Salt and Light - Sermon from February 9, 2014

Funeral in South Africa, 1995

Text:  Matthew 5:13-16

Sara Holben ~ Presbyterian Church of Chestertown

Introduction:  The Gospel Lesson from the Gospel of Matthew is part of the Sermon on the Mount.  Beginning his sermon with the Beatitudes, Jesus continues to speak directly to his disciples.  The Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5, and I will be reading verses 13 through 16.

13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.

14 “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

As far as job descriptions go, it’s not much to go on.  “You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.”   So go … be salt and light.

            Which means what exactly?

            I hate when that happens.  I’m always ready to meet job expectations, to fulfill the responsibilities I am given (after all my Epiphany star word this year is “responsibility”).  But I do like to know what it is I’m supposed to be doing – and I’m guessing I’m not alone. 

            Twenty years ago this month Bob and I answered a call to go and serve as Presbyterian mission workers in Cape Town, South Africa.  It was a very exciting time to go to South Africa, but a very uncertain time as well.  After forty plus years of rule by a government which had written racial separation into its constitution and enforced it with violence, and after years of negotiations to reach a transformation in government, in 1994 South Africa was poised for its first ever democratic elections.

A new constitution had been written which guaranteed equal rights for everyone regardless of race, Nelson Mandela was going to be South Africa’s first-ever black president – but in February 1994 when we arrived, two months before the election, no one knew if the country was going to make a peaceful transition or dissolve into civil war. 

We were going to work with a black congregation in the township of Guguletu – which had a population of over 300,000 people crammed into shacks and substandard housing, many with no electricity or indoor plumbing, in an area of approximately 3 square miles.  We were to work at a church that was about ½ mile from where an American Fulbright Scholar – Amy Biehl – had been killed by a mob about 6 months before we arrived.  I actually don’t remember if we ever told our parents that part or not.

In any case, we were going because we had been invited by the JL Zwane Presbyterian Church to come join their ministry.  The black pastor we were to work with had a vision to have white Americans come work in the community as a way of beginning to build new relationships with white people in South Africa.  So he had written job descriptions that simply said we were to “model a ministry of reconciliation.”

Which means what exactly?

Even now, 20 years later, I’m hard pressed to explain what that might mean.  To be honest, I don’t think Rev. Spiwo Xapile, our co-worker and supervisor, had any idea either. 

I know more or less what we did – and most times it wasn’t very spectacular:  although the majorette uniforms that Bob was able to get for a school were awesome and ask him sometime about the toilets he helped get for them – and the school rooms that went from holes in the roofs and no desks and windows to an entire school complex made out of recycled shipping containers. 

On the other hand, I drank thousands of cups of tea sitting in people’s kitchens, where I never ceased to marvel at people’s faith and resilience and creativity at making do with the little they had and who never lost hope. We attended far too many presbytery meetings held in languages we couldn’t understand and as a pastor I averaged 35 funerals a year in a community where the diseases of poverty took far too many lives.

But over the three years that we lived and worked there, mostly what we did is learn what it means to show up and listen.  To be present to hear people’s stories. To help connect visiting American church delegations with local communities of faith.  To bear witness - not to what we were doing – but to the amazing things that God was doing through people who had no idea that the simple things they were doing could transform a community and a nation, even a world.

You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.

Whether it was those first disciples sitting on the hillside near the Sea of Galilee, or whether it’s a congregation in Guguletu or in Chestertown or Malawi or wherever in the world that people of faith gather, the followers of Jesus are still salt and light.   Bringing signs of God’s new life to those around them – adding spice and flavor …  called to confront anything that would deny goodness with gentleness, kindness, mercy and grace, bringing to light for all to see God’s ways of compassion and forgiveness.

            But notice:  Jesus doesn’t say, “IF you want to become salt and light, do this …”.  Nor does he say:  “before I’ll call you salt and light, I’ll need to see you earning your title …”. 

            Instead he simply says:  “You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.”

            You who suffer and thirst for righteousness, you who are poor in spirit, you who show mercy, who mourn, who are pure in heart … you are already salt and light.

Jesus does not so much give us a command to go and become something other than we are as much as he gives us … and all who follow him … a blessing and a commission to go and live in the world as disciples.

He commissions us to live as salt and light for the world – not just keeping our own corner of the world tasty and lit up.  But we are meant to live on behalf of our neighbors – the stranger and alien, the ones who are forgotten and lost and least.  It’s the same thing Jesus commands at the end of Matthew’s gospel where he tells us:  “go into all the world and make disciples …”. 

We do that by living as salt and light – giving glory to God.

