Think And Let Think

It’s a confounding image to take in - these ragtag disciples tripping over themselves in the streets, drunk on the Spirit. It must’ve garnered quite the crowd. However, none of the twelve, Peter included, had much to show for themselves. No exceptional credentials, no fabulous degrees from Jerusalem University, no financial capital to invest. They have nothing, really. Nothing except a message. And, thankfully, the message is always greater than her messengers...

Notice: On Easter, Jesus’ response to the sins of his followers isn’t to berate them or judge them or even damn them. He doesn’t give them a list of things to do, or programs to start, or even prayers to pray. Instead, he just comes back to them, to us, with love. How odd of God. Easter invites us to do nothing more than trust that the Good News really is that good - that God in Christ refuses to abandon us regardless of how good or bad we may be. If Easter becomes anything less bizarre than that, then we can’t call it the Gospel.

Perhaps a night like tonight would be easier to handle had Jesus offered himself to the eleven but not to Judas. Maybe it would sit better with us if Jesus had drawn the line between those who are in and those who are out. But no, there’s our Lord caressing the feet of his betrayer, who will shortly use those feet to march out of the room and deliver Jesus to death. Maybe this is Jesus’ way of parabolically embodying another commandment - to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. If we assume that being Christian is somehow synonymous with do-goodery, victorious virtue, and modest morality, then this night is a rather robust rebuttal. If we think that, as Christians, we sit at Jesus’ table with clean hands and a spotless resume, if we think that our feet are washed because of our good behavior, well, then we’re wrong. John is begging us to see the scene, to take it all in, the feet, the hands, the hope, the loss, all of it. It’s a ringing reminder from the strange new world of the Bible th

Karl Barth once said that “To clasp our hands in prayer is a beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.” When Jesus enters the holy city the crowds sing their prayer, much like we sing and pray before we come to the Table: Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. Do you know what that word means? Hosanna? It means “Save us!” The crowds call for salvation, for Jesus to save them and, by the end of the week, that’s exactly what he does...

That Jesus teaches us how to pray is the wild declaration that God wants us to speak up, to voice our opinion, to ask for God’s intervention. And the claim of prayer is far more astonishing than we make it out to be as we mumble our way through the Lord's Prayer every week - the author of the cosmos listens and acts according to our prayers! Therefore, let us boldly pray prayers that are big enough that only God can bring them to fruition.

It’s one thing to pray, “Forgive us our trespasses,” and another thing entirely to add, “As we forgive those who trespass against us.” Forgiveness always comes at a cost - it’s not cheap and it isn’t easy. The hurt we experience is consequential. Therefore, when Jesus teaches us to pray this way, he’s not implying that we should shrug things off as if they don’t mean anything. It’s just that Jesus, through his life, death, and resurrection, refuses to let sin be the first and last word in our story. Instead, the first word and the last word is forgiveness.

We’ve said the Lord’s Prayer so many times in so many places with so many people that we often no longer think about what we say when we pray. And I think a similar sentiment is true of the Lord’s Supper. How many times have we come forward with our hands outstretched? How many times have we received the grace of God through food and drink? Enough that we know what we’re doing when we do so? The truth of the matter is that we do not know what we are doing. Not even the most theologically sophisticated among us knows what we’re doing. And that’s actually Good News. The disciples surely had no idea what they were getting into, and what was getting into them, when Jesus said, "This is my body and this is my blood." In the Eucharist we are confronted with a reality that confounds our speech. These things are more real than real. They cannot be contained by our words because they are the grace of God. Which is another way of saying: our most important business as a church happens at the table.

To pray “Your kingdom come” is to be willing to become part of a rather weird gathering of motley, mediocre, and messy people who were once considered outsiders but who have discovered their insiderness in Jesus. And yet, we pray for God’s kingdom to come because it is not yet here in its fullness. It’s the whole “already but not yet” thing. To be Christian is to be unsatisfied with the status quo, with how things are. We are unsatisfied because our faith is eschatological. That is, we are a people who insist on leaning into God’s future.

Jesus’ rebuke against practicing our piety publicly, particularly as we enter the season of Lent, it cuts straight to the heart. But sometimes that’s exactly what we need. Our hard-heartedness often renders us convinced that we have to earn our ticket to heaven whereas the crosses on our foreheads reminds us that heaven has already come to us. In the end, we are not called to be good, or virtuous, or even pious. We are called to be disciples. And discipleship is often nothing more than following Jesus toward the cross. The cross reminds us that we can’t fix ourselves. In any other place and any other institution that is unmitigated bad news. But here, in the church, it’s the Gospel. It’s good news because nobody, not the devil, not the world, not even ourselves can take us away from the love that refuses to let us go.

