Whole Numbers—A Sermon on Being Twelve, Three, and One

Grace and peace from God our Creator, hope in our Redeemer Jesus the Christ, and the promised gifts of the Holy Spirit are with you, always.

I wonder, a lot of the time, about the stories chosen from our scripture for the lectionary. The lectionary, remember, is a three-year cycle of stories that guide us, week by week, through the seasons of the church year. This is the seventh Wednesday in Easter and our story is in a sort of odd in-between space. Jesus is about to ascend into heaven. Next week, we’ll celebrate Pentecost, the arrival of the Holy Spirit in the life of the apostles, the birthday of the Church. And so this week, the apostles have some business to attend to.

Throughout the ministry of Jesus, there were 12 disciples. There were 12 of them because 12 was an important number to the people Israel; there were 12 tribes among them, and so having a corresponding number of disciples would represent a completeness, a wholeness.

The traumatic and dramatic events of the last several weeks, which include the horrific death and miraculous resurrection of Jesus, also include the death of Judas Iscariot, one of the disciples. The different books of the New Testament tell slightly different stories about Judas’ death, none of which I will describe for you because they are all grisly. But Judas is dead, and the disciples are incomplete. They’re incomplete because there’s literally an empty seat at their table, and they’re incomplete because one among their trusted circle seems to have brazenly betrayed everything they held in common. Filling his seat, so to speak, will right this wrong to varying degrees.

They discern that it should be one of two men: Joseph or Matthias. These two candidates are worthy, in their eyes, because they have been part of the movement from the beginning. Peter says that they were there for the baptism of John—one of Jesus’ first public acts—and were there when Jesus was arrested and killed. They understand what it means to be a witness to the resurrection, going out into the world to continue the work.

They are, apparently, equally qualified, because the disciples are comfortable “casting lots” to determine who will join. “Casting lots” is a phrase we’ve heard before; do you remember when? The Roman soldiers at the crucifixion of Jesus cast lots for his belongings. Casting lots is sort of like rolling dice, in that we are not the ones doing the choosing. But this practice is more spiritual than that, in that it was believed that the result would be left up to God. Casting lots would show God’s will in the situation.

So to determine which of their friends will officially join the roster of apostles, the 11 gather to pray and then to let God’s will be done. And Matthias it is! The apostles are 12 again, whole again, complete again. The first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles—literally—comes to a close.

In this week’s portion of the Gospel According to John, we drop in on Jesus in the middle of a prayer. As you heard, this is one of those times when Jesus talks for a long time but seems to say the same thing several times in several ways and we have to read it several times to get it all.

It’s a recap of his ministry—“I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world”—and a plea for safety—“protect them from the evil one”—and some instructions for the apostles to overhear—“as you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world” (John 17:6,15,18).

Biblical scholars call this part of this book Jesus’ “farewell discourse” as he says a lengthy goodbye (three chapters long) to the disciples. I think it’s interesting to look at how Jesus prays for the disciples, and to think about what that means for us.

One of the lines that sticks out to me the most is when Jesus prays, “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one” (John 17:11b).

Jesus knew, in the very beginning of the life of the Church, that one-ness would be hard for us. He knew we’d need God’s help, straightaway. Verses from this chapter are the guiding mission of and organization called the World Council of Churches. This is a network of hundreds of denominations around the world, who gather under the one-ness of our common Christianity. It is notable that we are not one Church, one denomination, one congregation. We are millions of people, in thousands of communities, in hundreds of countries. As usual, Jesus was right. We need God’s help.

Christian history is full of division and injustice. We have a troubled past, no matter where you begin. We engage in quote-unquote holy wars, the Crusades, the Inquisition, slavery, genocide, terrorism—gravely slandering the name of Christ. Every time we draw a line between who is in and who is out, we’ll find Jesus on the other side.

