The Lion And The Lamb

"The Lion And The Lamb"
Revelation 5



Ours is a political gospel.

Many of you may be bristling a bit about that statement.  At least a little edgy.  Or uncomfortable.

Think about the titles and roles we have for Jesus with which we are most comfortable:  Savior (certainly, we like that one--the one who saves us from our sin stained lives); Teacher (we like that one, too--the rabbi, the spinner of parables, the one who teaches us about how to live better lives, how to grow closer to God); Healer (we really like this one, especially when we are sick. We’ve been talking over the past month about this role of Jesus as healer in our Sunday School class, and what  we expect of Jesus when we aren’t well); Son Of God (this role and title we accept, but how the full divinity of Jesus fits with the full humanity of Jesus is a mystery to most, or how Jesus is fully God, but is called the Son of God--we accept all that but don’t understand it).

The roles we talk about least are equally as important, but much more volatile:  Lord and King (especially King).  When we say, “Jesus is Lord,” or, “Jesus is King” we don’t fully realize what we are saying.  If Jesus is Lord, who else can be Lord?  If Jesus is King, who else can be king?

A Lord, by definition, is a master.  A Lord has power and authority and influence.

A King, by definition, is the ultimate ruler.  The King is the most important leading person.  The king is the most important piece in the game of chess.  The King is the one who is superior over all and has the premier dominating position.

But what we are inclined to do, as followers of Jesus, is over-spiritualize Jesus’ titles and roles.  We quickly read over those parts in the Bible that point to his Kingship--a Kingship that extends into all areas of God’s world, including the political.

In order to understand this role and position of Jesus, we turn to the fifth chapter of Revelation for insight into Jesus as Lord and King.  This is the coronation chapter in the book of Revelation.  It is the coronation of the King.

The coronation involves a mysterious scroll and its seals.

All the events in the first four chapters of Revelation have served to heighten the intrigue and expectation and the fascination with what God is doing in the world as God moves our world to a total transformation.  The first four chapters have to do with churches and God’s truthful evaluation of what the churches are doing well, and what they aren’t doing so well.  God is clearly stating in these letters to the churches that he had expected to have his standard waving strong.  That expectation went unmet in many of the churches addressed.

Now, in chapter four and five, the scene shifts to the throne room of God.  There is a throne.  There is one seated on the throne whose presence is like the sparkle and color of precious gems.  There are 24 other thrones around the one throne.  There is lightning and thunder coming from the throne.  Prowling around the throne are four fierce animals.  The animals were covered with eyes.  And all are chanting, “Holy, Holy, Holy” to the one on the throne.

And there is a scroll.  It’s sealed tight, except that writing could be seen all over it.  No one sitting near the throne could tell what the writing on the scroll said.

I remember, when I was in older elementary grades, and on into junior high, I would watch with intrigue as girls passed notes in class.  I knew those notes must contain something important or fascinating.  But I never knew.  And sometimes, they would mouth words to each other across the classroom.  As much as I tried, I couldn’t read lips, and so never was able to decrypt those secret messages.  My curiosity was aroused to the point of giving me a headache.

So it was with all those gathered in heaven, around the throne, concerning this mysterious scroll with it’s writing and seals.  What did it say?  No one would know until it was opened first.

To open it, meant someone would have to first approach God on the throne and take it from the hand of God.

Who would dare take the scroll from God?  The person would have to prove themselves, “worthy.”  Notice, it doesn’t say, “able.”  It’s not a matter of ability.  Most, if not all of the angels, elders, beasts, and saints gathered around the throne of God would have been able to open the scroll and read its contents.

God looks not for the able but for the worthy, for such an honor to take the scroll.  All shrink back at that qualification.  None step forward.  John, the one who is relating this vision, weeps.  If we don’t weep, we should stop and take notice of what this scene is saying.

Think of all the great lives from biblical and world history, who through quality of life, who through brave and amazing accomplishments in all sorts of fields, whom we might esteem as worthy.  None of those, though, measure up to the gaze from the One on the throne.

