Teaching the Prophets

It is the Sunday after that great day of the Resurrection! Easter Sunday is a wonderful celebration of what our Christian faith is all about - Jesus died on a cross and Jesus rose again three days later to let us know as an absolute truth that even though we will all die, we will all rise again and live with Jesus forever. Sounds simple; sounds easy. We believe that.
But Jesus felt the need to not just show us we will all go with him to live with God in our our mansion in heaven, but he stuck around on earth for 40 days and continued teaching his disciples what his death and resurrection were all about. We would think that after being with Jesus for 3 years, all day, every day listening to Jesus teach, the disciples would be fully prepped with all the knowledge they needed in order to be able to go and do what they were supposed to do.
But that wasn’t the case at all - even after they saw the empty tomb, they were still confused and afraid and depressed and almost paralyzed…….
And often that is where we find ourselves. We know Jesus rose from the dead. But sometimes we even hesitate to state for ourselves that we too will absolutely rise with Jesus to be with him forever. We too are confused and afraid and depressed and almost paralyzed not really certain what we are suppose to be doing. And if we are not filled with the confidence of knowing where we stand with Jesus and what Jesus has asked us to do we will be just like these disciples who are huddled inside the upper room wondering what is next……..
On that resurrection Sunday, we see several reactions from Jesus as he encounters people. The women have come to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body - a Hebrew tradition they were not able to carry out when Jesus first died because it was late in the day and they needed to be inside for the Sabbath - so Sunday morning was their first opportunity to go and do what was expected of them. They get to the tomb, the stone is rolled away. An angel tells them Jesus has risen from the dead and they are to go tell the other disciples and without hesitation they leave to go and do what the angel told them to do. On the way, they run into Jesus and Jesus greets them - “Greetings!” he says. “Don’t be afraid! I have risen from the dead. Now go tell my disciples!” And the women bowed down at his feet, worshipped him and without hesitation did exactly what Jesus had told them to do. Jesus greeting these women with love and care and gentleness.
Later that day, Jesus approaches a couple on the road to Emmaus - a town about 10 miles from Jerusalem. He asks them what they are talking about and they are incredulous that Jesus doesn’t know about all the events that had taken place that week. All we know about this couple is that they were Jewish and they had been disciples of Jesus who listened to his teaching, they had been in Jerusalem for Passover as was expected of them, they had witnessed all that had happened with Jesus - the triumphal entry, his teaching, the crowds screaming ‘crucify’ him, the crucifixion and the death. And this day, Sunday, was the end of the Passover and so they were on their way home. Jesus tried to get them to tell him more, but all the couple could do was tell of their disappointment that Jesus obviously wasn’t really the Messiah since he had died and hadn’t taken over the city and run out the Romans and this couple admitted they were at loose ends because they really didn’t know what to do next. Their hopes and dreams had been dashed and they were going to have to go back to their normal life without the benefit of a Messiah.
Now with this couple, Jesus isn’t so nice as he was with the women. He says to them: “How foolish you are!” Words most of us probably wouldn’t want to hear from Jesus! But why were they foolish? What is it that Jesus points out that makes them ‘foolish’? And what we learn is that is was their lack of knowledge of the scripture - which specifically for this couple was a knowledge of what was taught by the Old Testament prophets. This isn’t the first time Jesus criticized the Jews for not knowing what was taught in the Bible. He said the same things to the Pharisees more than once -
‘You should have known this. You are the leaders of the church. You should have known the scriptures well enough to figure out who I am. After all, all of the Old Testament points to who I am”. Every Jewish male went to Hebrew school from the time they were small until their Bar Mitzvah at 13. This is true even today. Synagogues have Jewish school for the boys and now even the girls which is above and beyond their regular education. In Jewish school they learn what is in the Old Testament Bible and learn it to the point that much of it is memorized. And the first words to this couple is simply - you went to Jewish school; you learned what the scripture taught, and have you so easily forgotten what you learned? That is a foolish thing to do.
But what happens next….. what happens next is that after Jesus fussed at them, he began to teach them. Scripture says he taught them what the prophets said about him starting with Moses and going all the way through scripture.
Now, I would have loved it if Luke had recorded what Jesus taught the couple this day, but he didn’t. And perhaps for a reason - and maybe the reason is that we are suppose to learn what Jesus taught them that day ourselves.
Understanding the stories and the people and the concepts in the Old Testament is essential to our understanding Jesus in the New Testament. There is much more to understanding Jesus that just believing he raised from the dead. That is important, but what is more important is what that is suppose to mean for us. Not just that we will raise from the dead like Jesus, but that Jesus calls us to live a different life during the years we are here on earth. Understanding our role as followers of Christ is what the Gospel is all about. We are free to live as God tells us to live, not as the pressures of society tells us we need to live. But if we really don’t get what that is, then just believing in the resurrection has been wasted; Jesus suffering and death is meaningless for what Jesus really wanted to accomplish - transformed lives and a better world.
