The Risk of Birth

 The scriptures referred to are John 1:1-14.

A reading from the gospel of John:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it....The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become the children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:1-5, 9-14)

A poem by Madeleine L'Engle:

This is no time for a child to be born,

With the earth betrayed by war & hate

And a comet slashing through the sky to warn

That time runs out & the sun burns late.

That was no time for a child to be born,

In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;

Honor and truth were trampled to scorn—

Yet here did the Savior make his home.

When is the time for love to be born?

The inn is full on planet earth,

And by a comet the sky is torn—

Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.

John Cleese defined creativity as connecting two or more things that hadn't been connected before. My head intuitively connected these two poetic passages. And I want to explore the reasons the connection makes sense.

Madeleine L'Engle's poem is one we can relate to. Most of us have had kids. And we know that doing so is risky. Not just childbirth itself but raising kids. You don't know what will happen to them or how it will affect them. Life is inherently risky. There is pain, sickness, injury, death. There is heartbreak. Why do we risk it? Love finds the risk acceptable. Without birth there is no risk of loss. But there is no one to love either. And so we have children, daring the risk.

The point of Madeleine's poem is that God took this risk when he sent his Son to be born into this world. And being all-knowing, he knew the risk in a way we never do. We don't know what the future holds for our child. He did. He saw the cross dead ahead in the path of his Son. And yet he let Jesus be born.

But his decision was more vital than anyone knew at that time. Not even Mary and Joseph knew exactly what they held in their arms. Jesus wasn't just the Messiah. He wasn't just the promised savior of the world; he was the reason for the world.

When John says Jesus was the Word, in Greek he uses the term logos. And while it could mean simply “word,” in Greek philosophy and Jewish theology it meant so much more. To the Greeks the Logos was the rational principle that governs everything. It was the the mind that ruled and gave meaning to everything in creation. To the Jews it was not only that but the Word of God, the expression of his wisdom by which all things were created. So we might paraphrase John 1:1 by saying “In the beginning was the reason for and behind everything, and that reason was with God, and that reason was God.”

So it was that personal expression of who God is and why all things are that was born into the world. And once you see that, you see how infinitely risky this move was on God's part.

And as we said, he knew what would happen. He knew how people would react to someone who was right when everyone else is wrong. People don't like that. They don't like the truth when it is painful to accept. So they try to silence and bury it. God was sending his Son on what amounted to a suicide mission. Despite the cost, it had to be done.

But why? What is worth the death of the man who embodies the very principle of life and creation and reason?

Apparently we are. We are worth the risk. Because God loves us. Love decides what is worth the risk.

So think about that. God is willing to risk everything he is, everything that makes sense of the world, everything that gives value and meaning to the world, for you.

What are you willing to risk in return?

What's in a Name?

The scriptures referred to are Matthew 1:18-25.

My wife and I watched a very charming and delightful new Christmas movie. I say “new” but it actually came out last year for the holidays. I guess with everything going on that year we missed it. Anyway it's a story about a redheaded boy in Finland who goes on a journey to find magic and discovers a talking mouse and a friendly reindeer and a village of elves and becomes...Father Christmas! Which we should have worked out from the title, A Boy Called Christmas. Which, by last count, gives Santa more origin stories than the Joker. But it is a wonderful story based on a book by the wonderful author Matt Haig, who has written other books for both children and adults.

If I have one quibble it is a line at the end when a child asks the storyteller, her aunt, played by the marvelous Maggie Smith, “Is that really how, properly, Christmas really began?” To which the aunt replies, “Oh, well, it must be. You see I never lie.” Within the world of the film, it works beautifully. Except that earlier in the story within the story a character says, “Listen. The only thing in life that is simple and clear is the truth. But it can be painful.” When asked if the pain of loss ever goes away, the character says, “No...But you learn to live with it. And you get stronger because of it. And that's the truth.” It's pretty obvious that speaking the truth is one of the chief morals of the story.

So, sorry, no, that wonderful tale and the others with Santa and Rudolph and singing snowmen and all the rest are not the truth about how Christmas began. They may, like that last quote, contain truths. They may talk in vague ways about faith, hope and love, but not tied to any specific reasons that justify everyone having those feelings. Because these stories are like comfort foods. They make us feel good. But like comfort foods, they can end up being not all that good for you, especially if you make them your main diet. They can divert you from real nourishment for the spirit.

Christmas isn't named after a boy in Finland. It comes from Christ's Mass, the worship service commemorating the birth of Christ, in Greek, Christos; in Hebrew, Messiach; in English, the Anointed. And for what did God anoint him? That we learned in last Sunday's gospel. The angel tells Joseph that the child conceived in Mary comes from the Holy Spirit. “She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” He is anointed to save his people, not from the Grinch, not from the Bumble, not from Oogie Boogie, but from sin. Which points to the painful truth of the climax to Jesus' story: the cross.

That is not something people like to think about at Christmas. They want to think of tinsel and trees and lights. They want to think of eggnog and hot chocolate and white chocolate and dark chocolate. Not dark sins. Especially not their sins.

In fantasies our big problems are monsters and evil sorcerers and witches. In science fiction, our big problems are aliens or robots. In truth, it is ourselves. Look around the world for what's really causing our problems. Nobody here but us humans.

And the cause of all of our problems isn't some special group of humans. Then we could get rid of our problems by getting rid of that group. Again that's how it's done in fantasies. Just send all the orcs and wraiths back to Mordor. Just destroy the evil empire. Just put on the magic glove, snap your fingers and all the bad guys turn to dust. Try that in reality and you end up instead with apartheid, reservations, concentration camps, massacres, total war, and genocide. And humanity is not the better for it but the worse. Because the fault is not just in some people but in all of us.

We are not perfectly wise. We are not perfectly good. But we like to think we are wise enough and good enough to take control of everything. And through our knowledge and technology we can control more and more. And yet things keep getting worse. Because we can also do more damage. Our ancestors couldn't destroy all humanity. We can. And all because of something we have known for millennia. The Greeks called it hubris, arrogance, the hero's fatal flaw. We can destroy ourselves but we can't save ourselves.

Who can?

It's all in the name: Jesus. In Greek, Iesus; in Hebrew, Yeshua. Which in English means “Yahweh saves.” God can save us.

But how?

Again in fantasies, it is by finding the magic sword or ring or amulet and killing the bad guys. And we have tried that in the real world over and over again and it doesn't work. We invented the sword and the longbow and the gun and the missile and the atomic bomb and—evil still exists. And what's more, evil can also use those things.

So what does God do instead?

He doesn't send us a magical item or a weapon to save us. He sends us his son. And he doesn't come as a warrior or even an earthly king. He comes as a teacher and a healer and...more. He comes not to get rid of evil by killing bad guys but by transforming them into good guys.

As a teacher, he both reinforces what the prophets said centuries earlier and reinterprets other things in the moral law. It is not enough to observe the letter of the law if you ignore the Spirit behind it. It's not enough to not murder others; you mustn't direct your rage at them or insult them or dehumanize them. (Matthew 5:21-22) In fact God's law, like the Ten Commandments, can be summarized in two principles: love God with all you are and all you have and love your neighbor as you do yourself. (Mark 12:29-31) And your neighbor isn't confined to those you know or like. It can be a stranger lying half-dead on the road. (Luke 10:29-37) And, Jesus says, you are even to love your enemies. (Matthew 5:43-48) Because that is what God does. And we are to be like him.

As a healer, Jesus demonstrates both love for God and love for others. He heals all who come to him for help. If their problems are physical, he cures their disease or fixes their disability. If their problems are mental and they are wrestling with their demons, he banishes what is tormenting them. If their problems are moral and spiritual, he forgives them.