In a far past issue of Life Magazine, there was a lead article about the “100 Most Influential Americans of the 20th Century.”  Some of those listed were, Muhammad Ali, Albert Einstein, the Wright brothers (a unanimous choice), Bing Crosby, Henry Ford (a unanimous choice), Will Rogers, Walt Disney, Ray Croc (founder of McDonalds), Abraham Lincoln, and Bill W. (AA founder).

As much as these people are influential, none of them would be found “worthy”.  Nor would any from world history.  Not Alexander the Great.  Not Leonardo DaVinci.  None of the Popes.  Not even Mother Theresa!

We aren’t as great as we think we are.  We judge ourselves and each other by what we are able to do, and who we are able to be.  But God judges worthiness.  Worthiness by God’s standards.  Especially when it comes to approaching the throne of God.  We certainly aren’t as worthy as we may think we are.

When it comes down to the final scene of history, all self-infatuation, all misguided hero worship, all acts of self-sacrifice and courage, all of it will be seen for what it is.  In its place will be burned the image of the one true God on the throne waiting for the approach of the only one worthy to open the mysterious scroll.  We are only worthy as we are in the one who is judged worthy, who can approach the throne of God.

Then comes the worthy One.  Then comes the Lion.  One of the Elders first sees the Lion.

The Old Testament uses the image of the lion for creating fear.  Lions hide in wait, they are devouring, powerful, roaring, growling.  Lions are destroyers, manglers, and bone-breakers.

The Elder sees the Lion as one who “has conquered.”  Conquered what?  We aren’t told.  Our first answers, in trying to over-spiritualize the Lion, might be things like sin and evil.  And that is true.  But what are the particulars of what that means.

Turning to 1 Corinthians 15 (vs.. 24-25), we read about Jesus,
Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.  For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.

The conquering Lion, the worthy one, has conquered rulers, those in authority, and those who hold the strings of power.  In fact, those three are considered, according to this verse, to be the enemies of the Lion.

Jesus as King, Jesus as the worthy one, Jesus as the conquering Lion is:
--not a friend of government, but is their enemy.  There are no favored nations.  Jesus is no patron saint of any country.  Even though, “In God We Trust” is on our money, it won’t protect us.
--not a friend of rulers, but their enemy.  Even if you put your right hand on the Bible to be inaugurated; even if the church has a place in your coronation; no matter how much political backing from the Tea Party you think you might have--all such rule is targeted for destruction by the Lion of God.
Queen Victoria of England once told her chaplain that she hoped Jesus’ second coming would occur during her reign. The chaplain wondered why.  The Queen explained, “So I can take my crown and lay it at his feet.”
All rulers will one day have to give up their rule willingly or watch it be destroyed and they with it.
--not a friend of power.  Jesus had been the victim of power at its worst.  Power quickly degenerates into abuse and seldom knows how to be powerfully compassionate.
By the time he was 23, Alexander the Great had conquered over half the civilized world.  One victim of his military abilities was Darius--a mighty Persian King wiped out by Alexander.  Having been humiliated by such a young punk, Darius fled to Egypt.  Once safe, Darius wrote to Alexander about his defeat, asking for some bargaining room.  Alexander was not pleased with the letter, and sent a quick, stinging reply, ending with the words, “In the meantime, whenever you shall have occasion to write Alexander, remember you write to him not only as a king, but as your king.”
Power only knows how to push its heal into the backs of those it overruns.  But some day, says Revelation, even someone like Alexander, in the height of his power, does not qualify as worthy before the throne.
--not a friend of authority, no matter how self-righteous the authority assumes itself to be.  That kind of authority never turns out to be the authority of God--the authority that leads with the Cross.
In the movie, “The Mission,” there are two Jesuit missionaries, forced into defending the work of their mission to a certain tribe in South America against colonization by Spain.  What are they supposed to do?  Do they fight?  Do they pray?  What kind of authority should these two priests use?  Both take different tactics: one prays; one fights.  Both die.  Neither authority works.

Based on the image of the conquering Lion, and coupling it with 1 Corinthians 15, we can sum up by asking ourselves several questions:
1.  When we say, “Jesus is King,” who are we saying is not king?
2.  When we say, “Jesus is our sole authority,” who or what are we saying is not our authority?
3.  When we say, “Jesus is the only power,” who or what gets excluded as an exerciser of power?