So far we have seen Jesus graciously tell the women who came to the tomb to tell others about him; we have seen Jesus fuss at the couple from Emmaus because they didn’t know what they were suppose to know about the prophets - and then he taught them. The next time we see Jesus is the Sunday evening of the day of Resurrection when Jesus goes and sees his disciples who are locked up on the upper room. He appears and he fusses at them as well - “How many times over the last three years did I tell you that I had to fulfill what the Old Testament prophets said? So why are you surprised about everything that happened which is just like the prophets taught?” But, like the couple on the road to Emmaus, after he fussed at them, he taught them what was said about him in the Old Testament.
The Apostle Paul tells us in Corinthians that after Jesus had appeared to the couple at Emmaus and the disciples, he appeared to 500 of Jesus’ disciples. Now we don’t know anything about who these disciples were; if Jesus appeared to them one at a time or in groups or all at once. We just don’t know - but what Paul alludes to is that Jesus did the same thing with them he did with the 12 disciples - he taught them the prophets of the Old Testament.
Now, if learning about the prophets was so important to Jesus that his was his prevailing message upon his resurrection, then it seems to me it is something pretty important for us. Remember when Jesus was getting ready to ascend to heaven, his words to the disciples were not, just go save people - not, his message to the disciples was not go tell people I came back from the dead - no, what Jesus said to the as his very last words were - “Go tell people what I have taught you.” And as we look at the stories on the day of the resurrection, what did Jesus teach? He taught them about the Moses and the Law and the prophets.
Now we don’t have time during this message to learn all there is to know about the prophets. There are a lot of prophets in the Old Testament. There are 12 we call the minor prophets - those are the little books at the end of the Old Testament - Micah and Malachi and Joel and others. There are ones we call Major prophets - not because their message is more important but it is simply because their books are longer - like Ezekiel and Jeremiah and Daniel. And there are many more prophets found in the Old Testament stories. Their messages are fairly simple:
First - God is always with you. Remember the prophets all taught during times of turmoil for the people of God. And while these people were suffering they needed to hear that God was there - they weren’t suffering by themselves. God knew and God understand and in his own way and in his own time God was working….
Second - There were the prophets whose job is was to remind the people that God gave them a way to live and if they lived in that way they would live at peace as the nation of God. These were the prophets who had the hardest job - do we like to hear we need to straighten up and fly right and really live by the promises of God? The people in the Old Testament didn’t either.
Third - There were the prophets who pointed out that what God wanted from his people was what we today would call social justice….. treating every one fairly, caring for the poor and the needy, not judging people, taking the concepts of the ten commandments into everything we did as we dealt with the people around us.
Of course this is a real simplification - but what it reminds us is that the Bible - the scriptures we have with us and available to us are an important word from God. The Bible is not just a good book - it is an essential part of who we are as the people of the Resurrection.
On this Sunday after the Resurrection - we need to heed the words that Jesus told everyone he met that day - learn and know what the scriptures teach.

Amen!

