When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.” This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying,
“Tell the daughter of Zion,
Look, your king is coming to you,
humble, and mounted on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,
“Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”
Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, “It is written,
‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’;
but you are making it a den of robbers.”
The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he cured them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did, and heard the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became angry and said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read,
‘Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies
you have prepared praise for yourself’?”
He left them, went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there. Matthew 21:1-17 (NRSV)
Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven! Amen.
In their book The Last Week, Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan write that there were two processions that entered Jerusalem on the spring day in the year 30. It was the beginning of the week of Passover. The most sacred week of the Jewish year. In the centuries since that time, Christians have celebrated this day as Palm Sunday, the first day of Holy Week. The first day of the last week of Jesus’ life. The most sacred week of the Christian year.
One of those two processions was a peasant procession. From the east - from the Mount of Olives - came Jesus. No longer walking, but riding. [If you read the text carefully in Matthew, it sounds as if Jesus was some kind of trick rider. I have a cousin who, before she was married and had children, was a trick rider. The ultimate trick, one which she was never able to accomplish, was to be able to ride two horses at the same time. Standing, with one foot on each.] In Matthew, we read that Jesus rode two donkeys. At the same time. Now, this likely didn’t happen in quite this way. But, as we’ve seen before, it is important for Matthew to help his readers understand that this Jesus was the complete fulfillment of the promised Messiah in Hebrew scripture. Particularly in the prophet Zechariah. “Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
This Jesus was from the peasant village of Nazareth. His message was about the kingdom of God. And his followers came from the peasant class. Throughout the gospel, Jesus has proclaimed the in-breaking reign of heaven. It has now fully arrived on that day in Jerusalem.
On the opposite side of the city, from the west, a second procession - an imperial procession - entered Jerusalem. It is led by Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, at the head of a column of imperial cavalry and soldiers. They were not riding donkeys, but horses. In ancient times, horses were instruments of war. They were not used for agriculture or transportation. But to wage war. Or, in Pilate’s case, as a visible display of his power. Or, more specifically, a display of Roman power.
Imperial processions like this were well-known in Palestine in the first century. It was the standard practice for the Roman governor to be in Jerusalem for major Jewish festivals. They didn’t do this out of reverence for the religious devotion of their Jewish subjects. But to be in the city in case there was trouble. In case there was an uprising. A rebellion. And at Passover - the festival that celebrated the liberation of the Jews from another earlier empire - there often was trouble.
Pilate’s procession displayed not only imperial power, but also Roman imperial theology. The Romans believed that the emperor was not simply the ruler of Rome, but the Son of God. So, Pilate’s procession was not only a rival social order, it was also a rival belief system.
Can you already sense the coming conflict?
The rest of the Zechariah passage describes what kind of king the Messiah - the other Son of God - would be. “He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war-horse from Jerusalem; and a battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations.” This coming king, riding a donkey, will banish war from the land. This coming king, riding a donkey, will be a king of peace. The first part of today’s story is this symbolic act. Jesus. Son of God. Coming to Jerusalem as a direct challenge to Rome.
The confrontation between these two kingdoms, between these two Sons of God, will continue through the last week of Jesus’ life. As we know, it will end with the execution of Jesus by the powers who ruled his world. Holy Week is the story of this confrontation. But, before we go further, we must first set the stage. And so, we come to Act 2 of our story today. And to Jesus’ second symbolic act on that first Palm Sunday.
We know that Jerusalem was the heart of Israel’s religion. It was also to be the ruling seat of the Messiah. The new King David would rule a restored kingdom from Jerusalem. So, Jerusalem was connected to Israel’s hope. Central to that hope was the temple.
When it was first built by King Solomon, it became the sacred center of the Jewish world. It was called the “navel of the earth,” finding its source in God. Here, and only here, was God’s dwelling place on earth. To be in the temple was to be in God’s presence.
The temple was was also the source of God’s forgiveness. It was the only place of sacrifice. And for Israel, sacrifice was the means of forgiveness. It was only through sacrifice in the temple that certain sins could be forgiven and certain kinds of impurities could be cleansed. The temple was the place of mediation between God and God’s people. So, to stand in the temple, purified and forgiven, was to stand fully in the presence of God. So, it was the center of Israel’s religion and the destination of pilgrimage. Three times a year, the Jews would come from distant lands. We call these Jews the diaspora. After the exile and after Israel had been restored to their homeland, these Jews had chosen to remain in their countries of exile. Yet, they would still travel to Jerusalem. Three times a year. To go to the temple to offer sacrifice and receive forgiveness.