But now back to Revelation.  Something happens.  The Elder says, “Do not weep.  See the Lion..”  John looks up, but instead sees “...a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered…”

No bone-breaking lion.  Instead a broken Lamb.  Slaughtered.  It’s such a stark word.  Images of a savage death.  Not just a clean kill--a single bullet, a single deadly thrust of the sword.

Instead the word evokes the image of death upon death, being killed and killed again, overkill by butchery.  Not a single bullet, but hundreds of shots.  Not a single sword thrust, but hack upon hack, frenzied blow upon blow.  Not just being conquered, but utterly devastated.

What an alarming contrast!  The conquering Lion who overpowers all powers, and the slaughtered Lamb who appears overpowered in the worst way.  The same character, perceived differently.  Both are extreme opposites, yet both are true and neither can be diluted.  Both are harshly different, yet both are necessary to understanding the kingship of Christ:  the Lion who devours all forms of rule until that authority is totally embodied in him; and the bleeding, grotesque figure of the slaughtered Lamb who identifies with the wounded, broken people who have also been overrun by the powers of the world.

The Lion can’t be the king without having the wounded heart of the Lamb.  The Lamb can’t rule without the decisive and ultimate authority of the Lion.


We need Christ as King, because all forms of authority, government, and power are seriously tainted.  They are either overbearing, devouring lion-types with little or no heart, or, they are sheep that get run over time after time with no ultimate authority.

Maybe the reason that Jesus is kept out of state houses and other political capitols is not because Jesus is thought of as having nothing to do with the political realm, but that he has everything to do with the political realm.

It’s not that the two can’t be mixed (like oil and water), but that they are really highly explosive when mixed.

It’s not that Jesus is ineffectual--a political milquetoast--but that political people recognize that if Jesus really is King, how destructive that kingship is to their house of cards.

We in the church have sold out to the opposition by keeping Jesus less than who he really is--a King.  But not just a king, as if he were just one among many, but the one and only King!

We, as subjects of the King Jesus, must not fail to embrace Jesus our only King with all that that means.  Then, we must carry his banner out into a world that puts itself under the sovereignty of so much false authority, bringing our King face-to-face with that world.

When we do that, the more voices there will be who are added in praise to the true King.  We along with the great collection of people around the throne will fall down and worship the true King of heaven and earth: Holy, Holy, Holy...

Emptiness Filled By Emptiness

"Emptiness Filled By Emptiness"
John 20:1-18


My Lenten sermon series has been about being empty and being filled.  From the start, I’ve talked about how something already full can’t be filled.  It has to be emptied first.  Totally emptied.

Once emptied, then you are ready to be filled by Christ.  As those at the wedding at Cana found, when the wine totally ran out.  Emptiness doesn’t lead to despair and sadness.  Jesus used emptiness to lead to belief and faith.

Being emptied and then being filled by Christ leads, as Nicodemus found, to a more authentic self.

At the times when life has emptied our pitcher and we are feeling dejected, apathetic, or meaningless, like the woman at the well, along comes Jesus.  One conversation with Jesus fills with life and purpose.  Once Jesus fills us, we become those who are able to go forth and fill others who have been emptied.

Emptiness has the ability to stick us in one spot, like the infirm man by the pool of Bethesda.  We don’t want to get up.  We don’t want to move forward in life.  But Jesus comes and fills us--we are able to get to our feet with the Lord, and move out into a life we’ve never known.

Sometimes our emptiness tempts us to fill it with bad--even unGodly--choices.  Like the woman caught in adultery.  But somehow, even those bad choices bring us into Jesus’ presence.  Thrown at Jesus’ feet, humiliated, he stoops down to us, getting down to our level, so that we might rise up with him--forgiven, clean, restored, and challenged to make new and better choices.

What is amazing about the Easter story is that God meets emptiness with emptiness.  God fills us, fills the world, with emptiness.

First, God fills our emptiness with the empty cross.  I wondered for a long time why Jesus had to die--especially such a gruesome death.  Why couldn’t God just announce from the heavens, in some loud booming voice (or in an inner whisper) that we would all hear, that we were all saved?  Instead, Jesus was sent by God to die.  Why?

