Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.
“I have said these things to you while I am still with you.
But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.
You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I am coming to you.’ If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I.
And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe.

The disciples are shocked. Stunned by the realization that Christ, yes, once again, is leaving, they just stand there stunned and shocked. Quickly come the flashbacks of Good Friday.

When their Lord had died, they locked the door and stood in fear of what might befall them. They anguished in that locked room remembering the good ol’ days when Jesus healed people and people were amazed. Amazed at what the power of Christ was able to do in that place. They wanted to be amazed again. They wanted Jesus to be with them again. Some wanted a revolution, where Jesus was able to overturn the Roman government. They wanted him to fight. They wanted him to do everything in His power to keep them safe, to allow things to go as they did before. They wanted to see people’s chains drop to the floor. They wanted to see people restored. They wanted to feel the fervor of those 5,000 people that stood at a lake to watch and to listen to a sermon as Jesus had to climb into a boat to get away from them. They wanted to walk alongside him on the Sabbath and stick it to the Pharisees by picking grain because they were hungry. They wanted him to teach them because they missed his kind eyes. They missed his comfort. They missed Jesus, who gave them good news and glad tidings of great joy. But on that Friday, the joy was gone because Jesus was dead. Dead as a doornail. Shut the doors. There’s no point in us being outside anymore because our Teacher is dead.

They remembered Jesus for who he was, and were asking themselves in the wake of that, “What are we going to do now?” I imagine answers did not come so easily. They felt like they had failed to follow the right Teacher. They felt like they had failed to do what they set out to do. They felt lost.

And they stand there lost once again, just lost in grief because they know he is going away again. How could he do that? How could he go? How could he leave us again?

At times, we all have flashbacks of Good Friday. I came into this job hearing from not only members of this congregation but also people from outside that the campus ministry at UPC was dead. Dead as a doornail. Shut the doors. There’s no point in us being a university church any longer because we cannot reach this group of weird Millennials who have cell phones glued to their thumbs. I spent the first days of this ministry wondering if this could be revived. Wondering if we had tried to resuscitate this campus ministry for long enough, and it was time to throw in the towel.

I know that many of you remember the days when the campus ministry was alive, and if you don’t, all you have to do is listen to certain people in this congregation to hear the words spoken about the days when we were amazed by the number of students that were appearing. I almost threw the sign away that said Century class, when I was cleaning up my office. I knew it was an old sign, but I didn’t really want to have anything to do with the memory of the old campus ministry. I doubt we will ever have 100 students clamoring to be a part of our Sunday school class again. It was a different time, and we have to be relevant to this particular culture. Pastor San walked into my office and picked up that sign out of my trash pile. He told me a little of its history. He encouraged me to learn the history of this church, long before the new millennium, long before I was even born, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. It seemed almost like a fairy tale as I read about students climbing through windows to hear sermons or students signing up to be a part of Sunday school or students donating their own money to the church or students spending all of Sunday together in worship and service. Those were the good ol’ days.

And when I began here, I felt like I was going to a funeral of this wonderful memory of campus ministry, and in many ways, I felt like I was hammering the last nail into the coffin. I wanted that Century class sign to be away from me. I wanted to throw it away because it was a reminder of expectations that we could not live up to, that we, somehow, as a church had failed. We had 50,000 potential Presbyterian campus ministry students, and we could not get them to pass the peace with us. We could not pass along all the things we love about this place. We could not ask because we are afraid they will not hear. We are afraid they will not see us. And some voices were telling me that it was time to throw in the towel, lock the door, and call it a day. We felt hopeless. We felt anxious. We felt lost.

But, You know what happens next. You know, people of God, what happens next. We have celebrated it for six weeks. We say it all the time. If I begin, “I believe in God the Father Almighty,” you know how keep going. And you know the words about Christ, even if I paraphrase:

“I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord, who was crucified, dead, and buried. On the third day, he rose again from the dead.” And you know that this is our story. This is our reason. This is our hope. This is our life. And if we believe in this Jesus, who could rise from the dead, then we believe that Christ can raise us up in the midst of an economic downturn. We believe that Christ can raise us up in the midst of the Protestant membership decline. We believe that Christ can raise us up in the midst of a world that says that young people do not care anymore about Jesus because they would rather be spiritual but not religious. Well, I’m here to attest to the signs of life that I have seen. I’m here to testify to the heartbeat of God that moves through the church. I’m here to tell you that God is not finished with us yet. Because, I can hear the laughter of the people of God coming from the Fellowship Hall on Sunday evenings. And I can see the servant hands of people who are in college handing bags of food to people who need it to feed their families. I can see the wheels of the college students’ minds turning as I ask them what baptism is, what salvation is, and what it means to worship God. The winds are changing and they are pounding loudly on a locked door.

The disciples don’t appear very fond of change. They ask Jesus question after question, but all amounting to something like, “Why do you have to leave?” The response we read this day from Jesus is prompted by the other Judas’ question, “Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?” And Jesus, with his all-knowing look says, “That’s your job.” And the concerned disciples once again feel abandoned, to which Jesus replies that he will not leave us abandoned, but with an Advocate. An Advocate who will give voice to the voiceless. An Advocate who will fill us with boldness when we need it the most. An Advocate who is strange and other-worldly but nonetheless a part of who we are. And even with the promise of an Advocate, I can still imagine all their faces, the faces of anxious disciples whom Christ leaves behind just a few days later are begging him to stay. They are like puppies just watching him go out the door, while the leash dangles on the hook. They want to go with him. They want him to teach them. They feel like they still need him there in the flesh as is, with no changes. But, Christ says that things are going to be different. And these disciples’ faces probably prompt Jesus saying that the Holy Spirit will bring us peace in the in-between time. And we trust in that because he left once, and came back. And he leaves again, and promises to return. And we trust Jesus because in that in-between time, God is still revealing Godself.

We have seen it throughout history from the day that the winds changed at Pentecost. We have been witness to the revelation of God in the world, for the revelation of God comes through God’s own people, and when we gather in these moments, we see God in the faces of the people in this room. And while it may be a little unclear at times, we know that the same Holy Spirit promised in this passage from long ago is the same Holy Spirit that is still living and moving, that causes life to appear in dark places, that holds us up with the virtues of hope and peace, that causes mysterious things like that which we once thought was dead to be raised again. The winds are changing for campus ministry. This is a new time and a new generation that we have never seen before. And just as Christ called the disciples who looked to him with anxious faces about the future, Christ calls us too. Christ calls us still to be a University Church, a Ukirk. Christ calls the session to make this an important initiative for the congregation. Christ calls us to care deeply for these students, to be in relationship with them, and to worship with them. Because Christ is calling the students to a community that cares about them. And each Sunday evening, we proclaim that we believe that Christ is calling us to this community, which is changing, and we are witnesses to this change, to this resurrection. These that come to UKirk events are a minority of students but they are nonetheless a revelation of God in a Good Friday world. They are representations of the gospel of Jesus Christ in our world today because they remind us of the hope and peace that we have that God is not through with us yet. As witnesses to the resurrection, we proclaim boldly that we know God is never through with us. And you know how, Easter people, to welcome and to share the witness of Jesus Christ. You know how to offer food. You know how to lead Bible studies. You know how to worship. You know why you are a disciple of Jesus Christ. And, those are the things that this world needs to hear. Those are the things that the campus students need to hear and want to share. So, this fall, when the wind is changing, come be a part of what makes us distinctive. Come to the ministry that is the reason who we wear University in our name. Come be witness to the resurrection and share with others what you have seen and heard. God is still revealing Godself; come and see.

