When the Lord Is Our Shepherd

' The LORD is my shepherd; *

I shall not be in want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures *

and leads me beside still waters.

 He revives my soul *

and guides me along right pathways for his Name's sake.

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I shall fear no evil; *

for you are with me;

your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me; *

you have anointed my head with oil,

and my cup is running over.

Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, *

and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.'

--Psalm 23 (BCP translation)

Throughout this COVID-tide, I, like many of you, I suspect, have been searching for strength and hope.  The place where I tend most often to find those things is in the words of Scripture.  Perhaps there is no greater piece of Scripture for this unusual and often frightening season of our lives, than the 23rd Psalm.

An Orthodox icon of Jesus as the Good Shepherd

This is actually the third time we have read Psalm 23 this year, the first was back on March 22 on the Fourth Sunday in Lent, and the second was on May 3 on the Fourth Sunday of Easter.  I didn’t talk about Psalm 23 on those days, but as we enter our 8th month of COVID-tide it seems like an appropriate Scripture to unpack.  Maybe, once again, it will give us the strength and hope we need right now.

I remember back in my days as a hospice chaplain that no matter what mental or spiritual state folks were in, they always managed to remember one prayer—the Lord’s Prayer—one song—Amazing Grace—and one Scripture—Psalm 23.  There really seems to be power in this Psalm. It is believed to have been composed around 1000 years before the time of Jesus by King David, who wrote it as a hymn of praise to the God who never seemed to abandon him, even when made some pretty terrible decisions or when people were literally trying to kill him.  It is a song of trust on the part of David—or whoever wrote it—and assurance on the part of God.  

It happens in the very first line: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”  This has some radical implications when we consider that we live in a culture that teaches us to want everything.  Power, prestige, possessions.  Everywhere we look we are bombarded with messages that tell us what we want, and what we want is just about anything but God. It is particularly revolutionary for us to proclaim that because the Lord is our shepherd, we shall not want; that is, by making this statement we claim that God is the only real necessity of life.  In this time when we have an awful lot of wants—I want to go to a movie theatre, I want to see this church full again, I want to hug my father and sister the next time I see them—it takes a lot of trust to say that the Lord fulfills all my wants. The rest of the Psalm, then, expands upon this statement of trust.

That trust is itself revolutionary when we consider that rulers in the ancient world were known as the shepherds of their people.  Their job was to use the power and resources they had to protect and provide for their subjects, but they very often failed to do so.  For the Psalmist to declare God to be their shepherd also means that “Fill in the blank corrupt ruler in power this moment” isn’t.  For folks in Jesus’ day who prayed this Psalm, it meant Caesar wasn’t their shepherd.  For us, even now, as we pray this Psalm our declaration is the same, that no president, governor, monarch, or ruler of any kind is our shepherd except God.  In this time of partisanship that is so incredibly volatile, this is Good News, which we especially need to hear at a time when public health and basic human need are increasingly politicized.  In contrast to the failure of earthly rulers, God is the one the Psalm declares who will be what a shepherd and ruler should be.  As shepherds convey strength and give courage to their flock, so does our God, and the rest of the Psalm tells us how.  

Verses 2 and 3 show how God provides all that we need.  For sheep, green pastures mean food, and still waters mean drink, and to be in right paths for sheep means that danger is averted and proper shelter is attained; thus, God is the shepherd who provides food, drink, and shelter, the basic necessities of life, to all of God’s flock.  Nobody goes lacking for any of these in a world where the Lord is the Shepherd. 

Verse 4 is both the structural and theological center of the Psalm.  At the moment of greatest threat, and peril, God still provides, even if all God provides is a presence through the valley of the shadow of death.  I suspect this is the verse that tugs most at our hearts, especially now.  Honestly, brothers and sisters, it sure feels like a deep, dark, long valley that we are in right now. Sickness and death lie all around us, and there seems to be little consolation or guidance from those in authority. It is in times like these that we need to be reminded of God’s promise to us reflected in this Psalm.  It isn’t a promise to magically fix our problems, but it is a promise of an abiding, everlasting presence that tells us that, even when we are in the deepest valley, God is there with us. This is absolutely true right now!

Then the Psalmist addresses God directly, reinforcing the closeness and familiarity of God:  YOU are with me, says the Psalmist. The word we translate often as rod also means scepter, connoting God’s majesty and power, again reminding us that where human frailty is lacking, God’s strength abides. Yet even in that strength we find care, as the Psalmist declares “your rod and your staff, they comfort me,” which is odd to say about two objects of authority sometimes used as weapons. We come with our fears and anxiety before God and find them quietened because in God’s strength we find rest. God’s provision is reliable because God is the sovereign we can depend on when all others fail, and not even the darkest, most deadly threat can separate us from God’s presence.  

