Cry Baby

or - Nobody Here But us Chickens

Luke 13:31-35
At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’ Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

I’ve told a few people this great story. After worship on Wednesday, I was home, and my 5 year old was curious about the cross on my forehead. He asked me about why it was there.
A few minutes later he said, “Dad, that cross makes you look smart!”
Yup.
As Dr. No Toll said in response to this insight, we are smart when we admit that we do not know.

I wonder at the metaphors we use, the images we live by.
Just saw a bumper sticker. US Flag, with big letters STANDING TALL.
What if standing tall simply puts you in the line of fire?

You have been sealed by the Holy Spirit, and marked with the cross of Christ forever.

The images Jesus chooses are telling.
Herod is a fox.
No Lion. No Bear. Not a Panther or a Jaguar.
Nothing so noble and ferocious.
Not even a wily Coyote.
A sneaky fox.
Heck, even a Bobcat seems powerful in comparison.

Jesus puts Herod in his place. Remember, this is territory under Roman rule. There is no freedom of speech. No internet, with its mocking of our leaders. If Herod were to hear that insult, Jesus would pay dearly.

Yes, Herod is a fox, and what is Jesus?
This fox defeater?
This adversary of Herod’s?
A Chicken.
No powerful metaphor here.
Fox food.
No wonder we haven’t really done much with this image.
Isn't the chicken a sign of Peter's denial?
Yes, the chicken that crows. Yet, even the Rooster can seem somehow noble.
Or at least loud. . .

The Mother Hen? An odd metaphor. A sad symbol. Anything but regal/powerful/inviting - or victorious. . .
Gathering her brood. Spreading her wings. Protecting and watching over her little chicks. Her best defense in the face of the fox's teeth?
Self-sacrifice.
Herod gets the metaphor of fox.
Us?
Defenseless chicks.
Fox snacks. Chick-filet.

"Perhaps" - suggests ethicist Jim Perkinson in his essay - Learning to Cry, Struggling to See - in the face of the oppression being visited by the powerful, by the foxes of our day, "Perhaps our primary task today [is] learning to weep..."
Weeping Mother Hens.
To quote Dave Barry - that would be a good name for a rock band.
I'd have to add, that I'd hate to have to design the t-shirts for their next tour SUMMER 2007 TOUR SNIVELING CHICKENS!

In our faith communities today, many who take the faith seriously, sadly take themselves too seriously. (We are probably often more similar to them than we'd care to admit.) When we align ourselves with this self important path, our metaphors are too settled. Too aligned with the fox. Too violent. Too prosperous. Too blind to the poor. And if there is any cross at all, it is a quite pretty one, and has never in the remotest way, borne the pain of the world. Unless you consider the pain of the laborers who mined the gold, or. . .

Grace is to be found, in the suffering one. The one who will hear those cries, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord."
Which metaphors will point us to following this one?
The BEAST-devouring-666-defeating-vengeance-wreaking Jesus of strange imaginations?
This surely is not who we encounter here in Luke 13.
The Sniveling Chicken.
Perkinson suggests that a good test would be to ask "the last time we cried, what did we cry for?"

Fellow Lenten travelers
- that cross on your forehead -
makes you look smart.
Or something.
Those tears running down your cheeks, they make you look like you share in God's love for this planet and all its inhabitants in need of salvation. . .

No Baby

Luke 4:1-13

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’” Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.

When I hear this story, I don’t find the temptations all that tempting. All the more, when I read folks who write at length about temptation, it seems that whatever it is that tempts them doesn’t really appeal.
Hmmmm.
Part of the problem for me is that we don’t really think in such categories. With the way we look at our world, there aren’t really any temptations. Just different choices. (You may now go off on your own “self as project” direction - that would lead me too far afield, I have a meeting in a few minutes...)

Stoffregen in his text work concludes with this quote and comment

Keith Nickle (Preaching the Gospel of Luke) concludes his comments on this text with these words:
Without trivializing the intensity of Jesus' wilderness encounter, it is nonetheless appropriate to point out that all Christians find themselves struggling with similar temptations to dilute the quality and even exchange the object of their commitment during the course of their pilgrimage. There are times when they too, in response to the call of God, are tempted to be satisfied with offering the adequate rather than the best that their disciplined service can offer ... or, having caught the vision, to succumb to impatience and seek to accomplish God's purposes by means alien to God's character ... or, to seek to coerce God by taking shortcuts to success. [p. 40]
I have seen it happen often in congregations: They strive for mediocrity and usually reach it. Is that succumbing to the temptation to give God less than our best?

I find that a little less compelling than Stoffregen does. . .
It seems that these approaches are all about our commitments, our choices, our best, all that we do.
Yes, to speak of temptation is to venture into the area of the things that we do and the choices we make and, thus, the lives that we lead, but what is the ground of our choices - when they are “best”?