Making disciples is not done just by those who are trained, qualified and have the certificate.

Sharing God’s good news is not for only a few who have their theology organized and annotated and can prove their credentials.

Being disciples of Jesus does not happen when we’ve achieved some standard that shows we qualify.

Jesus tells us: we are the salt of the earth and light of the world already.  So just be the salt and light that we already are, with all that we already have, whether it is with faith as small as a mustard seed or with faith that can move mountains.

Presbyterian poet and pastor Frederick Buechner writes that Jesus tells us:

Be the light of the world…. Where there are dark places, be the light especially there. Be the salt of the earth. Bring out the true flavor of what it is to be alive. Be truly alive. Be life-givers to others. That is what Jesus tells his disciples to be.  That is what Jesus tells his church, tells us, to be and do.  Love each other. Heal the sick…. Raise the dead. Cleanse lepers. Cast out demons. That is what loving each other means [Buechner says].  If the church is doing things like that, then it is being what Jesus told it to be. [i]

And I would bet we recognize those things when we see them – whether they are happening here – or in other congregations out there.  Or maybe it is something that you have seen in your Uncle Will or Aunt Betty or your next door neighbor or a co-worker or someone you met at school.

Where is it that you have seen someone bringing a word of healing, or seen someone helping someone else without even being asked?  When has a word of hope been spoken, a prayer of support shared?  When has someone spoken out and spoken up for justice or mercy?  Who do you know who in some small way has been “salt and light”?  Where have you seen these places where God is at work through people?

This past week in getting ready for this sermon I ran across a website called the “Salt and Light Log.”  A pastor had set it up nearly 3 years ago in response to a challenge someone had given to help people notice where God has worked through other people, or through particular congregations, or simply out in the community to be the “salt and light” to help others, to bring hope and healing, to practice those random acts of kindness and compassion that are part of what helps knit the world back together and give us a glimpse of the kingdom of God.

People were asked to post on the “Salt and Light” website (through a text, an app, an email or a Tweet) when and where they had seen those examples of God at work through people being “salt and light.” 

A great idea – although on his map of the world the only examples of “salt and light” that were posted were all clustered in Ohio and Connecticut, and they all took place in February 2011. 

Now, those are both very nice states, but I have to believe that God is at work in more places than just Ohio and Connecticut … and that there have been some “salt and light” moments that have happened since February three years ago. My guess is the pastor (who was from Connecticut) got some of his members to respond – and probably from a friend’s church in Ohio.  And then most everyone forgot about it.

So while it didn’t take off as a world map covered with salt and light – it was still an intriguing notion to remind us to open our own eyes to see how God is at work around us in the most normal and ordinary ways, through people and in situations that no one might see as extraordinary but are the ways in which we all live out our calling each and every day as “salt and light.”

So I want to invite you to our own challenge – where have you seen a glimpse of someone who is being “salt and light” for the world?  Is it something you have seen in another congregation somewhere? Maybe it was someone you know.  Maybe it was someone in your own family – it might even have been something you’ve done.

Let me know about it this week.  I’m not going to be posting a world map on our website anytime soon – mostly because our website is down for right now while it is being completely re-constructed.  But if you email me or call me, or stop by the church someday or stop me around town, or write me a letter, or post it on our Facebook page … tell me those “salt and light” moments you have seen and experienced yourself. 

That day on a hillside in Galilee, Jesus commissions his disciples to be salt and light, to simply remind them to be the people they were called to be, the people whom God had create them to be. To season the world, to let their light shine so that others would see their good works and glorify God. 

Jesus isn’t asking them to earn their salvation, but to live out the salvation and discipleship that has been given them as a gift.

They are invited to come along with Jesus to be part of the kingdom of God.

That invitation is still the same – may it always be so.

Amen and amen.

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[i] Excerpt from Frederick Buechner’s sermon “The Church” (originally published in The Clown in the Belfry and also in Secrets in the Dark.)

Summer Bible Challenge: Moses and Manna

Another in the series ... after Vacation Bible School studied Moses:

“Bread and Water” – June 23, 2013         

Texts:  Exodus 16:(1-10) 11-15 and Exodus 17:1-7

            I completely understand this grumbling thing.  I do it quite well.

First there’s not enough rain.  Then there’s too much rain.  Then it’s too chilly and now it’s too hot and humid. 

            Maybe it’s just in our DNA, but it seems like it is human nature to complain.

Four years ago Bob and I were in the Sinai desert – and I became an expert at grumbling.  And while we may not have been in the same spot as the Israelites, I can attest to the fact that it all pretty much looks alike.  As Bob described it:  “you can drive forever and see nothing.” 