But he is more than a teacher and healer. He is an example of how God wants us to live. He speaks truth. He acts in love. He doesn't lead an army. He doesn't kill anyone, even those who do evil. In fact, when he is confronted by soldiers sent by those in power, he offers himself to save his disciples. (John 18:8) This is so unlike the usual behavior of the leader of a rebellion that the soldiers stumble all over themselves. (John 18:6) And when he faces the representative of the evil emperor of that time, and is asked if he is a king, Jesus says if his kingdom was of earthly origins his followers would be fighting to free him. (John 18:36) In fact, earlier, when one of his followers did draw a sword to save him, Jesus rebukes him (Matthew 26:52) and then heals the man he wounded. (Luke 22:51) And later, from the cross Jesus asks God to forgive his executioners. (Luke 23:34) That is love.

But history is littered with the corpses of good men. What is different about Jesus?

Again it's in the name. When telling of how the angel reassures Joseph about the coming child, Matthew sees this as a further fulfillment of an old prophesy found in Isaiah, about a son whose birth would herald peace: “A virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall name him Emmanuel.” Which, Matthew points out, means “God is with us.”

If Jesus was just a good man, his teachings might live on; he wouldn't. And we would be in the same quandary as before. We've got tons of advice on how to live as good people. We know what to do but we can't do it. We need the power to do so. But the man who had the power to heal people, mentally, physically and morally, to transform us into the people God intends us to be, would be in his grave. If he were just a man.

But if he is God with us...

Jesus said that Yahweh is the God of the living, not the dead. (Matthew 22:32) And Jesus didn't just heal people, he raised the dead: Jairus' daughter, the son of the widow of Nain, and Lazarus. (Mark 5:38-42; Luke 7:11-15; John 11) And he didn't just speak in parables, he came right out and said, “I am the resurrection and the life.” (John 11:25) If he didn't rise from the dead, and convince his demoralized disciples it was him and not a ghost, they would never have written down those words. They never would have proclaimed it to the world. They would have stayed in that locked room until it was safe to return to Galilee and obscurity. And we wouldn't ever have heard of Jesus.

The truth is that the first recorded celebration of Christmas didn't take place until 336 AD. But within the first century Christians were worshiping on Sunday and calling it the Lord's Day because that's the day he rose. (Revelation 1:10) If Jesus hadn't defeated death, we wouldn't be celebrating his birth.

Jesus rose again to life. That is our hope.

And then he poured out his Spirit on his disciples. And they spread the good news that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, anointed by God to save people from their sins, is risen from the dead and offers eternal life to all who trust him. And they continued to do so even when facing those who need the fear of death to keep people in line. That is faith.

True faith, true hope, and true love are not based on a holiday that is supposed to magically create those things. They are based on a person, Jesus, on what he said and did for us. And Jesus, not more toys, not more eggnog, not more TV specials, is what we need.

And we don't need the “Christmas spirit.” We need Christ's Spirit, God with us and within us, guiding us as we walk in his footsteps, teaching, healing, and proclaiming the good news of the Prince of Peace. Peace: in Greek, eirene; in Hebrew, shalom; which in English means not just the cessation of conflict but complete well-being. When enough of us follow the teachings and live the life of Jesus, and our goal is the complete well-being of everyone, both friend and foe, there will be peace on earth. And that's the truth. 

Two Lives

The scriptures referred to are Matthew 1:18-25.

Roald Dahl is best known for his odd and somewhat dark stories for children, like James and the Giant Peach, Witches, Matilda, The BFG, and of course Willie Wonka. He also hosted a TV show for 9 years called Tales of the Unexpected, which dramatized short stories of his that were definitely not for children. I remember vividly one that was different from all the rest. Dahl said in the introduction that he had researched the details and, except for the dialog which he had to create, this story was true. It concerns a couple at an inn. The woman is about to give birth. She is worried because she has had 3 other children before and they all died. The doctor reassures her this one will live. Still, when the child is born her drunken husband says, “My God, Klara, this one is sicklier than the others!” The doctor and midwife beg the man to show his wife some compassion. And you really feel for the poor mother as she prays that her newborn baby will live. After he is done with the delivery, the doctor leaves the mother and child and, filling out the birth certificate, he asks the father what the boy's name will be. He answers, “Last name: Hitler. First name: Adolf.”

I checked it out and Dahl was right. Hitler was the 4^th of 6 children and the first 3, two boys and a girl, all died of disease or birth defect. Hitler's mother doted on him. He adored her. We even have a picture of him as a baby and he was cute. What went wrong?

Scholars have written books on this but I don't want to deal with that yet. For now I want to draw some comparisons between this person and another, not born in an inn.

Hitler was the son of a moderately successful customs official. He originally wanted to be an artist but after the first World War he became the head of a small political party and fancied himself a kind-of messiah, the savior of the mythical Aryan race from inferior races, like the Jews.

Jesus was born a Jew and raised as the son of a tekton, a Greek word that covers carpenters, masons, smiths and builders in general; in other words, a man who worked with his hands. (Matthew 13:55) Jesus himself took up that profession. (Mark 6:3) He was called by God to be the Messiah, the savior of his people, not from other people, but from their sins. And that did not stop Jesus from helping and healing non-Jews. (Matthew 8:5-13; Mark 7:24-30; Luke 17:11-19) In fact, he told his apostles to make disciples out of people from every nation. (Matthew 28:19-20)

Hitler was a powerful speaker and preached hatred towards those he saw as his enemies and enemies of his Reich or realm, both within Germany and outside it. He had his military personnel swear a personal oath to him and that they fight in his name.

Jesus was also a powerful speaker but preached love even towards one's enemies. (Matthew 5:44) He told his followers to turn the other cheek when struck. (Matthew 5:39) He told Pilate that the difference between his kingdom and those of this world was that his followers were not fighting for him. (John 18:36)

Hitler was obsessed with purity, especially when it came to ancestry. Since his father was born illegitimate, he vigorously defended himself against speculation that he was part-Jewish.

Jesus' culture was obsessed with purity, especially ritual purity that kept a person from touching lepers, or women who bled or the dead. Jesus ignored such things when it would prevent him from healing people. (Matthew 8:2-4; Mark 5:25-29; Luke 7:11-15) And as for racial purity, Matthew's genealogy of Jesus lists at least 3 Gentile women among his ancestors. (Matthew 1:3, 5)

Hitler promised his people victory and prosperity and to give every family a People's Car or Volkswagen, a promise he broke.

Jesus told his disciples that following him would mean persecution and possibly death. He told them to deny themselves, take up their crosses and follow him. (Matthew 16:24-25)

Hitler had excellent generals but didn't listen to them. He micromanaged the war and lost.

Jesus sent his disciples out two by two, giving them authority to preach and to heal. (Mark 6:7-13) Before his ascension he sent them to carry on his mission. (Matthew 28:18-20)

When the Russians took Berlin, Hitler killed himself rather than let himself be captured and humiliated.

Jesus let his enemies arrest, try and execute him in the most painful and humiliating way possible.

Hitler was responsible for tens of millions of deaths.

Jesus never killed anyone. His death saved countless people.

Two babies, two men, two paths. One chose the conventional way to power and his name is a synonym for evil. His remaining family members changed their last name and decided not to have offspring so as not to perpetuate his legacy.

The other chose self-sacrifice and his name is a symbol of good. His family joined his followers and oversaw the church in Jerusalem. His brother James wrote one of the books in the New Testament. He died as a martyr to his faith in his brother Jesus.