In the 5th and 6th verses the metaphor shifts from shepherd to a host that brings the Psalmist to a meal in the ever-welcoming house of the Lord.  Perhaps this line tugs at our heartstrings right now because it foreshadows not only Jesus’ ministry around various tables but our own sacred meal of the Holy Eucharist, which many of us have been unable to physically partake in during COVID-tide. Nevertheless, we are still invited, even if it is simply through the meditations of our hearts, to come to the table of the Lord, where we are still fed by God in our hearts by faith.  The earliest followers of Jesus remembered his table ministry and believed that whenever they shared a meal—literally, ANY meal, not just the Eucharist—Jesus was there, that ANY table could, in fact, be the Lord’s table.  Right now you may not be able to gather at your favorite restaurant with your closest friends, but even if you are with your family who are quarantining with you, or even if it is a table for one, the same banquet is still laid out for you, and God still fills you with the very bread of heaven.  And you may not be able to go to your church and get the Eucharist, but that’s why we celebrate Spiritual Communion, even when we can’t share in this meal physically together. What’s more, this Psalm offers us the greatest of hopes, that through the reconciling and transformative power of the love of God, even our enemies will sit with us and share in that holy table fellowship.  In a time of such divisiveness, we need to be reminded of that.

The Psalm concludes with the image of anointing. As David was anointed with oil on his head, we are anointed, physically at our baptism and spiritually each day, with the Holy Spirit.  That anointing gives us power to know the goodness and mercy of God—which the Psalmist says follow us, though a better translation is that they pursue us.  When we pause long enough to take a deep breath from and rest from the insanity of the world, that goodness and mercy catch up to us and remind us of our place in God’s family, of our dwelling forever in the house of the Lord. 

We need this Psalm right now, brothers and sisters.  I pray that, as you face your own valleys, as you look at the state of our country and our world, you will remember who the real shepherd is, who will always provide, always comfort, always give you the gift of an everlasting presence. May this Psalm strengthen your trust in God and provide God’s assurance for you during your most vulnerable times.

I Am Because We Are

'If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

who, though he was in the form of God,

did not regard equality with God 

as something to be exploited,

but emptied himself,

taking the form of a slave, 

being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form,

he humbled himself 

and became obedient to the point of death-- 

even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him

and gave him the name 

that is above every name,

so that at the name of Jesus

every knee should bend, 

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue should confess

that Jesus Christ is Lord, 

to the glory of God the Father.

Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.'

--Philippians 2: 1-13

In Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace—and yes, you read that right—there is an early conflict between the human population of the planet Naboo and the underwater creatures called the Gungans.  When the droid army of the nefarious Trade Federation invades the planet, Jedi Knights Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui Gon Jinn try to get the Gungans to help the humans above.  When Gungan leader Boss Nass comments that—and I’m quoting here—“We-sa no care-en about da Naboo!”  Obi-Wan reminds him that the two populations form a symbiotic circle:  “What happens to one of you effects the other.  You must understand this," the Jedi tells him. 

Boss Nass isn’t swayed, but later, once those droid armies come for them, the Gungans agree to aid the people of Naboo and drive away the invaders.  It only happens when the two very different populations realize that their existence depends on each other.  It may not be the most popular of the films, but Episode I will still preach.

Boss Nass, Gungan leader, from Star Wars, Episode I

What the Gungans and Naboo finally realize is a concept called in the Zulu language of southern Africa, ubuntu.  Loosely translated, ubuntu means ‘I am because we are.’  The 76th General Convention of the Episcopal Church, back in 2009, used ubuntu as its theme, and several smaller diocesan conventions—including my then home diocese of Southwestern Virginia—used ubuntu as their theme as well.   I am because we are.  

Archbishop Desmond Tutu of Cape Town, South Africa called ubuntu the “essence of being human.” What is at the heart of ubuntu is the truth that nothing on this planet exists in isolation.  We are all connected—humans of every kind of tribe, the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, the trees, the rocks, even the bugs crawling in the corners of our kitchen.  

Humans, though, are the only creattures that can choose whether or not to accept this fact, and so we often push others away.  Sometimes we do this because we believe we have to be strong individuals and must go it alone. Sometimes we do this because our tribal instincts take over and we refuse to accept that someone of another class, another race, another religion, or another tribe could possibly share anything in common with us.  Regardless of the reason, whenever we push others away we go against the spirit of ubuntu, forgetting, as Obi Wan said, what happens to one of us effects all of us.

Nelson Mandala, another South African who, like Archbishop Tutu, fought tirelessly to end the evils of apartheid in his home country, described ubuntu this way:  a traveler through a country might stop in a village, and without even asking for them, receive food and shelter.  He needn’t ask because the villagers understand that this stranger is like them, on a journey.  Ubuntu doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to enrich ourselves on our own journey, merely that we must understand that we are all on this journey together.  I am because we are. 

Writing much earlier than Archbishop Tutu or Mr. Mandela, Saint Paul nevertheless understood the principle of ubuntu, which is at the heart of this section of his letter to the church in Phillipi that we read this week. He implores the people of this diverse and somewhat fractured community to be of the same mind and to have the same love, to do nothing from selfish ambition and to look to the interests of others.  To do so, Paul says, is to put on the same mind that was in Christ Jesus.  So what did his mind look like?