Which is not quite true.  You can see some things.

You can see rocks and sand and dirt and rocks and more sand and more rocks … and sometimes a mountain.  Pretty much as far as the eye can see.

Now Bob and I were not out in the wilderness for 40 years.  Although to hear us tell about it, we might as well have been.  We were on the second day of our 2-day trek through the Sinai when the leader has us all climb out of our Land Rovers (no air-conditioning, but of course I’m not complaining) and then the leader says: “let’s take a stroll over to the other side of that hill.” 

It was about 110 degrees (or so) - not a tree or a patch of shade in sight.  And the “little stroll” took about an hour and a half climbing up this “little hill” only at the top to discover we were actually on top of a steep cliff with a narrow path that went down into a deep, narrow valley.  And we were to hike to the bottom.

At the bottom it was hotter than 110 degrees.  Whatever water we still were carrying in our water bottles felt like it had been in the microwave.  And when we finally slid our way down into this valley with its oven-like heat and no shade, our Egyptian guide showed us how, by whacking the limestone cliffs with a stick it would release pockets of water that had seeped through the stone and gotten trapped. Water really could be released from the rock – although if you ask me, there would have to be a lot of whacking to get enough water for all those Israelites and their animals.

But after all that, standing in this brutally hot valley with no shade in sight, the leader has the audacity to say:  “well, it’s time for worship.”

Bob remembers it as “the worst worship service ever.”  The only thing I remember is thinking that the Israelites had every right to complain.

And while we may question their judgment about thinking that slavery in Egypt was “the good old days,” I can understand why they began to feel as if God had abandoned them out there.

If we’re honest, we are usually ready to believe that God is among us when things go well for us.   

When our health is good, when our children are successful, when everything goes smoothly in our lives – it is deeply rooted in our culture that these are the signs of a “blessed life.” 

Then what about when things don’t go so well?  What about when we don’t have the “outward” signs of success that we often associate with God’s blessing – and when things don’t go the way we thought we had them planned.  What then? 

What about when you don’t have enough money this month to meet the bills?

What happens when nothing seems to go right?

When good people seem to suffer more than others?

Is the Lord among us or not?  Sometimes I think we have every right to complain, to wonder why it is that God may have led us out here where there is no relief in sight. 

From a small infant crying to be fed … to a child’s complaint about a bully at school … to the very real abuses that we can experience at work or at home … or the very real concerns of entire communities left behind in poverty or the debris of war … complaining, grumbling, murmuring … this is how we make our concerns  … and our very legitimate needs known. 

Our complaints can be heartfelt and real. And when they are, we stand in a long line of faithful people who have complained to God.  The “lament” in Scripture – particularly in the Psalms - is a powerful tradition that gives voice to the very real times we have known abandonment, suffering, fear and danger.

Our laments call upon God to see and act, to listen to us, to do something.

Our laments do not mean that we lack faith – but it is the cry of faith that knows that this is not the way that things should be.

A complaint does not have to be about turning away from God, but instead can be a turning to God – trusting that God will not ignore us in our need.

Which just might be why the stories of Israel in the wilderness have always been so important not only to Israel, but to us. 

What better example of God’s grace could there be than knowing that even when we quarrel with and test God … God will hear and will answer us with “bread from heaven” and “water from the rock.”

But it can’t just end there, because it is so small a step from welcoming the blessings of God to demanding and expecting those blessings to be “on tap” –  to expect that God should respond to our demands and desires when and where we want.

That is the lesson of the manna and the water too.  For God doesn’t just whisk the Israelites out of danger – moving them right from Egypt to the Promised Land.

In fact, the very next verses in this chapter show the Israelites having to defend themselves from an attack by the Amalekites.  If we are sure of nothing else, we can be sure that dangers, toils, and snares do not magically disappear for the children of God – regardless of what others might want to convince us.

But the lessons of the wilderness remind us that through them all, God is faithful and the grace of God will be sufficient and will provide … sometimes in surprising ways and in surprising places. The answer the Israelites got in the wilderness was neither the death they thought would come, nor was it a quick and easy return back to Egypt.

Instead they got this white flaky substance that doesn’t look like anything at all.  They got water from a blank wall of rock in a barren wilderness.

It was nothing they had ever seen before … and certainly not what they thought they asked for.

But it became a reminder to them … and to us … that sometimes what God provides is new and a little strange, but it always ends up being just enough … sufficient for the day … even if it comes wrapped in a gift we didn’t even realize we had asked for. Even if sometimes it is only later that we look back and then realize what it was.