I wonder if we’ve misunderstood this prayer of Jesus. I wonder if we’ve misunderstood one-ness and unity as uniformity, assimilation, and erasure. We’ve looked out into God’s world, in all its brilliant diversity, and determined that our way is the right way, and that everyone else must change or die.

This is wrong.

Christianity’s allegiances with white supremacy, and colonialism, and imperialism, and militarism, and environmental degradation are all wrong. The one-ness that Jesus speaks of here is not whiteness, or Westernness, or maleness, or even humanness. The one-ness Jesus prays we will attain is much deeper than any of our divisions.

You have probably seen at least an image or a tweet about the massacre in Gaza this weekend. Dozens of Palestinians were slaughtered by Israeli forces. This sermon will not resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but I hope it will not perpetuate it, either.

Our holy lands are holy because they belong to God and because we belong to God. They are not made holy based on who purports to own them.

Every person—Israeli, Palestinian, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, White, Arab, Black, Latinx, able, disabled, immigrant, indigenous—every person is beloved of God.

If we believe that anything we do is in the name of God who created us or the Christ who redeemed us or the Spirit who guides us, we must never forget that that is as true for every other person as it is true for us. God loves you, and Jesus prays for your safety and your wholeness, and the Spirit moves among you to this very day. Our completeness is based in that, and only in that. Our completeness cannot come through war, or death, or violence of any kind. Jesus prays for us, that his “joy may be complete” in us. His joy. As people of God, as the Body of Christ, we are made for life and for joy, not for death or for fear.

Let us go forth into the world in peace, not in terror.

Let us go forth into the world in joy, not in sorrow.

Let us go forth into the world in hope, not in fear.

Let us go forth into the world in life, not in death.

Let us go forth into the world.

Freedom, cut me loose.

I was recently part of a conversation in which someone characterized people as either a "chaos muppet" or an "order muppet." For example, Animal is a chaos muppet, as his fundamental orientation is toward drumming wildly; Kermit is an order muppet, as his job is to make sure that everyone is in their place in order for the show to start.

I am an order muppet.

I am in my fourth year of using a Passion Planner to structure my work (my employment and my self-work). I am a six on the enneagram. I am an ESFJ. I am a Hufflepuff. These may mean something to you, these may mean nothing to you. That's fine.

Mostly, what they have meant to me, is that structure is where I find freedom. When there are no rules, I freeze. When there are unclear expectations, I freeze. I rarely go with the flow. I just tried to think of a good example of a time when I have relinquished full logistical control to someone else and, truly, could not think of a good one—until recently. This year has been full of unexpected blessings and not-so-blessed-things. (I feel the need to acknowledge the absolute dumpster fire state of the world as part of this, but we're all here, we all know.) 

Since this is the big, wide, internet, I'm not about to walk you through every moment of what's been happening, but suffice it to say that from mid-December 2017 until now, approximately nothing has gone according to plan for me or some of my dearest loved ones. There has been death, and near-death, and sickness, and surgery. And there has been new life, and new cities, and new houses. Some of our unexpectedness has been positive, but even with those changes comes grief about what had been. Throughout these months, I have handed over—or admitted I had no control over, if we're being really real—the lives and livelihoods of my dearest ones to the God we love and who loves us. Throughout these months, I have reviewed the vows my husband and I made to each other last October, trusted that he meant what he said, and trusted that we are in this together. I, most terrifyingly, placed deep trust in doctors and nurses and other medical professionals.

There was nothing I could do. I had to let go of any semblance of control, and trust everyone else. While I identify these last several months as tumultuous, they have brought deep clarity to my sense of self: I have begun to consider perhaps occasionally going with the flow on purpose.

I have begun to notice that I may have placed too rigid of structures on my own self. There is a difference between keeping my calendar together—so that my colleagues and I are on the same page about what time we're meeting—and setting rules for myself that make it harder to enjoy my life. 

[I re-wrote a few versions of a sentence and stared at the cursor for a while before getting to the sentence that follows this parenthetical.]

I am going to abandon my reading list. 