Hitler was raised Catholic and, like a lot of boys, once thought of being a priest. And we are left to ponder what would have happened had he followed through on that. He would have been a powerful preacher. If he truly opened himself to following Jesus, he could have done a world of good.

And yet when he became the Fuhrer, he had the New Testament rewritten to suit his ideas. There was nothing in there about turning the other cheek or about serving the sick or the imprisoned or the foreigner. While in public Hitler paid lip service to Christianity, but in reality he worshiped another god: himself. He lived only for his own glory.

Proverbs says, “There is a way that seems right to a man but in the end it leads to death.” This is so true that Proverbs says it twice. (Proverbs 14:12; 16:25) And Jesus said, “What does it benefit a person if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?” (Matthew 16:26) And despite the fact that we see this over and over again in the lives of so-called great men, people don't seem to learn from it, not even when it turns out to be fatal. Out of 69 Roman emperors 43 died violent deaths. That's 62%. Most died from assassination, followed by suicide and then death in combat. Hitler survived assassination attempts but it left him addicted to multiple drugs when he killed himself. His allies, Mussolini and Tojo, were killed, one by the mob, the other convicted of war crimes and hung. In our time we've seen the deaths of people like Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, and Ben Ladin. They all pursued power through might and fear. They all died ignominious deaths.

You could say Jesus died an ignominious death, though it is no longer considered to be that by most people. Because he used his power to heal others and to feed the hungry.

Hitler promised his people a glorious Thousand Year Reich. It lasted just 12 years.

After two thousand years, 1/3 of the world's population, 2.4 billion people, call themselves Christian. They are found in every country on earth.

And, yes, not all who call themselves Christian are real followers of Jesus. And, yes, terrible things have been done in the name of Christ. But they clearly go against what Jesus explicitly said not to do. Jesus knew some evildoers would claim to act in his name. He said there is no place for them in his kingdom. (Matthew 7:21-23)

But every atrocity done in Hitler's name was explicitly called for by him or consistent with what he said. And using the numbers compiled in Matthew White's book Atrocities, even if we do not lay the entire death toll of the Second World War at his feet, Hitler and his followers still killed millions more people in 1 decade than all those killed over 20 centuries by so-called “Christians”. Hitler even beat the number of deaths attributed to Stalin and Mao—if you exclude the famines they caused.

Now let's ask it: why did Hitler choose the path he did?

Some say he was a psychopath. Which may have made a different life harder for him but not impossible. Professor James Fallon is a neuroscientist who discovered he was a psychopath when he saw his own brain scan and checked his own DNA for “warrior genes.” And his family tree includes 6 murderers including Lizzie Borden. His family and colleagues confirmed that he had no emotional empathy for others. But through using his cognitive empathy, consciously stopping and asking himself what a good person would do in a situation, he has changed. And his research shows that even the expression of warrior genes can change. This shows there are pro-social psychopaths.

Some point to the abuse Hitler received from his father as the reason he became the person he was. But people such as Beethoven, Brahms, Tyler Perry, Maya Angelou, and Eleanor Roosevelt, among many others, were abused as children and yet grew up to do things that made the world a better place. They chose not to pass on their trauma to the world.

Hitler's past need not have determined his future. Nor do our pasts.

We always have a choice. And we have the words and example of Jesus. And if we ask we can have the same Spirit as Jesus in us. And in Jesus, we have a God who understands the pain and trauma of living in this world firsthand and who forgives and heals and who is willing to walk beside us through whatever hell we find ourselves in.

And what's more, the closer we get to Jesus, the more we become like him. And the more we become like him, the closer we come to being the person he created us to be: loving and whole.

The choice is ours.

Jesus and John

The scriptures referred to are Matthew 11:2-11.

When you watch an action film these days, it usually builds to a final confrontation between the good guys and bad guys and the good guys beat and often kill the bad guys and then the film ends and we are happy that good triumphed. We don't like to think about the aftermath of all the death and destruction that took place. In Skyfall, the villain destroys a subway train in a trap to kill 007. How many people died in that trainwreck? In Man of Steel, Superman and his Kryptonian enemy General Zod destroy a good deal of downtown Metropolis before Zod is killed. Star Wars fans have debated if the deaths of all the contractors and support staff on the Death Star should be laid at the feet of Luke Skywalker. At least in Avengers: Age of Ultron the non-superpowered heroes spent most of their time saving the people of the city as the superpowered ones fought the evil robot army who were destroying it. And the sequel seriously considered the legal and global consequences of letting such people unilaterally decide to unleash their powers.

In the real world, there is a debate among historians as to whether Winston Churchill knew beforehand that the Nazis were going to bomb the English city of Coventry. And if so, did he not evacuate the city to protect the fact that the Brits had broken Germany's code? It was reasoned that protecting this secret this would help the Allies win the war. But at what cost to the unsuspecting citizens of Coventry?

One reason why the US had a huge post-war boom in the 1940s, 50s and 60s was that much of the rest of the world was devastated and had to rebuild. Some have argued that the Marshall Plan, wherein the US provided $13 billion to help rebuild Europe, was one of the most influential events of the 20^th century. By refusing to let the countries of eastern Europe take the funds, the Soviet Union not only kept tight control of them but also doomed them to decades of economic struggle, despite coming up with their own version called the Molotov Plan.

Unfortunately we did not learn from our own history and after supplying the Afghans with the arms to defeat the Soviet invasion of their country in the 1980s, we did not help them rebuild, giving extremists like the Taliban the opportunity to take over the shattered nation and offer Bin Laden a base for his terrorist operations.

My point is that we tend to see the defeat of evil as the ultimate triumph of good, and we rarely consider the fact that this is not enough. If you weed the garden but don't sewn seeds of what you want and water and nurture them, the weeds will come back.

If you pair last week's gospel passage with this week's, you can see that John the Baptist was really into the “evil must be defeated” idea. And it is something we see in the prophets of the Old Testament. And it is a legitimate concern. Before rebuilding Europe the Allies had to first defeat the Third Reich. An oncology patient can't get better until you rid them of cancer. So the Baptist is not wrong about the eradication of evil being necessary. He just doesn't realize that Jesus was going about it in a different way.

In a war you decide who is your enemy and you try to eliminate as many of their people as you can. But you can't do that surgically and as we mentioned a few weeks ago, many more civilians will die than soldiers. The enemy will not put their munition factories so far from their cities that you can blow up the factories without harming the cities where the workers live. And if you are fighting to retake a city street by street, the people living on those streets will lose not only their homes but some will also lose their lives.

Jesus told a parable about this, which again we touched on recently. A farmer sows wheat in his field but at night an enemy sows weeds. When the 2 kinds of plants grow up, the farmer's workers want to try to weed the entire field. But the farmer knows some of the wheat will be uprooted as well. So he tells them to wait till the harvest to sort the good from the bad. (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43) To Jesus saving good people is more important than rooting out the bad.

Of course it is more complicated than that. Nobody is all good or all bad. Whereas in action movies, the good guys eliminate the bad guys by killing them, Jesus wants to eliminate the bad guys by turning them into good guys. Jesus saw sin as a spiritual disease. That's why he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous but sinners.” (Mark 2:17) As a doctor doesn't kill the patient but treats the disease, Jesus didn't come to kill sinners but to cure them. That's why in parallel with healing physical ailments Jesus often forgave the person's sins as well. (Luke 5:20) Not that disease was always caused by sin (John 9:3) but sickness is a good metaphor for sin. Sickness usually requires an internal susceptibility to the disease as well as an external trigger. Which is why some people get cancer and some don't; some get heart disease and some don't; some people get addicted to a drug and others, even if they try it, don't.