In the name of the God who provides for us, the Christ who redeems us, and the Holy Spirit who forever sustains us. Amen.

 This is how everyone will know that you’re my disciples: that you love one another.

 Jesus and his disciples are gathered in an upper room. They have shared a meal. Jesus has washed the disciples’ feet. Judas has left them, headed to meet with the authorities who will arrest and execute Jesus.

 After Judas departs, Jesus begins to speak to the remaining disciples. This section of John’s Gospel is often called the Final Discourse, and it is rich and dense and confusing and compelling.

In the few verses we’ve read today, Jesus speaks of his glory, he speaks of his departure, and he speaks of how his followers are to live when he is no longer with them. He gives them what he calls “a new commandment”.  We might wonder about that, because the People of Israel have been commanded to love God and neighbor since their earliest days as a nation. Those commandments have been their defining characteristic as the People of God. What distinguishes this command to love one another is that “a new community emerges from its giving” (Donelson).  Those who have been with Jesus through his ministry are to become, in his absence, a community formed by and around and within the new covenant which he has brought. The covenant sealed in his birth, life, ministry, death and resurrection. The covenant sealed in his blood, both as it flows in his veins, and as it is shed on the cross.  Augustine of Hippo writes that this love for one another which Jesus commands “renews us, so that we are a new people, inheritors of the new covenant and singers of the new song” (Tractates on John LSV.1)

But Jesus doesn’t simply say Love one another. He goes on to say Love one another as I have loved you.  One translation puts it this way:  Love each other deeply and fully. Remember the ways that I have loved you, and demonstrate your love for others in those same ways. (The Voice)

How has Jesus loved them? We tend to think of love as affection, pleasure in one another’s company, interest in the other’s activities. In the witness of Scripture, that is not the picture we get of how Jesus loves. Jesus loves people by feeding them when they’re hungry, healing them when they’re sick, teaching them when they’re confused, comforting them when they mourn – again and again, he acts to free those he meets from the oppressions or wounds which keep them from full engagement with life. Finally, he lays down his own life for us, and in that supreme act of love, he frees all of humanity from the oppression of sin and the wound of death. This is love as action rather than emotion. This is love as service, as offering, as covenant.

So obeying this commandment does not call the disciples to feel for one another. Rather, they are called to act for one another.  Loving as Jesus loves is “a matter of behavior, of life in community, of social expectation” (Stevick, p. 111).  Obeying this commandment brings disciples into a life that is deeply shared.

And loving one another is a matter of witness to the world. This is how all will know that you’re my disciples: that you truly love one another. 

“All will know”. Not because we have fish decals on our cars. Not because we wear Scripture reference t-shirts. Not because we hang decorative crosses around our necks or from our ears. There is, of course, nothing wrong with bumper decals and t-shirts and jewelry. But these things accessorize the discipleship we proclaim through loving action; they do not establish our identity as Christians. It is the active, servant love we bear one another which marks us as those who follow Jesus.

The witness of our covenantal love takes particular forms within the church. Weekly worship includes sharing signs of peace; praying with and for one another; contributing our time, talent and treasure to be used within and beyond the congregation. Today’s worship includes, as well, the sacrament of baptism, and the service to ordain and install congregational leaders. In this sacrament and in this service, we remember and celebrate that we are together the Body of Christ, with shared joys and mutual responsibilities. We proclaim that our congregation, like the 1^st century gathering of disciples, flourishes in “concrete, face-to-face, long-term relations of persons with one another in local, space-time-specific” interactions (Stevick, p. 116).

Life in Christian community includes promises. We are making promises today, promises that grow out of Jesus’ new commandment to his disciples.

In the sacrament of baptism, we have – as a body – promised to guide and nurture Liliana and Olivia by word and deed, with love and prayer. We are bound by Christ’s commandment to love one another, and in baptism that love is found in our pledge to offer material help, emotional support, theological encouragement, and authentic relationship to all who share new life in Christ.

In the service of ordination and installation, we will – as a body – receive and pray for those who have been called to particular forms of service within the congregation. These individuals – members of the priesthood of all believers — have agreed to put their gifts at the service of the community during their terms as Deacons and Ruling Elders.  In just a moment, they will come up here to the front of the church and answer questions about this commitment they are making. One of those questions is, “In your ministry, will you try to show the love and justice of Jesus Christ?” By answering “Yes”, they are binding themselves afresh to Christ’s new commandment to love one another. They are promising to live and serve and act and speak so as to proclaim to the world their Christian discipleship. They are entering into a particular form of the covenantal love which is the center of Christian life.

And we, the community they have agreed to serve, make promises as well. We promise to uphold them in prayer, to respect their leadership, to support their ministry. Covenantal love is mutual, reciprocal, encompassing.

Jesus calls us to love one another – not as an abstraction, a theological proposal, an emotional ideal. Loving as Jesus has loved us has everything to do with feeding, healing, teaching, comforting one another as we live together in Christian community.

May our prayer ever be that all will know we are Christ’s disciples through the love we bear for one another.

Amen.

Start with Luke’s introduction:  “Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas.”  That name will ring a bell for some of you since here at UPC one of our women’s circles is called the Dorcas Circle.  Others of you may only know Dorcas as the widow that Peter raised from the dead.  But we may not have paid sufficient attention to what a remarkable woman she was.  Luke specifically identified her as a disciple.  In fact, this is the only place in the New Testament where the feminine form for the word disciple is used.   We’re told she was devoted to good works and charity.  Her ministry, at least in part, consisted in making clothing for widows and others who were impoverished. 

 The making of clothes to give to others, may not strike us as particularly impressive.  In our era of mass production clothing is easy enough to come by.  Most of our closets are so full that we periodically take sack loads of them to Good Will. For the most part our relationship with clothing is easy come easy go.  But in the ancient world, the making of clothes was a slow, laborious undertaking for the women of that day.  In the first century town of Joppa, for example, many people might only have one or two garments.  So the clothing and tunics Tabitha made demonstrate her extraordinary devotion, generosity and love.

