Snakes Alive!

John is at it again.  Lecturing, name calling, telling people off.  Calling them snakes!  He doesn’t pull any punches.  He lets them know in no uncertain terms that God is not happy with the way humans are living their lives.  They need to make some changes, he demands.  They are not living up to God’s expectations and are letting down their part of the Covenant between the people of Israel that came into being when Moses first showed up, that was behind the story of why there are rainbows in the world.  God makes covenants, enters into partnership, wants to be in relationship with troublesome humans who keep breaking their side of the bargain.  Then God connects with Isaiah and sends a message that these broken covenants are not what God wants!

Today’s passage of Isaiah about "the wrath of God" which results from these broken covenants, is pointing to what all the scriptures have in common this Sunday. That many people believe in the wrath of God. And while there are some folks who probably should take this more seriously, like certain politicians, leaders of organized crime syndicates, murderers, billionaires with their mega yachts who complain of rising wages, people who start wars, scammers that phone at 6 in the morning claiming that you need to pay a speeding ticket and the like, who could do with a taste of God's wrath, most people are doing the best they can to get by. The postal workers, the teachers and nurses, the cleaners and the cooks, the typists and the professors, the car washers, the truck drivers and the grocery clerks. How does the wrath of God help them when they are more afraid of the wrath of their bosses? It's stunning to learn that those bosses are earning in a single year what their average employee will earn in their lifetime. The CEO of Tim Hortons earned $151.8 million dollars in 2022, including benefits and other compensation. That's quite the gap between him and the donut server earning $15.64 an hour, according to CBC reporting. So much so that when you crunch the numbers, he is earning the same salary as about 5000 of his employees combined. A poisonous snake who exploits humans as resources. Still feel like having a double-double? What would John say about it? Probably what he said to the tax collectors; stop with the greedy exploitation!

Believing in the wrath of God is surprisingly common.  Many people grew up with the story that God has so much wrath towards us that God killed Jesus, torturing his innocent son to death.  The idea of original sin or looking at images of Jesus bleeding on the cross, just emphasizes this image of a wrathful God. 

Too much anger though, and people shrivel inside.  Too much negativity leads to stunted growth.  Too many put downs, accusations and guilt trips leave people stuck in apathy and anxiety.  Many hurting souls give up hope.  They turn to selfish ways, caring only about themselves and their families. Or they turn to addictions to numb the pain of never being good enough. People who are trapped in this kind of self-hatred live in constant fear of God’s wrath.  They turn to gurus, psychics, televangelists and charlatans but they do not find comfort.

If only someone would read the words of Isaiah to them.  Isaiah, who heard God saying, “Comfort, oh comfort my people, speak tenderly to them, and tell them that their day of pardon has come.”  This is not an angry God.  And in today’s reading, God is the one to turn away from wrath.  God is the one that provides comfort.  God is the one that saves the people, God is the one that protects and strengthens.  God is the one who helps refugees sing a new song in a strange land, and God is the one who brings joy.

Joy comes in surprising ways.  The amazing and prolific writer, C. S. Lewis, talked about this surprising nature of God’s comfort and joy.  In his book, “Surprised by Joy”, he wrote about being a dyed in the wool atheist happy to focus on only the things he could touch or taste or smell or hear or see.  And yet, when he heard music, when he recited a poem, when he saw a sunset on a walk, when he read a fairy tale, when he saw a work of art, he would get a joyful emotion that he couldn’t explain away.  The surprises slowly and surely baptized his imagination and seduced him into rejoining the faith of his childhood. He abandoned religion because of the hypocrites and snakes he met in the church.  Joy brought him back. And little did he know as he was writing it, that his friend and proof reader, Joy Davidman, would a few years later become his wife, adding to even more surprising Joy.

John knew that same surprising joy, and he wanted his followers to know it too. And he told them simple concrete things that we can do to live in right relationship with God and each other.  He tied it into our livelihoods.  Don’t hurt others, share what you have and don’t get greedy.  Sounds simple, doesn’t it?  And he told them that he was not the messiah, that one was coming who makes him look like an amateur in comparison.  He was right in that, for a very simple reason.

John was mired in the wrath of God. Isaiah and Jesus were not; both saw God differently, acting in love, God doing the comforting.  God doing the surprising.  God bringing Joy.  Even to people like you and me, struggling with our own moments of snake-like anger, even when we too know we are hypocrites, preaching love one moment and raging the next, God is with us, we are not alone.  Thanks be to God for this gift of good news of salvation and surprising joy for all of us!  Amen. 