By the way, the word “addiction” comes from a Latin word that means “bound or assigned or delivered” to someone. In Roman law to be addicted was to become enslaved due to a court ruling. To be an addict is to be a slave, to be controlled by something. And Jesus compared sin to slavery. Jesus said, “I tell you the solemn truth, everyone who practices sin is a slave of sin.” (John 8:34) In other words, sin is in the driver's seat; it is in control. So how do you end slavery? By killing the slaves? No, but by freeing them. And that was what Jesus came to do. As he says, “...if the Son sets you free, you will really be free.” (John 8:36)

The problem is that by letting something control us for so long, we make it hard to live freely. People who were enslaved and then freed after the Civil War often had trouble adjusting to being free: to making their own decisions, finding jobs and setting up their own businesses. Some continued to work for their former masters, supposedly being paid but not much. They were technically free but not mentally and so not really. In the same way a person who comes out of rehab, having kicked their addiction, still has to work not to fall into old habits that will bring them back under the control of the substance or activity that enslaved them.

Paul in Romans 7 tells about how hard it is to fight a sin we are especially susceptible to. He describes it as being “sold into slavery to sin.” (Romans 7:14) After talking of how he did the evil he did not want to do, he cries out, “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24-25) Freedom from our addiction to the destructive and self-destructive habits called sins comes from Jesus, if we trust and rely on him as we would a doctor who has a prescription and regimen that can save us from the disease of addiction.

But when John the Baptist heard that Jesus was not, as he expected, bringing down God's wrath on sinners and hypocrites, he wondered if he had been right in thinking Jesus was the Messiah. He was expecting a holy warrior who would cleanse the earth with fire. (Matthew 3:11-12) So from his prison he sends some of his own disciples to Jesus to ask, “Are you the one who is to come or are we to wait for another?” Jesus replies, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” Jesus is destroying evil, just not in the way John imagined. He is liberating people from diseases of the body and the spirit. And as with the paralyzed man lowered through the roof, Jesus realized that it is often easier to see the physical effects of his spiritual work.

So the blind see again: not just those who couldn't see the material world but also those who were blind to spiritual realities. Those who were crippled can not only walk by themselves through the physical world but those hobbled by sin are now able to walk with God wherever he leads them. Not only are lepers cleansed but those who were treated as moral pariahs are now made clean and able to join the assembly of God's people. Those who were deaf to the sounds of this world can hear again but those who were deaf to God's word now hear his call. Jesus restored life not just to those whose bodies died but to those who were spiritually dead. And good news was reaching not only those who lacked material goods but those who were spiritually impoverished.

Jesus adds, “And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” Jesus doesn't say this as a warning to John so much as encouragement. Jesus is essentially saying, “Don't stumble, don't fall away because of what I'm doing.” In other words, “Have faith in me. I know what I'm doing and God will vindicate me and how I am going about fulfilling the mission he gave me.”

And then Jesus tells the crowd that John is indeed a prophet and more than simply a prophet. He is the herald of the Messiah, God's anointed one. But John's part is just stage one in this part of God's plan.

But what does Jesus mean when he says, “Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he”? John is fixated on God's justice. He has not really considered the extent of God's mercy. That's why Jesus healing and praising peacemakers and commanding people to turn the other cheek and love one's enemies doesn't make sense to John. And he will be executed before seeing the ultimate act of mercy on Jesus' part: his sacrifice of himself to wipe away not sinners but their sins. This threw Jesus' disciples as well. They also thought that Jesus would usher in the kingdom of God by throwing the Roman empire out of the land of God's people. They saw Jesus' crucifixion as a contradiction of the Messiah's mission. They didn't see it as the paradoxical yet foreshadowed fulfillment of God's plan. Not until the resurrection. But now even the least in God's kingdom knows what the cross means: Jesus came not to punish sinners but to save us by taking our punishment upon himself. He defeats sin not by means of severe justice but through his loving self-sacrifice.

Sadly there are churchgoers who still don't see it. Like John they are looking for a Christ who is all about inflicting divine punishment on sinners. In her appropriately named book, Jesus and John Wayne, historian Kristen Kobes Du Mez documents how American Evangelicals have for more than a century been less in love with the pacifist Jesus found in the Bible and more enamored with stereotypically strong and even authoritarian leaders. Quoting their own words in articles, sermons and books, she shows how they have been willing to overlook abuses of power both within and outside the church by men who were perceived to be their side and fighting for their agendas. This dovetails with what Jeff Sharlett details in his book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, about a group that runs Bible studies for elected officials and even subsided the rent of members of Congress. During his time as an intern with the group, Sharlett was exposed to their model of leadership which admired strong people like Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Bin Laden and Hitler for their power to command absolute commitment. When asked about Jesus saying stuff like the one who wants to be first must be the slave of all (Matthew 20:27-28) and how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom (Mark 10:23), the leader of this group dismissed such verses with a chuckle about Jesus sometimes saying strange things.

John never went that far. In fact, when people responded to his fiery warnings about sin and asked, “What then should we do?” he said, “The person who has two tunics must share with the person who has none, and the person with food must do likewise.” He told tax collectors not to collect more than they should and soldiers not to extort people by violence or intimidation but to be content with their pay. (Luke 3:10-14) Like we said, John was keyed into justice and that is not confined to punishment but also includes being equitable and treating people fairly.

But as we've said before, justice is getting what you deserve. Mercy is not getting all of what you deserve. Grace is getting what you can't possibly deserve. If John is about justice, Jesus is the face of grace. He is about freeing those who are enslaved, even if it is through their own fault. He is about forgiving sinners, including criminals executed with him and even those who were crucifying him. He is about identifying himself with the diseased, the disadvantaged and the despised. He is about healing the spiritual sickness that afflicts us all.

John delivered the dismal diagnosis. Jesus delivered himself as the cure. John did his part well. We need to open our hearts and lives and let Jesus do his.

One on One

The scriptures referred to are Romans 15:4-13.

I was watching this video for Compassion.UK in which Danielle Strickland asks why didn't Jesus just heal everyone at once. Why didn't he just snap his fingers and make everything right? We know he and the disciples often didn't have time to rest or eat because so many were coming for healing. (Mark 6:31) Why didn't Jesus just wave his hand at the crowds and say, “You are all healed”? Instead, he healed people one person at a time. How inefficient is that!

But Strickland points out that means just about every person whom Jesus healed had a personal encounter with him. He spoke to each person he healed as an individual. Sometimes he touched them. When Peter's mother-in-law was lying down, sick with a fever, Jesus touched her hand and the fever left her. (Matthew 8:14-15) A leper came to Jesus and he laid his hand on him and healed him. (Mark 1:40) How long had that man gone without any human being touching him lest they get his disease? But Jesus did. When Jairus' daughter died, we are told “But Jesus gently took her by the hand and said, 'Child, get up.' Her spirit returned and she got up immediately.” (Luke 8:54-55) When she returned to life the first thing she heard was his voice, the first thing she felt was his hand, the first thing she saw was Jesus.

There is actually one healing where Jesus healed a group at once. Luke tells us that as Jesus was entering a village, “ten men with leprosy met him. They stood at a distance, raised their voices and said, 'Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.' When he saw them he said, 'Go and show yourselves to the priests.' And as they went along, they were cleansed.” (Luke 17:12-14) They were standing at a distance because that was what a leper was supposed to do, so as not to spread their disease. But the side effect of this rather impersonal healing was that they didn't feel a very strong connection to Jesus. Only one of them, when he realized he was healed, “turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He fell with his face to the ground at Jesus' feet and thanked him.” (Luke 17:15-16) People need a personal connection.

