Rumors of Life

EASTERTIDE IS IN FULL STEAM—heading toward the culmination of Pentecost. This is a season of holy rumor: “He is not dead.” “I know someone who saw him.” “My brother touched him.” “He was right here on this shore.” “He just walked through the wall.”

Those holy rumors fanned the flames of a transformed and transforming faith. It is easy to forget that the rumors of Jesus’ resurrected life went against some pretty powerful evidence: his public shaming and crucifixion, the continuing dominance and oppression of the unholy Roman Empire. At one level, nothing had changed; at another, everything had changed.

We remember, commemorate, and live into the resurrection waiting for the redemption and resurrection of all creation in a world in which it looks like nothing has changed. But there are these holy rumors, insistent whispers, and raised voices that do not care who is listening. There are rumors of life that transcend death. Even without first-hand witnesses in our time and against all the evidence, the church affirms the witness of the women who saw and proclaimed the risen Christ.

We still assemble, a church made up of many nations, waiting for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to rekindle the embers of the holy faith that survives the empire’s best effort to extinguish it. The rumor is that God’s people will survive the present age and its empires, all evidence to the contrary.

[ May 6 ]
Pentecost Preview

Acts 10:44-48; Psalm 98; 1 John 5:1-6; John 15:9-17

The Holy Spirit cannot be contained. She will not be confined to Pentecost Sunday, and she will not be cut off from anyone because of who they or their people are.

The Jewish disciples in Acts 10 were shocked to discover that God would not withhold her Holy Spirit from the unbaptized gentiles. Their view of God was so small. She was just for people like them, people who thought and believed and practiced their religion just like them. Jewish identity in the world of the text functioned very much like race does now. And the spirit of God just blew through all those differences.

The characterization of God in Psalm 98:9 reveals a God whose faithfulness has no limits and no favorites: “God will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.” While some texts present the Israelites as God’s favorites above all others, that is not universally the case. The “peoples” in verse 9 are plural and include more than the children of Israel.

The Johannine texts address those who believe in Jesus as the son of God. In both 1 John 5:1-6 and John 15:9-17 the love between God and the believer is circular: “Everyone who loves the parent loves the child” (1 John 5:1) and “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you” (John 15:9).

Both models—a divine love that transcends boundaries (Acts 10 and Psalm 98) and the special love between Jesus, his followers, and his father (1 John 5 and John 15:9)—are authentically biblical.

[ May 13 ]
The Testimony of Women

Acts 1:15-17, 21-26; Psalm 1; 1 John 5:9-13; John 17:6-19

WOMEN DISCIPLES are completely absent from Peter’s recitation of the faith in this reading from Acts 1 as the lectionary presents it. However, if the 120 persons in Acts 1:15 are constituted of the people in Acts 1:13-14, then the math looks a little different. There are 11 surviving (male) apostles and Jesus’ brothers (four, according to Matthew 13:55—plus sisters who would be grammatically included) who account for all the men in the 120 souls. The rest is made up of “certain women, including Mary, the mother of Jesus” (which could also include his sisters). That adds up to 105 women and 15 men.

In verses 21 and 22, the disciples seek a man to stand in as the 12th disciple and “become a witness with us to his resurrection.” They may have had a resurrection witness in the room, among the “certain women” in verse 14, but their culture taught them to discount the testimony of women.

We choose how we tell the story of our faith, and our choices matter. The biblical text is male-focused and women are often pawns in the text, reduced to biological functions. But women are also often more. Unfortunately, preaching, teaching, and text selection often minimizes or erases women even more than the biblical text does.

As the church moves toward Pentecost, we should seek to tell the sacred story in the most expansive and welcoming way possible, anticipating the boundary-transcending spirit of God who will not be withheld from anyone because of race, gender identity or expression, class, orientation, or any other particularity.

[ May 20 ]
National Resurrection Day

Ezekiel 37:1-14; Psalm 104:24-34, 35b; Acts 2:1-21; John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15

DRY BONES, LIVE! The vision of the dry bones in Ezekiel is a vision of national resurrection. It is a prophecy fulfilled for the Israelites. The Babylonian exile came to an end. The remnant of Israel, largely constituted of the toppled Judean monarchy, returned to the home their ancestors clawed out for them. Their reunion was rocky. They no longer shared the same experience of their identity as the poorest of their people who had been left behind, resulting in deepening economic disparity. But they made it home. Their nation was indeed resurrected from the rubble as Ezekiel prophesied. But what do the dry bones portend for us?

Most of us living in the United States today have never experienced invasion, occupation, and deportation—even though many immigrants have experienced these things in their countries of origin and despite the fact that this nation was founded through those very means. We are not in the position of the exiles to whom Ezekiel preached. (At least not yet.) We are more like the imperial powers in the background of the text for whom this word means that the people they plundered will one day be made whole.

History teaches us that nations fall and empires fail. The United States is subject to decline, and not just in influence. This passage bids us ask what it will look like when the peoples this nation has plundered are made whole—in their own land. What happens to the empire that once held them in thrall? In the biblical text, that empire was replaced by another, and another.

[ May 27 ]
The God of Many Names

Isaiah 6:1-8; Psalm 29; Romans 8:12-17; John 3:1-17

TRINITY SUNDAY is known as “Heresy Sunday” because of the many new, inadvertent doctrines created by preachers trying to explain the Trinity. Dear reader, if you have been following these columns for the bulk of the past year, you may not be surprised to hear that trinitarian language is not the way I think or talk about God. Let me share some excerpts from my last sermon on a Trinity Sunday:

“The church has largely settled on one way of naming God, to our great poverty. The blessed, holy Trinity is one way and only one way of naming the God of many names, the God of Isaiah, the God of Jesus, and our God. It is not the only way and it is not my way ... God is beyond numbering and naming. The scriptures use many more than three names or images to describe God and do not limit us to any. And the scriptures do not mention the Trinity at all. Three names make a nice poetic flourish. But God is not bound or limited by our limitations. God is One, and Two (incarnate and incorporeal), and Three, and Seven (the seven spirits of God are found in Revelation 1, 3, 4, and 5)—and God is Many and Ineffable.”

Trinity Sunday is perhaps not as much about how we number God but how we name her.

warrior, king, mother, father,
righteous judge,
shepherd, banner, rock, fortress, deliverer,
peace, light, salvation,
strength and shield,
devouring fire
abiding presence ...

How do you name God?