Checking the Polling Numbers

Doesn't today's scripture sound like Jesus was doing a post-debate poll of how his message was going down?  He was trying to find out what the crowds at his rallies thought of him.  Let's check out the undecided listener, let's do some number crunching, let's do a survey and see how our messaging is landing, and if it's making any impact on the folks who are sitting on the fence.

Not too much different than an episode of the West Wing where everyone is wondering about approval ratings and spin doctoring. Is the message getting heard?

For Jesus, the core question he wanted his consultants to ask was 'Who do people say that I am?" He wanted to know if people thought he was the equivalent of a demented cat lady or racist convicted felon. The disciples didn't know those terms of course, but responded with what they heard, prophet, famous teacher, reincarnated baptizer and so forth. Even when Peter came up with the answer Jesus was looking for, Jesus challenged his interpretation of that title. It would be like Jesus saying to us, "it's all well and good to call me your Premier or Prime Minister but I'm going to be living under a bridge, picking bottles so I can buy food, and I'll get arrested on a picket line and stabbed to death in a homeless encampment riot. Wait! What kind of Prime Minister does that?

No wonder Peter challenged him.  What is the point of public opinion declaring that Jesus was an influential person, a political and theological expert, if he was going to use such a ridiculous campaign strategy. It was ridiculous! In fact, in some ways the whole claim he made sounded ridiculous.  Die and rise again on the third day.  What kind of politician would center their campaign on that? Even Paul said that this message sounded foolish.

C. S. Lewis once wrote, "A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said wouldn't be a great moral teacher. He'd be either a lunatic on a level with a man who says he's a poached egg or else he'd be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse."

I don't know about you, but I'm not keen on believing in someone who is delusional. I want to follow someone who shows clear leadership, deep compassion, and determination to consider the welfare of all people, not just his cronies or wealthy friends.

People today are looking for leaders they can trust and don't know where to find such leaders. Some are so cynical that they don't believe that anyone cares at all about them. They have given up on humanity. They've been hurt too much, failed too often or seen their dreams crushed too much. One person claims that 'apatheism’ is the biggest challenge facing Christianity today. Not atheism, not believing in any God, or agnostics who are not sure, but apatheists who are apathetic to the question of whether there is a God or not. Why bother to care? They might be assuming that Christianity is all about saving yourself from Hell and that they know they're going there so what's the point in trying or caring?

Jesus wanted to turn that apathetic attitude upside down. He said that those who tried to save their lives would lose them, and those who lost their lives would find them.  People who only think of themselves, "me, me, me" instead of "you, you, you" or even "us, us, us" would find that they did not have a life of significance or impact. People who go beyond their egotistical attitudes and opinions, who love and serve others, who work towards the common good, they're the ones who will make an impact bigger than they could foresee.

The question Jesus asked his disciples so many centuries ago is still important today. Again, Lewis wrote, "You must make your choice: either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher."

This world has a lot of people promising all kinds of nonsense.  No wonder so many are experiencing apathy, depression, and anxiety.  Teachers talk about a mental health crisis.  Estimates are that 1 in four adults are wrestling with depression, one in five have thought about suicide, and 32% of people are addicted to some kind of substance.  Apathy is a way of letting ourselves off the hook, a way of telling ourselves that there’s nothing we can do to change the world.  We are stuck and life sucks, end of discussion.

Jesus taught a different way.  Those who are trying to be safe, trying to control their world, will spiral down into despair and apathy.  Those who try the way of Jesus, will let go of their own lives, and look at what they can do to help others.  People have found when they start looking for opportunities to help, it makes a world of difference.  Ask any grateful member of AA or Al Anon, and they will tell you the importance of service in their recovery.  Jesus calls us to consider who he is for us too.  Maybe we too have struggled to find hope, maybe we too have struggled to find someone to trust, who cares about us, and who helps inspire us to do better and be better.  Maybe when we answer that big question, “Who do you say that I am?”, our stories will inspire us anew.  May we find the strength to share our stories with those who need to hear them.  Amen.

Step Away from the Whip!

Lent is a good time for confession and self-reflection.  Stories like our scriptures today remind us to stop a moment and take a good deep look at what we are doing in our lives.  Is it Christian?  Is it Faithful?  Is it Holy?