 Further, the fact that she was known by two names, one in Greek and the other Aramaic, suggests  that she was bi-cultural.  Her circle of friends was wide and diverse.  She was as comfortable among the poor Aramaic speaking people of Joppa as she was with those who identified with the Greco-Roman world.  She was as likely to be found in the soup kitchen as in the council of church leaders.  Luke leaves the reader with the clear impression that Tabitha, also known as Dorcas, was a saintly pillar of that congregation, a leader who was widely admired and revered.  In today’s parlance, we’d call Tabitha a force of nature.

But then she became ill and died. Luke doesn’t try to soften the depth of loss and grief felt by the congregation upon her death.  Notice the respectful way they washed her body and laid her in a room upstairs.  Such a brief, yet vivid gesture underscores the love, the care and the grief the congregation suffered at the loss of one of their most valued members.

Since Peter was in a nearby town, the disciples sent two of their member requesting that Peter come to them without delay.  Perhaps they hoped Peter would raise Tabitha back to life, but maybe they were just so distraught that they were reaching out for support, counsel and comfort.  After all, their congregation had suffered an irreparable loss, and they were reeling with grief.  All the widows, Luke says, were weeping as they held out the clothing she had made for them–these reminders of her creative ministry among them.  This episode in Acts is only seven verses, but it is truly one of the most poignant stories of loss and sorrow in all of scripture.

And it’s a story that touches our own experience.  I recall a lecture at the seminary several years ago.  Though I can’t recall the name of the speaker, I remember that during her remarks she alluded to her father’s recent death.  She mentioned that he had always been the shining star in her life.  When he died, she said, it was as if the sun went out of my sky.  Sooner or later everyone falls under the shadow of death, and sometimes that shadow is so dark that we react as did the congregation at Joppa. We ask what now?  How can we go on?

There’s a plaque on the wall of our arcade next to the Fellowship Hall.  The plaque is in memory of Rev. Lawrence Wharton, who was pastor of this congregation from 1922 to 1937.  While serving the congregation he suddenly had a heart attack and died at the age of forty five. The plaque in his memory describes him as “a beloved pastor, faithful and fearless, magnanimous, a lover of his fellowmen, an inspiration to noble living, a radiant Christian.”  Today only a few of us will remember Lawrence Wharton, but we can all imagine how his untimely death must have shocked this congregation. 

Of course, over the years there have been so many others who, like Tabitha, were pillars of the congregation, a cloud of witnesses whose devotion and generosity held up the life of the church and enabled it’s ministry to flourish.  Undoubtedly, many of you can name some of the Tabitha’s in our congregation today.  I know that I can.  When we lose these pillars, as we inevitably will, it frightens us.  What will our lives, our congregation, do without them?

Last Wednesday was the last Session meeting for the class of ruling elders who are rotating off the Session.  We began our meeting by gathering around the Table in the sanctuary.  We joined in a litany of  thanks. Then we handed a certificate of appreciation to each out-going member of the Session and recounted some of the significant ways their leadership has blessed the congregation over the last few years.  It was poignant farewell to these elders who have fulfilled their ordered ministry with energy, intelligence, imagination and love.  Of course, in this instance, we weren’t grieving a permanent loss; but nevertheless, in the church, as in all of life, we have to continually adjust to change, accept loss, and sometimes grieve deeply when the loss is profoundly disruptive, as was the loss of Tabitha to the congregation at Joppa.

But take heart, this episode in Acts ends not with sorrow and loss but with resurrection, new life, healing and hope.  Luke tells us that Peter sent the grieving congregation downstairs, knelt down and prayed, turned to the body and said, “Tabitha get up.”  She opened her eyes, sat up, and Peter with a gesture of great tenderness, “gave her his hand and helped her up.” Now this may be the point at which our modern sensibilities kick in and some of us will ask:  Do I have to believe that?  Did Peter really raise this woman from the dead? Well, maybe he did, and maybe he didn’t.  Miracles are by nature open to dispute. But friends, whether you take the story literally or symbolically, the meaning is the same:  in the community of the risen Christ, there is no loss that cannot be redeemed.  No death so final that new life cannot spring forth.  No setback so permanent that God’s goodness and mercy cannot bring about a new beginning.  It happened in Joppa, and it still happens today. 

It’s significant that the disciples’ immediate response to the news of the resurrection was to lock themselves in a room.  Having seen the risen Lord, Mary Magdalene went and told the disciples what she had seen, and what Jesus had said.  We might expect the next verse to read, “. . . and the disciples went wild with joy, dancing in the streets and boldly telling others this good news.”  On the contrary, however, they huddled in a room, behind a locked door.  John says this was because they feared the authorities.  Perhaps they feared that the same hostility and murderous rage that led to Jesus’ crucifixion might descend upon them.  In any case, the news of the resurrection did not automatically, or immediately, free them from their fears or embolden them in any way.

And to be honest, we can understand their impulse to stay put, to hide out, to seek security against all that threatens and scares us.  At the UPC men’s breakfast on Wednesday we talked about how the resurrection makes a difference in our lives. We listened to a Mumford and Sons song titled “Roll Away Your Stone.”  The lyrics include the words, “And I have filled this void with things unreal, and all the while my character it steals.  Darkness is a harsh term, don’t you think? And yet it dominates the things I see.”  How tempting it is to let the darkness of our lives and world dominate our character while we vainly attempt to fill the void in our lives with unreal, and unsatisfying, things.   Last week the celebrated African author, Chinua Achebe, died.  His first novel was titled Things fall Apart.  Achebe took this title from the William Butler Yeats poem called “The Second Coming,” which was written in 1919, in the aftermath of World War I.  “Things fall apart/ the center cannot hold/ the blood-dimmed tide is loosed…”

Then as now, truly grave threats have been loosed upon the world, creating a climate of fear and foreboding.   When John says that the first disciples were closed in behind locked doors because they were afraid, he was describing more than the first disciples’ experience.  He was naming a universal human condition that persists to the present day.  Thus the effect of the resurrection always begins in whatever place of darkness, defeat or despair we find ourselves.  

But then John tells us that Jesus passed through their locked doors, stood in the midst of these fearful disciples and said to them, “Peace be with you.”  Even though these disciples had been consistently slow to understand, prone to failure and often fearful, Jesus had no sharp words of judgment or condemnation for them.  He came to them now as he had come to people during his ministry—offering forgiveness, peace, and welcome.  These imperfect, fearful disciples were the very ones he commissioned to carry on God’s ministry of reconciliation and peace.  So Jesus breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Greek scholars say that the translation “breathed on them” would be better translated, “He breathed in them.”  Just as at creation God breathed life into the world, here Jesus breathes the life of his Spirit into his disciples.

