness of night.

 

We might be tempted to think the worst of Nicodemus. Perhaps he doesn’t want to be seen with Jesus, and so is trying to slip in to see him under the cover of darkness. However, some commentators note that coming at night could be a way that Nicodemus honors Jesus. Coming on his own time, after a full day’s work, demonstrates that Nicodemus is motivated by a genuine desire to learn from him. Almost like a student booking time with a professor not to argue, but to confirm understanding in a subject matter.

 

Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night, not knowing really what it is he is looking for. He has heard stories, no doubt, about this strange person. He has seen something happening in Jesus that he can't quite explain. He has seen and heard of healing and love and celebration.

 

During their exchange, Nicodemus acknowledges that Jesus must be from God because he’s heard about the signs that Jesus has been doing, and only someone from God could possibly perform such miracles. In other words, he’s seeking clarity, as if to say, “It seems to me that we know that you come from God because, otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to do the things that you do.”

 

Nicodemus seems pretty sincere about wanting to understand more about who Jesus is, what he is doing, and why he is doing it. Nicodemus, a man deeply imbedded in Jewish religious leadership, is starting to question, is starting to be curious about faith, is starting to be curious about something new that is beyond his imagination. Nicodemus has heard of Jesus and seen all that Jesus is doing – healing, feeding, and celebrating with people – and in confusion asks him, "Who are you and where are you from?"

 

Jesus responds with the most famous verse in the New Testament, the “Gospel in nutshell”, as Luther once coined, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” God so loves the world that God comes close to us in Jesus. God moves into our neighbourhoods and searches us out. And when God finds us, we are invited by Jesus, like Nicodemus, into a journey of loving, of being compassionate, of having and sharing a true, living heart. When God finds us, we are invited to be transformed.

 

Can you see yourself in Nicodemus? Have you had a transformative moment in your life? Perhaps a moment that changed the course of your life forever?

 

John 3:16 shows up in countless public places. We can find it on posters, in music, and etched on jewelry. It is commonly seen at sporting events and some people even have “John 3:16” tattooed on their body. This verse has become a symbol of the key message of Christian faith. When I was in school, we were discussing this verse in class and my professor said that he believes the Christian statement of faith is contained within that verse but in an abbreviated format. “For God so loved the world.” Period. Full stop. This was a transformative moment for me. God loves all people, creatures, and living things on earth and is accepting to anyone who searches for God. God sent Jesus to show us the way to this all-inclusive love. God sent Jesus to transform the world.

 

Nicodemus experiences in his encounter with Jesus love, acceptance, and inclusion. He is invited on the journey, loved without conditions, invited to give up what he has and what he knows in order to become a person who also loves without conditions.

 

We are invited on that same journey. God sent Jesus to transform our hearts and our minds and our souls, so that we know we are always loved, and accepted, and included and that we should do the same for others. But this is not an easy journey, nor is it a straightforward one. Nicodemus, an intelligent and established religious man, skulked in the darkness to find answers only to walk back into the darkness even more confused than when he arrived.

 

To believe in God, to trust in the words that Jesus is saying, even if we don’t completely understand them, means confronting the inconvenient truth that God’s purposes for those God loves might push us beyond our boundaries, beyond our comfort zones. Nicodemus may have been confused when he went back out into the darkness that night, but he was transformed by the words he heard. He became a supporter of Jesus in spite knowing that he would be excised from religious leadership.

 

The trail of faith that Jesus blazed reveals that, while there is nothing in this world worth killing for, there are things worth dying for. Any parent knows that the love for one’s child is so great one might sacrifice oneself for a child. And for the sake of this world, God gives his most cherished beloved son as the ultimate sacrifice of love.

 

How else for us to respond but to love and cherish the world and every creature in it as beloved of God. If we can trust in the process, trust in the journey that following Jesus takes us on, we can trust that, just like Nicodemus, through the eternal love of God, we will be joyfully transformed.

 

Amen.

Resources:

episcopalchurch.org

pulpitfiction.com

workingpreacher.com

"New Collegeville Bible Commentary: New Testament" edited by Daniel Durken

Pastor Michael Kurtz

The Joy of Liberation: A Sermon for the Third Sunday of Lent

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord. Amen.

 

Jesus comes to Jerusalem after the wedding at Cana for the Passover festival. He goes to the Temple, which was considered the site of God's presence for devout Jewish people. The temple in Jerusalem is the quintessential sacred place. In ancient Israel, it was thought to be the place where the special presence of God dwelled on earth. Hence its name: “House of Yahweh.” As Solomon says, he built God a dwelling place, a home where God will live forever.