Jesus absolutely understood the concept of ubuntu.  His message was good news for the poor, the sick, and the outcast, and a call for the healthy, wealthy, and privileged to understand how connected they all were.  Like the prophets of old, Jesus called those in comfortable positions to remember what he called the poor in spirit—those who were on the margins of society, those who had been forgotten by the elites—and to see them as beloved siblings in the household of God.  That sounds a lot like ubuntu. What does it take, then, for people to live into this idea?  

Paul says that Jesus did not regard his equality with God as something to be exploited, but instead emptied himself.  The word translated as ‘emptied’ is kenosis.  It is a word Paul comes back to a total of five times—here, and then twice in his first Letter to the Corinthians, once in his second letter, and finally in his letter to the Romans.  This emptying employed by Jesus is what Paul invites his listeners to practice. It requires people to first be aware of their own power and privilege; Jesus, after all, was perfectly aware of his divine nature, but he still chose to humble himself so as to lift others us. Jesus didn’t have to live this way, but he chose to, so that we who proclaim him as our Lord may follow; so that we may humble ourselves, empty ourselves, because we know that we cannot succeed unless everyone succeeds.  

This is ubuntu, the recognition of our interconnectedness, and to be Christ-like, to be little Christs ourselves, is to see these connections between me, you, them, everyone and everything.  As Martin Luther King put it in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, “I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.”  

This invitation to kenosis, to ubuntu, is good news for us right now.  We are splintered and fragmented now more than anytime that most of us can remember.  At the core of this fragmentation, I have come to believe, is our inability to see just how connected we all are, and when we don’t see the connection it becomes a lot easier to not care about each other.  Forgetting our connection leads us to make choices that are based only on our own individual needs and wants, which, at best, leaves others fending for themselves, and at worst, puts them in actual danger.  

Perhaps nowhere do we see this play out better than the conversation around the wearing of masks in public spaces.  When a mandate comes down requiring us to do so I often hear the same response that it infringes on individual rights.  But what would Jesus say about this?  What does his example of kenosis and the African model of ubuntu have to teach us in this moment?  If we empty ourselves, perhaps we could see that to wear our mask is not so much about our own comfort but about the protection of others, since we can easily give off the coronavirus without even having symptoms.  If we remember ubuntu—I am because we are—we might be able to acknowledge that our own wants and desires can only really be met within the context of a greater community—church, city, state, country, and world—and that any freedom we claim to have that does not respect the needs of the whole community is a false freedom and a contradiction of the very life Jesus calls us into.

The first in-person gathering of our parish since March, where everyone was masked and socially distanced.

Paul encourages us to be imitators of Christ, which doesn’t mean being robots or sheeple, totally forgoing any sense of a personal identity.  I suspect to be an imitator of Christ looks like realizing that there is more at stake in this world than my own wants and desires, that our lives are all interconnected.  Accepting such a reality requires surrender, which is hard.  Our society doesn’t much care for surrender when it is so focused on one’s own personal life choices.  

But that’s what it takes: surrendering the self to ubuntu, to the truth that we are in this thing together—not just the pandemic but the activity of living itself.  We are all connected to each other and to our world .  Jesus knew this.  If one of us is in danger, we are all in danger.  If one of us dies, we all mourn.  If the earth cries out as the waters rise and the forests burn, all creation everywhere is affected. We can only really know freedom and life when everyone and everything in our community—church, city, state, country, and world—understands how dependent we are on one another.  What happens to one of us affects all of us.  We must understand this. 

That is what Jesus offers, and when we empty ourselves as he did, when we accept and live into the truth that I only am because we all are, then the same mind will be in us as was in Christ Jesus.

How Many Times Must We Forgive?

 'Peter came and said to Jesus, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

“For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”'

--Matthew 18: 21-35

I don’t know about you, but I’m the kind of person that generally just likes to be told what to do.  It’s easier that way, wouldn’t you agree?  As long as I know the rules, know what I should do, there won’t be any problems.  Ever.  Right? 

But sometimes the rules get muddy.  In the movie Office Space the character of Joanna is required to wear 15 pieces of flair for her job at Chatchki’s Restaurant.  She begrudgingly does what she is told and wears 15 buttons along her suspenders, but then her boss scolds her for not being like Bryan, who wears 37 pieces—we all know a Bryan at work, don’t we?  Why not just make the required number 37?  Why punish her for following the rule—it’s buttons on suspenders, for crying out loud!

Joanna and her flair.

And then there are cases where the spirit of the rule gets lost.  This is what Jesus addresses over and over again in the Gospels.  It is not that he is against the rules prescribed in the Torah and Talmud—far from it—but what Jesus sees again and again is people who follow the rules only because they have to, only doing the bare minimum so as to stay in God’s good graces.

 

The question presented to Jesus in this reading from Matthew’s Gospel is how many times a person must forgive someone who asks them for forgiveness.  According to the Talmud the answer is seven, and no more.  That is the expectation, which is why Peter asks if that’s correct—likely expecting Jesus to give him a pat on the back for remembering or applauding how merciful he is to forgive that many times.  But what he really wants to know is, “What’s the minimum number of times I can forgive a person and still be right with God?”  Which is why Jesus gives him the answer that he does:  ἕως  ἑβδομηκοντάκις  ἑπτά.   