Earlier Jesus had promised the disciples, “My peace I give you, my peace I leave with you, not as the world gives do I give.”  In truth, the world cannot give us peace, because it is too much in turmoil.  In fact, some may conclude that the only way to have peace in this world is to turn off the news, close your eyes to the suffering around you, and ignore the destruction of life and land that is accelerating all around us.  Yet Jesus gives us his peace not by calling us out of the world, but by sending us ever deeper into the life of the world. In his Easter address last Sunday, the new Pope Frances put this well when he said, “And so we ask the risen Jesus, who turns death into life, to change hatred into love, vengeance into forgiveness, war into peace.  Yes, Christ is our peace, and through him we implore peace for all the world.”  Three times in John’s post-resurrection story, Jesus repeats the phrase “peace be with you.” 

But as we read, Thomas wasn’t convinced.  He wasn’t there when Jesus appeared to the other disciples, and he says flatly that, without seeing, he will not believe.  The issue for Thomas—as it is for all of us who weren’t there—is how to receive the peace of Christ and the gift of his Spirit without benefit of having seen the risen Lord.  Like the good shepherd in the parable, who goes after the one who was lost, Jesus doesn’t want to lose Thomas, so he comes back to find Thomas and, upon finding him, invites Thomas to see and touch his wounded side and hands.  Only then does Thomas confess, “My Lord and my God.” 

Notice Thomas didn’t say “the” Lord and “the” God, but “my” Lord and “my” God, because again, faith is not assent to dogma but rather it is the ability to abide in a relationship, receive Christ’s Spirit and join in his ministry of peace and justice.

So what about us today?   If we are to believe—to abide with the risen Lord—it will have to be without the benefit of sight, of certainty, of any proof whatsoever.  Knowing how hard it is to believe without benefit of sight, Jesus reserved a special blessing for all of us latter-day disciples.  Thus Jesus’ last words in John’s Gospel are aimed at the likes of us:  “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Jesus is saying that no one—not even the first disciples—are as dear to God as those who, not having seen, still believe. 

Friends, receive God’s blessing.  It is the same Christ who breathes his Spirit in us, sends us into the world to live faithfully, courageously—and with those haunting first resurrection words burning in our hearts.  “Peace be with you…As the Father sent me, so I send you.”   

The peace of Christ be with you.

Thankfully, thus far in our service no one has shouted from the balcony, but you did just hear from the pulpit Luke’s account of the first Easter which ended with the declaration:  “This is the Word of the Lord.”  Yet to my knowledge no gasps were heard and no apprehensive ushers rushed the pulpit to muscle me into the street.  “Why is it,” asks theologian Tom Long, “that if a sudden unexpected shout erupts from the balcony, the place gets set on edge, but when a preacher starts into the Gospel word of the day, people crease their bulletins and settle in?” That question is especially pertinent if “the Word of the Lord” involves the report of an empty tomb and a resurrected body.  As one commentator declared, “If the resurrection is not hard for you to believe, you’re probably not paying attention!”  Well, let’s pay attention—not only to the responses of the first disciples, but to our own as well.

The Easter story starts off with the obvious, the expected, the understandable.  Jesus was crucified, dead and buried.  According to the four Gospels, none of the disciples harbored any expectations beyond what everyone knows to be true:  dead is dead.  Accordingly, Easter morning begins with certain women disciples coming back to the tomb where they had previously seen Jesus’ body laid.  These were the same women who had followed Jesus during his ministry, and then after the crucifixion accompanied the funeral procession to the tomb where his body was laid.  Now, early on the first day of the week, they come back to the tomb bringing the spices they had prepared, a customary ritual to show respect for the dead.  The women assume, as do we all, that death is death is death. Up to this point, the events are sad but completely obvious and believable.  Jesus died.  Funeral arrangements were made.  End of story.

But of course, this is not the end of the story.  The body the women expected to find is not in the tomb.  Suddenly two mysterious men appear in the empty tomb and tell the women not to look for the living among the dead.  “He is not here,” they say. “He is risen.”  Then the men remind the women of how Jesus had told them while he was with them that he would be crucified and, on the third day, rise again.  Prompted by these messengers, the women suddenly remember Jesus’ words and, leaving the tomb, they return to tell the other disciples what has happened.

And with this news, our “word from the Lord” is no longer obvious, nor is it easily believed.  As you may have heard, the national convention of atheists is meeting in Austin this week.  If some of these convention goers happened to come to our Easter worship this morning, can you imagine their response to what we have proclaimed as “a Word from the Lord?”  They would be incredulous.  They’d let us know that the notion of resurrection is an affront to reason.  It’s not believable.  As an editorial in this week’s American-Statesman put it, the idea that the dead don’t stay dead is a “biological absurdity and an ethical impossibility.”

To this the first disciples might say: “That is our point exactly!”  The women come back to the very people who had known Jesus best, who had followed him and loved him.  Yet his own community of followers dismissed the news of resurrection as “an idle tale.”  Greek scholars tell us that our English phrase “idle tale” is a cleaned up, G-rated translation of the Greek word leros.  When the women proclaimed the Easter Word, the other disciples dismissed it as leros.  That word is the root of our word delirious. Thus the disciples regard the women’s report as crazy talk, garbage, utter nonsense.   We might have expected Luke to tell us that, upon hearing the news of Jesus’ resurrection, the disciples burst into a first-century version of the Halleluiah Chorus saying,  “I knew it!  He’s back, just he told us he would be.”  But no, to a person, Jesus’ disciples greet the news of resurrection with skepticism, bewilderment, doubt, and outright disbelief.

All this is to say that if you’re having trouble believing in the resurrection, you’re in good company.  You don’t have to go to the convention center downtown to find people who question the believability of the resurrection.  Wherever the Word of an empty tomb and a raised boy is proclaimed—whether in the Bible, or in the sanctuary of this congregation, or in a convention of atheists—the logical response is: But that’s impossible!

So if any of you here today came to worship with your fingers crossed behind your back, you don’t need to feel hypocritical.  If we’ve given the impression that faith conquers all doubt, then we’ve misrepresented the nature of religious faith. In truth, the biblical authors believed that faith and doubt are actually woven together quite closely.  Doubt, questions, even downright skepticism, aren’t the opposite of faith, but rather an essential ingredient.  From the very beginning, the Easter word of resurrection has been a problem, even for the most faithful followers of Jesus.