 

Even though the temple was the center of Israelite life, because of its very sacredness, the general Populus had access only to its outer courts. Even the clergy did not circulate freely within the building, and the inner sanctum, the holy of holies, was off limits to all but the chief priest, and to him only on one day a year. At festival times, pilgrims would flock to Jerusalem and to the precincts of the temple to come close to the dwelling place of God, to bring offerings and to receive blessings.

 

What Jesus sees there, on his arrival, rather than a holy place dedicated to the God of manna-sharing and justice-doing, is what he calls a "marketplace," a place where vendors are being allowed to take advantage of regular people's devout, sincere religiosity.

 

You couldn't use Roman coins in the Temple because they had a "graven image" of Caesar on them, who was considered a god by the Romans. So you had to exchange them for Temple coins that had no image. But that exchange cost you a fair sum. Then, with the Temple coins you could purchase animals for sacrifice in the Temple, with which you could make thank-offerings to God or offerings for forgiveness.

 

Jesus has no trouble with the sincerity of ordinary people wanting to make devout gratitude offerings or forgiveness offerings to God. What makes him crazy is the insane amount of profit being made on these transactions - and that all these profits are heavily taxed by the Romans, as everyone knew.

 

So, a great part of this money was flowing into the Roman occupation machine, oppressing his people, making them poor, making them hungry, making them sick. And Jesus loses it.

 

Jesus overturns the money changers’ tables in the temple and proclaims that if the temple itself were destroyed, he could rebuild it in three days. The text itself clues us in to the meaning behind Jesus’ words – the temple is Jesus’ body – but the religious leaders, as always, miss the dramatic irony. They scoff at Jesus, explaining that the temple has been under construction for forty-six years. How could anyone rebuild it in three days?

 

The temple was undeniably the locus of religious joy for the Israelite people. It was the place where they could worship their God under their own rules, in their own language, and, at least to some degree, free from the control of the imperial culture that occupied their land. It was also the entire center of their worship life, the location of the beating heart of their faith. There was only one temple, and no other place could approach its significance.

 

Still, leaders who cite a decades-long building project reveal a deep level of institutional inertia. The temple’s course has been set for generations. The plan is made, the mission set, and the people are following through. From one perspective, this looks like absolute faithfulness to the mission: carry out the commitments of the previous generations and do so according to the blueprints they have made. From another perspective, following the previous generations’ plans also means living with the concessions and accommodations they made. Efforts to undo mistakes or to rethink assumptions will come at an increasing cost.

 

While none of our modern church buildings remotely approach the singular importance of the ancient temple, we know what it means to find joy in the spaces we call our own. When congregations break ground on new building projects, they do so with great hope for how their new facilities will center their communities. Worshipers decorate church buildings with great care, often filling them with dedicatory vessels, memorial plaques, fine woodwork and metalwork, lovely ceramics, and beautiful banners. The impulse is faithful: we do these things to share our joy for what God has done among us. We return to these physical spaces to reconnect our current experience to the past joy we have found there.

 

These sacred spaces are places where we can feel especially close to God, places where we feel we can communicate with God, through worship, ritual, and other types of prayer. As places where heaven and earth meet, where God is made manifest, sacred spaces attract people who seek blessing, healing, and forgiveness.

 

But we also know how the burden of church buildings, construction projects, and worship spaces can, at times, entirely drain the joy from our communities. We know the extreme costs required to renovate old buildings for accessibility to people of all abilities. Perhaps we live with buildings that are too large, whether previous generations built too optimistically to attract a larger crowd or because the crowds that once filled those buildings are gone. How liberating might it be to not have to worry about the building?

 

Perhaps we grapple with too much old stuff at church – stuff that has lost its meaning to us but that we resist throwing away. It’s possible to recognize that all these buildings, things, and traditions used to give our worshiping communities life. We can simultaneously recognize how much they stifle current growth and budding creativity. To rediscover our joy again, we may need to be reminded that joy can live and grow in a place, and it can feel connected to a physical space, but joy is never defined by any one location.

 

I suspect that Jesus encounters something like this when he confronts the money changers in the temple. In this moment, Jesus shows us the glee of destroying the customary accommodations that have burdened us with history, stifled our worship, and masked our mission. How the people must thrill to see Jesus overturn greed in God’s house! How they must marvel to realize they are not required to meet such expectations to worship God. How many powerful people Jesus must cross when he demands a different road. They may have come to believe their joy is inseparable from the places where they’ve fostered it, but Jesus wants to unbind their joy from these limited expectations.

 

How thrillingly dangerous it is to smash what binds us! How quickly could we rebuild for the future, if we only followed the God who can reconstruct and resurrect the dead? How much joy could we rediscover in our spiritual lives if we remembered that we are a church that celebrates Jesus, not a church that celebrates brick and mortar?

 

Amen.

Resources:

Barn Geese Worship

Pastor Michael Kurtz, First Lutheran

episcopalchurch.org