One time Jesus was actually stopped from healing someone in person. Matthew tells us, “When he entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him asking for help: 'Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, in terrible anguish.' Jesus said to him, 'I will come and heal him.' But the centurion replied, 'Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. Instead just say the word and my servant will be healed.'” (Matthew 8:5-8) Jesus is astonished at the man's faith in Christ's power and authority. He says to the centurion, “Go; just as you have believed it will be done for you.” Here Jesus is responding to someone's personal appeal on behalf of another.

But Jesus would rather get his hands dirty. Sometimes literally. When facing a man born blind, John tells us, “...he spat on the ground and made some mud with the saliva. He smeared the mud on the blind man's eyes and said to him, 'Go wash in the pool of Siloam.'” (John 9:6-7) The man does and can see. Unfortunately the local religious leaders give the man a hard time for having anything to do with Jesus and expel him. When he hears this, Jesus goes to the man to let him know who he is and bolster his faith. Jesus does follow up.

He also follows through. Another time a blind man is brought to Jesus. Mark tell us, “He took the blind man by the hand and brought him outside the village. Then he spit on his eyes, placed his hands on his eyes and asked, 'Do you see anything?' Regaining his sight he said, 'I see people, but they look like trees walking.' Then Jesus placed his hands on the man's eyes again. And he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.” (Mark 8:23-25) Jesus didn't stop until the job was complete.

Then there was the time they brought him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment. Mark says, “After Jesus took him aside privately, away from the crowd, he put his fingers in the man's ears, and after spitting, he touch his tongue. Then he looked up to heaven and said with a sigh, 'Ephphatha' (that is, 'Be opened'). And immediately the man's ears were opened, his tongue loosened, and he spoke plainly.” (Mark 7:33-35) What was Jesus doing? First, he moves him away from the noisy crowd. Jesus doesn't want the first thing the deaf man hears to be a crowd shouting and exclaiming loudly. Then he mimes what he is going to do. He puts his fingers in the man's ears and on his tongue. That's to indicate what he is going to do. Then he looks up to heaven and gives a big dramatic sigh to show that he is asking God to heal the man. Jesus adapted his healing to a man who could not hear him. Because he needed understanding and faith on the man's part.

These are all things you can only get with personal attention. One-size-fits-all solutions can't do that. We must tailor solutions to the unique needs of the individual. And since Christianity is about becoming like Jesus, we need to be ready to minister to people one-on-one when we can.

Danielle Strickland, speaking for her charity, says that while widespread solutions are desirable, one problem is that they let us stay disengaged with others. I could inundate you with numbers: an estimated 552,830 people are homeless in this country. 37.9 million people live below the poverty line in the US. 10.5% of American households are food-insecure. Every year 4.3 million children are referred to child protection agencies. There were 48,832 gun deaths in the US in 2021. But we can't imagine those numbers and they just wash over us. As some cynic said, a single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic. And if we don't see it with our own eyes or it happens to someone we don't know, the distance from us and our experience makes it that much harder for us to care.

So as much as I urge you to give to Episcopal Relief and Development, and Lutheran Disaster Services, and Feeding America, and the Native American Heritage Association, and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and others, I also urge you to get involved in a way where you meet and help individuals. Volunteer at the food pantry, at KOTS, at MARC House, or at one of our other local non-profits. Become a Guardian Ad Litum. Volunteer at the jail, a nursing home, or a hospital. I started as a Candy Striper.

Jesus said that whatever we do to the disadvantaged, we do to him. (Matthew 25:35-40) If you want to see Jesus face-to-face, help and get to know a person who's hungry, homeless, sick, suffering from a mental illness, working towards sobriety, trying to find a job, trying to start a new life after prison, or trying to start a new life in a new country. And in turn, you will be showing them what Jesus is like.

In today's reading from Romans Paul says, “Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ welcomed you, for the glory of God.” When we come to Jesus, he welcomes us as individuals. We were baptized not as a group but one at a time. And the Holy Spirit bestows on each person their own gifts and abilities.

But that doesn't mean we are to be “Lone Ranger” Christians, working independently of others. Paul ties individuality to community in his metaphor of the body of Christ. Just as the parts of your body look different and have different functions, yet work together to keep your body alive and healthy, so also Christians use their various abilities to serve the mission of Christ and his church. So while Jesus welcomes us individually, he is welcoming us as citizens of his kingdom. We are baptized one by one but we are baptized into the body of Christ. The Spirit gives each of us gifts but that is so we may use them to minister to each other and to show God's love and grace to others.

Personalized service has gone the way of the dodo. Companies try to craft algorithms that seem suited to the individual with mixed success. Facebook thinks that if I like one picture of an old time movie star, I want to see nothing but pictures of old movie stars. Google thinks if I read one story about an event, I want to be flooded with every single story about that same event. And CVS still thinks that along with coupons for things I do buy from time to time, I also want 3 or 4 coupons for things I have never bought. Like Revlon makeup. It's there. Every. Single. Time.

And if you need help from a company or an agency, good luck trying to get a live person. You most likely will get an A.I. One artificial helper I got on the phone tried to sound like it was a real person looking up things on a computer. But having worked in radio I could tell the “person” was a recording made by a professional voice artist and the key tapping I heard was a sound effect. And if I get a call and it's a recording and not a live person on the phone, I hang up immediately.

In an impersonal world, where no one seems to listen, where people are increasingly being replaced by computer programs, just being a human being interacting with another human being is revolutionary. Being a human being who listens and is empathetic and understanding is radical. Jesus did his healing one on one for a reason. It's easy to say we should love everyone. It's harder when it means getting our hands dirty in the messy business of helping individuals, including those who don't seem lovable. But it's what Jesus did. As Strickland says, the kingdom is made up of people seeing and helping each other, one by one. So go and do likewise. 

The Forever Kingdom

The scriptures referred to are Isaiah 2:1-5 and Matthew 24:36-44.

In his Great Courses lecture series Religions of the Axial Age, Dr. Mark Muesse explains that between the years 800 and 200 BC, many of the major religions began or developed independently around the world. In China we find Confucius and his followers creating the foundations of that culture's religious, philosophical and political thought. In South Asia, Hinduism and Buddhism were being born. In Iran, Zoroastrianism was becoming the state religion. In Greece, philosophers like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were teaching. And in Judah, prophets like Jeremiah and Isaiah were shaping Judaism. Dr. Muesse gives several reasons for these separate explosions of spiritual creativity, including more people moving to cities and the rapid social and political changes that go with that. But the Axial Age was also a time of wars and upheavals. China was coming off the Period of Warring States. In the West we have Alexander the Great conquering an empire that reached from Greece to Egypt to India. Rome and Carthage were fighting the Punic Wars. And the northern kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians in 722 BC and their top people were taken into exile. Later the southern kingdom of Judah was conquered by the Babylonians in 586 BC and while in exile they collected the writings which became the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible, which we call the Old Testament. So everywhere there was turmoil and change and people were looking for peace and stability.

While Isaiah's time as prophet fell between the exiles of Israel and Judah, it was nevertheless an anxious time. Various empires rose and fell to the north and to the east and Egypt was a constant threat from the southwest. The value of the land of Israel was that it was a crossroads between Africa, Europe, Arabia and Asia. That's why the surrounding empires wanted to conquer and control it. The two Hebrew kingdoms prospered when those empires were in decline. Whenever an empire expanded, however, they started looking at the area where God's people resided and made plans to invade.