But Luke tells us that in spite of his incredulity, Peter got up to go and see for himself.  The message was so outrageous that Peter had take a look for himself.  He had to wonder, What if it is true?  That’s the invitation Easter worship gives to all of us.  It’s not our task, nor is it within our ability, to prove the resurrection.  We’re not telling you to believe with a blind faith that says, Well, if the Bible says it, I have to believe it.  Anyone can matter-of-factly affirm the resurrection as objectively true, but the invitation is to make it subjectively, personally true.  During our new officers training last Sunday, we studied our denomination’s most recent Statement of Faith, called A Brief Affirmation of Faith.  One of the elders-elect noted that our most recent creed uses the word “trust” instead of ‘believe.”  Such a shift in terminology is significant, because it suggests that faith is more than objective belief.  Faith has to be fully embraced and practiced.  Faith is following in the footsteps of Peter who was curious enough, bold enough, trusting enough that he went to see for himself.

Last Monday our church staff took a break and went to the Bob Bullock Museum, to see the I-Max movie “Flight of the Butterflies.”  The movie is beautifully filmed, and the 3-D projection makes the scenes come alive with astonishing clarity.  The movie features the work of two Canadians, Fred Urquhart and his wife, Nora.  They spent most of their lives trying to solve the mystery of the migration of the monarch butterfly.  After forty years of research and a great deal of disappointment, they received word that the monarchs’ destination had at last been found in a remote mountain forest deep in Mexico. Urquhart, though weakened by poor health, went to Mexico against the advice of his doctors, and there he made the strenuous climb through forest to the mountain where the monarchs were gathered.  You see, he had to go and see for himself, and his curiosity paid off.  When he arrived on the mountaintop, he couldn’t believe his eyes.  Clustered on branches of pine trees were literally millions of monarch butterflies.  The trees were so covered with butterflies that they glistened bright orange in the sunlight.  Awestruck by what he was seeing, Urquhart exclaimed, “What a glorious, magnificent sight.”  Overcome with emotion, he sat down on a rock exclaiming, “It’s as if time stood still for a moment.”

Friends, we have a word from the Lord this morning.  Yes, if we’re paying attention, it’s a hard-to-believe, reality-shattering word.  But aren’t you curious?  What if it is true?  If it is, life is infinitely more amazing and magnificent than we can imagine.  Death is real, but not final.  Jesus is not dead and gone; he is present, and alive.  There’s more to life than our eyes have yet seen, or our minds conceived.

Christ is risen!  The word of the Lord.  Thanks be to God.

Well, this morning, we had our own little parade, didn’t we?  We had drums and instruments beating out a rhythm, the chancel choir singing, “Lift Up the Gates Eternal,” trumpets blasting a fanfare, palm branches waving, even a real donkey to add to the excitement.   Of course, our little parade this morning was a reminder that on the beginning of Holy Week, Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey as disciples lined the street, waving palm branches and shouting a refrain from the prophet Zechariah, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.”  Yes, today we join in a Palm Sunday parade—but ours is a parade unlike any other.

In their book, The Last Week, Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan inform us that there were actually two parades in Jerusalem during that infamous Passover week.  From the west came Pontius Pilate, draped in all the trappings of imperial power: purple banners blowing in the breeze, horses, chariots, and soldiers dressed in gleaming armor.  Pilate and his army moved in to Jerusalem at the beginning of Passover week to make sure nothing got out of hand.  After all, Passover celebrated the liberation of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt. At Passover, nationalistic feelings, and longing for liberation, ran high.  Of course, the Romans were well aware of such sentiments and thus reinforcements had been called in.  Had you been in Jerusalem during that fateful Passover, you would have heard royal bugles announcing an imperial processional.  You would have been impressed with the display of Roman power parading by, and you would have been warned:  Don’t mess with Rome.

But as we know, the Roman processional wasn’t the only parade in town.  From the east came another procession.  This parade included no military escort, no chariots or war horses, no spears or swords glistening in the sunlight. It featured only Jesus wearing an ordinary robe riding a young donkey.  While the procession lacked pizzazz, it did not lack symbolic meaning.  The way Jesus chose to enter Jerusalem was a clear prophetic act that identified him with Zechariah’s prophecy, “Lo, your king comes to you, triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey.”  Accordingly, the disciples waved their festival branches shouting, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.”  This was the parade the faithful had dreamed of and prayed for. They were aware of Jesus’ deeds of power and now they looked to Jesus as their nation’s triumphant Messiah: a new Moses, another David, a liberator anointed by God to cleanse the Temple of pagan influence, assume the throne, and vanquish the enemies of Israel.  No wonder some of the Pharisees called for calm:  “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.”  They were understandably fearful that this Passover parade would provoke Roman retaliation.

But let’s halt the parade for a moment and ask a question.  We know that throughout his ministry Jesus had been so careful not to identify himself with this traditional messianic figure.  So as his parade makes its way into Jerusalem, why does Jesus now allow, and seemingly encourage, such uninhibited acclaim of him as Messiah, when all along he had been extremely reticent?  Most likely it was simply a matter of timing.    Within hours his disciples will learn that their parade ends not in the triumph they expect but with an outcome they weren’t able to foresee—Jesus’ suffering, rejection and death. Thus Jesus allows his followers along the parade route to hail him as Messiah, and welcome him as King.  Why?  Because through his suffering and death he will radically redefine those terms.

New Testament scholar N.T. Wright, in his book, Simply Jesus, offers an insight into Jesus’ self-understanding.  Wright suggests that Jesus combined Israel’s hope for a royal Messiah with Isaiah’s figure of the Suffering Servant, whom Isaiah describes as ”despised and rejected…a man of suffering…struck down by God, and afflicted…”  So far as we know, no one had thought to associate Isaiah’s Suffering Servant with Israel’s royal Messiah, because the concepts are totally contradictory.  Yet Jesus embraced the contradiction.  He embodied the paradox.  He rode into Jerusalem as God’s Suffering Servant and Israel’s triumphant messiah.  Jesus will be crowned King, but his crown will be made of thorns and his throne will be a cross.  Truly, this Palm Sunday parade is a parade unlike any other. 

And that’s because Jesus was a liberator, a Ruler, and a King unlike any other. His fight was not with Rome per se, but with the insidious forces of evil that give rise to oppressive regimes in every age.  No, Jesus  didn’t attack and overthrow the corrupt leaders and authorities in Jerusalem.  Rather, he attacked the greed and lust for power and wealth that lie at the heart of all corruption.  He didn’t punish his enemies, but offered them God’s forgiveness.   In a word, Jesus put fully into practice precisely what he had taught earlier:  “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.  If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also…”    These are the things that make for peace!

As Jesus’ processional neared the city of Jerusalem, Jesus wept over it, because the so-called “city of peace” didn’t recognize the things that make for peace.  And to be honest, we still don’t.  One is reminded of a stanza in the Christmas song,

And in despair I bowed my head.

“There is no peace on earth,” I said.