 The literal translation is “until 70 times seven.”  Our New Revised Standard Version sadly translates this to 77 times, which is a lot, but it misses the point.  The number 7 in Hebrew is the number associated with God, and the number 70 is associated with perfection. 

 

To forgive 70 times seven does not mean that Jesus is making the minimum number for forgiving a person 490—which is what 70 x 7 is—but it is Jesus’ way of telling Peter that forgiveness is not a commodity to be reckoned on a calculator.  The number of times we should forgive is a number tied directly into the very heart of God, which means it is limitless, and to use the language of numbers when contemplating forgiveness, as if it’s about doing the least amount and still getting rewarded by God, is inappropriate and theologically inaccurate. 

 

In short, it’s not about 77 times or 490 times.  The number is meant to sound so astronomically high that nobody could ever hope to achieve it.  The use of absurdly high numbers is something Jesus incorporates a lot into his teachings, including in the parable that he offers in response to Peter’s question.  In the parable a servant owes his master 10,000 talents.  To give you some perspective, that is the equivalent of a day’s worth of wages for 150,000 years!  It’s more than the annual budget of the entire Roman province where these folks lived. Let that sink in. 

 

There is literally no way this man will ever pay off such a debt.  And that is the point.  When he pleads with his master for mercy it is granted.  But when that same servant runs into another who owes him 100 danarii, which was about a day’s wage, he shows no such mercy.  Of course, when the forgiving master finds out what has happened he punishes the servant that was unwilling to forgive his neighbor. 

 

The Parable of the Unforgiving Debtor in stained glass form

There is a great deal that Jesus has to teach us through this parable. Peter, like many of us, just wants to know what is the rule for forgiveness that he should follow.  But Jesus understands that this kind of mindset can cause us to forget the spirit of such a rule, to be concerned only with doing what is expected of us and nothing more, taking the relational component out of the rule entirely.  The 77 times—or until 70 times seven—is a reflection of God’s unending, boundless forgiveness for us, which is reflected in the astronomical debt that the master forgives in the parable. 

 

This is how we are to think of forgiveness, not as something quantifiable, but as an invitation into the vulnerable power of God.  Are we willing to let our sense of forgiveness reflect God’s?  Are we actively working to be in relationship with others the way God is in relationship with us? 

 

This teaching illustrates how relationships often work:  we go to God for forgiveness and God grants it to us—we know this because the priest tells us so each Sunday—but we seldom show the same level of mercy to each other.  There is an intrinsic notion of ‘pay it forward’ when it comes to God’s forgiveness for us, which we rarely reflect because we’re concerned with what is fair or what we or others deserve. But forgiveness is about restoring relationships, both to God and one another. 

 

Still, we cannot ignore the very real fact that the same ones that remind us of God’s forgiveness often encourage us to keep forgiving those who continuously abuse us. We all know we should forgive others, yes, but what does Jesus’ message mean for the woman who keeps forgiving the spouse who continuously beats her, or the person who keeps coming back to the church community that won’t honor the full expression of their identity?  Well, they should just try to forgive and forget, we often hear, but this places the onus of forgiveness on the victim, which does not affect any real change; in fact, it often aggravates the situation and heaps a load of guilt on those who are already hurting. 

 

It must be noted here that while the teaching in the Torah and Talmud is that one should forgive a person who has wronged them up to seven times, they are only meant to do so if that person asks for forgiveness and is genuinely contrite about it. Non-apologies, which we often see today?  Not allowed. According to this rule the victim is never expected to flippantly forgive a person who keeps hurting them without remorse.  Jesus understood this; remember last week when we were reminded that if a person shows no remorse then they are to be treated, in Jesus’ words, “as a tax collector or a Gentile,” that is, as someone we are to still love and commit into God’s care, albeit from afar. 

Jesus’ call to us that we are to keep forgiving well beyond seven times is not a condoning of hurtful behavior or an encouragement for people to remain in abusive relationships, and certainly not a condemnation of the original rule.  Instead, Jesus is trying to get us to see that to forgive is to make a conscious choice to release the person who has wounded us from the sentence of our judgment, however justified that judgment may be.  It represents a choice to leave behind our resentment and desire for retribution, however fair such punishment may seem.  The behavior remains condemned and there are still consequences, but forgiveness means the original wound’s power to hold us trapped behind a wall of shame and fear is broken.  We are only ever able to do this because human forgiveness is rooted in divine forgiveness, which is the point of the parable.

 

This teaching from Jesus does encourage us to keep forgiving the person who comes back to us again and again with a contrite heart, but there is also a lesson here for us to keep coming back and seeking forgiveness ourselves, to do the hard, self-reflective work of seeing how we as both individuals and communities have profited from being unmerciful—just as the first servant in the parable profited off his neighbor. 

