Wednesday, March 29, 2023 – Lent Six: Bystanders on the Way to the Cross

When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere and that a riot was imminent, he took a basin of water and washed his hands in full sight of the crowd, saying, “I’m washing my hands of responsibility for this man’s death. From now on, it’s in your hands. You’re judge and jury.” (Matthew 27: 24, The Message Bible)                

[Starting this Sunday, Palm Sunday, I will be posting a blog each and every day throughout Holy Week, up to and including Easter Sunday.}

When we were children, how many times did our mothers nag us about washing our hands. Countless, I am sure.

Some say that cleanliness is next to Godliness.

“Only those whose hands and hearts are pure, who do not worship idols and never tell lies. They will receive the Lord’s blessing and have a right relationship with God their savior.” (Psalm 24: 4 -5, New Living Translation)

The Roman Governor in Jerusalem, Pilate, certainly was not the poster child for Psalm 24. His idea of clean hands was to shirk his responsibility, pass the blame, avoid hard decisions and take flight from the issue at hand. His reputation in Rome depended on keeping the peace.  Riots would look bad on his resume.

Like many a politician, he was beholden to his constituents, even if this case they hadn’t elected him. Just the same, he needed the cooperation of the Jewish leaders. They could make his life miserable both there in Jerusalem and also back in Rome, depending on their reports.

Pilate was on the horns of a dilemma. From the Gospel accounts, it seems that Pilate, at first, tried to set Jesus free. In Luke’s Gospel, the leaders accuse Jesus of many crimes against the State “perverting our nation, forbidding is to pay taxes, and saying that he is the Messiah, a king.” How can the State ignore such “unpatriotic” behaviour? Pilate quickly dismissed the charges, “I find no basis for an accusation against this man.” (Luke 23:4, New Revised Standard Version) He even tried trading off Barabbas as a substitute sacrifice.

But there was no pleasing the people. So, he gave up.  He let the process unwind, uninfluenced by his authority any longer. He washed his hands of the whole business. Jesus was nothing to him, really; not worth the effort.  He had far more important matters of state to deal with. “I am innocent of this man’s blood. The responsibility is yours!” (NLT)

There is a little Pilate in all of us, some of the time. We don’t want to get involved. We don’t want to get our hands dirty. We would ignore the bad news unfolding before our eyes. We argue that there is nothing that we can do about it. It’s not our fault. Blame others, be it the poor, the immigrant, the outsider, poor, the right wing, the left wing, the Church, the politicians.  We wash our hands of the whole mess, the wars, the pollution, the murders of children, the violence in the streets, the reluctance of politicians do the right thing. Let someone else deal with it. Then, no one can blame you or me when the you-know-what hits the fan.

Like Pilate, there are times when we are faced with difficult, even painful, decisions. The washing of his hands did nothing but make the matters worse.  He caved in to the popular demand for Jesus’ crucifixion, despite its injustice and unfairness. Jesus’ crucifixion was inevitable from the get-go, but he did nothing but try to get out of the way. Worse, once he realized that Jesus’ fate was sealed, he added to the suffering: “He ordered Jesus flogged with a lead-tipped whip, then turned him over to the Roman soldiers to be crucified.” (Matthew 27:26, NLT) His hands were as bloody as anyone’s.

Perhaps there are times when we would like to wash our hands, too, of Jesus and his Way. He has left us with some hard sayings, love your enemies, forgive others, treat each other as we would be treated, be compassionate toward all, become as servants. Who needs this?

Jesus’ idea of cleanliness goes far deeper than clean hands. He understood that cleanliness can become a poor excuse for hypocrisy and evasion of our duty of discipleship. Jesus never washed his hands about us. Rather he knelt down, bowed his head and back, accepted his servitude and washed our feet as well. “So if I, the Master and Teacher, washed your feet, you must now wash each other’s feet. I’ve laid down a pattern for you. What I’ve done, you do… If you understand what I’m telling you, act like it—and live a blessed life.” (John 13: 12 -16, The Message)

Act like it! That’s impossible to ignore!

 Dale

Wednesday, March 22, 2023 – Lent Five, Bystanders on the way to the Cross

Then the Roman soldiers under their commander, joined by the Jewish police, seized Jesus and tied him up. They took him first to Annas, father-in-law of Caiaphas. Caiaphas was the Chief Priest that year. It was Caiaphas who had advised the Jews that it was to their advantage that one man die for the people. (John 18: 12 – 14, 19 -24, The Message Bible)                

             There is a conspiracy afoot.  A real one. A dire one.

             Both the religious and the secular powers have colluded to eliminate whatever threat they believed Jesus represented. They are all more than just bystanders; they are complicit participants in his arrest and his eventual execution.

