Category: john

From Scripture to Spirit; Or, Once again away from liturgy (though perhaps returning again)

[This is a (rather lengthy) sermon I preached this past Sunday on John 16:5-15 and Revelation 1:9-19.]

I just finished my second year of college, papers were submitted and exams completed.  In honour of this occasion my roommates and I thought it would be good to hit the town a let loose a little.  So three of us headed downtown ready for a little mischief.  Now granted we were renting a house in [the small Mennonite town of] Steinbach [the fictional setting of Miriam Toews’ Complicated Kindness] so heading downtown may have limited our options a little.  In any event we hit the 7-11 for some Slurpees.  We pulled a stuffed racoon across the road by string when cars drove by.  You know, wild and crazy college stuff.  In any event as the night wore on we began to wander aimlessly around when eventually we heard some shouting.  We went to get a closer look.  Eventually we came across a man and woman fighting on the driveway.  We were quite close at this point.  Eventually the fight ended, they parted and the man got into his car to drive away.  We quickly hid behind a bush on the next yard.  Now as the man turned the headlights on and backed out of the driveway the car paused for a moment and in that moment lined up directly with the bush we were hiding behind.  The car lights lit up the bush like a light bulb clearly revealing three figures cowering behind it.  The engine was shut off and the door opened and we heard him get out with a yell.  And in that same moment we turned and ran with him coming after us.  Running down a back alley we eventually split up and I found myself running alone, well that is with an angry man coming up behind me.  Now I need to make clear that I am not runner, a sprinter at best, but I knew I could not keep my pace up.  And in those brief moments I needed to make a choice.  Bear in mind I had no idea how big or small, young or old this guy was.  I decided to stop.  As I stopped I turned around, folded my hands behind my back to face and see my pursuer.  I’ll leave it there for now.

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A little Q&A

Question: Why did Jesus die and what did Jesus’ death accomplish?
Answer: Jesus died for our sins and his death paid the penalty for our sins.

The answer comes before the question is even finished.  In fact certain readings of Isaiah would have the answer come before the question.  Is there a particularly Good Friday answer to this question.  Shouldn’t the answer be intimately bound with Good Friday?

If I stay with the text (John was our reading this year) the sequence goes as follows.  Why did Jesus die?  Because he was killed.  What did Jesus’ death accomplish?  Nothing.   So we sit with futility of death.  The God of king and priest is dead because the one and only king and priest is crucified.  By definition then Good Friday sits with atheism and anarchism.  Good Friday sits with the knowledge that the nature of religion and empire is death.

But if you would like something other than death to sit with  and there must be something more than death because the disciples continued to live in the days between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  If you would like some words to come alongside the words of the dead and forsaken God then listen to Jesus again from the cross.  Listen to him before his final words.  He turns to his mother, the woman who gave him birth.  Jesus looks at her and then motions to his disciple standing by her and says, “Here is your son.”  And then he looks at his disciple and motions to his mother saying, “Here is your mother.”  And with these words a community is called.  A community based not on lineage, culture, tradition, status or interests.  This community is called by all who will gather and acknowledge that the gods of this world are dead and the gods of some heaven reserved for the privileged are dead.  So what will live on?  Where will life be found?  Today all we are offered are the words to turn and see our mother, our father, our sons and our daughters among those gathered at the site of death; the site too often created by religion and empire that work to exclude the undesirable.  Jesus has called a people to gather beyond the illusion of religion and beyond the power of empire; to gather in death where we must ask ourselves if love too has died.  And if love has not died . . .  then we must love.  But few of us find that place on our own so must begin by seeking the lost who have been thrust there.  Why did Jesus die?  Maybe first we need to ask another question.  Where did Jesus die?

Lazarus in two parts: Part II – Was it Lazarus slumped in the closet?