 

It’s not about reaching a magic number, doing the bare minimum just so we can say we’re following the rules, or forgiving and forgetting. It’s about restoring our relationship with God and one another. Right now, brothers and sisters, our country, our world is in need of such restoration.  But restoring relationships is messy, tough work, which takes time and effort, which is why both seeking forgiveness and asking for it is a spiritual practice.  We have to do it day after day.  Our relationships with one another are rooted in our relationship with God, and, as a certain prayer reminds us, it is by seeking forgiveness of our trespasses that we may forgive those who trespass against us.

The Dangers of Protective Love

'Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?

“For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”'

--Matthew 16: 21-28

Let’s talk about Satan.  Or rather, let’s talk about Jesus’ use of that word, ‘Satan,’ in our Gospel this morning.  Each time this reading shows up, this statement from Jesus feels like it comes up out of nowhere and often startles us.

 

To give some context, just prior to the start of today’s reading, Simon bar Jonah has just confessed that Jesus is the Messiah.  Being the first of the 12 apostles to do so, Jesus throws some praise his way and gives him a new name, Peter—technically Petros in Greek, or Kephas in Aramaic.  His new name means The Rock, which is a testament to his strong faith in recognizing Jesus’ true nature.  But when Jesus starts to tell the Rock and the other apostles that the destiny of the Messiah is to suffer and die, Simon Peter steps in and says, ‘God forbid it!’  Jesus responds by giving Simon bar Jonah yet another name, saying, ‘Get behind me, Satan!’

 

Does Jesus really mean what we think he means when he says this?  Yes and no, actually.  No, Jesus is not saying that Simon Peter is the incarnation of the traditional depiction of "the devil." Or, as Ulysses Everett McGill put it:

Courtesy of Ulysses Everett McGill in O Brother, Where Art Thou?

What the word Satan means in its original Hebrew is ‘adversary’ or ‘accuser.’  So, yes, Jesus really did mean it when he gave Simon Peter this new moniker.  In that moment he was being an adversary, standing in the way of Jesus’ true messianic purpose.  Anything or anyone that seeks to deflect people from the way of God, any influence that seeks to make folks turn back from the hard path, or any power that seeks to make human desires take the place of the divine imperative can all be described as Satans.  In this way, Simon Peter was being a Satan.

 

Like all of the apostles, Simon Peter had an idea of what the Messiah was suppose to be, and self-sacrificing wasn’t it.  There existed a group within Judaism at that time called the Zealots—even one of the apostles, the other Simon, was called the Zealot.  These were folks who functioned as something like political revolutionaries.  They believed that the Messiah would be a conquering king that would swiftly depose Caesar and expel their Roman occupiers.  Often the Zealots resorted to violent tactics to get their point across, one of which, according to many scholars was Barabas, the condemned man set free instead of Jesus. 

 

This description about the Messiah’s future, one that would lead to a violent death at the hands of the collaboration system between corrupt religious officials and the empire, was just too much for Simon Peter to take.  So, like any of us would do if someone we loved said that they were headed down a path that would lead to their death, he steps in the way.  One possible translation is that he ‘caught hold’ of Jesus, as if to literally hold him back from continuing this journey to Jerusalem and to the cross.  We can almost see the tears in his eyes as he tells Jesus, ‘This must not happen to you!’

 

An Eastern icon of Jesus' rebuke of Simon Peter after the latter's intervention.

And then comes Jesus’ response with the infamous Satan line.  Over the years as I have read this sentence from Jesus I can’t help but consider the tone in his voice. I do not believe it was a harsh one, or an angry one, but rather the voice of someone wounded to the heart, with a poignant grief and kind of shuddering horror because in this moment, Simon Peter is doing exactly what another Satan had done in the wilderness at the very start of Jesus’ ministry. 

 

Remember the days after his baptism, how Jesus fasted in the desert for 40 days and nights, and according to the text, he was tempted by Satan.  Those three temptations were for power, prestige, and possessions.  This demonic force, attempting to lure Jesus with a method of escape from this hard path of God, promised to make him ruler over all the kingdoms of the world, tried to assure him that because of who he was the angels would catch him if he jumped off  building, and even tempted his hunger by encouraging Jesus to turn the stones into bread.  Power, prestige, and possessions.  And in this moment, looking into his friend’s eyes, Jesus sees the same look he had seen in the wilderness, and the same temptation to be the kind of Messiah Simon Peter and others wanted, not the one that God had in mind.  Simon Peter, like that other Satan, was promising an escape that Jesus could not and would not accept. 

An unknown depiction of Jesus' rebuke of Satan during the wilderness temptations.

 

Can we really blame Simon Peter for saying what he said?  After all, it came from a place of love.  He wanted to protect Jesus, but in that moment of trying to protect him, Simon Peter tried to control Jesus and take the decision out of his hands.  He seized Jesus’ own personhood.  He could not bear to witness Jesus go down this path, but he also did not understand how his own protective love was doing more harm in that moment than good. 

 

There are times when love seeks to deflect us away from perils and dangers.  Think of a child going off to college for the first time, whose parent wants nothing but to keep them safe and close and so they hinder that move in some—perhaps that has taken on a new meaning nowadays!  Or consider a woman who tells her partner that she wants to finally quit her job and pursue a career as an artist, only to have her partner discourage her from doing so, not because the partner doesn’t support her dream, but because the partner is afraid that the woman will try, fail, and be devastated.  These are examples of protective love getting in the way of people actually living their lives, or to use church language, actually living into their call.  The real love is not the love that holds people back, but the love that sends them out to listen to God’s call, knowing that there may be painful moments along the way, but that this is the path that God has in store for their loved one.