            Religion and governments can make strange bedfellows. (Just look at the peculiar alliance between Donald Trump and the Christian Right Wing in the USA)

            We will leave Pilate and his role for a later date.

For now, let us consider just the pious religious opposition which Jesus faced. It is easy to accuse them of self-righteousness with their smug, judgmental deliberations. Annas and Caiaphas, the chief religious leaders in this drama, seemed to justify their actions as being good for the people. They were troubled by Jesus’ popularity, the authority of his ministry and teachings.  They probably feared that if this New Way was not snuffed out quickly, the Romans would supress the Jewish people even worse than it already was doing. They were weighing the consequences and it was not going to end well if Jesus was not stopped quickly.

Religious opposition was not new when it came to Jesus. He had many an argument and debate with religious leaders, notably the Pharisees. These leaders criticized Jesus for his impiety, his breaking of religious customs, his breaking the sabbath, fraternizing with low-lifes, engaging the unclean and impure, his inappropriate relationships with women. Jesus’ work was a slap in their faces, so they slapped him back, literally. (18:22)

To be honest, Jesus seldom minced his words about them, even calling them snakes and vipers, criticizing them for their hypocrisy.  (Matthew 23: 33) He did not endear himself to the proper authorities. He got into their heads, challenged their assumptions, upset more than the tables in the temple. Jesus shook up their values, their traditions and their prejudices.

How do you deal with a problem like Jesus? You get rid of him before he ruins your religious, bedrock beliefs.

It is sad to say but I think there are times when our religion still gets itself in knots over Jesus. The Church can stumble over Jesus’ teachings and his leadership. We can get in his way. We want Jesus to conform to our standards, to our creeds, to our interpretation of scripture, to our personal values. We want Jesus to value and confirm our assumptions, our prejudices, our thinking, our religious values and customs.  We want Jesus to fit into our neat, tidy spiritual boxes.

Maybe not always, but more often than we should be comfortable.

Maybe though, there are also times, I hope, when the Love of Jesus shatters the devout crystals of our religiosity and we, for a moment or two, act out of the sheer generosity of his Love. We break out of our religious shells and practice his Way, for real. We are not hindered by religious protocols.  We are not hampered by noisy, pompous preachers who try to tell us how to act and what to think. We are not circumscribed by religious judgments from others. We are not proscribed from doing religion differently but choose to do it Jesus’ Way.

There is nothing necessarily wrong or bad about having strong convictions. But those convictions must first be under the authority of Jesus Christ, not Jesus Christ under the authority of those same convictions. Annas and Caiaphas wanted Jesus to submit to their authority. Jesus could not do that.

Jesus frees us from the stagnant, dull, routine articles of religious practice and allows the Holy Spirit to let loose the fresh breezes of Love, Mercy, Forgiveness, Inclusion, Grace, Hope, Justice; qualities that sometimes don’t get past the fussy censors of religious bureaucracies and pious church leadership.

I imagine Annas and Caiaphas were good men. I am sure that they loved God and were good practicing Jews. Let’s not make them out to be villains. But like any of us, they couldn’t see Jesus because he didn’t fit their pious stereotypes. So, instead, they become participants in his death. 

How did that work out for them?

Dale

 

Wednesday, March 15, 2023 – Lent Four, Bystanders on the Way to the Cross

“Keep your eyes open as you enter the city. A man carrying a water jug will meet you. Follow him home. Then speak with the owner of the house: The Teacher wants to know, ‘Where is the guest room where I can eat the Passover meal with my disciples?’ He will show you a spacious second-story room, swept and ready. Prepare the meal there.” (Luke 22: 7 -13, The Message Bible)

             Company’s coming for supper.

We should vacuum the house, clean the bathroom,  get out the good china and silverware while we figure out what to have for our friends to eat – something extra special. Don’t forget to put the fresh, clean, linen tablecloth on the table first. Maybe, some fresh flowers in the middle of the table would be nice or perhaps a fancy candle. An old fashion oil lantern could really set the mood, too. Let’s make this visit special, inviting, welcoming, personal …

There are some clandestine movements to get to the house where Jesus and his disciples are going to hold the Passover meal, the Seder. It may be that Jesus wanted to ensure that he wasn’t arrested before he had this ‘’last supper” with his friends.

A man with a jug, seemingly quite inconspicuous, makes sure the coast is clear and leads the disciples to a home where the owner has prepared an upper room for the traditional Passover meal, It commemorates the ancient time in which the plague passed-over the Hebrews’ homes who were enslaved in Egypt, leading to their exodus from there. Friends of Jesus have gone to some lengths to ensure that he and his disciples have this memorable meal together in private. Perhaps, none of them really understood that this Passover would be their last meal together.