I did not mention in Part that I have been to Lazarus’ cave.  It is actually quite close to where I live now.  Lazarus’ cave is an apartment one floor directly below where I used to live on Wellington Ave.  Chantal and I were caretakers for that apartment block.  I did not know Lazarus well having only passed him on the stairs a few times.  But I came to realize that something was happening in his life, that he was falling ill.  Things were not good and people were coming by and asking about him out of concern.  One day myself and the superintendent for the apartments (our block was part of a larger church housing project) stopped to talk with him.  After our meeting we became concerned about what he might do to himself.  The superintendent went back and talked with him and then she left.  About four days later around midnight I received a knock on my door asking if I had keys to Lazarus’ apartment.  It was the police.  I did not have keys so I called the superintendent and she came.  We gathered in front of Lazarus’ cave.  The apartment building was small and so there was no real hallway only a square space where four apartment doors were located on each floor.  Gathered in that space was Chantal and I and the superintendent, two police officers, Lazarus’ brother-in-law and Lazarus’ daughter.  At this point my memory becomes hazy in detail but almost infinitely pronounced in impression.  As the door was opened I remember only two things and they filled the physical space and they filled all of my own humanity.  I remember the smell.  And I remember the scream of Lazarus’ daughter as she collapsed on the ground.  Both the smell and the scream were utterly and profoundly devastating.

If this was Lazarus’ cave, as I believe it was, then where was Jesus?  Was it Lazarus’ daughter who screamed in pure agony over the loss of her father?  Was it Lazarus’ brother-in-law who went into the stench of death to identify Lazarus?  Was it Lazarus himself slumped in the closet who may have whispered the words, my God, my God why have you forsaken me, before the towel tightened around his neck?  Was I Jesus in the way I lived almost indifferently to Lazarus in those four days knowing later that perhaps I could have done something differently?  Or was Jesus simply not there?  I don’t know.  All of the answers are perhaps true and terrible in their own way.  What I know is that this experience, especially Lazarus’ daughter, helped me to understand what that polite and passive phrase ‘deeply moved’ means when it comes to Jesus’ experience.  What I also know is that there was no voice calling Lazarus out of his tomb.

Lazarus in two parts: Part I – Jesus you don’t need to do this

Lent began with temptation in the wilderness.  The temptation was to resolve the tension of good and evil; the tension to gain control over the circumstances of suffering without entering into the lives of those who suffer.  Jesus was tempted to bypass the work of being truly human and, instead, move directly into the position of Pharoah or Ceasar, that is, a human who thinks he is god as opposed to God who lives fully human.  It is the temptation to be a false god or an idol that Jesus rejects at the beginning of Lent.  This means that Jesus cannot move into an earthly enthronement, Jesus is now set on a course in which the love of neighbour and love of God are truly and fully integrated.

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Is this heaven? No . . . its the 44.

A few weeks ago in the first Sunday of Lent I challenged our congregation to fast from the fruits of privilege.  One minor act on my part has been to ride the bus as often as possible.  As a country-boy the bus has always been a source of fascination for me and this spiritual exercise paid dividends this last week as my experience ended comprising about half the sermon.

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Born Not of a Husband’s Will

This Sunday I will be preaching John 1:1-18 . . . well were could I possibly go with that?  I took the opportunity to begin with the only joke I can remember which which is Zizek’s Lacanian joke about the man who believed he was a grain.

A man had been seeing a psychiatrist for some time.  The problem it seems was that he kept believing he was a grain of seed.  He and the psychiatrist worked on this issue for some time.  They made slow progress until one day both he and the psychiatrist were sure that the problem solved.  The man no longer believed he was a grain of seed.  The two shook hands and parted encouraged by what was possible.  The man left the office onto the street and a few seconds later returned in fear and panic.  Obviously concerned the psychiatrist asked what was wrong.  The man said that there was a chicken standing right outside the office door.  The psychiatrist responded, “Remember you are not a grain of seed.”  The man replied, “I know that, but how I can be sure the chicken does?”

From here I moved to what seemed like the obvious parallel.

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