Jerusalem, although the center of Jewish hope, was also a place with very negative associations. Beginning with King Solomon, it had become the center of a system of domination. This phrase, “domination system” is used by Borg and Crossan to describe the most common way of organizing a society in ancient and premodern times. It was a system that allowed the political and economic domination of the many by a few. A system that allowed those with wealth and power to use it to exploit others and to accumulate more wealth and power. And to use religion to justify it.
Under Solomon, power and wealth were increasingly concentrated in Jerusalem. This system of domination had continued in Jerusalem even under Roman rule. The high priest and the authorities were, in effect, the rulers of the Jewish people, although they owed allegiance to their Roman overlords. They were wealthy, from the local aristocracy. And, as long as they were loyal to Rome and maintained order, they were given a relatively free hand in ruling their people. So, by Jesus’ time, the temple was not only the center of sacrifice and hope for the Jewish people, but it had also become the center of the system of domination.
This is the Jerusalem that Jesus entered on that first Palm Sunday. His message was deeply critical of the temple and its role in the domination system. From his early ministry and that of John the Baptist, both had pronounced forgiveness apart from temple sacrifice. They had pronounced this forgiveness primarily to peasants. The hungry. The thirsty. The stranger. The naked. The sick. The imprisoned. Those not in power.
So, when Jesus, in his second symbolic act that day, entered the temple and overturned the tables, he was not protesting the commerce happening in the temple. This commerce was necessary, because people traveling from far away needed animals for sacrifice. They needed to exchange their foreign coins into silver shekels to pay the temple tax. Jesus was not protesting this, but against the system of domination that was being legitimized in the temple by using God’s name. A system that was radically different from what the present and coming kingdom of God - the dream of God - was to be. A kingdom where Jesus, as the true Son of God, would be its king. Where Jesus, as the true Son of Man, would be a different kind of king. A humble king. A healing king.
Two processions entered Jerusalem on that Palm Sunday. The same question, the same alternative, faces those of us who would be faithful to Jesus today, just as it did the people of Jesus’ day. Which procession are we in? We, who have been given this gift of life in Christ in baptism - which procession are we in? We, who called to live lives transformed - lives worthy of that gracious gift of life that Jesus has given each of us. Which procession are we in? Are we choosing to follow the king of dominations systems, systems that continue in our world today? Or are we choosing to following the king called Jesus? The king who sides with the poor. With the weak. With those rejected by the world. Those with no power.
We - who know the rest of the story - are we choosing to follow the king called Jesus? This Jesus, who is a different kind of king?
This, for us, is the question of Palm Sunday and of the week that is about to unfold.
Which procession will you be in?
Preached April 14, 2019, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.
Palm Sunday
Readings: Matthew 21:1-17, Psalm 118:25-29
Showing posts with label Roman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Roman. Show all posts
Sunday, May 5, 2019
Sunday, April 22, 2018
Good News Spreads: Creating
One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave-girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour.
But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, “These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.” The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They answered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God. Acts 16:16-34 (NRSV)
Grace and peace to you from our Lord and resurrected Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Each week as I prepare to write my sermon, there are a variety of things I do and read. I first meditate for a day or two on the reading, using different translations to see how it has been interpreted differently. Then, I go to the original Greek and see if there is anything that stands out to me. Then, believe it or not, I go onto Facebook. (Do I hear a collective groan?)
I really do go onto Facebook. Because on that platform, I am a member of a few different groups that discuss our weekly reading from the Narrative Lectionary. Sometimes the discussion gets very lively. At other times, there’s hardly any. This week, though, our reading from Acts resulted in one of the longest and most liveliest discussions I’ve seen over the past couple of years.
The primary focus of this discussion was the incident between the Apostle Paul and the slave girl who was possessed by a spirit, a spirit that gave her fortune-telling abilities. So, we are going to look closely at that exchange today. But, before digging deeper into it and everything it led to, first, a little context.
Last week, we heard about the conversion of Saul, whom we know better as Paul. His conversion happened along the road to Damascus, in Syria, some 135 miles away north of Jerusalem, as the crow flies. Today’s story is years later, years during which Paul has been formed as an apostle and, particularly, years during which he has been spreading the good news of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, to the non-Jews. This is the mission territory where the Jerusalem council has sent him. Where the Holy Spirit has sent him.