The story tells us that the homeowner had prepared the room. No name, perhaps it might even have been a woman. He or she has set out a low table, the reclining mats, cooked the lamb, poured four cups of wine and the unleavened bread, cut up the veggies to be dipped in saltwater, set out the bitter herbs, and made sure everything was just right for Jesus and his companions. Attention to details is important when it comes to the Seder meal.

But that is what a good host does. He or she pays attention to the details.  Hospitality was a very important factor in the ancient Middle East. According to John’s Gospel, the host probably had also put a basin of clean water so that the guests could wash the road dust off their feet before sitting down to the meal. I can see Jesus shooing a servant away so that he, himself, could stoop to do this chore.

The homeowner had thought of everything.

Perhaps, it sounds almost trite, but what would we do if Jesus was planning to come to our house for a meal? The Gospels make it very clear that Jesus enjoyed having dinner with those he met. He loved a good meal. He loved the conservation around the table. He loved banquets, weddings, parties and even invited himself sometimes to someone’s home, e.g. Zacchaeus. We find him at friends like Mary and Martha. But we also find him at his critics’ homes, like the Pharisees. Or someone he probably cured, like Simon the Leper. He ate with the outcasts, tax collectors, even prostitutes. He often acted as the host himself.  I get the feeling that if someone said “Dinner?” that Jesus would say “When and where,” without thinking twice. Jesus was a bit of a mooch!

So, what we do if Jesus came to dinner? We might be like Martha who was “distracted by the big dinner she was preparing.” (Luke 10:40 New living Translation) We would make sure that everything would be tip-top, put on our best bib and tucker. Make sure Jesus sat at the head of the table. Probably say grace to start, even if it is not one’s usual custom.  Pour him a glass of the good wine, not the cheap stuff we normally drink. Serve him the first cut of meat, pass him first the vegetables.

My point is that like the disciples we need to keep our eyes open for ways to prepare our fellowship with Jesus. Jesus prized preparation and readiness in many of his parables. He valued the servant’s role at meal occasions. He practiced inclusion and acceptance in his table fellowship. We need to prepare environments in which Jesus can exercise his table manners, so to speak. We need to create surroundings and settings where the Love of Jesus is served in heaping measures. We need to offer gracious, open-hearted hospitality by the generous plateful. “Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it!” (Hebrews 13:2, NLT)

Treat everyone as if Jesus is there at our table.

I wonder how Jesus likes his lamb…

Dale

 

Wednesday, March 8, 2023 – Lent Three, Bystanders on the Way to the Cross

“You can be sure that wherever in the whole world the Message is preached, what she has just done is going to be remembered and admired.”   (Matthew 26: 6 -13, The Message Bible)

            What is the most extravagant thing that you ever did for another person? An expensive gift?  A classy gesture of appreciation? An over-the-top expression of praise or approval? Was it your spouse or partner, a child, a grandchild, your pastor, a fellow-worker or maybe a complete stranger?

Have you ever thanked the grocery store clerk who checks out your groceries? What about the mechanic who fixes your car?  Or perhaps, it’s the guy who digs out your drive-way after a big snow storm.  We once brought in a plate of Christmas baking to the staff of our animal hospital, a small gesture for the caring way they  have always treated our dogs.  Not only is it about tipping our hair dresser, waitress, the pharmacist, the take-out delivery driver and the like, but doing a little extra in demonstrating our gratitude, something that says we noticed them and appreciated their efforts for us. Sometimes, it is just taking the time to learn and remember their names.

The Gospel of John identifies the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet with a very expensive bottle of perfume as Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus. All the Gospels tell the story, confirming what Jesus said of her that she is going to be remembered and admired for her generous and tender act of service to Jesus.

Yet others criticized her for her actions. Perhaps, sounding just a touch high and mighty, the disciples complained that the perfume could have been sold for a princely sum and the money given to the poor. It is hard to argue against their disagreement in some ways. The poor we always have with us, and it is so very hard to keep up with their needs and necessities of life and provide for their on-going welfare. Every little bit helps. Jesus understands that this work of charity never ends and will continue to be a main focus of his followers long after he is gone. Jesus is  not giving up on the poor, but receives Mary’s gift as an act of love,  mercy and compassion in light of the sacrifice he is about to make.

Many of us find it hard to receive a gift, a compliment, praise, or congratulations. I know I can be that way, sometimes.  It seems almost un-Christian to enjoy another’s kudos,  showing instead a lack of humility or a danger of becoming proud or boastful. But Jesus graciously accepts Mary’s gift. Although I doubt that she was looking for fame and admiration in the moment, Jesus openly expresses his gratitude and recognizes her effort.

If you or I do something good, then we should graciously accept the credit and allow ourselves to feel good about it.