Jesus comes storming into the Temple on one of the most holy holidays of the year, Passover. He picks up his whip and gets going.  He threatens to destroy the Temple. What a public relations disaster!  Can you imagine what would happen if I waltzed into a basilica or the legislature and tried to do something similar?  Jesus got off pretty easy, he didn’t get tazered or tackled or even arrested. 

I felt a similar surge of anger, or what I imagine was a similar anger last week when someone quoted C. S. Lewis to bolster their message that masks and curfews and vaccines are destroying their right to a turkey dinner in a restaurant with 30 of their closest friends and family.  I felt anger not because their message has changed or that they are completely disregarding the science or dismissing human suffering.  The straw that broke my camel back was that they dared quote C. S. Lewis to justify all this conspiracy spreading!

So naturally, I dived into my collection of Lewis, looking for the passage where he talks about doing what’s best for the neighbor, so if a Catholic and a Protestant worship together, the Catholic would not make the sign of the cross out of respect and consideration for the Protestant, and the Protestant would make the sign of the cross out of respect and consideration for the Catholic.

I didn’t find it.  But I did find a lot about what Lewis says is the deadliest, most tempting sin of all, Pride.  If I go out to do righteous battle with folks who are carrying tiki torches, and I feel a sense of pride in my skill at arguing, or I feel good about how smart I am or even more subtly, I feel happy in how right I am, I am slipping into the sin of Pride.  Who am I to think I can charge in like Jesus did, whip in hand and change the world with my passionate facts thrown at their heads, hoping they will flee like the money changers and make the Internet safe for logic and common sense?  Sure Jesus did that, but I’m no Jesus!

When we set ourselves up as the experts, as the ones with the right answers, and even worse, we pick up our whips made up of facts and opinions and research and set off to beat people over the head in hopes of purifying them, we set ourselves up for the temptation of becoming Proud and Arrogant.  That sounds distinctly unChristlike.  But it’s so tempting to prove that I’m right and you’re wrong.  That I have the right to whip and beat you until you agree that you are bad.

Some of us use big whips, we argue and bluster when there is a crowd listening to us, we have a microphone and a DJ music system to make sure everyone knows what we are saying.  Some of us use small whips, little digs, little criticisms, little put-downs, little complaints and we do it more often.  Someone called it ‘nibbled to death by ducks’, another called it the 5 emotional cancers that can destroy a community slowly from the inside out: 

Criticizing, Complaining, Comparing, Competing, and Contending.

These whips come from a sense of my own inadequacies, my own lack of confidence and are not what God wants for me.  That is what Paul would call the wisdom of the world.  The world believes that we live in a dog-eat-dog society, that we have to be the wisest, smartest, richest, toughest people in order to survive and criticizing others, complaining about them, comparing our possessions or our children’s accomplishments somehow makes us better than our neighbors, that’s the wisdom of the world and Paul says it’s the kind of wisdom that leads to ruin, it destroys lives and even civilizations.

The foolish wisdom of the cross is the real power of God, that God’s wisdom is not in competing to be the best or the smartest person in the room but to be found in small acts of kindness, love and sacrifice.  We are called, in fact, to put down our whips lest we also lose our way.

Sure, Jesus whipped the Temple clean, but it didn’t last long.  There was a system in place that had evolved out of the people’s need to find a guaranteed connection to God.  Pure sacrifices, safe coins without blasphemic images of Caesar on them, anything that would help people feel connected to God.  That system snapped back as soon as he left the building.  

Jesus picked up the whip because he truly loved his community and he loved God and he loved his disciples, but it wasn’t enough.  It would take something more dramatic than the whip to shake up people’s addictions to purity and encourage them to rethink their relationship with God.  It would take the cross.

We are called to reflect very carefully before we pick up a whip.  As Jesus said later in this same gospel, “you who are without sin may throw the first stone.” Too often we think we have the right to change our churches but while the passion may be appropriate, the whip wielding can lead to spreading the cancer, not healing the congregation.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it this way, “Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest, and sacrificial.” 

Jesus transformed the community through the cross, not the whip.  We too, are called to lay down our whips and our pride, and open ourselves humbly to the power of God working in us in love.  Love in the end, is the only power to clean the temples of our lives.  

Help us God as we build a community of thriving, loving and courageous people of faith, filled with your foolish wisdom.  Amen.

Longing for acceptance

Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I have longed to gather your children together and you were not willing!  How much anguish there is in that simple statement, so much despair and love combined.  Jesus reaches out to a community that disrespects him, disregards his message and does not want to receive the gift of love and healing he offers them.  But even though he disagrees with them, he does not talk about violence towards them, he does not threaten them with destruction or punishment.  He speaks not from hate or fear or racism or religious intolerance of another faith, but from a sense of community.  These are his people, they are hurting and don’t know it, they are hungry and are not aware of it.