“For hate is strong, and mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

Friends, the parade we celebrate on Palm Sunday is like no other.  In truth, the peace that Christ offered has never drawn much of a following among the powerful of the world. Yet all the bullets and bombs and drones in the world cannot silence the truth: Jesus said and did the things that make for peace.  So on this Palm Sunday, let us look again as the man from Nazareth rides by on a donkey.  Do we stand silent on the sidelines, or will we fall in behind our King and follow him to the cross and beyond?

“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”

Well friends, the day finally arrived last weekend.  After much persuading from our friends and family, Krystal and I broke down, gave into peer pressure… and started watching Downton Abbey.  For those among us this morning who are not hopelessly addicted to this PBS television series, Downton Abbey takes place in turn of the century England and is centered around the lives of the World War One era aristocracy and those who serve them.

Despite the twisting and turning plot lines, what captivates me most about this show are the elaborate dinners.  The long dining table is set with fine white linen, stunning china and silver place-settings, and every wine glass that one could imagine.  The butlers and footmen are all in black tie and tails, and the wealthy family and their guests sit around in their finest eveningwear.  Yet despite the pretense, grandeur, and pageantry of these dinners, nevertheless – some form of drama always seems to erupt.  Scandalous revelations, shouting matches, poisonings, and tearful confessions all make their way into the intrigue of the dinner table.  I think that Jesus would have liked this show. After all, rarely does Jesus gather around a table without some sort of drama happening.

Our text this morning is no exception.  Jesus is gathered with his friends and family around a table in Bethany.  Bowls of cheese, olives, roasted meat, and hot bread lay upon the table’s rough hewn surface as the disciples gather round to eat. Lazarus is there too – the man that Jesus had raised from the dead.  I always imagine that to be a bit of an awkward situation – what polite conversation does one make with a formally dead person?  So, Lazarus… how’s life… again?

Mary and her sister Martha are there as well – and we are not surprised that once again, the dutiful Martha is doing the serving.  Things are humming along well enough, until Mary comes into the room carrying a jar.  The conversation stills as all eyes turn to Mary.  Approaching Jesus, she kneels at his feet and takes the stopper out of an ornate bottle of perfume.  Immediately, the rich and overpowering smell of the costly oil fills the small room.  I am not sure how many of you have ever ridden in a church van full of high school youth coming back from camp at Mo Ranch, but between the smell of body spray, cologne, fritos corn chips, and a weeks worth of sweaty clothes – I completely understand how overwhelming it is to be in a small space with an eye watering smell.  *

Mary tips the bottle of perfume onto Jesus’ feet.  A little oil pours out, then some more. Mary continues to tip the bottle until the feet and floor are drenched in the balm.  Mouths drop. Eyes open wide.  A stunned silence grips the room.  But these disciples haven’t seen anything yet.  Mary bends low, takes her long hair in her hands and with it, smoothes the oil into Jesus’ feet.  Mary looks up into the eyes of Jesus, her anointing complete, her sacrifice made.  Her eyes communicate that she knows.  She knows what is coming. For she did not use an oil meant to perfume a bride or anoint a king. Rather, Mary used an oil meant to embalm a body.

In the gospels, Mary of Bethany is portrayed as the ideal disciple.  The apostle to the apostles.  She follows Jesus in his travels, sits at his feet and listens to his teaching, and seems to be the only one who really understands what Jesus has been alluding to – that he must die.  Mary’s ears, eyes, and heart are open to Jesus and through her radical acts of discipleship, sets a example for all of us who seek to follow Jesus.  The richness, wildness, and passion with which she expresses her love for Jesus is perhaps best expressed in her anointing of his feet.

Throwing aside proper behavior and disregarding the shock of those around her, she performs an act so intimate that even we find ourselves growing uncomfortable.

In a few weeks, we will take part in the ancient tradition of washing one another’s feet at the Maundy Thursday service.  Jesus at the last supper took a towel and washed the feet of his disciples, and commanded them to do the same.  Many of us surely pale at the thought of another person touching our feet – let alone someone wiping oil on them with their hair.  But if you really think about it, there is no other act of service, no other act of humility or vulnerability that can compete with the washing of someone’s feet.  It is as if Mary anticipates this teaching of Jesus – understanding that to truly love one another, we must be willing to get uncomfortably close to them, to stand with them in good times and bad, to love them as Jesus loves them.  To be willing to give and receive such an act of service signals something new that God is doing in this world.  God doesn’t not want us to hold one another at a distance, but to embrace one another, to be in relationship with one another, and to welcome all into the family of God.

We look to Mary as an example of what it means to be a true disciple of Jesus Christ. We take comfort in the fact that we have learned from her example.  We pray, study the scriptures, listen to God in our lives, and extend radical offerings of hospitality through our beautiful worship and community outreach programs like Uplift and Micah 6.  We try to live our lives as Mary did, because we know that we indeed will always have the poor with us, and because we know that God is with us, even now in this place.  But we would be fooling ourselves if we thought that this was an easy calling, as Mary did in her own time.

“What on earth are you doing?!” Exclaims Judas.  “Why was that perfume not sold for 300 denarii and the money given to the poor?”  Everyone jumps at the sudden outburst.  Reality sets back in.  This little moment of true discipleship shattered by the disciple we love to hate.

Judas.  Traitor.  Rejecter of Christ.  Bringer of disaster.  Fallen one.  We despise Judas.  In the history of Christian iconography, Judas can usually be identified as the one disciple without a halo.  He always seems to have shifty eyes, a plotting look on his face.

Even the narrator of our text includes that Judas wasn’t really concerned with the needs of the poor, but rather wanted to steal some of the money for himself.  Judas is yet another tragic example of a disciple who has missed the point.  Yet there is more to this Judas Iscariot than meets the eye, or perhaps we should say, Judas the Iscariot.

Many historians believe that Judas was a member, or at least a fore-runner, of a first century sect called sicarii, where the term Iscariot comes from.  The Sicarii were militant rebels that were intent on overthrowing the Roman occupation by violent means.  In many examples of Christian art, Judas can also be identified as the disciple carrying a knife.  Although biblical history is unclear whether or not Judas was actually a member of this group of assassins, we do know that Judas was willing to go to any length to see the Roman government kicked out – even to the point of treachery.  It begs the question, why did Judas betray Jesus?  Jesus was never cruel to Judas. In fact, Jesus was much harsher with the other disciples than he ever was with Judas.  Perhaps Judas grew tired of the pointless meanderings through the Judean countryside.  Perhaps Judas was growing impatient with Jesus’ frustratingly obtuse teachings on love and the kingdom of God.

Judas was a man of action, Judas wanted change now.  Perhaps Judas thought that if he could back Jesus into a corner, get him arrested by the Romans, Jesus would have to choose to finally take action against the Romans, or face death.