So the prophesy in our passage from Isaiah was comforting. There will come a day when people from all over will flock to Jerusalem, not to conquer it but to learn God's ways. The word of the Lord will go forth. But more than that, God will be active in bringing peace to a troubled world. “He will judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”

War always starts with injustice. While St. Augustine may have laid out the Just War Ethic, participating in a war can only be just for one side, ie, the one defending itself. If no one attacks, there is no war. But usually one nation wants what another has—land, resources, a market for its goods, a strategic position—and it just takes what it wants. Or a nation retaliates for some incident it regards as an injustice—a raid, a terrorist attack, a diplomatic insult, etc. Sometimes a country just comes up with a flimsy pretext or an outright lie in order to start a war that it wants for other reasons.

And war generates further injustices. In his book Atrocities: The 100 Deadliest Episodes in Human History, Matthew White found that, not only are 4 out of 5 of these mass killing events wars, but that wars kill more civilians than soldiers. Think about it. A soldier is armed and surrounded by fellow armed soldiers. He can call up planes and tanks to help. A civilian is not usually armed. And even if he is, all the guns in the world are useless against a bomb dropped on your house. Thus in World War 2, the biggest mass killing event in recorded history, 20 million soldiers died but more than twice as many civilians—46 million—were killed as well.

God cares about justice. Isaiah starts off with a speech in which God says he doesn't respond to empty worship that does not result in acting justly towards others. He says, “When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood.” He goes on to say, “Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the cause of the widow.” (Isaiah 1: 15-17) Violating the second greatest commandment—to love one's neighbor—invalidates efforts to obey the greatest commandment—to love God. Because God loves your neighbor.

And lest you think this is only about domestic problems and not war, consider this: war makes children fatherless and women into widows. And it leads to oppression. The winning side oppresses those they vanquished. There is a specific instance of this stemming from the Second World War. When the Nazis conquered Norway, Himmler, head of the S.S., extended the Lebensborn program to that country. The purpose was to increase the number of pure Aryans. German soldiers were encouraged to impregnate Norwegian women without the need to marry them. Maternity homes were set up. The children and their mothers received the best care. If the women didn't want the children, they were sent to orphanages or to be adopted by families back in Germany. Between 8000 and 12,000 children were born in this program. After the war, however, these women and their children were ostracized, persecuted, bullied and even raped by angry Norwegians. The government of Norway tried to deport the children. In 2008 a group of aged Lebensborn children brought their case for compensation for their treatment to the European Court of Human Rights, only to have it dismissed as having happened too long ago. The Norwegian government did offer each of them $20,000 for their terrible experiences. Apparently Norwegians didn't see the irony in the fact that they persecuted these people simply because of their ancestry, the same way the Nazis did to the Jews.

So you can see why the idea of God judging between nations and peoples is attractive. We need someone objective who can weigh all the factors and deal with all the injustices. And as we've seen, we humans are not very consistent in meting out justice.

Of course, this will not be done perfectly till Jesus comes again to set up his kingdom and we don't know precisely when that will be. So should we just wait for him to do it?

No. As we pointed out a few weeks ago, Jesus said, just after today's gospel reading, “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns.” (Matthew 24:45-46) We are not to slack off but put into practice what Jesus commanded us to do.

That's true even if things aren't perfect. Jesus tells 2 parables which reveal that in this life we will not see a pure manifestation of the kingdom. In one he compares the kingdom of God to a field in which a man sows seeds for wheat. But at night an enemy sows weeds in the same field. Rather than let his servants try to pull up the weeds and probably pull up some wheat as well, the owner says to let both grow together until harvest. That will be the time to separate the good from the bad. (Matthew 13:24-30) A few verses later, Jesus compares the kingdom of God to a fishing net. It scoops up all kinds of fish. Only when it's full do the fishermen pull in to shore and sort the good fish from the bad. (Matthew 13:47-50) In neither case are we supposed to stop because everything, including the people involved, isn't perfect at present. We are to keep tending the wheat and catching the fish. At the proper time God will sort them out.

Of the 40 recorded parables we have from Jesus, at least 17 are about the kingdom of God. So, in view of the fact that last week we looked at the king, Jesus, let's see what else we can learn about his kingdom.

Besides it being a kingdom of justice and peace as Isaiah describes, the kingdom of God also expects its citizens to forgive one another, as illustrated in the parable of the unmerciful servant. Though forgiven a huge amount of debt by his master, the servant is merciless towards a fellow servant who owes him a little bit. So the master reimposes the original debt on the unforgiving servant. As Jesus says, “So also my heavenly Father will do to you, if each of you does not forgive your brother from your heart.” (Matthew 18:35) If we want forgiveness, we must give forgiveness. Because God wants forgiving and merciful people in his kingdom.

It is also a kingdom of grace. In one parable, a landowner must get his harvest in. Every hour or so he goes to the marketplace and hires more day laborers. The last batch is hired just an hour before quitting time. When it comes time to pay the laborers, he starts with the last hired. They get the same pay he promised the first ones hired. So those who worked all day hope to get more. But he pays them the perfectly fair wage they originally agreed on. They get angry but the landowner explains that he has not given them less; he just gave the latecomers the same amount. He has a right to be generous. (Matthew 20:1-16) Justice is getting what you deserve. Grace is getting what you couldn't possibly deserve. God is gracious and generous. He offers salvation to all. It is not earned.

What should our response be to God's gracious and generous nature? In the parable of the great feast, a man sends his servants out to let those invited know the banquet is ready. But everyone is too busy with their own matters to come. So the man sends his servants out to bring in “the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame” to dine with him instead. And when that doesn't fill all the seats, he has them grab anyone on the streets and bring them in. (Luke 14:15-24) The point is when God invites us into his kingdom, we need to accept his invitation, drop everything and go.

And we are expected to invite others. Martin Luther said that spreading the gospel is simply one beggar telling another when to go to get bread. In his explanation of the parable of the sower, Jesus says the seed is the word of God. When it is cast about, it will come in contact with various people. Some of them will not be receptive, forgetting it immediately. Some will receive it gladly at first, but the minute things get hard, they lose faith. Some will let “life's worries, riches and pleasures” choke the life out of their faith. “But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.” (Luke 8:5-15) We don't know who will be receptive so just spread the “message of the kingdom.” (Matthew 13:19)

And Jesus assures us that the kingdom, though it starts out small, will grow. He compares the kingdom to a tiny mustard seed, which grows into an enormous plant, and to yeast, a pinch of which causes dough to rise. (Matthew 13:31-33) And, like a plant, the kingdom's growth may be so gradual that we don't notice it at first. (Mark 4:30-34) That's not our problem. As Paul said to the church in Corinth, “I planted, Apollos watered but God caused it to grow.” (1 Corinthians 3:6) Paul's job was to plant the seed of the gospel, his colleague Apollos' job was to nurture it, but the results are up to God. Which takes the pressure off of us to try to make every convert a Francis of Assisi or every church a megachurch. And not everyone spreading the gospel needs to be a Billy Graham. We just need to plant and water the seeds.

God will supply what we need to do this. In the parable of the talents, a man is leaving town and gives each of his 3 servants different amounts of talents, which were a type of coin. When their master returns, the servants tell him how well they did investing the talents. Whatever return they get is fine with their master. The only servant who is scolded and fired is the one who buries his one talent in the ground and does nothing with it. (Matthew 25:14-30) The point of the parable is not that each servant has to make the same amount as the others. They are to use what they have and do as well they can. Today the word talent means a gift or ability one has. God gives us all certain talents. Don't compare yours to those of others or your results with theirs. God is pleased simply with our willingness to use the gifts he's given us to do the best we can.