The Week Begins

It was the Saturday evening before Passover. As we talked about last week, Jesus is at the home of his friends, Mary, Martha and Lazarus in the town of Bethany which is about a mile from Jerusalem. People were gathering at Lazarus’s house, not only to hear Jesus teach, but to see this man who had been dead and was now alive. He has become the local celebrity - evidence of what Jesus can do. Legend says that Lazarus is killed by the Jewish Religious Leaders since he is evidence of the ability of Jesus to raise people from the dead. But on Saturday night, the night before the beginning of the week of the Passover, there is quite the crowd at that house in Bethany. Jesus is just wanting to spend this evening with those he cares about, with his friends, because he knows what the week ahead holds for him - but as so often in his ministry, he is surrounded by a great crowd of people who wanted to hear him and perhaps see a miracle or two. And Jesus, who never puts his own needs over others, spends the evening teaching all those who have come by the house. The next morning Jesus gets up and he and the disciples, and many of the people who had been visiting the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus, all began to walk into Jerusalem for the Passover. Jesus sent a couple of his disciples to find him a donkey to ride, because the prophecy declared that the messiah would ride into Jerusalem on a donkey. Custom also said that kings of peace rode into town on the back of the donkey, kings of war would ride in on stallions. Jesus was announcing that he was entering Jerusalem as a King of peace. This also was what was known in Jewish circles as the day of gathering for Passover and Jews from the nations that surrounded the Mediterranean Sea, Jews from what we would know today as Greece and Turkey, even countries deep into Africa, were all traveling into Jerusalem to get ready for the Passover. Hebrew law required that everyone who was able was to come to Jerusalem for the Passover – this was the reason all these crowds were on the road that morning. Everyone traveling is in a festive mood – they looked forward to coming together during this celebration. Jews would come to see people they only saw once a year, they would gather for feasts and parties as the week would build up to the Seder meal and the Passover rituals near the end of the week. Think of a festival or gathering you go to every year that you look forward to and see people you only see at that time and everyone comes and joins everyone else and just has a fun relaxing time. That was Passover in Jerusalem. So as everyone is traveling on the road to Jerusalem, Jesus comes riding a donkey and the people who have heard rumors that the Messiah is going to come in and overthrow the Roman government begin singing Hosannas because they thought that Jesus was coming as the Messiah to become their earthly king and to give them back their land – to kick out the Romans and once again there would be a Hebrew king governing the people of Israel. So the celebration heightened as they did what you did for a King, - wave palm branches, lay your cloaks on the road, sang Hosanna. What a great time – the great celebration of Passover and just like the first Passover when they were released from slavery, they would now be released from the oppression of a foreign government! Into the city they go, rejoicing and having a great day! Jesus, the disciples and the crowds continue into Jerusalem under the watchful eye of the religious leaders who are leery of what is going on. All this allegiance to this wandering teacher was disturbing. The leaders were worried their power would be questioned. This teacher had the crowds all worked up looking for change. Change is never good when you are in power and the religious leaders were understandably worried. Even today we are cautious of new ways and new ideas and change;. Jesus was turning everything the Jews thought were absolutes and telling them there were new ways to look at what they thought was truth. New ways to understand their role as God’s people. The leaders thought everything was fine the way it was. They thought they were being obedient to God the way they were. By the afternoon, however, after everyone has entered the city, as celebrations are going on in Jerusalem, we see Jesus not joining in on the party, but sitting on top of the hill overlooking Jerusalem and weeping. He knows that this great celebration and this happy mood and these hopes of a new government will be crushed by the end of the week – things will not turn out as these people who are now so full of joy think it will. As the week goes along, the mood will quickly become dark. Jesus knows that everyone is going to turn against him and even his closest disciples would abandon him. On Monday, Jesus gathers his disciples in Jerusalem and begins to talk to them. Not just the 12, but big crowds of people who had been following him. He begins to tell them parables to try and help them understand what is going to happen during this week. The disciples are still hopeful that Jesus is going to do something miraculous and take over the city, throw out the Romans and Jesus and the disciples will ascend to the throne in the city. But Jesus’ parables aren’t heading that direction at all. He tells them the story of the owner of the vineyard. The story goes like this: A man owns a vineyard. He decides to go on a journey and turns the vineyard over to the workers. Sometime later he sends a servant to collect the receipts and the workers beat the servant and send him back empty handed. Again, the owner sends another servant and the same thing happens. The owner sends one more servant and this one they kill. But the owner is still hopeful and continues to send servants with the same results, some are beaten, some are killed. Finally the landowner sends his son saying, “Surely they will respect my son.” But the workers in the vineyard figure if they kill the son, the owner will abandon the vineyard and it will then belong to the workers. And that is what they did. They killed the son and threw his body out of the vineyard. And Jesus says, and now the landowner will come and throw out all the workers who are there and give the vineyard to others. Jesus told this story not only to his disciples, but there was a crowd of religious leaders standing around listening to this story. The Pharisees heard it as well and became very angry because they knew that Jesus was talking about them. But the religious leaders looked around and saw the crowds and were afraid of what the people might do if they arrested Jesus, so they left to look for another time to get