As our story opens, Paul and Silas are in Philippi. Now Phillippi is in northeast Greece, a continent away from Jerusalem. It was a Roman colony and was located along a major east-west trade route for the Roman empire. So, Philippi was a cosmopolitan city with many influences, particularly Greek and Roman. In the verses that precede today’s story, we learn that the first convert in Philippi was Lydia, a woman who was a merchant selling purple cloth, likely a wealthy merchant. As was the custom of that day, when Lydia converted, her entire household was converted. It was in Lydia’s home that Paul and Silas were staying as they worked to share the Gospel throughout this thriving city. It is at this point that today’s story opens.
One day, as they were headed to a place where they had been praying outside the city gates, they met a young woman who was a slave. Our scripture says that she had a “spirit of divination.” What is interesting about this young slave woman and the spirit that inhabited her body was that, in the Greek, this spirit is called a “python spirit.” If you’re up on your Greek mythology, Python was the name of the mythical serpent that guarded the oracle at Delphi. Python was defeated by the Greek god, Apollo. So, the story of Python and Apollo is really a story of conflict. A story of a fight for rulership, over which god will ultimately prevail.
But, back to our young woman. After meeting Paul and Silas, she began to follow them and to shout, “These people are servants of the Most High God! They are proclaiming a way of salvation to you!” Doesn’t sound so bad, does it? But, day after day, when she saw them, she would shout this. After awhile, Paul became annoyed. Very annoyed. One day, he turned to her and ordered this spirit--this “python spirit”--out of her. Now, one would typically think that this would have been a good thing. That it was positive that Paul had freed her of this spirit.
One would think that.
But, in her case, she was being used by her owners--exploited by her owners--who were making a lot of money off of her, a lot of money off of her fortune-telling abilities. So, when Paul sent the spirit packing, along with it went their money-making ability. They got angry. They grabbed Paul and Silas and took them to the town square to the legal authorities.
Do you notice what they do next?
Rather than speak the truth of what had happened, they seek to exploit and to divide people by nationality. “They are Jews!” the men say. “They are bringing in practices that are different from our culture.” They seek to agitate the crowd against Paul and Silas for who they are--Jewish rather than Roman. Once again, they are engaging in exploitation. This time it is to drive a wedge between Paul and Silas and the rest of the people.
As a result, Paul and Silas are stripped and beaten. They are thrown into prison, into the “innermost cell,” which would typically have no windows and little air, except when the door was opened. They are secured in stocks. All of this because of a desire on the part of these men to exploit people and situations for their own means.
We already heard the rest of the story. In the middle of the night, as Paul and Silas are praying and singing hymns to God, there is a great earthquake, freeing all of the prisoners. And, eventually, the jailer is saved and baptized, along with his entire household.
Throughout this entire fascinating story, I am still captured by this python spirit. Setting aside the relationship to Greek mythology, I can’t help thinking about pythons and, especially, how they kill their prey. When they catch something--a small animal, for example--they seize their prey with their teeth, while simultaneously squeezing the life out of it. They are life-constricting, rather than life-giving.
This is what exploitation is. This is what is does. Whether it is the exploitation of a young slave, or the exploitation of a crowd, or any other form of exploitation, it is life-constricting rather than life-giving. It kills life, rather than creating life.
Our God is a God that creates life. That is life-giving. This is what we know from creation and from all of scripture. This is what we know from both the cross and the resurrection. God creates life. God is life-giving. Not life-constricting. When we exploit people or situations or when we, yes, exploit creation, we are not living as people of God. We are life-constricting rather than the life-giving people God intends us to be. This is the struggle. This is the fight for rulership, for which God will prevail. A fight between the god of the world that brings death. Or the God of life--who gives life through Jesus Christ. We know the winner of that conflict. We know that God will continue to bring life out of death, to offer forgiveness out of sin, to create light of out darkness, to bring belief out of unbelief. Life-giving. Not life-constricting.
Yesterday, I watched the funeral of Barbara Bush, our former First Lady and mother of former President George W. Bush. She was a wonderful woman. Not perfect, by any means, which she would easily admit. But someone who truly lived out her faith, putting service above selfishness, nation above political party. In a time when fear of AIDS was running rampant in our country, she publicly went to a hospital for infants infected with AIDS and held one, using her position to send a strong message throughout our country. There are many other similar stories. The one, though, that stayed with me the most was about a man named J. T. Pace.