Poor Judas.  How greatly he misread what Jesus’ message was.  I wonder if he ever could have imagined that Jesus would choose to die rather than to violently overthrow the Roman regime?  Perhaps that is why he took his own life. His plan had failed, his savior, the great hope of Israel, had chosen death.  As one preacher puts it, the great tragedy of Judas is that he didn’t live long enough to receive his forgiveness.  Receive his forgiveness? How could someone as violent, as deceitful, as cowardly as Judas be forgiven after his rejection of Christ?  But if we remember, Judas isn’t the only disciple to reject and betray Jesus.

Luke 22 tells us that the night Jesus was arrested, Peter sat in a courtyard with a group of people around a fire.  Those with Peter recognized him as one of Jesus’ disciples and tried to get him to confess that he knew Jesus.  With each of the accusations, Peter exclaimed that he did not know Jesus.

Later we read that after Jesus was raised from the dead, he appeared to Peter on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.  Peter, the disciple who had rejected Jesus not once, but three times, was forgiven and received a second chance.  So if the love of Jesus was big enough to forgive the betrayals of Peter, is Jesus’ love big enough to forgive Judas?  Is God’s grace deep enough to wash away the sins of Judas the traitor?

This is a tough question.  After all, don’t we know what happens to Judas?  According to Dante, Judas ends up in the deepest circle in Hell, frozen in solid ice at the feet of Satan.  A seemingly fitting punishment for his crimes.  But do we really know what happened to Judas? Why does this question nag at us? Can we dare say that Jesus would have forgiven this man if given the chance? Could God’s amazing grace really save a wretch like him? Or, is the question we are really asking, could God’s amazing grace save a wretch like me?

This story in the Gospel of John is a tale of two disciples, one faithful, one weak. One who gets it, and one who doesn’t. One who gives all she has to her Lord, and one who seeks to take all he can from him.  Yet this tale of two disciples is, in reality, our story.

Within each of us, both disciples exist in tension with one another.  We are all Marys, who seek to serve Jesus Christ with our whole lives and to be formed into his self-giving image.  And we are all Judas’, who struggle with doubt, who reject the love of Christ towards one another, the world, and even ourselves.  We are a people who both miss the point and are given the grace to understand it.  We have all sinned and have all fallen short of the call of Christ.  Yet we work for the needs of the poor, pray for our brothers and sisters, and worship our God in word and deed.  The tale of these two disciples is our tale, our story, it is the reality that we deal with day in and day out.

So as we continue on our Lenten journey toward the cross, we are faced with the question, is God’s love big enough, deep enough, wide enough not only to embrace the Mary within us, but also to forgive the Judas within us as well?  If the answer is no, then we have reason to despair.  For no matter how extravagant our offerings are or how profound our acts of service may be, there is nothing we can do to make up for the depth of our sin, the depth to which we have fallen.  But if the answer is yes, then we have hope in the amazing grace of Jesus Christ.

If the answer is yes, then we can take a deep breath and be at peace.  If the answer is yes, then we can know with firm and certain knowledge that all of us, the good and not so good, have been made new by the astounding love of God.  In the name of God, the Father Son and Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever, Amen.

Admittedly, you may not have felt such a jolt.  In fact, as soon as you realized that today’s scripture was the familiar Parable of the Prodigal Son, you may have experienced something of a power brownout.  After all, this is one of the most familiar stories in the Bible.  Through countless hearings, it can take on all the bland predictability of a biblical theme park.  It’s still lovely to hear, but we no longer expect anything dangerous, wild, or unexpected to jump out at us.  We may agree with Ralph Waldo Emerson, who called this parable “the greatest story in the Bible.”   But even a great story like the Parable of the Prodigal Son can be tamed, leaving us with a moral lesson that goes something like this:  Like the prodigal son, no matter how far from God we may wander, if we say we’re sorry and return to God, God rejoices and welcomes us home.    That’s a beautiful story, a true story, but one so predictable that it may have lost its power to shock and surprise us.  So let’s move the kaleidoscope half a turn and watch the odd, shocking pieces of the story click into place.

For example, notice the abnormal interaction between the father and his younger son.  When the younger son asks his father for his share of the property, Jesus’ first hearers would have let out a gasp.  Such behavior was unheard of.  An inheritance was given only after a parent’s death.  To ask for it when his father was still alive not only defied custom, but also demonstrated an appalling lack of respect for his father. The younger son’s request for his inheritance is the equivalent of wishing his father dead.

And the Father’s response is wholly unbefitting a middle-eastern patriarch.  Like an overly indulgent parent who can’t refuse any request, he divides the property and gives the younger son his share.  Talk about spoiling your kid!  By our lights, the father should have taken a stronger stand, saying something like,  “Fine son.  If you want to turn your back on your family, go off to the big city and ruin your life, go ahead. But you’re not doing it on my dime.”   Today we’d judge that the father’s action is at best enabling, and at worst rewarding irresponsible behavior.

Predictably, things do not go well for the younger son.  The inheritance runs out, and soon he is destitute and alone.  Even the pigs that he has been hired out to feed are eating better than he is. That’s when we’re told that he “comes to his senses.” He realizes that even his father’s hired hands have decent food to eat and a roof over their heads.  So he rehearses the speech that he plans to make to his father.

Now the odd thing here is the absence of any clear act of repentance on the son’s part. He doesn’t seem to be repenting so much as scheming. He’s not returning because he’s sorry, but because he’s hungry.  There’s no indication that he realized how much he had hurt his father, but only how much he needed a bed to sleep in.  Jesus may have wanted to shock the Pharisees and scribes—as well as us—by telling about an impudent son who was more of a scoundrel than a true repentant.

Be that as it may, the Father doesn’t seem to give a hoot about his son’s motives.  All he cares about is that his son has come home.  Once again the details are shocking.  While the son is still far off, the father, filled with compassion, runs—let’s be honest: more like a mother than a father—throws his arms around his son, kisses him right there on the road where everyone can see them.  “Great men don’t run in public,” Aristotle said. But this father apparently doesn’t care what Aristotle says, or what his neighbors say for that matter.  He doesn’t even let his son get through his rehearsed confession before he shouts, “Bring a robe, the best robe, a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet.”   What? No apology required, no restitution demanded, no probationary period enforced?  This father needs a refresher course on tough love.  Let the boy earn his way back into the family, sweating in the furrows, eating in the slave quarters, spending his days serving his elder brother.  The father’s reckless love for his son defies both common sense and the rules of good parenting.

But friends, this isn’t a parable about good parenting.  It’s a glimpse into the kingdom of God, a picture of undeserved grace and unexpected joy, an event so surprising, so undeserved, so out of joint with all that life should bring that we fall down in awe before this joyful mystery.