The book of Hebrews helped me out there, where in the second chapter it says,
We are people of flesh and blood.  That is why Jesus became one of us.  He died to destroy the devil, who had power over death.  But he also died to rescue all of us who live each day in fear of dying. (2:14-15)

One major piece of our human condition is living under the specter of death.  I’m not sure about the animals, but we humans are conscious of the fact that we are all going to die.  How we handle that fear of death will determine a lot about how we live.  The fear of death can and does create all kinds of neurosis, depression, and apathy.  But, if we aren’t afraid of death anymore, then it frees us up to live richer, more God-led lives.

There’s more to Christ’s death, says the writer of Hebrews.  With the fear of death comes evil.  So, God had to deal with evil also.  The only way to not just overcome the devil, but destroy him, is by the sacrificial death of Jesus.  The devil and evil had to be destroyed, and Jesus’ death was the way.  So, imagine what that does for the human courage of living each day with empowerment?  If you knew the power of evil was out of the way, and you didn’t have to be afraid of evil anymore, how would you then live?

With the empty cross, the death of Christ, the world is filled with a certain fearlessness about living.  The two main things we fear--death and evil--are taken care of by the empty cross.  Those two fears empty the world, empty the life and courage of the people of the world.  They empty our lives of vitality and strength and will.  But, with those two fears out of the way, the world becomes filled with amazing opportunity to live--to really live.  Filled by the empty Cross.

And lastly, God fills our empty world and empty lives with the empty tomb.  One of the main messages of the empty tomb is that there is more.  There is more to this life than just this life.  There is another realm of existence beyond death.  To know that, because of the Resurrection of Jesus, no matter how awful life becomes, there will be another day, another world, another life, eternal, beyond the pains and capriciousness of this world.

I just watched, again, the movie, Les Miserables this week.  In that movie, Fantine sings the song, “I Dreamed A Dream.”

There was a time when men were kind
When their voices were soft
And their words inviting
There was a time when love was blind
And the world was a song
And the song was exciting
There was a time
Then it all went wrong

I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted

But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
As they turn your dream to shame...

...But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.

The great good news of the Resurrection is that even though that may be your song, there is more.  There is another song, because of the empty tomb of Christ, that will be sung in Resurrection, that will restore your dreams.  Never will life “kill the dreams you dream” again, because of the filling power of the empty tomb.  Jesus’ empty tomb fills all empty lives, so that a new song will be sung, and dreams will be dreamed again.  That is the promise and the power of the empty tomb of Christ which fills an emptied people.

The Fourfold Movement Of The Lord's Supper (Maundy Thursday)

"The Fourfold Movement Of The Lord's Supper"
Mark 14:22-23



There is a movement
a rhythm
to the last Supper.
As with most of what Jesus did
this movement is
poetic
parabolic.
Few words.
Few motions.
All of them
overflowing with meaning
and purpose
and intention.
It is the movement
of a flower blooming
opening slowly
letting its fragrance
and full beauty
slowly be released
and those who witness it
say, “Ahhhhhhh.”
That “Ahhhhhhh,”
is our reverent response
to the slow
and purposeful tempo
of Jesus’ motions
at the Last Supper.
Those motions
those progressions
are what we will bear witness to
tonight
as we move
with Jesus
through the courses
of the Last Supper.

Scripture Reading:  Mark 14:22-23  (KJV)
And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat: this is my body.  And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them: and they all drank of it.

“And as they did eat, Jesus TOOK BREAD…”
Unleavened bread.
Leftovers.
Crumbs and chunks
orts off the serving plates
maybe picked up
from the table itself.
Bread from the Passover meal,
celebrating the Exodus
the major salvation event
in Old Testament history.
The deaths of the firstborn,
the firstborn of the the Egyptians--
killed
the firstborn of the Hebrews,
spared
saved
by the blood on the door.
The quick bread.
Made in haste.
Eaten in haste.
Eaten while death passed over,
while death was happening
all around them.
Waiting
to move out
to journey towards a new life
a life of freedom
freedom and life
born in the throes of death.
Jesus took that bread,
the bread of death
and anxious waiting.
Forever after
bread will never
just be bread.
That is
for we who believe
we who have been touched by God
who have been led
from slavery to freedom
who have been put on a journey
towards a new life.