Is God among us or not?

We keep telling this story of the Israelites in the wilderness so that we might remember and believe that the answer to that question is a loud YES. 

Even though we may find ourselves deep in a wilderness that is not of our making, we are promised and we can trust and believe, that God will always be at work among us and through us.

Now there are several other passages in the books of Exodus and Numbers that describe times that Moses is called upon to find water for the Israelites – and the places that are named are different places.

Scholars provide several reasons for that: 

·      one tradition is that it happened multiple times – after all the Israelites would have needed a lot of water;

·      another tradition says that much of what took place in the Sinai is theological rather than historical, so it doesn’t matter where it took place;

·      another tradition says that because this is all from an ancient oral tradition, it is the same incident simply remembered in several different places (like each of us remembering different parts of Vacation Bible School). 

And then there is another explanation that is my new favorite: apparently it became a tradition among some ancient interpreters that it was all one rock, but that the rock itself must have moved with the people. A “traveling rock” that went with them to provide all the water they would need while in the wilderness – their own traveling water supply.[i]  It brings a whole new meaning to all the places in Scripture where God is described as our “rock” and our salvation. But what an image to help us imagine and remember that God’s goodness and mercy surely follow us all the days of our lives.

            I have mentioned before about the role of poets in traditional Bedouin culture.  The task of the poet is to remember the watering places ….  The survival of the whole group depends on whether you can find the waterholes in the desert.[ii]

            Maybe, just like those poets, our work in telling others about Christ is simply to remember the places where water can be found, to recall and recognize the manna that God provides. 

For a neighbor, a friend, a community that is hungry for the bread of life, and thirsty for God’s justice and wholeness and peace, for a world that wants to know:  Is the Lord among us or not? 

So where is it we have found manna and water?

Amen.

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[i] Prof. James Kugel, “The Traveling Rock,” http://www.jhom.com/topics/stones/traveling.html

[ii] Antjie Krog, Country of My Skull (Cape Town, South Africa: Random House, 1998), p. 222.

Another in the summer Bible Challenge series - the winner was the story of Deborah and Jael.

“The God of Surprises” – June 16, 2013

Text: Judges 4:1-9, 18-21

            Introduction: The book of Judges is part of the historical material that was most likely collected into one book during the time of Israel’s exile in Babylon – which was about 400-600 years after the events in the book of Judges were supposed to have taken place. But this is not a history book as we might think of it.

Biblical historians have pointed out that in Judges there are inconsistencies in names, dates, places and events that leave lots of question marks about what might have really happened. Biblical archaeologists have also pointed out that there is no definitive archaeological evidence for much of what is reported in the book of Judges.

That’s not meant to say that we therefore throw it out.  But it does help us to realize that the book of Judges is not meant to be read as an eyewitness news report.

Rather, these traditions about Israel’s origins were important for the faith of Israel during a time in Israel’s life when the question that was foremost on their minds while they were in exile in Babylon was:  “Has God forsaken and forgotten us?”

So to answer that question Israel turned to remember times when as God’s people they had been faithful … as well as times when they were not.  And then to remember how they had experienced God in all of those moments.

That’s where the book of Judges come in.

“Judge” is a term used to describe individuals who were raised up by God to help lead the people. Now this is all before the time of the kings.

Each tribe is pretty much on its own, choosing their own local leaders, living primarily as nomadic sheepherders.

            But no matter which tribe it is, somewhere along the way … and more than once … the people of Israel forget all about God.

            They forget about Egypt and the parting of the Red Sea; they forget about the 10 Commandments and the manna in the wilderness.

            Instead, as the Book of Judges tells it, the people end up “doing evil” in the sight of the Lord: that is, forgetting God’s blessings, ignoring God’s promises, and especially, worshiping other gods.

Lured by the illusion of becoming like their neighbors who lived in the cities – the tribes of Israel would pursue wealth and power and prestige.  But instead of bringing them riches, time and again, the tribes fell victim to the politics of the time, invaded by their enemies, and betrayed by their own failures of morality and faith. 

            Disaster after disaster falls upon Israel until the people repent of their sins and “cry out” in distress to the Lord to be saved from their crisis.

            God hears their cries and raises up from the people a “judge” to deliver them and return them to a “righteous” way of living – that is, a right relationship with God.  Then, the people return to obeying God’s commandments and faithfully worshiping God.  And they are faithful again … for a while… until they forget once again.

Now before I read our passage, I want to say a few words about this text.

