This is the first weekend in over a month that I haven’t been off doing something else - leading a retreat, teaching a class, engaging in a workshop or seminar of some sort. It has been tiring, to be honest, but also exciting. Because most of what I teach when I step outside of the local church is preaching. Something I love doing - well both doing and teaching, to be honest. Partly because of what I understand preaching to be.
Preaching is an intensely personal activity. We are invested in what we do as preachers. There is a piece of ourselves in each sermon. There is a vulnerability in the act of preaching. So, when I go and teach and when we in a class setting preach to one another we become a little closer, we become a little more like the community that we could be.
That isn't the purpose of our preaching when I teach. The purpose was an academic exercise, they are there to learn about preaching, to test their skills and to grow as individual preachers. I'm there to teach, to suggest areas for growth, and to encourage them in their journey to become the preachers that God has called them to be. But this other thing, this other purpose happens anyway. The bonus is that this unintended purpose helps the main goal -- we learn more, we learn more effectively because of the community we become. So, perhaps the unintended purpose is intentional after all. Or it would have been intentional had we thought of it ourselves.
Which is what might be happening in our gospel lesson for this week. Let's read:
John 19:26-29 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, "Woman, here is your son." 27 Then he said to the disciple, "Here is your mother." And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home. 28 After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), "I am thirsty." 29 A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth.
First of all, you'll notice that there are two Words from the Cross in this passage. When designing this series I realized that the only way that I could get a separate Sunday for each Word would be to start two weeks early or to go over Palm Sunday and Easter. And as an Easter Message, "Into Thy Hands, I Commend My Spirit" might not carry the same jubilant experience as "Christ is Risen" does. So, I had to do some combining. This week we get Word Three and Word Five. OK, I'm also jumping around. But it made sense as they were both in this same passage.
Anyway, the truth is giving equal weight to both Words is difficult and the supporting passage from Isaiah talks about being thirsty - so the sermon tomorrow will be weighted toward the "I Thirst" Word. Which means I need to balance by paying attention to the other Word in this space. With me so far?
Word Three then is this: He said to his mother, "Woman, here is your son." Then he said to the disciple, "Here is your mother." We began with a Word to God -- Father Forgive -- on behalf of all of us guilty ones. Then came a Word of welcome to a sinner. Now a Word to a Mother and a Son. But before that word they were not Mother and Son. Well, she was a Mother and he was a Son, but they were not Mother and Son. If you follow.
For most of his ministry, Jesus seemed unconcerned about family as traditionally understood. It began when he was twelve years old and got Left Behind (Ooh, another best-seller Left Behind: Adolescents in the Temple. Never mind.) When mom and dad found him, Mary's comment to Jesus was "Your father and I were worried." Jesus' response was "I was with my father." Uh oh, that must have hurt. Don't you think?
Later on when Mary and the boys showed up to take Jesus home because people thought he was mad, word was sent to Jesus: "Your mother and your brothers are here!" Jesus responded with "Who is my mother, who are my brothers?" That must have hurt.
Jesus told that guy to leave the dead to bury the dead when he said he wanted to stay with his father. Jesus said he came to set mother against daughter and father against son. I wonder sometimes if those guys who are always preaching "family values" ever read the New Testament. It almost seems as though Jesus were anti-family.
Bishop William Willimon tells of how he would get phone calls from angry parents when he was Dean of the Chapel at Duke University. He said that he never got complaints or requests for help from parents who would say help, my child has gotten into alcohol and it is ruining his life. Or help, my child is embarking on a life of casual sex and it is ruining her life. No, he said, the calls came from parents who said, “help, my children have become religious fanatics and want to spend their lives helping the poor, and it is ruining their lives!” Or, what they really meant, is that it is ruining the plan I had in mind for his or her life! Darn that Jesus, messing with families again.
It is like Jesus had a different purpose for families in mind, different from what most of assume when we talk about our family. We are of the opinion that blood is thicker than water. But Jesus wants us to understand that water is thicker than blood. Only when the water is the water of baptism, however. Willimon says that in baptism we are rescued from our families. Now this is a pretty contentious statement, and many of us would argue that our families are really pretty good folks all around. Sure we bump heads now and then, and sometimes we disappoint one another from time to time, but overall they are pretty good folks and we love them.
After each baptism, I take a few moments to carry the infant into the new family. Which includes the one that brought him or her into the church, but now is much larger, much more inclusive. I introduce the child to a new family. Child, here are your mothers, your fathers, your brothers and sisters, here is your family.
From the cross, Jesus was creating a family, because he would argue, we need one. We need to be connected to one another. We need to belong to one another. We need to care for and be cared for by one another. We need community, and so with his dying words he creates, or continues to create community. In that culture, family was everything. Your place in society came from family, your purpose came from family, your inherent worth came from family. Jesus knew we needed family, he just argued that there was another way to create a family. That locus of meaning, that sense of place was to be found not from an accident of birth or a legal transaction, but from an act of will in a covenant community. We are who we are because of the family that He puts us in. Woman, here is your Son. Here is your mother. And a new family is created.