rid of him. The next day. Tuesday, Jesus comes again to the temple. Now, remember the temple is huge. About the size of 3 football fields. Around the outside perimeter of the temple were areas where teachers would gather students and teach. On Tuesday of what we call Holy Week, Jesus is at the temple teaching again. But his teaching is much more serious than the people have heard before, much more about sacrificing your life, your time, your money for God. His teaching was about how one needed to put God first over everything else. About how choices were going to be difficult and about how no longer was being a descendent of Abraham enough to be part of God’s people. The Religious leaders came and questioned Jesus and they didn’t like his answers about how they had missed the point of what a life as God’s people was all about. The people who had crowded around Jesus and hung on every word he said began to drift away as well. He wasn’t saying what they wanted to hear anymore. He actually told them to pay their taxes to Caesar. He told them, give all they had left to God. There weren’t any more miracles. Jesus just wasn’t who they thought he was after all. As the week progressed, Jesus continued his difficult teaching, telling the few people who were left that if they followed him people were going to hate them. He talked about death. As the crowds left, so did one of his disciples. Like the crowds, Judas is disillusioned because Jesus is not doing what Judas thought he should do. Like the crowds, Judas wanted Jesus to do something radical. Like the crowds, Judas wanted Jesus to do something political and that wasn’t the direction things were going. So Judas thinks he can force Jesus’ hand by turning him in. Surely when they come to arrest Jesus, he will be forced to act in a different way; Jesus would be forced to start the coup against the government. And by Thursday, all the crowds had left. There was no one left willing to listen to Jesus. It was only his disciples who were with him. And not only did one of them betray him, but one would deny him, and all but one of the remaining 10 would desert him. Only John would remain with him to the cross. What a difference a week makes. Holy Week begins today. We began the service with the waving of palm branches and we end with the somber music and a somber mood to remember this is the way this week will go. It begins with celebration and ends with death. It began with large crowds shouting Hallelujah to Jesus and ends with the same crowds screaming to crucify him. It ends with Jesus all by himself as he goes to his death. A death of an innocent man, who dies for us; who spends the week trying to help us understand what being the people of God is all about; a man who still goes to the cross even though everyone has deserted him…. A man who goes to the cross and looks out over those who have beat him and made fun of him and deserted him and put nails through his hands and feet and in his agony cries out for God to forgive them – and to forgive us.

Taking Time

We have made it to the 5th Sunday of Lent. This Sunday is also known as Laudate Sunday. The word Laudate roughly translates as ‘refreshment’ so this day in many traditions is a day where one can take a break from the rigors of Lent. You can take a break from the refraining from what you have ‘given up’ for this season and any other Lenten practices you may have; in many Catholic traditions the priests have a special pink stole they wear on this Sunday. Just like we have a pink candle in our Advent wreath on the 3rd Sunday of Advent, some churches also have a pink candle in the lenten candles for today. On this journey of Lent which is a time of reflection, of serious consideration on the death of our savior, of depriving ourselves of something we enjoy - we stop for a moment and take a break.
Taking a break doesn’t always have to do with stopping, or not doing, but sometimes in doing something different from what we normally do in our life as followers of God, worship is one way in which we ‘take a break’ - a way in which we stop the ‘normal’ business of our lives and just spend some time doing something completely different than anything else we do; spending time giving our time and attention solely to someone else - to our God. Lent itself is suppose to be a break - a taking of time to ‘break’ from our everyday routines and take some time to study, to pray, to ponder; to consider what is all this about God and being a ‘Christian’; about following Christ as Lord and Savior. How does proclaiming my faith in Christ truly affect my life and my thoughts and my decisions and my actions and my choosing of how to spend my time. Our faith practice as we learn from Jesus and from other parts of scripture is full of encouragement to ‘take a break’ from routines.
The story we read today from the book of John finds several people taking a break. It is almost time for Jesus’ final days on earth - of course he is the only one who knows that. He has journeyed to the town of Bethany to the home of his dear friends - Lazarus and Lazarus’ sisters Martha and Mary. It hasn’t been too long ago when Jesus had made another trip to Bethany - he had been summoned there by Martha and Mary because their brother Lazarus had become very ill. But before Jesus arrived, Lazarus had died. Martha and Mary were very distraught and disappointed that Jesus hadn’t arrived earlier because they knew that Jesus could have healed Lazarus. And by the time Jesus got there, they figured it was too late; their brother had been dead for 4 days and had been wrapped in cloths and laid in the tomb which was sealed. Jesus went out to the tomb with a crowd of people and very publicly called Lazarus to rise from the dead - the tomb was unsealed and out walked Lazarus. They took off his burial wraps and he was alive and healed!
Now several weeks later, Jesus was back at their home. It was a break for him - he wanted to relax for an evening before the time of Holy Week began. He knew what a difficult week it was going to be, he knew the pain and suffering he would have to endure at the end of the week - but tonight was a time for friends. A time to enjoy. A time to relax.
We are familiar with Mary and Martha - Martha is the sister who is the doer, the worker, the busy one - busy, busy, busy. Mary is the quiet one; the ponderer; the one who takes what she learns and considers what it means and how it applies to her and how she can live what she has learned. These two very different women and their brother Lazarus are some of Jesus’ closest friends and at their home is where Jesus decides to spend his last evening before the events of Holy Week begin to unfold.