They don’t want to be a part of his group, they want to be stand-offish and aloof from what he is offering.  Some of them are political bullies and are quite happy with the power they have and will do anything to keep that power.  They will even manipulate and trick the government of the time into executing Jesus, an innocent man.

We talked last week about how all humans need control in their lives and the importance of having an awareness of our need for control so that we don’t use it in destructive ways, by micromanaging or dictating, but also that we don’t abdicate our responsibility to use control wisely and appropriately.  There are times when we need to control ourselves, or to provide appropriate guidance for others.  But most importantly, we need to become aware of the dynamics of control – when we are being too passive or when we are being too controlling.

Today’s scriptures speak to another human need, that of inclusion.  That too is a continuum.  There are folks who want to include everybody and want to be included by everybody.  There are also folks who don’t want to include anyone or be included by anyone. 

Groucho Marx once famously said, “I refuse to join any club who would have me as a member”.  He and others pride themselves in being self-sufficient, or above the need for human connection.  Maybe they’ve been burned by previous groups, and don’t want to risk being hurt or manipulated.  The other extreme is the person who wants to be included in every single group they hear of, and how they are so desperate to be accepted that they alienate the very people they are trying to impress.  They talk too much, or nod too much or agree too much.  The scariest book I ever read was called “That Hideous Strength”, about how people did anything to become part of the inner circle, the in group.  We see this in young people who join gangs with violent initiation rites, or froshing rituals in university groups.  Maybe we can even see that in people who are so desperate to be important and powerful that they commit atrocities like the one in New Zealand. Their lust to be accepted has been so strong that they commit acts of violence.

Being a lone wolf can be just as unhealthy.  I remember struggling to be accepted in elementary school where some of the kids would bully anyone different.  There are countless movies about the underdog who wins acceptance, or who realizes how powerless the bullies are, or gets revenge on them.  But an underdog can become arrogant as a way of dealing with the rejection they experience.  Groucho Marx’s quote might be fueled by his experience of being an outsider who became desirable only after he became famous.

Paul wanted a community that included people, that practiced hospitality, inclusion and acceptance the way he had been welcomed and included.  He had been eager to prove himself to the political powers in Jerusalem by persecuting the first followers of Christ. 

When he experienced his loss of sight on the road to Damascus, he was accepted into the homes of Christians who healed not just his eyes but his desperate longing to connect, to find approval, to feel sanctified and loved.  He wanted to share that same experience of healing and hospitality with everyone he met and travelled far and wide to do so.  But even he drew the line.  People who played politics for their own safety regardless of how that impacted others were labeled as enemies of the Cross.  People who were only interested in material things, filling their bellies, only focused on the here and now were worshiping their appetites, ‘Their God is their belly’.  They who wanted to be seen as glorious or special or admirable were labeled as shameful, and for those who pretended to be religious but were actually more interested in their own status as intellectuals were also seen as enemies of the cross.

We are called to be radically inclusive, to practice hospitality in the name of Jesus who ate with prostitutes, sinners, tax collectors, the poor and the disenfranchised.  We are called to be sensitive to the needs of other people to be included in our community in ways that work for them, not by smothering them with more love than they can handle, nor by ignoring those who look or act or dress differently that we do.  We are called to be aware of when our own needs for inclusion may become unhealthy and come at the expense of others.  We are called to love our neighbors and pray for our enemies for they too are human beings.  For God so loved the world, the Bible says, and we are to love the world, warts and all.  Some days this is easier said than done.  But I hope we can find the courage together to stand against hate, to challenge fear-mongering, to speak against the trend to polarize communities into ‘us’ versus ‘them’.  We need to speak out and challenge assumptions of entitlement or superiority when we hear them. 

Maybe if someone in Grafton, New South Wales had spoken up, 49 people in New Zealand would still be alive today.  I’ve never been to Grafton, but I’ve stayed in Brisbane which was nearby, and walked the streets of Christchurch.  The people there are decent, hard-working folks not that different from us.  But hatred grew in one young boy’s soul, for whatever reason, until he thought that he had a right to destroy others.  May we find ways to use our words and actions wherever we encounter those who hunger for inclusion in such destructive ways.  May we be a beacon of hope and courage to challenge the world like Jesus challenged Jerusalem.  May it be so for us all.