Of course, this all depends on our actually doing what God wants us to do. Jesus talks about 2 sons whom their father asks to go to work in the vineyard. One says, “No” and the other says, “Yes.” But it is the son who said “No” who changes his mind and goes into the vineyard, not the one who told his father what he wanted to hear. (Matthew 21:28-32) God doesn't want “yes-men;” he wants followers who do his will. It is not sufficient to pay lip service to God; we are expected to follow through.

Isaiah envisioned a time in the future when everyone will go to Jerusalem to learn from God. But we don't have to wait for that time, nor buy airline tickets to experience that. Jesus said, “Look, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:21) If Jesus is ruling in our lives, the kingdom is wherever he leads us, just as God was with the Israelites leading them through the wilderness.

Jesus also said, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:20) Just as there are ex-pat communities of Brits or Venezuelans here in South Florida, wherever a group of people come together to follow Jesus, the kingdom of God is there. Which leads to another way we spread the kingdom: by showing the love of God in our lives. Again, as Jesus said, “Everyone will know by this that you are my disciples—if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35)

I think this is another axial age, an era when the history of humanity is making some big turns. We are living in a time of war and chaos and rapid changes in society. People want stability and justice and peace. And the only place to find that is the kingdom of God. In his domain there is also forgiveness and grace. In his realm God is invested in growing our talents so that we may be wise stewards of his gifts, making sure all are fed and cared for. And unlike the kingdoms of this world, the kingdom of God doesn't have borders or boundaries. God reigns wherever we go and this is most clearly seen when we show love for one another.

So any place we meet is an embassy for God's kingdom and we are all ambassadors sent by Jesus to establish outposts in every area of human life. Wherever he puts us, we are to invite others to enter his kingdom, whatever their ancestry, race, language, or past. And that's how God's kingdom grows, person by person, till, as it says in Habakkuk, “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters fill the sea.” (Habakkuk 2:14)

For Granted or With Gratitude

In her song Big Yellow Taxi Joni Mitchell sang, “You don't know what you've got till it's gone.” Since she is mostly singing about taking away trees and paving paradise, the song seems to be about the environment. But then she talks about her man leaving in a big yellow taxi, and you realize she is talking about how we take things and people for granted. We don't appreciate what we have until we lose it.

I have seen this as a nurse. When I was at a Shriner's hospital for children, I noticed that children who, say, lost a foot due to an accident had a much harder time dealing with it than children born without limbs. To the latter, their situation was normal; they learned to walk or get around with what they had. They zipped around in their wheelchairs and were cheerful. They had no sense of loss. Kids who lost a leg or a hand to accident or disease felt that loss profoundly.

People who are healthy often don't think about it and rarely express gratitude for their condition. Others who had a major injury or fought a serious illness in the past are usually very grateful for their current good health.

When it comes to wealth the situation seems even worse. Those who are rich seldom look at what they already have, realize it is much more than most people will ever have and express gratitude. They feel it is still not enough and want more.

The rise in gas and other prices does pinch but they are actually higher in other countries. But we, in the richest nation on earth, grumble. We don't know how much better we have it than some.

Thanksgiving is about gratitude. It is about not taking things and especially people for granted. During the last 3 years most of us have lost someone we know to Covid or some other disease. One day every one of us will no longer be on this earth. So it is imperative that we take the time to be grateful for what and whom we have in our lives now: family, friends, artists like Joni, inspirational figures, even your favorite hairdresser. We will not have them forever; we have them now. Be grateful.

And tell them. When my dad was dying, he asked what my brother and I were going to say about him at his funeral. So we wrote up our eulogies and gave them to him to read. I wish I had done the same for my mom. But I didn't know she was going to die until she got Covid. She was in a nursing home and neither my brother nor I was allowed in. And because she was profoundly hard of hearing, we couldn't call.

Why do we wait? Why do we not tell people how grateful we are for them now when they can hear it from our own lips?

So here's your assignment: find everyone who makes your life better, richer, more worthwhile and tell them. Call them; write them; put it on Facebook. But let them know.

And as for those who are gone, whom we did not tell how much they meant to us when they were alive: we can tell God. We can express our gratitude to him for putting them in our lives. And since he is the God whose very essence is love, and who is not limited by time and space, I'm sure he will somehow pass it on. Until the day we can tell them ourselves face to face.

The Forever King

The scriptures referred to are Jeremiah 23:1-6 and Luke 23:33-43.

In 1947 Winston Churchill said in speech to the House of Commons, “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried...” He then went on to defend democracy, of course. But you can see why some have given democracy this kind of backhanded compliment. Democracy is not the most efficient form of government because of the time and effort that must be put in to come up with a consensus on the issues. If you are thinking of efficiency alone, a dictatorship should work better. I say “should” because incompetent or lazy dictators or monarchs can also display a very inefficient style of governing. And if an absolute ruler is evil, you don't want him to be efficient in carrying out his policies. Which is why authoritarian rulers get rid of their opposition, by disbanding other political parties, locking up or executing rivals, muzzling the press and bringing the courts to heel. Our founding fathers tried to come up with a system of checks and balances to keep any one branch of government from having too much power. In addition they gave us 2 houses in Congress trying to ensure that to get anything passed you need 2 majorities to agree to it. The side effect of this is a certain built-in inefficiency in getting things done.

In our passage from Jeremiah God is denouncing the evil shepherds of his people. It was common in the ancient Near East to compare the king to a shepherd. A king is supposed to lead, protect and care for his people in much the same way as a shepherd does for his sheep. But kings were not elected and there was no legal way to remove them. So you were stuck with whoever inherited or seized the throne. And even in the line of Davidic kings, there were more who “did evil in the eyes of the Lord” than those who did right. All told, 11 out of the 19 kings of the southern kingdom of Judah did evil. And all the kings of Israel, the northern kingdom, did evil. So what is important in a person who has power is his character. Because he can do a lot of good or a lot of evil.

This Sunday we honor Christ the King. Unlike other kings, you can choose to be part of his kingdom or not. You are not automatically a citizen by mere birth somewhere or because your parents were. But in an age where we justifiably dismiss the very idea of giving anyone absolute power, why should we choose to trust Jesus and give him power over our lives?

The Bible has a lot to say about kings. The Hebrew word for king (melek) appears almost 2700 times in the Old Testament and the Greek word (basileus) occurs more than 125 times in the New Testament. The first reference to kings is in Genesis 14 and the last is in Revelation 21. For most of recorded history people were ruled by kings, who could be good, bad or indifferent.

The Bible also has a lot to say about what makes a good king. In Deuteronomy 17, the idea that there will one day be a king over Israel is foreseen and his qualifications are laid out. He must not accumulate too much military power or have many wives or acquire a lot of wealth. He must have a copy of God's law and he must study and obey it. And he must not think of himself as above his fellow citizens. (Deuteronomy 17:16-20)

So how does Jesus do in regards to these qualifications? He did not have any military power, doesn't appear to have married at all, let alone have multiple wives, and was not rich. (John 18:36; Matthew 19:12; 8:20) He knew God's law thoroughly and quoted it often. And he was a man who worked with his hands. (Mark 6:3) In fact it is remarkable that Jesus has been remembered at all because he did not win battles, build monuments to himself, gain political power or do any of the things that usually get someone a place in history. But his words have had a longer lasting influence on more people than the deeds of any king.

In Psalm 72, which is a prayer for God to give Solomon the ability to make fair decisions, it says, “For he will rescue the needy when they cry out for help, and the oppressed who have no defender. He will take pity on the poor and needy; the lives of the needy he will save. From harm and violence he will deliver them; he will value their lives.” (Psalm 72:12-14) In Proverbs 29 we are told that a king brings stability to the land by justice. He must not take bribes or listen to lies. If he wants his kingdom to last, he will judge the poor in truth. (Proverbs 29:4,12,14) He embodies God's principle that the powerful should protect the powerless.