 

Protective love doesn’t really protect the other person at all, but rather it protects the one that embodies it.  Simon Peter wasn’t protecting Jesus.  He was protecting himself from having to watch Jesus go down this difficult path.  The parent or the partner in the examples I mentioned usually aren’t trying to protect the other person so much as they are trying to ease their own fears and concerns.  What I suspect really wounded Jesus was the realization that Simon Peter was speaking with this kind of love in his heart, not the kind that wanted only for Jesus to be his truest, fullest self, to live into the mission that God had set before him.  In the same way, we who have this tendency to tell others ‘You don’t want to do that!’ or ‘I know what’s best for you!’ must learn that even if it comes from a place of love, it does not necessarily mean that it is something nurturing and affirming. 

Calling Simon Peter ‘Satan’ may seem harsh, but in its literal form that’s exactly who we are when we get in the way of people living into their fullest selves and being the people God has called them to be.  We become the accuser or the adversary whenever we insert ourselves into the mix and think we know what’s best for someone else, even someone we love.  This is part of the journey of kenosis, of self-emptying, which Jesus invites the apostles on, but which they can’t accept until he has walked the road to the cross and shown them what it really looks like.  May we have the grace to examine our hearts and the motivations and intentions behind those moments of protective love that we express.  May we seek not to catch hold of or rebuke those who choose a path that may lead to some measure of pain, but support and encourage them and seek to better understand the journey God has called them on.  Let us walk alongside them and love them from a place of encouragement, rather than our own self-motivated protection.

If Jesus Can Change: A Lesson on Being Fully Present

'Jesus called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?” He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.” But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.” Then he said, “Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”

Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.'

--Matthew 15: 10-28

Jesus meets the Canaanite woman, and her daughter is healed of her demon by proxy.

We have a very curious and perhaps confusing Gospel on our hands this week.  From Matthew we get two accounts—one of Jesus teaching his disciples about the true nature of cleanliness, and the other of Jesus being confronted by the Canaanite woman.  Oddly, our lectionary leaves the first story optional for us, but we really need it to understand just how powerful the second one is. 

 

The first story appears simple enough.  Jesus is frustrated by the Pharisees and other religious authorities who seem bound up and guided by tradition more than love.  Something that goes into you cannot defile you on a spiritual level because it just passes through you and into the sewer, which is a natural bodily function and therefore ritually clean. It’s what comes out of a person’s mouth that defiles because it is with our words that we often promote injustice, violence, and oppression of every kind.  These authority figures—who are akin to some of the more rigid, fundamentalist Christians of our time—are concerned with theological fights akin to how many angels can dance on the head of a needle.  

But for Jesus, religious purity and faithful discipleship are not measured ultimately by whether we can come up with the right answer to questions like that, or if we earn perfect attendance in online worship.  Faithfulness, for Jesus, is shown ultimately in how much we are being guided by love.  If love is your guide, then you will see that all the God of love has made is good and pure, and you will let go of this obsession with ritual cleanliness.  This is a teaching of Jesus that, I suspect, we can all get onboard with; besides, how good is it to see Jesus call out the hypocrisy of those rigid religious authorities, huh?

 

So Jesus leaves that place where he had engaged in this debate about cleanliness with the Pharisees, and he comes to the region of Tyre and Sidon.  What’s important about these places being named in the text is that they are not part of Jewish territory.  Here Jesus is surrounded by Gentiles, non-Jews.  And as if on queue a woman comes up to him, asking for him to heal who her possessed daughter.  This woman, who naturally goes unnamed in the story but whom tradition has given the name of Justa, is a Canaanite, which were the indigenous people from whom the children of Israel seized their so-called Promised Land.  This makes her a Gentile, and therefore unclean.  Here is a chance for Jesus to practice exactly what he has just preached to the Pharisees!  Is he going to be guided by love or by tradition?

 

When Justa asks for help, the disciples tell Jesus to dismiss her, but he doesn’t even speak to her, instead he emphasizes the nature of his ministry by reminding them that he has come only for the lost sheep of Israel—something he had had said earlier in the Gospel when he directed the 12 apostles to go only to those same sheep and not to any Gentiles.  Nevertheless, she persists.  She comes to Jesus directly and pleads her case.  Here is his chance, again, to do the thing, but this time he tells her that it is not appropriate for the children’s food to be thrown to the dogs; that is, for him—the bread of life—to be given to anyone but his own people. 

 

Some preachers might say that this exchange between Jesus and Justa isn’t as bad as it sounds.  Jesus was just testing her.  But was he though??  He never indicates it’s a test, nor does the Gospel writer say so.  Still, those same preachers say, he didn’t mean dog in a really bad way, it’s better translated as puppy.  That’s not exactly true, and even if it was, dogs were not valued in Jesus’ culture the way they are now, even if they were small and puppyish.  Dogs were scavengers, which is what Jesus equates this woman—and her whole race—with being.  It’s as if Jesus had a prime opportunity to do exactly what he warned the Pharisees with doing and instead offered up the biblical equivalent of ‘do as I say, not as I do.’  Why would act in such a manner?