"...and BLESSED IT…”
A blessing.
In a word, “thanksgiving.”
Simply thanks to God.
Expressing gratitude.
Remembering God.
Not just God’s favor
or protection.
Not God’s blessings
But God,
being thankful to God
simply because God is.
Invoke God at the table.
Wanting God to be there
to be a part
of what we’re doing
and who we are
and where we’re at.
Thank you.
Jesus’ life
about to end,
with that bread in hand,
says, “Thank you” to God.
“Give thanks in all things,”
wrote Paul.
Even for death
thank you
with the bread of death
the bread of the excruciating wait
the knowledge that
in a day or so
he’d be dead
even then
thank you.
The words of the blessing
aren’t recorded.
Just the movement
with simple words:
“Took bread.”
“Blessed it.”
Maybe just a simple,
rote,
table blessing
like children at the dinner table:
God is great!
God is good!
Let us thank Him for our food.
By his hands we are fed.
Let us thank Him for our bread.  Amen.
By that blessing
the simple bread
the fragments
become endowed
with power
with memories
with himself
with God.


“...and BRAKE iT…”
Broke the death bread.
Broke the waiting.
Breaking
opens up what’s inside
to the outside.
A bird
from the egg.
A worm
from the over-turned soil.
A baby
from the womb.
A word
from the page of a book.
Everything’s exposed.
Death is broken
to expose the new life.
Tense waiting is broken
to expose the joy
that is now.
And part of God
is being broken.
God is exposing
God’s self
in risky vulnerability
through Jesus.
God’s opening of self
is risky bidding
that we do the same.
Bread breaking.
Self-breaking.
Self-exposing love.
Broken bread.
A broken heart.
Broken out of risky love.
Would it lead
to our “broken and contrite heart”
before this God?
Being broken
is the risky
vulnerable path to God.
By brokenness,
not by an oasis of serenity.
By brokenness,
not by some sense of
divinely deserved protection.
By brokenness,
not by the promise of
some magically charmed life.
By brokenness,
not through a program
or bestseller from the self-help section
at the bookstore.
By brokenness,
first God,
through Jesus
for us.
Then,
our hearts,
“contrite”
before the broken Jesus
for him.


“..and GAVE it to them…”
A gift.
Is a gift given
really a gift
unless it’s opened?
Received?
Or,
is just giving enough
to make it a gift?
A gift--
not just the thing itself.
It carries a part
of the giver.
My grandparent’s Bibles
And my mother’s Bible,
more than just Bibles
to me.
They are part of my mother,
my grandparents.
Their hands
held them.
Their eyes,
fell upon these pages.
Their lives,
changed by what they read,
in these particular Bibles.
Gifts.
Giver.
History.
Experiences.
Life.
All of it blends
into that which is given.

The gift
for you
must become the gift
for another.
Gifts are meant to be given,
not grasped
for the self
becoming an idol.
“Then he gave it to his disciples…”
The abundant life
of Christ.
The salvation
of Christ.
The ransoming life
of Christ.
The sacrificial love
of Christ.
The brokenness
of Christ.
The blessing
of Christ.
All of who Christ is,
in the given bread.
A gift.
To be given.  And given.  And given.


“DO THIS…”
Means all of it.
All four movements
the full rhythm
the poetry
the parable nature
of this sacramental meal.
No picking
and choosing.
No,
just the giving
without the breaking.
No
just the bread
without the blessing.
No
just the blessing
without the giving.
Follow
the natural rhythm
of the meal:
Took bread
Blessed it
Broke it
Gave it
A rhythm
that will lead
to the Cross.
And,
to the Resurrection.
This is the rhythm
of the Gospel
the Good News.
This is the shape
of the Christian life--
the shape
of the bread:
taken
blessed
broken
given.