Literacy was the one issue that Mrs. Bush worked on for her entire life. J. T. Pace was a son of a sharecropper. When Mrs. Bush met him, he was 63-years old. He had only recently become literate. He was scheduled to read the preamble to the constitution at an event commemorating our nation’s bicentennial. Backstage, at the event, he was very nervous. Mrs. Bush noticed this and asked if she might help by reading the preamble together with him on stage. He agreed. When they took the stage, they began to read it together. As Mr. Pace became more comfortable reading in front of the large crowd, Mrs. Bush began to lower her voice. Bit by bit, she continued to do this until, at last, Mr. Pace was reading completely on his own. Her work was done when he had fully found his voice.
Life-giving. Not life-constricting.
We, too, are to be life-givers. This is who we are called to be. To live into the redemption won for us by Jesus on the cross--a redemption intended not only for all humankind, but redemption intended for all creation, whom God has connected us to deeply. We are called to live into that redemption and to be life-givers.
This is why, on this Earth day, we celebrate the goodness of God’s creation and commit to caring for it. Not to exploit it, but to care for it and to advocate for its health and life, just as we are to advocate and care for all of life. Not to constrict life. But to be life-givers, just as God has given us life. Abundant life.
May God make it so. Amen.
Preached April 22, 2018, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.
Fourth Sunday of Easter
Readings: Luke 6:18-19, 22-23; Acts 16:16-34
But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, “These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.” The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They answered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God. Acts 16:16-34 (NRSV)
Grace and peace to you from our Lord and resurrected Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Each week as I prepare to write my sermon, there are a variety of things I do and read. I first meditate for a day or two on the reading, using different translations to see how it has been interpreted differently. Then, I go to the original Greek and see if there is anything that stands out to me. Then, believe it or not, I go onto Facebook. (Do I hear a collective groan?)
I really do go onto Facebook. Because on that platform, I am a member of a few different groups that discuss our weekly reading from the Narrative Lectionary. Sometimes the discussion gets very lively. At other times, there’s hardly any. This week, though, our reading from Acts resulted in one of the longest and most liveliest discussions I’ve seen over the past couple of years.
The primary focus of this discussion was the incident between the Apostle Paul and the slave girl who was possessed by a spirit, a spirit that gave her fortune-telling abilities. So, we are going to look closely at that exchange today. But, before digging deeper into it and everything it led to, first, a little context.
Last week, we heard about the conversion of Saul, whom we know better as Paul. His conversion happened along the road to Damascus, in Syria, some 135 miles away north of Jerusalem, as the crow flies. Today’s story is years later, years during which Paul has been formed as an apostle and, particularly, years during which he has been spreading the good news of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, to the non-Jews. This is the mission territory where the Jerusalem council has sent him. Where the Holy Spirit has sent him.
As our story opens, Paul and Silas are in Philippi. Now Phillippi is in northeast Greece, a continent away from Jerusalem. It was a Roman colony and was located along a major east-west trade route for the Roman empire. So, Philippi was a cosmopolitan city with many influences, particularly Greek and Roman. In the verses that precede today’s story, we learn that the first convert in Philippi was Lydia, a woman who was a merchant selling purple cloth, likely a wealthy merchant. As was the custom of that day, when Lydia converted, her entire household was converted. It was in Lydia’s home that Paul and Silas were staying as they worked to share the Gospel throughout this thriving city. It is at this point that today’s story opens.
One day, as they were headed to a place where they had been praying outside the city gates, they met a young woman who was a slave. Our scripture says that she had a “spirit of divination.” What is interesting about this young slave woman and the spirit that inhabited her body was that, in the Greek, this spirit is called a “python spirit.” If you’re up on your Greek mythology, Python was the name of the mythical serpent that guarded the oracle at Delphi. Python was defeated by the Greek god, Apollo. So, the story of Python and Apollo is really a story of conflict. A story of a fight for rulership, over which god will ultimately prevail.
But, back to our young woman. After meeting Paul and Silas, she began to follow them and to shout, “These people are servants of the Most High God! They are proclaiming a way of salvation to you!” Doesn’t sound so bad, does it? But, day after day, when she saw them, she would shout this. After awhile, Paul became annoyed. Very annoyed. One day, he turned to her and ordered this spirit--this “python spirit”--out of her. Now, one would typically think that this would have been a good thing. That it was positive that Paul had freed her of this spirit.
