"A Resurrection People...?" Sermon from March 15, 2015

1 Corinthians 1:18-25
For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart." Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.

John 2:13-22
The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, "Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!" His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for your house will consume me." The Jews then said to him, "What sign can you show us for doing this?" Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." The Jews then said, "This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?" But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

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Last week our nation recognized the dubious ‘50^th anniversary’ of a nonviolent march across a bridge in Selma, Alabama.  And like the good social justice junkie that I am, I ran out to see the movie detailing this struggle when it opened back in January.  

One of the most surprising scenes for me – you know, for those of us who weren’t around to witness the events in real time – was the moment when Martin Luther King, Jr., standing with several hundred black people at the peak of the Edmund Pettis bridge, gazing down on a knot of police and volunteer militia intending to become a stumbling block…King knelt down to pray… and then turned around.  He simply turned around and led the people back to Selma.

I think I gasped out loud in that scene - it was so unexpected to see a failure of will.

At the top of that Bridge, with the certainty of bodily harm to the group weighing on his shoulders and thin hope for a federal injunction against the officers, King fills with doubt and turns around, confounding the crowd and handing a victory to his opponents.  In that moment, he couldn’t see beyond the present.  In the face of the vicious enforcers of the empire, he couldn’t find God’s vision.

This film crystalized for me how comradery, collaboration, and unity of purpose within that nucleus of black activists was so integral to seeing beyond the present.  When King was stymied by self-doubt, I’m certain he had to see through their eyes.

1:18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

Both Martin Luther King and the Apostle Paul wrote public letters while jailed for opposing the powers that be with a message of God’s inclusive love.  Both used rhetorical flourishes, affirmations, flattery, logic and reason flattery to persuade their enemies and their friends.

Paul traveled throughout the Middle East, then under Roman control, setting up small communities of Christ-followers who lived contrary to prevailing traditions.  In these communities, all were welcome, whether male, female, married, single, young or old, rich or poor, elite or peasant.  But, as with all communal life, holding onto this noble idea was not without it’s challenges.  Paul would hear of their struggles, and correspond with letters that gently but firmly addressed the struggles.

In the Corinthian passage above, written in Greek, Paul asserts the cross is a ‘skandalon’; which is defined as a trap, snare, or any impediment causing one to stumble.  The definition also lists that it is figuratively applied to Jesus Christ, “whose person and career were so contrary to the expectations of the Jews concerning the Messiah, that they rejected him and by their obstinacy made shipwreck of their salvation."

See, the Jewish historical narrative – the Old Testament - had largely married the values of ‘empire’ with religious salvation. By empire, I’m referring to the means to hold power and influence in society; war-power, wealth, status, preferred race, and the traditions that reinforce the power structure.  Jesus lived during the time of the Roman Empire.  The US was founded by the British Empire, and many would say that we are in the era of the American Empire – although I might argue it’s closer to an Empire of Consumerism.

For Jewish lore, the coming messiah was expected to be a powerful, conquering King that would liberate the Jewish people from the Roman occupation, probably through war and similar oppressions, so they could re-establish their prominence as a people. Not re-order society – just re-establish the Israelites on top.  

The religious elite could not see beyond the present.  Not only was Jesus NOT a king, but he was an extremely poor laborer and – adding insult to injury – authoritatively anti-establishment. When he came on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, same as an estimated 2.7 million Jews who walk far distances for high holidays, he finds a system so embedded and invested in it’s own self-sustenance that it is no longer open to a revelation from God. Rather than respect religious status quo – the one place where Jews still had autonomy in the Roman Empire - he overturns the moneychangers and chases the merchants from the temple.

The scandal of the cross is that it was intended as intimidation, but failed.  The authorities clung to the trappings of empire tried to make an example of Jesus to dissuade his followers. Therefore, it is even more scandalous when those followers are not intimidated, but find strength in the ultimate weakness of death.  Paul says that talk of the cross – the ultimate symbol of shame, humiliation, and rejection - will strike nonbelievers as folly, but for believers it is the very power that is transforming their lives. Trust in God, faith in the future, joy in the moment.  This is what allows the early Christians to be a Resurrection People – this is what allows them to see beyond the rules of the empire and the boundaries of tradition to what seems impossible.  