The book of Judges is often why people give up on the Bible – or it’s why they decide that they’ll have nothing to do with the Old Testament. And I admit – it is challenging to read about so much violence, particularly when it seems to attribute it to God or it seems to have God’s blessing.

What are we supposed to do with all of that?

            Well, I don’t believe the answer is to throw the Bible out.  Nor can it become an excuse for our own use of violence, although throughout history it has become that for some people who are convinced that God sanctions their violence, particularly against people it sees as outsiders.

            We also cannot simply pick and choose which texts we like and which we don’t and ignore the ones we don’t like.

            Rather, we should seek to understand the context in which the texts are written.

            In reading these texts we need to be aware that we cannot assume that if there is violent action in it that somehow that endorses violence in and of itself.  Some of these texts are written as religious explanations for what people were experiencing in their lives.

            We are called as people of faith not to reject these parts we don’t like, but to struggle with these texts, to see them in the context of the whole Bible, and sometimes to live with the ambiguity of them, even as they might give us insights into our own time and place. In our lifetime we have come through a century of violence that is unprecedented in history. And we can ask what we can learn from the deeper lessons of these texts.

Okay – enough of the lecture! As chapter 4 in the Book of Judges begins, the judge Ehud has died and Israel once again has strayed from their path of following God’s commandments. 

For 20 years they languish under the oppression and slavery of the Canaanite King Jabin – but God hears the cries of Israel and raises up a judge to help them.  This is the narrative account of the victory that was celebrated in “The Song of Deborah” that Christina just read.  Judges, chapter 4, verses 1 through 10, then also verses 18 through 21.

READ verses 1 through 10.

Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, now that Ehud was dead. 2 So the Lord sold them into the hands of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. Sisera, the commander of his army, was based in Harosheth Haggoyim. 3 Because he had nine hundred chariots fitted with iron and had cruelly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years, they cried to the Lord for help.

4 Now Deborah, a prophet, the wife of Lappidoth, was leading Israel at that time. 5 She held court under the Palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went up to her to have their disputes decided. 6 She sent for Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali and said to him, “The Lord, the God of Israel, commands you: ‘Go, take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead them up to Mount Tabor. 7 I will lead Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon River and give him into your hands.’”

8 Barak said to her, “If you go with me, I will go; but if you don’t go with me, I won’t go.”

9 “Certainly I will go with you,” said Deborah. “But because of the course you are taking, the honor will not be yours, for the Lord will deliver Sisera into the hands of a woman.” So Deborah went with Barak to Kedesh. 10 There Barak summoned Zebulun and Naphtali, and ten thousand men went up under his command. Deborah also went up with him.

In between verses 10 and 18, there is a small note in verse 11 about Heber the Kenite  setting up his tent apart from the rest of the tribe of Kenites (which is NOT one of the tribes of Israel).  That will be important as we are about to hear because Jael, the wife of Heber is in that tent.  The other verses describe the battle that results in the defeat of Sisera. His army is killed and Sisera runs away on foot.

READ verses 18 through 22.

18 Jael went out to meet Sisera and said to him, “Come, my lord, come right in. Don’t be afraid.” So he entered her tent, and she covered him with a blanket.

19 “I’m thirsty,” he said. “Please give me some water.” She opened a skin of milk, gave him a drink, and covered him up.

20 “Stand in the doorway of the tent,” he told her. “If someone comes by and asks you, ‘Is anyone in there?’ say ‘No.’”

21 But Jael, Heber’s wife, picked up a tent peg and a hammer and went quietly to him while he lay fast asleep, exhausted. She drove the peg through his temple into the ground, and he died.

22 Just then Barak came by in pursuit of Sisera, and Jael went out to meet him. “Come,” she said, “I will show you the man you’re looking for.” So he went in with her, and there lay Sisera with the tent peg through his temple—dead.  And the story ends:  on that day God subdued Jabin, the Canaanite king, before the Israelites.

I can’t quite bring myself to say “This is the word of the Lord” after all that.

You may have noticed that I waited to read this part of the lesson until after all the children had left for Sunday School. 

When I had listed this as one of the options for a sermon in the “Summer Bible Challenge” one person wrote to me in an email that they were voting for Deborah and Jael simply because they could not even begin to imagine a sermon about driving a tent peg through someone’s head. 

To be honest, I’m not sure I can imagine it either.

This is the only passage from the book of Judges that appears in the lectionary (which is a 3-year cycle of readings from Scripture).  Not too surprising, given that the book of Judges is filled with scenes of war and atrocities, rape and genocide.

But even in the lectionary, the suggested reading stops at verse 7 and completely skips over Barak’s hesitancy in taking leadership, the battle itself, and of course, the ending.  Or should I say, Sisera’s ending.