I know what you're thinking: who cares? Me. And that's why I'm letting it go. I love to read, and I needed a way to structure my reading after a lifetime of syllabi. I floundered for the first year after seminary, unsure how to access all the leisure reading (and learning) I wanted to do, now that I was free. So I set myself some structure for 2016—Book Riot's #ReadHarder challenge and Rachel Syme's Women's Lives Club—and I read. And last year, I did it again. And this year, I set out to do it again. Due to the aforementioned absolute mess of a Q1, I am "behind" in my progress, and—most importantly—not excited about the books I have lined up. There are categories of books that I agonized over, and yet somehow convinced myself that this was going to be good? Even limits have their limits.

It's baseball season, so we're spending our evenings watching game after game. It's awesome. I'm listening to my usual podcasts, including one about baseball, on which a writer whose book I'd been eyeing (but not buying! Because it isn't on the list!) was interviewed so well that I cried. And then ordered her book. I have read more pages in the last week than in the month before that.

I do not believe I will ever abandon my life goal to #ReadFewerWhiteDudes. Rest assured, dear reader. And I will keep posting my reading on social media as I complete books, but I will also stop reading the two books I'm stuck in the middle of because I truly DGAF about them. And will not regard this as "failure" or feel shame about it! I will order books that I hear about that I want to read! And then I will read them! Ahhhhhhhh

An Exceptional Easter Sermon

Grace and peace from God our Creator, hope in our Redeemer Jesus the Christ, and the promised gifts of the Holy Spirit are with you, always.

The weather this week in Davis has totally gotten the message that it is Easter, that it is spring, that it is time for new life everywhere. The sky is blue, buds are breaking through on trees, flowers are blooming, grass is impossibly green, seasonal allergies are creeping in, and rain is in the forecast. It is fairly easy to look around at this and understand the feelings of celebration that accompany Easter. The eggs and the rabbits and the butterflies, with their metaphorical significance and their Americanized Easteriness, invite us to perhaps eat a few too many jelly beans.

If you went to church on Sunday—no shade if you didn’t, that’s what we’re here for!—the sermon you heard may have made an April Fools Day joke, because Easter fell on April 1 this year. Thanks be to God, it is now the 4th of April and so we are in no such predicament.

Except Easter is still weird! It’s still kind of unbelievable! Last week, churches all over the world walked through the story of Jesus’ last week alive on earth.

Last Sunday, we celebrated Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem, subverting the empire in all its glory. On Thursday, we commemorated the last supper with the disciples, renewed our commitment to loving service, and washed each others’ feet. On Friday, we mourned Jesus’ horrific assassination. On Saturday, we sat vigil with the body of Jesus, dead in the tomb. And then, Sunday morning, we gathered to rejoice in the resurrection hope.

Except none of us, here in this room, did that together. We were in different cities, home for spring break, or visiting congregations around town, or weren’t in church all of those days, anyway. When we left this building, it was Lent. And now we’re back, and it’s Easter! No Holy Week required.

Except Holy Week is so, so required. If we’re just at church on Sundays, we go from Palm Sunday—happily waving palm branches and blowing trumpets and cheering—to Easter—happily shouting HALLELUJAH CHRIST IS RISEN INDEED.

Except, in that case, risen from what? If we skip from Palm Sunday to Easter—which, don’t get me wrong, sounds way nice and way easy—the miracle of Jesus’ resurrection doesn’t make sense. If we do not acknowledge and sit with the day on which Jesus died, how can we truly celebrate the day he was raised from the dead?

The feelings of despair on Good Friday and Holy Saturday—days on which there is, truly, no hope—are feelings we do not want to hold on to. We do not want to sit with grief forever. We do not want to sit with pain forever. We do not want to sit with fear forever. We do not want to want to sit with anguish forever. We do not want to sit with uncertainty forever.

The friends and family of Jesus who were present at his death never expected to be there. They were there, just days before, for the big parade! That was awesome! Jesus was changing the world, and they were right there with him!