Of course, not everyone is joyful.  When the elder brother hears the music and learns of a party being thrown for his irresponsible brother, he seethes with resentment.  No one even bothered to call him in to join the party.  Accordingly, he refuses to come. When the father comes out to plead with him, the elder brother explodes with justifiable anger, saying, in effect: “I’ve worked all these years doing everything you commanded, yet you never gave me even a goat.  But you took the calf that I helped birth.  And you killed my calf for that little ingrate.”

Then comes the father’s poignant reply: “Son, you are always with me. Everything I have is yours.  Everything.  But we had to celebrate and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.”

Last Sunday we sang the hymn,  “There’s a Wideness in God’s mercy.”   But left out of our hymnal is the stanza that says:

But we make His love too narrow

By false limits of our own;

And we magnify His strictness

With a zeal He will not own.

Friends, admittedly today’s scripture is an odd choice for a Lenten text.  But I’m glad that it’s included as a Lenten reading.  It surprises us with the good news that, whatever the liturgical season we are in—and whatever season of life we are in—the band plays on.  It’s the joyful sound of God’s rule-breaking, reckless, undeserved love for sinners. The feast has been made ready.  Shall we join the party?

The novelist Graham Greene has a character in one of his early works say, “You cannot conceive, my child, nor can I or anyone, the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God.” In this difficult, troubling episode in Luke, what is Jesus telling us about God’s mercy – in all its appalling strangeness?

We might not, on first reading, think there’s any mercy to be found here. The story begins on a horrific note and does not let up. Some unidentified people recount an episode staggering in its cruelty – Pilate has ordered the slaughter of pilgrims on the very grounds of the Temple so that the blood of these devout worshipers flows into the blood of the sacrificial animals they were offering to God. Certainly those who tell of this slaughter expect that Jesus, a devout Jew himself, will condemn Pilate in the strongest terms and reassure them that they are safe in God’s protection. But he doesn’t. He says nothing at all about Pilate’s action, responding instead with a sharp theological question to which he provides a sharp and unwelcome answer. Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.

No reassurance there.  But it gets worse. Jesus himself offers another example of sudden, tragic death, this time through a natural disaster – a tower has collapsed, crushing 18 citizens of Jerusalem, and, of this event, he says the same thing – do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.

Jesus knows, no doubt, that this group gathered around him thinks precisely that those who died somehow deserved such a fate, for he lives in a culture that measures guilt by tragedy, (Kilgallen, p. 63). The people of Israel believed that pain and suffering, sorrow and affliction, were visited upon human lives by God as punishment for the sins of either the affected individuals or their ancestors. And such transactional understanding is not a relic of past times, but persists among us still. Do we think the people of Syria who are being murdered by Bashar al Assad are worse sinners than those who escape? Do we think the man lost when his bedroom disappeared into a sinkhole was a worse offender than all others living in Florida? Surely, these people must have done something wrong. We secretly – or perhaps openly – prefer to live in a world that draws straight, clear lines between the flawed lives of sinful people – those sinful people over there living lives so different from ours – and their demise. We can understand the sort of calculus that ties tragedy to God’s judgment and good fortune to God’s favor. We can live within that calculus.  In his commentary on this passage, John Calvin writes:

We not only censure with excessive severity the offenses of our brethren; but whenever they meet with any calamity, we condemn them as wicked and reprobate persons. On the other hand, every man that is not sorely pressed by the hand of God slumbers at ease in the midst of his sins, as if God were favorable and reconciled to him.

The people gathered around Jesus may have started their day – we may have started our day — with the sort of world view and theology Calvin describes, but we are not allowed to remain there. With his pointed questions and his insistent call to repentance, Jesus severs any causal link between sin and suffering, disrupts any transactional understanding of fault and calamity. Rather he makes plain that life is fragile, death is coming – through cruelty, through accident, through any number of human and natural agents. Repentance alone keeps death from being a final perishing.

But generation after generation, century after century, we read this passage and struggle with it. We struggle with it largely because we live, inescapably, in a world of cause and effect. Flip up a switch and the lights come on. Drop a ball over the second floor railing and it falls to the floor below. Shift the car into reverse and back out of the parking space.

And thank God for that structure to the world because we could not survive the chaos of never knowing whether the lights will work, whether the ball will fall downward or fly upward, whether the car will move backward or forward when we put it in reverse. It is a mercy of God that the world operates by consistent and reliable laws.

But – as Jesus teaches here — the cause and effect structure does not apply to human sin and divine punishment. And thank God for that, because we truly could not survive an honest judgment and subsequent punishment of our sin. It is a great mercy of God that we are judged by the One who loves and redeems us, the One who waits for us to repent and return.

And so, Jesus calls us to repent. Not so we can earn God’s mercy, which is given as the free gift of grace, but so we can see, recognize and live into that mercy.

The need for repentance is a consistent theme in Luke’s gospel. Earlier, he records Jesus saying, “I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance” (5:32). In our passage today, Jesus makes plain that all are numbered among the sinners for whom repentance is not only appropriate but imperative. All those who gathered around Jesus that day were called to repent. All of us who gather around Jesus’ table this day are called to repent.

We resist repentance for any number of reasons. But I think one of the most persistent and pernicious of those reasons is our fear that true, deep repentance – a commitment to turn around and follow Jesus instead of continuing to follow the world – will change us beyond what we are willing or able to imagine and endure. We know who we are as sinners, and while we may not entirely like or at all admire who we are, there is at least the comfort of familiarity. We hesitate to undergo what we worry will be a transformation into someone entirely different.  If our lives are going well, and we’re not among the number being slaughtered by a tyrant or crushed by falling debris, it’s even harder to admit our need for repentance.

And so Jesus tells a parable about an unproductive fig tree. This is a compelling little vignette, isn’t it – a vineyard owner at the end of his patience with a fig tree not only failing to provide figs, but occupying space and using resources that could be redirected. There’s a question of stewardship here – at what point does forbearance become irresponsibility? The gardener advocates for the fig tree – he suggests a regimen which might allow the tree to fulfill its promise. And the gardener is willing to do the work — not to transform the tree into something strange and new, but to help it become what it was created to be – a fig tree which produces figs.

Repentance does not transform us into something strange and new. Rather it frees us to live fully into our blessed identity, to become truly ourselves. Sin distorts our reality as sons and daughters made in the image of a loving God. When we choose to cling to those distortions, we are barren fig trees – occupying space without fulfilling our purpose. Repentance reorients and redirects us so that we can begin to flourish under the care of a gracious gardener.

The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, writes:  The gospel will not ever tell us we are innocent, but it will tell us we are loved.

That, finally, is the message of these verses which, on first reading, seem so difficult and troubling. We are loved. Jesus brings a love so great that it calls us away from perishing into repentance, away from calculation into grace, away from barrenness into fruitfulness. When we repent, we turn toward the strange but ever true mercy of God which claims us as God’s own and nurtures us that we may not perish but may have everlasting life.   Amen.