Without all of that, this simply becomes the story of the heroine judge – Deborah. And given that many of our children know all about Princess Leia from “Star Wars” or Disney princesses Mulan or Merida – Deborah becomes a story that we can all recognize, even the children.  Deborah rises to the occasion and protects the future of her people, saving them from the enemy.

Now that’s a sermon that can preach! And a story we can tell our children.

But when you look at the whole picture, there is more to it than that.

On the one hand it is the story of heroes – but there are three of them, not just one.  And one of the ambiguities of the text is that it never really tells us which one saves Israel.

Deborah of course is judge and prophet – in some ways the “bearer of the word of God.”

But is Deborah, then, the one who saves Israel?  After all, she hints that in the end a woman will defeat Sisera, not Barak.  Could it be her?

But then Barak, for all his hesitation for heading off into battle, he is the one who is able to defeat the superior forces of Sisera with their 900 iron chariots.

So could he be the one who saves Israel?

Except that Sisera escapes from Barak.

So then there is Jael.

A non-Israelite woman (or at least she is married to someone who is not an Israelite) who kills the enemy of Israel.

In a book I have that is a biblical “who’s who” there are sketches of some of the people named and the sketch for Jael shows her looking like someone’s granny next door with an apron and a flowered print dress, her hair pulled up in a bun, half-lens reading glasses and sensible shoes – and a hammer in her hand.[i] 

How ordinary can you get.

And maybe in part that is why we tell this story.

All throughout Scripture we keep being reminded that God is the one who ultimately saves us – who ultimately saved Israel that day against the armies of Sisera.  But we are always being reminded that God is a God of surprises who does it through the most unlikely people in the most unlikely ways. 

Like Moses and Abraham and Sarah and those fishermen by the sea of Galilee and countless others through the ages whom God has called, many of them never seemed the likely candidates for accomplishing great purposes.

And yet, God calls us and claims us and stands by us, not because of what we can do on our own, but because of what God can do through us. 

I found a video clip on the Internet from a Christian ministry for youth that has made Deborah and Jael two of their “Action Heroes of the Faith.” In this animated video of different Bible Heroes, there is Deborah clutching a copy of the Torah and Jael with a bloody hammer and spike – both of them dressed in super-hero costumes. 

I must admit I found it a little over-the-top, particularly the bloody hammer and the spandex Wonder Woman costumes. 

I don’t think that somehow Deborah and Jael had super-human abilities.  And I don’t believe that this text is commanding us to come out swinging and beat our enemies into pulp in the name of God. 

But what the “action hero” clip had right was their reminder that heroes must face their greatest fear.

And in the end, maybe that is also a lesson we need to hear.

We are a people raised on the “can-do” spirit of America.  There’s no job too big, no challenge too difficult that can’t be overcome. 

            But real life isn’t always clear-cut and straightforward, simply one more opportunity to succeed.  And sometimes life doesn’t just depend on pulling yourself up by your boot-straps or being fearless. 

Just ask anyone who is facing a mountain of grief, or a marriage that’s failing.  Talk to someone who is losing their job, or who is battling cancer. 

Fearlessness doesn’t always come with a super-hero costume nor should it come with a hammer and a spike.

But it does come with a willingness to take a risk. That risk is to be willing to bear witness to God’s faithfulness even when good seems like the least likely outcome and the last thing we imagine. 

But we bear that witness not because we have any special abilities or because we are bigger or stronger or have more weapons, but because we trust in a God who will still be faithful, who cares about what happens to us, even in spite of all evidence to the contrary.

We believe that God still hears us when we pray, even if the answers are not what we want. 

We believe that through the events in our lives, small and great, momentous and insignificant, terrifying and mundane and sometimes even senseless, in the mistakes we make and in our stumbling efforts to do things right – God is at work in and through them all, redeeming the moments –  even redeeming us. 

God works through events and people, through super heroes and reluctant heroes, through people who seem to have it all together and through the rest of us who aren’t sure which way to go. 

The witness of Deborah and Jael, the testimony of faith that lies within this story is the unfolding testimony of Scripture to God who is with us, who is always redeeming … from creation to the cross and even now.

May it always be so. Amen and amen. 

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[i] Frederick Buechner, Peculiar Treasures: a Biblical Who’s Who, illustrations by Katherine A. Buechner (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), p. 58.

"The Trouble With Judas"

This is the first sermon in the "Summer Bible Challenge"series.  Judas Iscariot won the first week's voting to become the subject of the sermon on June 2.