Mary instinctively knows there is something about Jesus - something different; perhaps a little melancholy; a seriousness. The death and resurrection of her brother has taught Mary the unpredictability of life and the miracles that can happen. She now better understood the graciousness of God. Overwhelmed by love and gratitude, Mary takes time out, time to worship, to say thank you, to acknowledge the holiness of Jesus who is sitting in her home. She takes a moment out to offer all she has to the one she recognizes as her savior. So let’s stop for a minute and think about the word ‘worship’. When I say ‘worship’ the image that comes to mind is here, this service that we are participating in, this time we come to ‘church’. We read through our liturgy, sing hymns, read and hear stories of scripture. For us, this is worship. The Biblical picture of worship is much more than just this hour each week. We read often that this or that Biblical character stopped and ‘worshipped’ God. Realistically this action was just taking some time to stop what they were doing and spend a moment thanking God or praising God or just quietly being in the presence of God. The word ‘worship’ means “to give something worth” - to worship means to take a moment and acknowledge the value of something or someone; worship then for us is to stop what we are doing, taking a moment, and letting God know how important he is in our lives - take time out of our day and say “Yes, you are a wonderful and gracious God and I am yours”. According to the Biblical picture, that is worship. Nothing complicated or even time consuming - just a moment to acknowledge who God is.
This, what we are doing now, is also worship but so is any time we take a moment and thank God or just stop and recognize that God is our God and that he loves us and cares for us and showers us with his grace. Whenever we take time to give worth to God.
This is what Mary was doing. As Jesus and the disciples were spending time at her home, relaxing and talking. Martha of course is working - she is serving dinner to ‘the men folk’ - Lazarus and the disciples and Jesus. They are reclining around the table when Mary comes in, takes a pint of nard, anoints Jesus feet with the nard, and wipes it off with her hair. This for Mary is an act of worship. She was taking a moment to give worth to Jesus; to offer herself and all she was to Jesus.
There are a lot of details to this story that are significant - the idea of Mary using the nard - a pint of nard was equivalent to a year’s salary. People bought nard as a ‘savings account’ - much like we buy gold or jewelry or any tangible item that normally increases in value over time. So Mary is giving Jesus her future - her savings. Here Jesus, I trust you so much that I offer to you what I have saved for my ‘old age’, for my retirement. I know that you will take care of me and now I use what is so important to me and my future to honor you.
Another significance of this moment is the picture of Mary using her hair to wash and dry Jesus’ feet. Putting aside the fact that this is something completely outside of our understanding, the point here is for a Hebrew woman to take her hair down in public was something scandalous. This would have been a point for gossip at the town well - “Do you know Mary took her hair down in front of those men? How could she do such a thing? How disgusting of her!” In their culture, at this time, this type of thing just was not done.
What we see in this story is that Mary didn’t care what anyone thought - it didn’t matter that the disciples began to fuss at her for ‘wasting’ the expensive perfume, it didn’t matter to her that once again Martha is working and Mary is doing something more ‘spiritual’, it didn’t matter to her the women in town were not going to approve and she would be the talk of how scandalous this was - what was important to her was taking a moment, taking a break, taking time to just worship Jesus. She knew that this was much more important than anything else that was going on.
And the last line of the story says, “And the smell of the perfume filled the home.”
Isn’t that a beautiful way to show us the value of what Mary has done.
Lent is an opportunity to take time and evaluate. Life goes on. We live in the world. We have worldly responsibilities - jobs, aging parents, children and grandchildren, all those chores around our house, obligations in our towns and neighborhoods and with friends. We all have them and they are not going to go away. It is part of just being alive and living. But what we need to do - what Lent is designed for us to do, is to take some time and look at all these things we have to do - and even the things we want to do, and make sure they haven’t so crowded our lives that there isn’t any time left to worship - daily worship as we stop occasionally to thank God for whatever is going on - and it can be simple things like “Thank you God for helping me get all this housework done” or “Thank you God for the close parking spot” or just “Thank you God for getting me through this day”. Nothing complicated; just a constant reminded to us that the one who is really carrying us through every day, is God.
And also to take time to come to this hour of worship where we can gather with other people just like us - people struggling every day to get everything done and to do all those necessary things that have to be done; people like us who struggle with our faith and where God is in our lives every day. Taking time to worship and acknowledge God really is in charge and God really does want what is best for us.
This story of Mary is a reminder for us - we the people of God, the followers of Christ - need to take a break, to take a moment out of our day, every day, and just honor our Christ. There doesn’t have to be anything formal; we don’t have to say ‘proper’ words; we just need to stop and acknowledge the Christ who suffers and dies for us, the Christ who is resurrected for us; the Christ who now reigns in heaven for us, caring and loving and showering us with his grace. The Christ who gave his all for us.

Amen!