At the first and the second Word we discovered that the purpose of the cross was to put us back into right relationship with God. Now at the third Word we hear that the purpose of the Cross is to put us into a right relationship with one another. To build community.
Preaching is an intensely personal activity. We are invested in what we do as preachers. There is a piece of ourselves in each sermon. There is a vulnerability in the act of preaching. So, when I go and teach and when we in a class setting preach to one another we become a little closer, we become a little more like the community that we could be.
That isn't the purpose of our preaching when I teach. The purpose was an academic exercise, they are there to learn about preaching, to test their skills and to grow as individual preachers. I'm there to teach, to suggest areas for growth, and to encourage them in their journey to become the preachers that God has called them to be. But this other thing, this other purpose happens anyway. The bonus is that this unintended purpose helps the main goal -- we learn more, we learn more effectively because of the community we become. So, perhaps the unintended purpose is intentional after all. Or it would have been intentional had we thought of it ourselves.
Which is what might be happening in our gospel lesson for this week. Let's read:
John 19:26-29 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, "Woman, here is your son." 27 Then he said to the disciple, "Here is your mother." And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home. 28 After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), "I am thirsty." 29 A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth.
First of all, you'll notice that there are two Words from the Cross in this passage. When designing this series I realized that the only way that I could get a separate Sunday for each Word would be to start two weeks early or to go over Palm Sunday and Easter. And as an Easter Message, "Into Thy Hands, I Commend My Spirit" might not carry the same jubilant experience as "Christ is Risen" does. So, I had to do some combining. This week we get Word Three and Word Five. OK, I'm also jumping around. But it made sense as they were both in this same passage.
Anyway, the truth is giving equal weight to both Words is difficult and the supporting passage from Isaiah talks about being thirsty - so the sermon tomorrow will be weighted toward the "I Thirst" Word. Which means I need to balance by paying attention to the other Word in this space. With me so far?
Word Three then is this: He said to his mother, "Woman, here is your son." Then he said to the disciple, "Here is your mother." We began with a Word to God -- Father Forgive -- on behalf of all of us guilty ones. Then came a Word of welcome to a sinner. Now a Word to a Mother and a Son. But before that word they were not Mother and Son. Well, she was a Mother and he was a Son, but they were not Mother and Son. If you follow.
For most of his ministry, Jesus seemed unconcerned about family as traditionally understood. It began when he was twelve years old and got Left Behind (Ooh, another best-seller Left Behind: Adolescents in the Temple. Never mind.) When mom and dad found him, Mary's comment to Jesus was "Your father and I were worried." Jesus' response was "I was with my father." Uh oh, that must have hurt. Don't you think?
Later on when Mary and the boys showed up to take Jesus home because people thought he was mad, word was sent to Jesus: "Your mother and your brothers are here!" Jesus responded with "Who is my mother, who are my brothers?" That must have hurt.
Jesus told that guy to leave the dead to bury the dead when he said he wanted to stay with his father. Jesus said he came to set mother against daughter and father against son. I wonder sometimes if those guys who are always preaching "family values" ever read the New Testament. It almost seems as though Jesus were anti-family.
Bishop William Willimon tells of how he would get phone calls from angry parents when he was Dean of the Chapel at Duke University. He said that he never got complaints or requests for help from parents who would say help, my child has gotten into alcohol and it is ruining his life. Or help, my child is embarking on a life of casual sex and it is ruining her life. No, he said, the calls came from parents who said, “help, my children have become religious fanatics and want to spend their lives helping the poor, and it is ruining their lives!” Or, what they really meant, is that it is ruining the plan I had in mind for his or her life! Darn that Jesus, messing with families again.
It is like Jesus had a different purpose for families in mind, different from what most of assume when we talk about our family. We are of the opinion that blood is thicker than water. But Jesus wants us to understand that water is thicker than blood. Only when the water is the water of baptism, however. Willimon says that in baptism we are rescued from our families. Now this is a pretty contentious statement, and many of us would argue that our families are really pretty good folks all around. Sure we bump heads now and then, and sometimes we disappoint one another from time to time, but overall they are pretty good folks and we love them.
After each baptism, I take a few moments to carry the infant into the new family. Which includes the one that brought him or her into the church, but now is much larger, much more inclusive. I introduce the child to a new family. Child, here are your mothers, your fathers, your brothers and sisters, here is your family.
From the cross, Jesus was creating a family, because he would argue, we need one. We need to be connected to one another. We need to belong to one another. We need to care for and be cared for by one another. We need community, and so with his dying words he creates, or continues to create community. In that culture, family was everything. Your place in society came from family, your purpose came from family, your inherent worth came from family. Jesus knew we needed family, he just argued that there was another way to create a family. That locus of meaning, that sense of place was to be found not from an accident of birth or a legal transaction, but from an act of will in a covenant community. We are who we are because of the family that He puts us in. Woman, here is your Son. Here is your mother. And a new family is created.
At the first and the second Word we discovered that the purpose of the cross was to put us back into right relationship with God. Now at the third Word we hear that the purpose of the Cross is to put us into a right relationship with one another. To build community.
It isn't an accident. It is by design. Welcome to the family.
Shalom,
Derek
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