Today is the 4^th Sunday of Lent. Lent is a time of reflection of where Empire has a hold on our lives.  Where does worry overtake joy?  Where does fear outrank love?  Where does our desire for security overpower our compassion for the other? Rather than 40 days of sugar withdrawal, can we challenge ourselves to face the areas of our lives where the pressures of the status quo, or the burdens of maintaining empire have taken root over joy…or grief…or compassion for our fellow human?  Are we clinging to the certainty of trust in God’s love and what we can do with it – or stressing over the requirements of status?  Are we a people married to the first century temple taxes and practices, or are we open to change and renewal in our institutions – in our churches – in our lives?  Are we willing to try to see beyond?

Over and again, Paul’s letters are filled with assurances of what’s possible if people cling to God’s love – cling to ‘the cross’ - rather than the old divisions of Empire (status, wealth, gender, race).   It’s present when we walk into the uncertainty of the unknown with the knowledge that we can trust God and let fears and anxiety go.

God is described as choosing “the things that are not,” or as the one who brings life out of death.  This is Paul’s way of talking about the creative and redemptive power of God that is at work among the Corinthians, bringing God’s own future into being at the very same time that “the things that are,” the social order of this world - are passing away, being wiped out, being made powerless.  Paul is describing a transitional process.

A few years ago I served St. Luke’sLutheran Church in Logan Square as a seminary intern.  This church I had first visited for Christmas caroling, years before I entered seminary, where we joyfully (and a little too gleefully thank to the spiked glug) cheered the local neighbors with our favorite songs. 

Like many city (and suburban) churches these days, the congregation struggled financially, but strove to be a force in the community.  The church was down to 12 families and sold the parish house in order to call Rev. Erik Christensen in 2000. They began renting and sharing the cavernous church structure for office space, Al-Anon meetings, local art residencies, social justice film series, health outreach, and theater groups.  The even put on a summer street festival called ‘the Boulevard Bash.’

I took note when St. Luke’s joined with 3 other neighborhood churches to hold an “Occupy Palm Sunday”.  After service, members of the congregation processed, while singing, to the circle park that marks the center of Logan Square.  There, they had a sort of ‘sit in’ to learn, listen, and support speakers on hunger, homelessness, health care disparity, and immigrants as a public display of faith in action.  I chose to serve this church because of this interest in a public faith.

In my conversations with Pastor Erik Christensen, we talked about the redevelopment he was attempting at the church.  Under Erik’s leadership, St. Luke’s endeavored to manifest God’s grace where it was currently present within the church, rather than strive with futility towards it’s former self.

Last month, St. Luke’s congregationvoted formally to sell their historic, 114-year old church building.  This was not without pain, grief, and discord in the congregation – of course.  For some, the building is church.  The familiarity and nostalgia is part of what makes worship meaningful.  But it’s also unsustainable.  St. Luke’s will continue to be a congregation, but with different décor.  It was the act of a congregation willing to ‘see beyond’ and take a chance on being a Resurrection People.

Pastor Erik was quoted in the local paper as saying,

“The question is how do we line up the assets with our vision for being a progressive public church in the neighborhood.  It’s beginning to become clear to us that it’s eating up more of our time and resources than makes sense as people who want to be focused more on relations with our neighbors than relations with our property.”

The congregation of St. Luke’s is trusting God to choose things that do not yet exist, but allied with God’s future, may come to be.  It’s a pathway full of doubt, but also full of the vibrancy of now rather than the anxiety of the status quo.   

Back in Selma, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. is in jail, heavy with grief for Jimmie Lee Jackson, the young protestor shot and killed by police; weighted down by complaints that he is ego-driven, and crushed with the reality of more physical violence that is almost certain for all the marchers.  He cannot see beyond that night. With a near-easy smile, his cell-mate and colleague Ralph Abernathy responds with something that seems to melt Martin’s worries away; Matthew 6:26;

“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”

As a resurrection people, we can trust in God to see beyond when we can’t.  And that’s what we need to do, because the possibilities within are God’s visions, not ours.

Amen and Amen.