“The Trouble with Judas” – June 2, 2013

Text:  Matthew 26 (selected verses) and Matthew 27:1-5

            One of the many things they don’t teach you in seminary is how to gracefully ask someone to take the role of Judas in the Passion Narrative during Holy Week. 

As a pastor I always cringe at the idea that I have to call up someone and ask them:  “Will you be Judas?” without wondering if they are thinking that maybe I am secretly thinking: “you’re perfect for the part.”

            I have gotten around this dilemma many times by casting the most unlikely people as Judas (or at least asking the ones I know won’t take it personally):  John Ames read the part of Judas this past Holy Week and in previous years I have asked that “saint” of the church, none other than the Rev. Jules Scheidel, to play Judas.  NO ONE is in danger of confusing the two!

            But in all honesty, who among us wants to be known as “Judas”?  Over the past two thousand years his name has become synonymous with human betrayal, greed, evil. [i]

            If we’re going to get compared with a disciple, we may identify with “doubting Thomas,” or “impetuous Peter” – not so bad.  But Judas the betrayer?

            Of the 22 times that Judas Iscariot is mentioned by name in the gospels, most often his name is followed by some description such as:  “Judas Iscariot, the one who would betray him” or “Judas Iscariot, the traitor” or as the King James Version has him:  “Judas Iscariot, the son of perdition.”

            Judas doesn’t start out as a traitor of course.  Although we actually know very little about him. We don’t know his background (other than being the son of a man named Simon). And while there is lots of speculation about what “Iscariot” means (whether it identified his home village, or indicated some now-lost explanation for his profession), the fact is the meaning of the word “Iscariot” is lost in time. 

So we don’t know where he’s from, what he was doing before he started following Jesus, or even how he first encountered Jesus to begin with, or what it was Judas might have heard or seen in Jesus that would motivate him to “leave everything behind” as all the disciples did when they followed Jesus.

We know none of that.

            Judas is simply “one of the Twelve” – as the gospels describe him (when they aren’t calling him “traitor”.

            As “one of the Twelve,” there is nothing in the gospels until the end that would indicate that Judas was anything other than an obedient disciple of Jesus Christ.  Like the other eleven, he was called by Jesus, commissioned to preach and heal and given authority to “cast out demons.”[ii]  And from everything the gospels tell us all of the 12 were successful, including Judas.  And the rest must have trusted him, because they made him the treasurer.

            So what happened?

            Maybe that is why Judas got more votes than either Herod the Great or Pontius Pilate in this first week of the Summer Bible Challenge.

            We want to understand what happened.

            Did Jesus just make a mistake and choose the wrong disciple?

            Or did Judas simply do it for the money?

            Maybe he was a “spy” who had been working for the authorities for a long time to find a way to trap Jesus.

            Or maybe Judas felt Jesus’ message was off track and Judas really was angry about money wasted that could have been given to the poor.

            Or maybe, as in the Gnostic “Gospel of Judas” – written in perhaps the 4^th century – Judas was asked by Jesus to hand him over to the authorities so that in dying Jesus could be freed from the prison of his own flesh.[iii]

Or maybe Judas was simply afraid for his own life and if Jesus and the rest were all going down, maybe Judas had found a way out for himself.

            All of these have been proposed at one time or another as reasons why Judas betrayed Jesus, although the gospels themselves give no such clear clues to Judas’s motivation other than to suggest it was to “fulfill Scripture” – an explanation that is often how the gospel writers tried to understand things which had happened.

In the end, all we know is that one of the twelve, named Judas, handed Jesus over to the authorities who then arranged for Jesus to be condemned to death.  Judas then died a sudden, violent death (exactly how is not certain which is why there are 2 different explanations in Scripture).

And finally, according to the gospels, Judas’s name is associated with a place near Jerusalem called “the Field or Acreage of Blood.”[iv]

Twenty centuries of speculation later and we are no closer to understanding Judas.

Or maybe it’s that 20 centuries later, we are no closer to understanding ourselves and understanding our own ability to betray, to forget, to fail. [v]

            History … and society … are not kind to those who betray those who are closest to them.  We know for ourselves that when the bonds of trust that bind us are broken, they are very difficult to repair.  Betrayal can destroy families, marriages, communities, and churches, even nations.

            And yet, if we are honest with ourselves we all know that we have the capacity to betray – something even the other disciples may have felt themselves when Jesus claimed that one of the Twelve would betray him.  All of their own anxieties surfaced as they rushed to ask him:  “Is it I, Lord?” “Is it I?”  “Surely it is not I, Lord!”