And then, he was wrenched from their grasp, and with him, their whole vision of the future. Everything they had hoped for, everything they had worked for, everything they loved...was dead. Sometimes you expect life and find death.

The next day was the Sabbath, the first one of Passover, a very holy day. They spent it in a fog, unsure what to do next. Except for three of the women. Mary the mother of James, Mary Magdalene, and Salome spent that day preparing burial spices and ritual action for the following morning. They did what they knew needed to be done to honor the now lifeless body of their friend and teacher. They prepared the spices for anointing, and set out in the pre-dawn darkness for the tomb. They discussed the practicalities of the situation—a huge stone was between them and their work. “Who will roll away the stone for us?” they wonder. The tomb was sealed when they left it. Jesus was dead, and in the tomb, and that was that.

You don’t have to work very hard to imagine their surprise when they arrive and see that the stone has been rolled away. The Gospel According to Mark puts it very plainly: “As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed.” Alarmed? No kidding. “But he said to them, ‘Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here.”

This is wild, y’all. Can you envision this scene? I’m thinking wide eyes, open mouths, cold sweat; the spice jars crashing to the ground, clattering around their feet. This stranger—perhaps an angel?—calmly continues. ‘Go, tell your friends that Jesus is alive, and that you should meet him back home in Galilee.’ Oh, okay, sure. Not unexpectedly, the three terrified women turn on their heels and run. They “fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” They were instructed to go home and relay the message, but they were too afraid.

Until they weren’t! The only reason that we are here in this room tonight is because, at some point, they mustered up the courage to blurt out the biggest secret they’d ever kept. JESUS IS ALIVE! They probably shouted. Or perhaps whispered, and had to be asked to speak up. It’s a story too good to be true, isn’t it? It isn’t April Fools Day, but Easter is only for those of us foolish enough to believe the truth.

Sometimes you expect life and find death; sometimes you expect death and discover life.[1]

This unbelievable Easter story comes to us from the Gospel According to Mark, which ends, controversially, with some verses that scholars believe were added in later. In this version of the story, Jesus does not appear to the women or to the disciples. In this version of the story, “all we get is an empty tomb and some terrified women.” [2] Which works for us, because we have all been afraid. We have all been uncertain. We have all been speechless. This version of the Easter story tells us that it is okay to be afraid. This version of the Easter story also tells us that we no longer have to be afraid. That that Easter morning, and this Easter Wednesday night, Jesus who once was dead is now alive.

And, in the interest of full disclosure, I really needed to be told that this year. There has been a lot of death, and a lot of fear, and a lot of pain, and a lot of misinformation, and a lot of uncertainty, and a lot of sleepless nights, and a lot of asking God a lot of questions.

I struggled during Holy Week and even these past few days to get out of the Lenten and Good Friday darkness and into the bright sun of the Easter dawn. I don’t know if that has been true for you, too, or maybe it was last year, or maybe it will be in the future.

Fear is real. And death is real. Jesus knows that as well as anyone. But what Jesus’ resurrection tells us, every Easter, is that fear and death do not win. Fear and death do not have the final say. The power of God brings life into the world over and over and over again. Every morning is Easter morning.

You may have seen that on my facebook this week, in all capital letters. Every morning is Easter morning, from now on. You are a lucky bunch, because this year I have not chosen to sing the song to you, complete with jazz hands, as I have been known to do. So that you don’t feel entirely left out, please know that a very tacky Easter song from my upbringing includes those words—every morning is Easter morning, from now on—and reminds us that not only is Easter a 50-day-long liturgical season, but it is truly a way of life. We are the Easter people.

Hallelujah! Christ is risen, and we, too, shall rise.

[1] On Facebook, I saw this turn of phrase attributed to my friend and colleague, The Rev. TJ Freeman.

[2] I riffed (and ripped) this whole paragraph from the beautiful sermon by The Rev. Christa Compton, without whose proclamation I am not sure I would have believed, this week.