 

The challenge with this story is that it paints Jesus in an unflattering light, and nearly every good Christian is taught that we should never think of Jesus in such a way.  But this way of reading Scripture or thinking about Jesus effectively removes his humanity.  We would much prefer to think of Jesus as the perfect human, but here’s the thing: thinking of Jesus as the perfect human can often take us off the hook for our own errors and moments of hypocrisy.  How many times have you heard: "What do you expect of me, I’m not Jesus, I’m not perfect?!" It isn’t about Jesus being perfect, though, it’s about Jesus being our model, the pioneer of our faith, as the Letter to the Hebrews calls him.  To be a Christian is be be little Christs ourselves, which doesn’t mean trying to be perfect all the time.  It means something much more meaningful, and at times much more difficult—being fully present. 

 

For when we are fully present, we can hear someone else when they challenge us.  We can better resist the impulse to go to a place of defensiveness, and we can learn and grow.  Yes, even Jesus learns and grows in this moment!  In spite of the fact that he briefly gives in to his own cultural prejudices, Jesus remains fully present and listens to Justa when she turns his own words on him by saying, "Even the dogs eat the food under the master’s table."  

This causes him to pause for a second, as if to say, ‘Well, you got me,’ and Jesus commends her faith—just as he commended the faith of a Roman centurion in Matthew, chapter 8, the only other Gentile to receive healing from Jesus.  Remember last week, how Peter fell when he tried walking on water and Jesus commented on his lack of faith?  Here is a someone who is ritually unclean, who worships idols, and speaks up at a time when women simply did not do that.  This is someone who will not leave Jesus alone, and for that he calls her faith great.  I suspect he does so because, believe it or not, Jesus learns something in that moment, that even he is susceptible to the prejudices of his own culture.

 

There may be some major Scriptural and religious ramifications to the idea that Jesus can learn.  To paraphrase David Lose, a cadre of theological police would patrol the long corridors of our imaginations if we dared say such a thing!  But if it’s possible for Jesus to learn and grow and move beyond his own culture’s shortcomings around who is and who is not clean or worthy of the bread he offers or fit for the kingdom, then can’t we too be reformed?  If Jesus can go from being unclean by his own definition—that is, by spewing an insensitive and derogatory remark toward Justa—to being clean—that is, healing her daughter and commending her faith—then aren't we capable of the same kind of transformation? 

 

And how does Jesus do it?  Be being fully present and listening to Justa’s needs.  He doesn’t cut her off, tell her what she really wants, or try to explain how he didn’t mean the comment as an insult because he has three dogs at home and loves them very much.  He just listened to her.  She offers him the pain and grief of her heart and the hearts of her people, generations of institutional prejudice, and he doesn’t get defensive.  Instead, he hears her when she comes back to him because in the moment he manages to stay present to her and her needs.  

This is a practice in which we are all being called to participate, each and every day.  Who is it in our lives that needs us to be fully present?  What kind of cultural prejudices do we, like Jesus, need to move beyond?  How are we putting tradition ahead of love when it comes to dealing with folks who are not like us, and might we, again, like Jesus, keep ourselves open to the constructive criticism or feedback offered to us, so that we can be changed?  This is what it means to be little Christs, to embody Jesus’ full life—yes, even the parts that are hard for us to consider—and realize that if Jesus can do it, then, yes, so can we.  We can be fully present. We can listen.  We can realize our faults.  And we can change. We need only  eyes to see those who are hurting, ears to listen to them with the intent to learn, and hearts eager for transformation. 

Saint Justa the Canaanite Woman, pray for us.

Being Fed In the Wilderness

'Jesus withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” And he said, “Bring them here to me.” Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.'

--Matthew 14: 13-21

So the question on many people’s minds when they hear this story is: did Jesus really feed 5000 people?  I tend to respond to this kind of question with something the late spiritual author Rachel Held Evans once said, which is that I don’t know for certain if such a miracle DID happen, but I believe in a God through whom such a miracle COULD happen.  Whether we believe that the feeding of the 5000 literally happened this way, or whether we believe it is some sort of allegory, the story has a lot to teach us, particularly those of us who have felt cut off from being fed by our rituals and our communities during this pandemic.

An Eastern icon of the feeding of the 5000

It’s helpful for us to put this miracle in its context—and yes, it is a miracle, and I will get into why a bit later.  We don’t get the context in our selection this week, but this event takes place just after word has reached Jesus of the death of John the Baptist, his cousin and fellow proclaimer of the Good News that the kingdom of God had come near.  Several of Jesus’ own disciples—and maybe even Jesus himself—were followers of John, and no doubt many believed that the two teachers and prophets would bring end the Roman occupation and restore the land to the people of Israel.  The first indicator that this isn’t going to happen the way they think is John getting beheaded by King Herod.  We can imagine how such an event would affect those who had put so much faith and hope in John.