            The betrayal of Judas seems so stark and cruel:  after all, Judas sat at that last supper with Jesus and took the bread and wine from him – then went out and betrayed him for 30 pieces of silver.  According to John’s gospel Judas had his feet washed by Jesus and yet only hours later betrayed him to the Romans with a kiss.

On the other hand, the rest of the disciples were convinced that they would never betray him, yet it took only a few hours until the disciples began to fail him.

Running away when he was arrested.

No one went to defend him when he was on trial.

Peter denied 3 times he even knew Jesus. 

And when Jesus had been crucified and he died on the cross, not one of those other eleven who were the closest to him would even go to prepare his body for burial. 

            In the end, all of them failed.

            That too is the lesson of Holy Week:  that sooner or later every disciple will betray Jesus. 

Even us.

And in the end, for me, as I look at Judas, the lesson is not about the inevitability of events that God has somehow already determined, but for me the lesson of Judas it is about who we are as human beings with our inevitable capacity for both love and betrayal, for success and failure, our willingness to follow Jesus but all of the ways in which we don’t.

            As someone said about us:  “We will betray Jesus in the workplace [or at school … or maybe even among our friends] when it will cost too much to think like a Christian, and in our homes [we will betray Jesus] when the anger is so great that we hurt those who trust us, and [we will betray him] in the sacred commitments we make that we simply cannot keep.  We will betray Jesus by our indifference to the poor, by our refusal to turn the other cheek to our enemies, and by the deaf ears we turn to [Jesus’ call to live our lives to the glory of God and not to the glory of ourselves.]”[vi]

            So in the end, maybe the question is, as it was for Judas, what will we do with our betrayal?

            The trouble with Judas may be that he saw no other way. The gospels tell us that after Judas realized what he had done, he felt remorse and “repented.”  The word “repent” simply means “to turn.”  But when Judas repented, he didn’t turn to the one who could have offered him forgiveness. Judas was not there at the cross to hear Jesus say, “Father, forgive them.” But he turned instead to the ones who had paid him the “blood money” to begin with – he turned to where there was no forgiveness to be found – and so he found none.

            Peter and the other disciples, on the other hand, in their grief, lived with the awareness of their own betrayal and cowardice, lived with the guilt and remorse until the day they encountered the risen Savior, the only One who could offer them forgiveness – and new life.

            In the world according to Judas, it is a world where there is no forgiveness.  The trouble with Judas is that in his world, there is only our sin and brokenness and all of our vain efforts to make things right on our own, with no way out. He had forgotten or never understood that there is and can be and will be another way.

Because in the world of Jesus, crucifixion ends in resurrection. Betrayal and failure is met with forgiveness.  And in the gospel of Christ, there is always grace and God’s unfailing love and mercy that is fresh as the morning and as sure as the sunrise[vii] … making all things new, creating a new ending to our lives.

So where will we turn?

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[i] To the shame of our Christian tradition Judas became a central focus for anti-Semitism as he became the image of everything and anyone opposed to the Christian Church.

[ii] Mark 3:13-19; Matthew 10:1-4; Luke 6:12-16.

[iii] More information on the Gospel of Judas can be found at: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2006/05/judas-gospel/cockburn-text.html This ancient 3rd or 4^th century Egyptian text is from the “Gnostic” tradition. The word Gnosis derives from Greek and connotes "knowledge" or the "act of knowing". In the first century of the Christian era the term “Gnostic” came to denote a heterodox segment of the diverse new Christian community. Among early followers of Christ it appears there were groups who delineated themselves from the greater household of the Church by claiming not simply a belief in Christ and his message, but a "special witness" or revelatory experience of the divine. It was this experience or gnosis that set the true follower of Christ apart, so the Gnostics claimed. [from www.gnosis.org]  By the 5^th century, orthodox Christianity had declared Gnosticism a “heresy.” A manuscript of “The Gospel of Judas” surfaced in about 1978 and has since been authenticated, translated and published in 2006 – although the translations are continuing to be revised.   This apocryphal Gospel had been known about in history, but no copy had ever been seen.  The National Geographic magazine has helped to provide the funding for its restoration and translation. There have been some scholarly disputes with the National Geographic that they have mistranslated some sections and sensationalized the contents. 

[iv] Raymond Brown, Death of the Messiah, vol. 2, p. 1397.

[v] I am indebted for these insights from an article in the Christian Century (February 27-March 6, 2002, p.21) by Craig Barnes entitled “The Judas Chromosome.”

[vi] Craig Barnes, “The Judas Chromosome.”

[vii] Lamentations 3:22-23.