And Jesus? He famously started his ministry by reading this passage from Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and the regaining of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” (Luke 4:18-19) And he proceeds to do so, preaching the good news of God's forgiveness and his love for all, releasing those who were captive to disease and sin, freeing those oppressed by the requirements that their religious leaders piled on them, and both metaphorically and literally giving sight to the blind. (John 8:34-36; Luke 13:16; Matthew 23:2-4; John 9:5-7) Furthermore, he tied our duty to him to our duty to the disadvantaged, saying whatever we do for them we do for him. (Matthew 25: 31-46)

Proverbs says a good king must ensure justice in his kingdom. (Proverbs 8:15) Proverbs 21:3 says, “To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.” But that doesn't mean strict justice is always desirable. Proverbs 20:28 says, “Mercy and truth preserve the king and his throne is upheld by mercy.” The Hebrew word for “mercy” here can also be translated “kindness” or “love.” The harsh infliction of justice is not the mark of a good king.

Jesus shows his mercy to sinners throughout his ministry but nowhere more so than in today's gospel reading. Jesus forgives a violent criminal (Mark 15:27) who somehow recognizes in Jesus something regal. He says, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus replies, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” That is not only mercy but grace. The man admits he deserves his horrible death for what he's done. Pinioned on a cross, the man can do nothing to undo his crimes and deserve forgiveness. But Jesus sees his repentance and his humility towards him and graciously tells him he will be admitted to God's kingdom. In fact, this unnamed criminal is the only person in the Bible Jesus explicitly says will be with him in paradise.

Of course the real surprise is that Jesus asked God to forgive his executioners. Killing an innocent man is bad enough but you'd think that killing God's Son would be unforgivable. But Jesus said there is only 1 unforgivable sin and this is not it. Still—could you forgive those who were deliberately causing your death? God can. And therein lies hope for all of us.

Jesus is called “King of the Jews” here but ironically. The religious leaders do not believe that he is. In fact, when they saw that Pilate had a sign made that said “Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews,” they went to Pilate to ask him that it read instead, “This man said, I am the king of the Jews.” Pilate refuses. Inadvertently he is right.

And throughout his ministry, people knew that Jesus was a king. People called him “son of David.” (Mark 10:47; Matthew 15:22) They knew he was a descendant of the great king who united the nation 1000 years before Jesus. Even the title “Son of God” was considered a royal title, because of the special relationship of the king to God. (Matthew 26:63; 2 Samuel 7:14) The biggest giveaway is the title Jesus used for himself: the Son of Man. It could simply be a way of referring to someone as a human being but Jesus uses it too deliberately for it to mean simply that. His audience would instantly think of the passage in Daniel where it says, “I was watching in the night visions, and with the clouds of the sky one like a son of man was approaching. He went up to the Ancient of Days and was escorted before him. To him was given ruling authority, honor and sovereignty. All peoples, nations, and language groups were serving him. His authority is eternal and will not pass away. His kingdom will not be destroyed.” (Daniel 7:13-14) This is no mere human king. This is God's forever king.

And of course the title Christ, or in Hebrew Messiah, was usually seen as a royal title. It means “the Anointed” and God's people anointed their prophets, priests and kings. Jewish scholars debated which of these roles the Messiah would fulfill but the popular choice was that of king. Those who called Jesus Christ were usually thinking of him as God's anointed king.

When Jesus asked the Twelve who they thought he was, Peter says, “You are the Christ.” Jesus says Peter is right and then immediately starts telling them that “the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and experts in the law, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” I think Peter stops listening after the words “be killed” and starts to rebuke Jesus. Jesus in turn rebukes Peter, telling him, “You are not setting your mind on God's interests, but on man's.” (Mark 8:27-33)

One can totally understand Peter's concerns, though. What good is a dead king? I think Peter forgot that kings often went into battle at the head of their men, exposing themselves to the possibility of being killed. Except in this case the enemy was death itself and Jesus was going in first. Essentially he was on a suicide mission.

Because the other enemy was sin, the rupture of our relationships with not only God but with each other and with ourselves. The result is death, separation from God, the source of life and all goodness. And as much people don't like thinking or talking about death, they really don't like people talking about sin. It has almost disappeared from modern discourse. We don't like to be reminded that the root of our problems is not confined to someone else we can scapegoat but is in ourselves as well. It comes in many varieties: greed, rage, envy, lust, laziness, selfishness. But they all spring from our arrogance, our trying to take the reins from God, and control everything and everyone for our own benefit. We think we know better than God. We may pay him lip service and make him our mascot. But we really don't want him telling us how we should live. It's not God's will we want done but our own. We want to be in charge. We know what we're doing. And yet we ignore the state of the world which has resulted from this attitude.

Jesus was going to have to tell people the unpalatable truth; he was going to give them the diagnosis they didn't want to hear. Their enemy wasn't the Romans; it was themselves. Everyone's worst enemy is themselves and the certainty that they are right and everybody else is wrong. And the people that would resist that the most were, then as now, those who did have a measure of control over others. The powerful, especially those who wielded the word of God and claimed power in his name, would not like it.

And what was worse is that they couldn't point out flaws in Jesus' arguments. Because, and this was really appalling, Jesus was right. What he said was true.

And he was good. They couldn't find fault in his life. They couldn't say, “Well, you're no better than us. You're flawed, too. Why should we listen to you?” Unlike them, he didn't misuse his power. He used it to heal the sick and to feed the hungry and to forgive sinners. Once when 4 men burrowed through the roof of the house he was in so they could lower their paralyzed friend to him, Jesus told the man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” And the religious leaders were shocked. It was blasphemy. Only God can forgive sins. So Jesus called them on this line of thought. Sure, it's easy to say someone's sins are forgiven. What's harder is to tell a paralyzed man to walk again. And so to show them that he does have the authority to forgive sins, Jesus says, “I tell you, take up your mat and go home.” And the man does. How can you argue with that?

Jesus was not only right but he showed it in everything he said and did. And it drove those in power mad. And when you can't disprove what a man says, you try to silence him. If you can't deny the truth, you bury it. And the person telling the truth as well.

But you can't kill the truth. It always comes back. In the 1960s the sugar industry tried to bury the fact that obesity was increasing because of all the sugar in our modern foods. They got tame scientists to say it was fat that made us fat. And so we turned to low fat diets. And still we got fatter. Finally the truth emerged. They knew it all along. The same thing happened with the tobacco industry in regards to their product causing cancer and with the oil industry in regards to their product causing global warming. The truth just won't stay buried.

Nor did Jesus. Nor has the truth he proclaimed. We are all sinners. That's the bad news. But by trusting in Jesus Christ, the God who is love incarnate, and letting him rule in our lives we are saved from our sins, the destructive and self-destructive ways we think, speak and act. That's the good news.

The book of Judges chronicles a time of chaos, of cycles of suffering from oppression and salvation from conflict, only to end with a war between the tribes of Israel. The book concludes with this verse: “In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 21:25) Yet they had a king all along: God. They just didn't listen to him or do as he said. And, as we saw, switching to a human king did not solve their problem. But people still think giving someone fallible total power is an attractive solution.

Our allegiance is to Jesus the Christ, the Lord's Anointed, Son of God, Son of Man, who is both human and divine, who is both just and merciful, who is not tempted by temporal power or wealth or personal pleasure. He is our shepherd, caring for us, protecting us, and leading us through the chaos of everyone acting on their own, doing what is right in their own eyes, until we get to his kingdom, the kingdom of the God who is love.