Elsewhere, Craig B. Adams shares the insight of a Jewish psychiatrist in his community (an insight I suspect articulated elsewhere) that “the mature religious person is one who can embrace ambiguity.”
Oddly, while the stuff I’ve read on this text wants to admit to the ambiguities of temptation, they seem to lack any ambiguity their own dang selves.
Few deal with the fact that Jesus finds himself in the Wilderness of Temptation driven by the Spirit.
Hmmmmm.
Baptized into Christ, you, too, bear that same Spirit.
Perhaps all does not depend on your making the correct decisions, but in trusting that come what may, the Spirit is with you, and will guide you into God’s loving embrace, restore you to God’s presence (Ps. 51) forgive you, and send you into the world to bear your cross. . .
I don’t know what the heck I’ve just written, if this doesn't make sense to you eaither, let's just say that I'm willing to embrace ambiguity. That way I can pretend I know what I’m talking about.

Wow Baby!

Gospel Luke 9:28–36

Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. 29 And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. 30 Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. 31 They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. 32 Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. 33 Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, "Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah" — not knowing what he said. 34 While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. 35 Then from the cloud came a voice that said, "This is my Son, my Chosen listen to him!" 36 When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.

Years ago, a friend in a far away state, (I won’t say where, but it rhymes with Halifornia) told me that he had his associate pastor preach on Transfiguration, because he‘s done so poorly with this lesson so often, that he gets depressed thinking about preaching on it again. He went on to go through the usual - “you can’t stay on the mountaintop, you gotta get back to work” - interpretation. . .
I wonder if there isn’t a totally different direction to go.
The glory is surely an integral part of the story. And there is that hymn, “How Good Lord to Be Here.” Yet our story has the command from “the voice” , "This is my Son, my Chosen listen to him!"
What is it that we are to listen to?
Is it all of Jesus’ teaching? Are we to be “red letter Christians”?
I have a suspicion that the Transfiguration is the glory that leads to the cross.
Could the experience of the glory be a gift - primarily, to Jesus, and only tangentially to the disciples - so that he might have a certain strength for the coming journey, when the glory will be entirely hidden in suffering and the cross?
That is what the disciples are to “listen” to. To the one who exercises the power of God in the weakness of the suffering and death on the cross.

Here is a rich line from a sermon by Barbara Brown Taylor:

Later, when Jesus’ exodus got under way and they saw what it meant for him -- when they saw that shining face bloodied and spat upon, those dazzling clothes torn into souvenir rags -- I’ll bet they had to rethink what that glory was all about.

As we come to the end of the season of Epiphany, and look ahead to Lent, we have a whole season of rethinking what God’s glory is about. . . and of seeking again, to see that God has hidden God’s greatest glory in the life, and the teaching and the suffering and dying and rising, of this one born in a stable in Bethlehem.
Wow Baby. . .

Woe Baby- 6 Epiphany

Luke 6: 17-26
6:17 Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon.
6:18 They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured.
6:19 And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.
6:20 Then he looked up at his disciples and said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
6:21 "Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. "Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.
6:22 "Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.
6:23 Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.
6:24 "But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
6:25 "Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. "Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.
6:26 "Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets."

Each week I get an e-mail from an ELCA pastor, Brian Stoffregen, which is his commentary on the gospel reading. It's a good start. I posted his comments on this text here: http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dhm78cxk_22fqw47s if you would like to look at them.

There are two things that I want to discuss. The first is that in this text Jesus comes out on the side of the underdog-- (that why the dang Bears should have won last Sunday). Actually underdog isn't the right word. I'm not sure what the word would be-- something describing being crapped upon by life and the world. Jesus addresses specifically the poor, the famished, those who weep, and disciples who are hated for following Christ. The world normally sees these people as cursed. They are not strong enough or self-sufficient enough to get help. They need to get on the right medication or stop taking out loans at the fricking Payday Loan places. In the world's darwinian system of ranking, their problems are evidence that they are not blessed. God has frowned on them. But in this sermon Jesus reveals God's preference for losers. God's love is for them. In Jesus the world is turned upside down. (This means that the winners will not be blessed but cursed.) How does one keep from turning this text into a moral lesson, if one is wary of moral lessons?

Second, promises are a strong theme in this text. Jesus makes promises both to the losers and the winners. He promises justice: good for the losers, bad for the winners. What is that quote? "God's word creates what it says/promises?"

So how does one preach a "God for us" from this text? Sure we cry now and then but we're not hungry or poor. Rather, we make decent money, eat too much, enjoy laughter, and fall prey to appreciating "Pastor Appreciation Sunday." We're screwed. But do we want to preach that? Where's the gospel for winners?

Another NOT SO Super Bowl

Is there some theological point that can be drawn from the fact that this year's Super Bowl game, like so many other of these 41 contests, was about as "Super" as one of our choirs' anthems?
Just wondering