(opening
remarks from Campus Missioner to congregation of St. James, Wichita)
- Thank you for your on-going support of diocesan campus ministry through your mission share apportionment and for hosting our Fall 2011 retreat in the fellowship hall
- Thank you for your support of our Wichita-area ministries through your offering a monthly meal, nurturing young-adult leaders, and supporting the other adults who sustain these ministry efforts
- Thanks to Deacon Jeff Roper, Tristan Holmberg, and Ashley Petty
- Hannah Clayton is a PM at K-State… speaking of which, we’re looking for a campus ministry intern in-residence there
Who is here
on this Tuesday night? (show of hands and some questions)
I’m going
make an educated guess that, by your making it a priority to be here tonight,
you’re serious about Holy Week and want to go deeper in your journey with the
Jesus to the cross… and beyond.
In conversations
last night with young-adults gathered in one of our campus ministry programs,
we talked about how it’s so much easier to simply come to church twice a year
to revere and worship the superhero Jesus – the radiant, magical little child
or the ascended, triumphant one floating in the sky. But to flesh-out this Christianity thing the rest
of the year… to really consider the earthly, incarnational, visceral life of
Jesus, and to take seriously what he teaches, demonstrates, and expects of us
is much more challenging. And, in fact,
can seem foolish.
The fact that
we’re all here this week, remembering stories about a rural rabbi who, over two
thousand years ago, dared to challenge the ways of his world and the rulers of
his day… who built up great expectations among many people who were low on hope…
who chose to buck the system in order to reach out to those who were considered
lowly and untouchable… whose closest friends failed to be faithful when the
going got tough… who eventually let
himself be humiliated and brutally executed… that we’re here imagining this guy
as a king or lord and taking seriously the counter-cultural, self-sacrificial
love that he calls us to exhibit toward our neighbors, particularly those we
might not like so much or who don’t’ like us… well… that’s down right foolish,
isn’t it?
Have you ever
tried to explain your faith or convictions to a friend, family member, or
colleague who is critical of this whole organized-religion endeavor? Have you ever been challenged about why you believe
in such mythology? Has anyone ever teased
or actually faulted you for believing in the folly of ‘turning the other cheek’,
the naivety of ‘loving your neighbor’, the simple-mindedness of more radical
sharing or the economic problems with charitably re-distributing wealth, or the
silliness of the notion that the weak and meek shall ever be given
priority?
Indeed, as we
point toward this Jesus as our Lord, and to two crossed timbers upon which he was
executed, as a sign of our hope we can certainly look, and perhaps sometimes feel,
like a ship of fools. This has been the case among us Christians for a long
time.
Excluding situations
of clubby Christian identity in which people perceive that they’ve been
afforded societal privilege or protection in proper society by ‘belonging’ to
the right church, for most of our history as a people Christian faith, we’ve
struggled with trusting in and acting earnestly on the seemingly foolish wisdom
of Christ. It was certainly the case among our ancient communities who, by
choosing to live the Good News, were often separating themselves from the societal
norm and risking ridicule from the peers and even at times death.
In our excerpt
tonight from Paul’s first letter to the believers in Corinth (1 Cor 1:18-31),
we hear him addressing head-on the seemingly foolishness of the paradoxical teachings
and ideas that form the foundations of our faith. What Paul is pointing out is well worth our
meditation and prayer this Holy Week as we walk with Jesus through the final
days and hours of his earthly ministry.
Paul tell
them - tells us – that the good news of Christ – the message – will appear
foolish to those who remain wrapped up in and dependent upon the warped ways of
this so-called rational world for their sense of identity and purpose. God’s wisdom and mercy doesn’t comply with indifferent
logic or our own self-centered reasoning – it surprises in its economic
favoring of the lowly and despised and its unreasonable and outlandish generosity,
particularly toward those who have seemingly gone far astray. The very notion that the mighty creator of
everyone would humble himself to a humiliating death on a cross is a joker’s
wild card in the deck of life that trumps everything most of us think we know
about this game called life.
Get in touch
with the potentially confusing and confounding truth here. Bring to mind a super hero of your youth, or
perhaps a leader today in whom you’ve invested great expectations and
hope. Now imagine witnessing that person
willfully surrendering to brutal and violent public humiliation and cruelty to
the point of death, all the while looking you in square in the eye and saying
that this is how it is to be – we must die, sometime even a violent death, in
order to truly live. What?!
And, yet,
here we are tonight hearing this type of paradoxical proclamation from Jesus. The Spirit is compelling us this Holy Week to
radically reexamine our attachments to this life – or at least our way of
living it - and what it can mean to die with Jesus in order to embrace new life
in the resurrection with Christ.
In tonight’s
Gospel lesson from John (John 12: 20-36), Jesus is transitioning from his
public ministry into the final days of more intimate instructions to his
closest followers. The Passover festival has attracted not only faithful Jews,
but curious Gentiles (Greeks) as well. Jesus
is speaking to them all – the mission and wisdom is no longer just for the
Jews. It is heading into this holy celebration, with all sort of people
gathered, that Jesus lays down one his most challenging lessons: each single
grain (including himself) must die in order for the vine to grow and bear
greater fruit for the new kingdom.
On one level,
this makes sense – we understand the basics of this agricultural metaphor. We plant seeds and things grow. But the implications of this in our lives are
profound.
Go
deeper. We must allow ourselves to be
planted and for the boundaries of our shells to be broken open as we surrender
the form that has kept us in tact for so long.
What we believe has held us together must be let go of in order to
embrace the kingdom.
When we let
go and break open, it’s messy and disorienting as the truest essence of who we
are begins to combine organically with others around us going through the same
process (think of the actual birth process, or the organic nature of
composting). Our former selves essentially
die in this process of becoming something new – something that can grow taller
and provide nourishment beyond ourselves.
In order to
become part of Christ’s vineyard, we must again and again let go, surrender,
and plant ourselves in fertile soil where a process of death is allowed to cleanse
and redeem the life-generating essence of who/what we’ve been created to
become.
Too
abstract? How about this… think of who
you are today – what comprises your identity; where your pride is rooted; what
keeps you feeling self, secure, and sanely contained in this otherwise chaotic
world.
Now look
around at the needs in the world around you.
See specific types of people who struggle… struggle to survive with even
basic dignity in a system that may never afford them opportunities that you and
I take for granted. Where do you sense
unfairness and even exploitation occurring – hidden suffering that benefits
others who’d prefer not to think about those who can’t seem to help themselves.
Perhaps look no further than this city of Wichita… or maybe even in your own
family.
What would it
look like, sound like, feel like if you were to step off the conventional
merry-go-round of your seemingly predictable and stable life in order to
venture forth to touch and help those in most need. Not just occasionally, but every day. What
would you have to give up in order to really speak your mind about what you sense
is wrong with our way of doing things?
What might happen to you and your livelihood if you dared speak ‘truth
to power’ and consistently speak out and advocate for the underdog, the unpopular,
and the untouchables?
What if you
lived your life like this every day? How
foolish would that be? How foolish was
Jesus for living this way? Do you really
trust in the ultimately redeeming power of his self-sacrificial love? Are you willing to go near the cross yourself
– do you trust in what’s on the other side?
As we walk
the way of the cross this week, preparing for the Triduum ahead – Maundy
Thursday’s last meal and intimacy of wash each other’s feet, Friday’s violence
and death, and Saturday’s silence and waiting – let’s pray for the Spirit to
help us absorb, digest, and be willing to live with foolish-faith into Jesus’s
words:
"The light
is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the
darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know
where you are going. While you have the light, believe in the light, so that
you may become children of light."
AMEN.
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