The crowds who were following Jesus no doubt included such folks, whom it can be assumed likely wanted to leave and isolate themselves in their grief.  Consider that for a moment:  an event of such great distress and heartbreak, which no doubt caused fear and panic, has occurred, and it has left a large number of people feeling helpless and uncertain about what their future holds.  All the while, these folks out in the middle of the wilderness are getting hungrier and hungrier. Doesn’t that sound a bit familiar?

We may not be able to point to one single event as the marker for the beginning of our suffering—such as the beheading of John was for these folks—but how many of us over the last 5 months have isolated ourselves in our grief?  There are folks who have cut themselves off from online church worship or given up on maintaining connections through platforms like Zoom because these efforts are not only boring and exhausting, but they aren’t providing a whole lot of hope that things will be different. 

This sums up our situation quite well.

This pandemic is an event of great distress and heartbreak, and it too has caused fear and panic, leaving so many of us feeling helpless and uncertain about our future.  Every day the numbers go up, or at least that’s the case here in North Carolina, and every day we just get hungrier and hungrier as we stay out here in this dessert.  We have more in common with that crowd today than we might have first realized.

It’s here that I want to say that I get it.  I’m with you.  All this time I have had to preach and hold church meetings virtually, and talking to a screen is really, really hard.  I don’t know when the pandemic will end, when we can come back together to worship publicly, and like many I see the rhetoric spewed from our leaders and the cries for change to our broken systems, and I want to do something, but I don’t know what that it is, which leaves me feeling helpless, as well.  It’s very easy during these times for me, for all of us I imagine, to just want to cut ourselves off from all of it, retreat into our self isolation, and let the grief and despair consume us.  What is the answer?

For us it’s Jesus.  And because, as the great mystic Teresa of Avila reminds us, Jesus has no hands or feet but ours, the answer is the Body of Christ, the beloved community that Jesus began; that is, each other. We lean on Jesus in our moments of distress, and we lean on each other, who are the very Body of Christ in the world.  And in these moments, we find comfort, strength, and hope for our future. 

This is what Jesus does in the story of the feeding of the 5000.  Looking out upon the grieving and hungry multitude, Jesus told his apostles, ‘You give them something to eat!’ And when the loaves and fish were brought to him he took them, blessed them, broke them, and gave them out, enough to feed everyone.  The distress and pain that had been felt after news of John’s death begins to fade, and to paraphrase Amy-Jill Levine in her Women’s Bible Commentary, the perverse image of John’s head on a platter is replaced by a banquet for the poor in spirit. 

Caraggio's Beheading of John the Baptist

Out of what looked like scarcity, Jesus brought abundance.  When the apostles distressed that they didn’t have enough and the people were so filled with grief, Jesus gathered them together and fed them.  He provides sustenance when all anyone around him can see and feel is deprivation.  That is a miracle, no matter which explanation we choose to believe.  

It is possible, I believe, for such a miracle to still occur.  If we were in a church building together, I would remind you that the actions of Jesus—taking, blessing, breaking, and giving—are reflections of the Eucharist, Holy Communion, the Lord’s Supper, and that when we say that great prayer of the Church, using those same verbs in our remembrance of Jesus’ Last Supper as we share a morsel of bread and sip of wine, we are fed and made one with Jesus, and in that moment a miracle occurs. 

Saying that right now rings pretty hollow begins we cannot share Eucharist together.  Like that crowd, we are getting hungrier and hungrier the longer we are apart from each other and can’t share that meal.But here’s the miracle, brothers and sisters. I believe that such a feeding can still take place, though it may not look like what we are used to.  If you remember another version of this story—the one in John’s Gospel—you’ll recall a young boy who gives the loaves and fish—all that he has—to help feed the people. In that version the boy’s offering, which passes through Jesus’ hands, feeds the people.  

In the same way, each of us can feed one another whenever we bring whatever we have and let it pass through Jesus’ hands.  When we who are the Body of Christ feed others—both in actual food and in spiritual nourishment—it is eucharistic.  When we are able to support one another in our grief and distress and accept the call when Jesus says to us, as he said to his apostles, ‘You give them something to eat!’ then we can be healers and repairers of the breaches.  Out here in this wilderness we’re all just trying to get fed.  While we may not have the rituals to which we are accustomed, those that have nourished us for so long, we can still feed one another, and when we do, miracles happen. 

Mary of Egypt, one of the dessert mothers, never received Communion until the last day of her life, and said that while she was wandering around in the dessert, she was nourished each day by the Word, by Scripture and the presence of Jesus, the Living Word.  So how can we feed one another while we are out here in this wilderness? 

Saint Zosima gives Saint Mary of Egypt Holy Eucharist on the last day of her life.

We all have COVID fatigue and we miss our old routines, but rather than run back into them blindly or retreat into our grief, maybe we can consider how we, the Body of Christ, can be eucharistic people, who take what we have, bless it, break it open, and give it to someone who needs the love, forgiveness, and grace of Jesus in their lives.  If we can do that, then we will absolutely make miracles happen and transform our world.