The Horror And Godlessness Of The Cross

"The Horror And Godlessness Of The Cross"
John 19:13-18
1 Corinthians 1:18


To understand the cross and the Crucifixion rightly, we need to first view it as first century people viewed it.  We have gilded the cross with silver and gold.  We have decorated the cross with ornamentation.  As the poet Emily Dickinson wrote, somewhat sarcastically:

A piercing Comfort it affords
In passing Calvary--

To note the fashions--of the Cross--
And how they’re mostly worn--
Still fascinated to presume
That Some--are like My Own--
(poem #561)

Dickinson points a finger at others who have made the Cross into a fashionable jewelry statement--including herself.  First century people would not have made the cross into jewelry.  It wasn’t that kind of symbol.  In fact the early Christians were more attached to the symbol of the simple fish as a sign of who the were and whose they were.

The Cross has not ever been as important as the one who was nailed there.  From the very first, the Christian faith has distinguished itself from other religions by its worship of the crucified Christ.  In order to really understand what and who we are worshipping, we must go back to that day.

In Jewish understanding, someone executed by crucifixion was rejected by his people, cursed by God, and excluded from any kind of fellowship with the people of faith.  The Jewish law was clear, as stated in the book of Deuteronomy:
And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is accursed by God; you shall not defile your land which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance.  (21:22-23)

Anyone who is condemned by that law because they spoke irreverently about God, suffers such a death.  That person becomes cursed.  That is what Jesus’ accusers meant at his trial when they said, “We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God” (John 19:7).  The only option open to a faithful Jew in regards to the cross, and Jesus’ crucifixion, is to turn one’s back on it all--turn your back on Jesus.

To Roman humanistic philosophy, the view of the cross is all together different.  To the Roman’s the crucified Christ and the veneration of the cross was an embarrassment.  Crucifixion--the punishment of escaped slaves and rebels against the Roman Empire--was regarded as the most degrading kind of punishment.

Roman humanism always felt the “religion of the Cross” to be unattractive, unrespectable, and perverse.  The Roman historian, Cicero, once wrote, “Let even the name of the cross be kept away not only from the bodies of citizens of Rome, but also from their thought, sight, and hearing.”  It was regarded as an offense against good manners to speak of this hideous kind of death in the presence of respectable people.  In the Roman’s humanistic and philosophical search for the good, the true, and the beautiful, the Cross and the crucified Christ was not a valuable or tasteful symbol.

Think of the Greek gods that were worshipped by the Roman people.  These gods were the super humans who dwelt on the clouds and made sport with mere mortals.  These gods were that day’s equivalents of Superman, Spiderman, Wonder Woman, and the others who we read in comic books and graphic novels.  They were the beautiful, sensuous, and the strong.  The immortals.  The idea of a “crucified God” to whom veneration and worship were due was regarded in Roman and Greek culture as being totally inappropriate and laughable to a god.

Thus, Christian belief in the crucified Christ--a crucified God--was bound to produce, in either Jews or Romans, the effect of horror, scandal, ugliness, and blasphemy.  The early Christians had to constantly defend themselves against the charge of being irreligious or sacrilegious.  At that time, the Cross was not the sign of holy orders and honors; it was a sign of contradiction and outrageous disgrace.

This kind of contradiction has nowhere been better illustrated than by a comment made by current day rock star, Madonna.  She wears a number of crosses and other religious jewelry as part of her onstage presence.  In an interview she was asked about this and in her answer she said:
I think I have always carried around a few (crosses) with me.  There was the turquoise--colored one that my grandmother had given to me a long time ago.  One day I decided to wear it as a necklace.  I thought, This is kind of offbeat and interesting.  I mean, everything I do is sort of tongue-in-cheek.  It’s a strange blend--a beautiful sort of symbolism, the idea of someone suffering, which is what Jesus Christ on the crucifix stands for, and then not taking it seriously at all.  Seeing it as an icon with no religiousness attached to it.

Madonna does blatantly what so many do, maybe without thinking: of seeing a cross, kind of know what it represents, but then not “taking it seriously at all.”  Such is the present day attitude towards the Cross.  We have become far to used to such “off beat” attitudes towards the Cross of Christ.  We have surrounded the scandal of the Cross of Christ with roses and turquoise.  But that is not the Cross.

That is not the Cross which has become the central symbol of the Christian Church.  That is not the word of the Cross.  That is not the Cross, which has become a map--the “stations of the Cross”--by which pilgrims follow the course of Jesus’ passion, and meditate on the reasons for his suffering and the redeeming effects of his death.  That is not the Cross, which has revealed to us the divine depth of suffering and emptying of God to fill a fallen world.