One would think that.
But, in her case, she was being used by her owners--exploited by her owners--who were making a lot of money off of her, a lot of money off of her fortune-telling abilities. So, when Paul sent the spirit packing, along with it went their money-making ability. They got angry. They grabbed Paul and Silas and took them to the town square to the legal authorities.
Do you notice what they do next?
Rather than speak the truth of what had happened, they seek to exploit and to divide people by nationality. “They are Jews!” the men say. “They are bringing in practices that are different from our culture.” They seek to agitate the crowd against Paul and Silas for who they are--Jewish rather than Roman. Once again, they are engaging in exploitation. This time it is to drive a wedge between Paul and Silas and the rest of the people.
As a result, Paul and Silas are stripped and beaten. They are thrown into prison, into the “innermost cell,” which would typically have no windows and little air, except when the door was opened. They are secured in stocks. All of this because of a desire on the part of these men to exploit people and situations for their own means.
We already heard the rest of the story. In the middle of the night, as Paul and Silas are praying and singing hymns to God, there is a great earthquake, freeing all of the prisoners. And, eventually, the jailer is saved and baptized, along with his entire household.
Throughout this entire fascinating story, I am still captured by this python spirit. Setting aside the relationship to Greek mythology, I can’t help thinking about pythons and, especially, how they kill their prey. When they catch something--a small animal, for example--they seize their prey with their teeth, while simultaneously squeezing the life out of it. They are life-constricting, rather than life-giving.
This is what exploitation is. This is what is does. Whether it is the exploitation of a young slave, or the exploitation of a crowd, or any other form of exploitation, it is life-constricting rather than life-giving. It kills life, rather than creating life.
Our God is a God that creates life. That is life-giving. This is what we know from creation and from all of scripture. This is what we know from both the cross and the resurrection. God creates life. God is life-giving. Not life-constricting. When we exploit people or situations or when we, yes, exploit creation, we are not living as people of God. We are life-constricting rather than the life-giving people God intends us to be. This is the struggle. This is the fight for rulership, for which God will prevail. A fight between the god of the world that brings death. Or the God of life--who gives life through Jesus Christ. We know the winner of that conflict. We know that God will continue to bring life out of death, to offer forgiveness out of sin, to create light of out darkness, to bring belief out of unbelief. Life-giving. Not life-constricting.
Yesterday, I watched the funeral of Barbara Bush, our former First Lady and mother of former President George W. Bush. She was a wonderful woman. Not perfect, by any means, which she would easily admit. But someone who truly lived out her faith, putting service above selfishness, nation above political party. In a time when fear of AIDS was running rampant in our country, she publicly went to a hospital for infants infected with AIDS and held one, using her position to send a strong message throughout our country. There are many other similar stories. The one, though, that stayed with me the most was about a man named J. T. Pace.
Literacy was the one issue that Mrs. Bush worked on for her entire life. J. T. Pace was a son of a sharecropper. When Mrs. Bush met him, he was 63-years old. He had only recently become literate. He was scheduled to read the preamble to the constitution at an event commemorating our nation’s bicentennial. Backstage, at the event, he was very nervous. Mrs. Bush noticed this and asked if she might help by reading the preamble together with him on stage. He agreed. When they took the stage, they began to read it together. As Mr. Pace became more comfortable reading in front of the large crowd, Mrs. Bush began to lower her voice. Bit by bit, she continued to do this until, at last, Mr. Pace was reading completely on his own. Her work was done when he had fully found his voice.
Life-giving. Not life-constricting.
We, too, are to be life-givers. This is who we are called to be. To live into the redemption won for us by Jesus on the cross--a redemption intended not only for all humankind, but redemption intended for all creation, whom God has connected us to deeply. We are called to live into that redemption and to be life-givers.
This is why, on this Earth day, we celebrate the goodness of God’s creation and commit to caring for it. Not to exploit it, but to care for it and to advocate for its health and life, just as we are to advocate and care for all of life. Not to constrict life. But to be life-givers, just as God has given us life. Abundant life.
May God make it so. Amen.
Preached April 22, 2018, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.
Fourth Sunday of Easter
Readings: Luke 6:18-19, 22-23; Acts 16:16-34
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