For some reason, we (that is preachers) like to take this miracle, and instead of focusing on it, we focus on Peter. We make our theology into anthropology. Focusing on Peter makes this extraordinary story ordinary, which undermines the miracle that is the Transfiguration! The Gospel isn’t found in Peter cowering on the mountain, and it’s certainly not in the idea of doing good works (which we all know we’re supposed to do whether or not we know the Christ on the mountaintop). The Gospel is Jesus Christ and him Transfigured.

The Law functions to drive us out of our propensity toward sinful self-sufficiency. That’s why Jesus preaches his offensive sermon. Otherwise, we are doomed to remain exactly as we are. And the Lord doesn’t arrive to keep things the same - the Lord arrives to make all things new. Including us. But there is no resurrection without crucifixion. Hence the expression: The Gospel can only make alive those whom the Law has killed.

The Gospel does not promise the possible - it deliver the impossible. The Gospel gives what the law demands. That’s why the love of God is strong enough to change things, even us. Or, as Luther put it: God accepts none except the abandoned, makes no one healthy but the sick, gives sight to none but the blind, brings life to none but the dead, and makes no one righteous except sinners.

Blessed are those whose anxieties overwhelm, who can barely muster the strength to make it through a day, for only those in need of help will be helped. Blessed are those who know not is as it should be and who yearn for things not yet seen, for that yearning is what we call hope, and hope does not disappoint. Blessed are those who don’t insist on getting what they deserve, otherwise they just might get it. Blessed are those who refuse to condemn others for what they do or leave undone, because they understand the parable of the publican and the Pharisee. Blessed are those who suffer for the sake of peace, for they already live according to the terms of the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who are mocked, hated, belittled, and beleaguered for the sake of their faith, for they rest in the shadow of the cross.

There’s a big difference, a huge difference, between trying to convince someone of the Gospel, and living according to the Gospel. For, living according to the Gospel, puts us in relationships with people we would otherwise ignore and, because God has a sense of humor, it usually results in someone seeing how we live and then asking, “Why are you the way you are?” And the answer, of course, is Jesus.

The Lamb of God brings a kingdom the world doesn’t want - the blood of the Lamb makes a difference and that difference means we are now different. God does not accept the current realities of the world. God is still contending against the powers and the principalities. God will get us to the Promised Land. It’s like God is saying to us today: “Come and see what I can do - come and see what we can do together! It’s going to be messy, but change always is.”

In the end, becoming and being a Christian is something done to us and for us before it is anything done by us. In other words: faith requires others. Just like baptism. Someone has to hold us, pray over the water, tell us about Jesus and the promise of what he has done, is doing, and will do. Someone has to model that faith, a whole life of faith. Otherwise, we would have no idea what we are baptized into. To know who Jesus is and what he means has got to come to us through others as a gift - a gift like grace.

There’s a story that passes around this time of year every year about a certain pageant and the child who played the innkeeper. For weeks and weeks all the children practiced their positions and their lines, they were ready. But when Christmas Eve arrived, and the little Mary, Joseph, and plastic Jesus arrived at the cardboard cut out entrance to the inn, they knocked on the door and the innkeeper froze. Little Mary kept repeating her line, “Please let us in. We’re cold and we really need a place to stay!” getting louder with each repetition. Until, finally, the innkeeper looked out into the congregation and said to the pageant coordinator, “I know I’m supposed to say, ‘No,’ but can I let them in anyway?” Kids get it.

The great joy of Christmas is that we do nothing to make it happen - Christmas happens to us. Even the biblical characters that we read and sing about, they are all so wildly passive in the story. They are recipients of God’s grace made manifest in the manger - just like us.

The world will tell us again and again and again that we are not worthy, that there is always more to do. Christmas tells us the opposite. God makes us worthy. There is nothing we have to do, except open our hands to the gift that is Jesus Christ. That is how the Good News works, it’s *good* news.

It’s rather extraordinary that we know the name of the Lord’s mother! And yet, even more extraordinary is the fact that God chose to come and make time for us, redeeming out time, and making possible the salvation that disrupts time forever. Our time is so redeemed because Mary’s son is Immanuel, God with us. No matter what. Whether we are on the naughty list or the nice list, God is with us. Whether we have gobs of presents under the tree, or if we haven’t had the time to get a tree at all, God is with us. Whether we have more Christmases ahead of us, or only a few left, God is with us.