So what should we see, when we look at the Cross of Christ?  What is going on there, in the contradiction and the shame?  What is the power struggle between God and evil that is being played out in the suffering and death of Jesus on the Cross?

When we stand at the foot of the Cross of Christ, we are facing the darkness of the real, ultimate and inexplicable absence of God.  Here is the apparent triumph of death, the enemy, the anti-God, the lawless state, the blasphemer and liar, the soldiers.  Here Evil apparently triumphs over God.

Our faith, which must begin with the Cross, begins  at the very point where the Godlessness of this world suppose that it has all ended.  Our faith begins with the bleakness which is the deep night darkness of the Cross:  abandonment, temptation, and doubt about everything that exists.  Our faith must be born where it stands alone from anything we have known as real.

A radical return to the origin of Christian faith--the Cross of Christ--makes those who believe, homeless not only in the religious world, but also in the “anything goes” world of present day, cafeteria styled beliefs.  Both the Jewish attitude of the exclusion of the Cross, and the Roman humanistic attitude of the tastelessness of the Cross, are alive and well both outside and inside the Church.

The reason I know such attitudes are alive and well in the church is because of the church’s, and individual Christian’s unwillingness to distinguish themselves from the rest of contemporary society.  I talked in Sunday School last week about the Gallup poll that looked at American people’s opinions about many social issues.  Then at the end of the survey questions, people were asked about their beliefs and church attendance.  The shocking--at least to me--conclusion was that there is virtually no difference of opinion between non-believer, non-church-goers, and believing church-goers.  That’s unsettling to me.

A Christianity which doesn’t measure itself in belief and practice by the event of the Cross ultimately loses its identity and becomes confused with the surrounding world.  It is a faith that becomes the religious fulfillment of the prevailing social interests, or the whimsy of those who dominate society.  Such a faith becomes a chameleon which can no longer be distinguished from its surroundings.  But the Cross is a chameleon killer.

A Christian who applies to his or her faith and practice, the criterion of the Cross of Christ, cannot remain who they are.  The Cross, as it did for the first century onlookers, creates the experience of crisis of identity, in which who you are and how you see yourself in the world as it is, is broken down.

The more radical Christian faith can only mean committing oneself, without reserve, to the crucified Christ.  This is dangerous.  The Cross doesn’t promise the confirmation of your own ideas, hopes and good intentions.  Instead, the Cross promises, first of all, the pain of repentance and fundamental change.

The Cross offers no recipe for success. Instead, the Cross casts us into, as Henri Nouwen calls it, a spiral of downward mobility with Christ.

The Cross is not positive and constructive.  Instead the Cross is from the first encounter on, critical and destructive.  The Cross brings a confrontation with the truth about who we are and what the world really is.

The Cross doesn’t bring us into better harmony with ourselves and our environment.  Instead the Cross brings us into contradiction with ourselves and with the world.

The Cross doesn’t create a home for us and integrate us better into society.  Instead the Cross makes us homeless and rootless, and makes us odd to our environment.  But thus, the Cross liberates us to follow Christ, who was homeless and rootless--especially on the Cross.

The Cross doesn’t elevate us or edify us in the world’s sense, but scandalizes us as weird people with horrific beliefs.

Most of all, the Cross brings a certain unbalance to our relationships with those who once were our people, but are no longer our people.

To a society that has been constructed on the principles of achievement and enjoyment, where pain and death are private matters, there is nothing as unpopular as making the crucified Christ an ever present gauge of one’s faith.

The symbol of the Cross in the church points to the Christ who was crucified not between two candles on the table, but between two thieves, in the place of the skull, where outcasts were taken, outside the gates, away from the beautiful people.

The Cross is a symbol which should lead us out of the church and out of culturally tied religious feel-goodism, and into the world of the oppressed and abandoned and lonely.  At the same time the Cross is a beacon which calls the oppressed and the godless into the church, and through the church, into fellowship with the crucified Christ.

Whenever this meaning of the Cross, and its revolution in religious values is forgotten, the cross ceases to be a symbol and becomes an idol.  The Cross as an idol no longer invites a revolution of faith and behavior, but instead becomes a stroker of self-infatuation.