The other complainers, at least, in Luke’s Gospel, were the other guests at the meal. It doesn’t seem to be Mary in his gospel but a woman off the streets in every sense of the word. The dinner guests are appalled  at the gall of the women and even more disgusted that Jesus would let a woman like her touch him so intimately.  I have certainly had to deal with Christians throughout my ministry who were greatly disturbed by the street folk who came into our worship services, especially if they were taking communion, grabbing bread with their dirty and unwashed hands.

Jesus tells them a parable about extreme and generous forgiveness (Luke 7: 41 -42). I wonder if they got it. But the woman goes away accepted, forgiven and born anew. She is living out Jesus’ promise: “Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.” (Luke 6: 38, New Living Translation)

This woman, whoever she was, demonstrated her compassion for Jesus in a real and tangible way, a very expensive way. She will always be remembered and admired for her boldness, her generosity, her determination, her resolve to show Jesus what he meant to her. She faced her criticized and those who judged her. She went the extra mile and despite scorn and ridicule, she found Jesus and worshiped him at his feet.

“And Jesus said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace.’” (Luke 7:50, The Message)

I am sure those words to her were worth every drop of perfume, and then some. May we all be so blessed this Lenten season.

Dale

Wednesday, March 1, 2023 – Lent Two, Bystanders at the Cross

There were some Greeks in town who had come up to worship at the Feast. They approached Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee: “Sir, we want to see Jesus. Can you help us?” (John 12: 20 -27, The Message Bible)

             When we lived in Ottawa, I, serendipitously, would encounter celebrities, mostly well-known  politicians. On several occasions, I saw Jean Chretien, before he became Prime Minister, heading off to a luncheon appointment in a nice restaurant while I was heading to the nearest  chip wagon. (I love chip wagons fries!) When Mikhail Gorbachev, the  then Russian premier, came to town  and was laying a wreathe at the war memorial, I went to see him and actually got very close as he worked his way to the crowd, shaking hands. 

A very long time ago, I was at the Canadian National Exhibition on the same day that Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau was making the grand tour and I was in the same place at least three times as he was.

 I have had the pleasure of being in the company of Montreal Expo players, behind the scenes,  in their family room, when we lived in Montreal.

It is entirely different to see these celebrities in the flesh rather than just on television or read about them in the news. In some ways, they become more real, more interesting, more tangible, more human.

The Greeks, Gentiles, had obviously heard about Jesus. They had come to Jerusalem for the Passover. Likely, they were coverts to the Jewish Faith. But their curiosity led them, not just to see Jesus, but to meet him in person, the Word made flesh. They seem to have had some connection to Philip, one of the disciples, and they ask him for an introduction. “Sir, we want to see Jesus. Can you help us?”

A lot of people, looking in from the outside of the Christian Community of Believers, stand at the edges of our fellowship and wonder if we can introduce them to Jesus in some way. Sadly, some Christians want to keep Jesus pretty much to themselves or, at least, want you to wash your hands and face, so to speak, before you can get anywhere near the Lord.

The disciples were not always disposed to allowing people to get too close to Jesus. They once tried to chase away the children who were brought to Jesus. They were inclined to turn the hungry crowds away before the miracle of the feeding of the 5000.  They tried to silence beggars, the diseased, the hurting who needed Jesus.

Even here in this text, Philip seems a little reluctant and checks it out with the others, first. This text never lets us know whether or not the Greeks ever actually met Jesus. But let us hope so.

Outsiders, even today, are looking in and wondering whether Jesus is for real. They want to hear his message of Good News. They want to be included and welcomed. They want to experience, first-hand and personally, the hope, the joy, the peace, the justice and promises which Jesus embodies and shares.

We have to ask ourselves, are we helping or hindering that introduction?  Are we so close-minded and so closed-hearted that we would rather turn away the seeker because they fail to meet our standards or criteria? Are we so protective of Jesus and his church that we exclude the stranger, the alien, the outsider, the different? Do we forget that Jesus was all for us to go in the highways and byways and bring even the poorest and lowliest back to the banquet of his Grace?

William Willimon, an well-known United Methodist Bishop, tells the story of visiting a church which was offering breakfasts for the homeless and destitute. He met a man, a member of the church, who was frantically washing the dishes in the kitchen – a very menial and unglamorous task but necessary. Willimon commented to the man that he must really have a heart for the poor to take on such a lowly task. The man laughed and had to admit that no, he didn’t really love the poor, all that much, and, in fact, some of them scared the daylights out of him. Then why do you do it, asked Willimon. The man answered, because Jesus expects me to do it.

People are looking at us and wondering if we are truly followers of Jesus and whether we can introduce them to Jesus. Can we help them?

“Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.” (John 13: 334 -35, The Message Bible)

Don’t just stand there – do something!

Dale