I would dare say that the Cross of Christ, and what will come in a week, are the two most disorienting events that have ever been--that you and I could ever face.  They, together, demand a reorientation of every closely held belief and value the world has known.  These two events evoke the most fear, because they demand the most change.  But only by courageously opening ourselves up to the “nonsense” of the Cross will we then be able to restore the crucified Christ to his true position to change our lives.

From Now On

"From Now On"
John 8:1-11


In terms of just plain dealing with people, I have always been impressed with how Jesus is able to cut through the stuff and get to the heart of the matter.  He does it so artfully, it looks too easy.  Sometimes I succeed at it.  Other times, when I wish I could leave people shaking their heads (as they did with Jesus) they just end up shaking their heads in disbelief at what came out of my mouth.  Maybe I just need to keep a bag of sand handy, so I can stoop down and draw in the dirt like Jesus did.  That would give me time to think before I spoke.  But people might not appreciate the mess on their living room rug.

Jesus was just so good at bypassing the issues that were tossed at him like rotten tomatoes.  He was able to get people to the point of seeing the real issues that needed to be dealt with.  It must have been frustrating for people who came to Jesus with their pressing problems.  They had to say to him, in effect, "No, that's not really your problem; here's the real problem."  It is just as interesting to me that it was the super religious types who Jesus di that to most often.  That fact alone gives me a lot of pause for reflection.

I say all this by way of introduction to one of my favorite stories in the life of Jesus:  the woman caught in adultery.  The super religion guys brought to Jesus this big problem.  But before the hubbub of this spectacle is over, Jesus will have let the religious leaders know what the real problem was.

In the drama of this scene, a woman is made crudely visible.  Then she becomes amazingly invisible.  And then she is made visible again.  The movement by which she moves from visibility, to invisibility, and back to visibility again is what this story is about.

The display of the woman caught  in adultery starts out with pulse pounding intensity.  Jesus was quietly teaching in the outer court of the temple.  The women's court.  The place where anyone could come and listen.  Suddenly a crowd approaches like a swarm of bees.  A woman is thrown at Jesus' feet.  She was stripped naked as a sign of her shame.  If this scene were in a movie, it would have to be R-rated.  Maybe her head would have been shaved as a further sign of her shame.  Most likely spit upon.  Taunted and humiliated.  A display that only the super religious guys could have pulled off best.

Who was this woman?  If you were living back then, she would have been your neighbor.  She wasn't a prostitute, or nobody would have cared.  She wasn't a slave girl.  Again, nobody would have cared.  Instead, she would have been someone you knew.  Maybe even someone you cared about.

But now she is only a woman, standing naked and exposed, humiliated, ridiculed and tongue beaten.  I confess I'm trying to generate a little sympathy for the woman.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm not trying to minimize what she did.  It was wrong.  No two ways about it.  I am merely trying to point out how visible this woman was at that moment.

Then she disappears.  Not literally, of course.  But just as quickly as she was forced front and center, she is pushed aside.  The spot light moves from her to Jesus.  To Jesus and his interchange with the super religious guys.  The quickness of how she is thrown at Jesus and then pushed aside must have told Jesus something.

There's a mystery here.  The accusation the religionistas hurl at Jesus, along with the poor woman, is that she has been, "...this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act."  She was caught in bed with another man.  She was caught in a sexual encounter with another man other than her husband, by these religious leaders.  What does that tell you?  It must have told Jesus a bushel basket full of information.  How would these religious police know when to jump in through the bedroom window and catch her in the act?

The answer to that question can probably be answered best by the missing person here.  Who is missing in this whole religious soap opera?  (They guy!)  Whenever I teach this story in an adult Sunday School, that is the question almost every woman in the class asks:  "Where is the guy?"  Where is the other adulterous person?  Jewish law was fairly explicit in cases like these:  Both parties in an adulterous sexual relationship were to be killed.  By stoning.

So let's answer both questions at the same time.  How did these religious guys know when to break into the bedroom?  And, where was the guy?  My theory about this mystery is that the guy went free because he was in on a plot with the super religious guys.  The woman was being used in a slippery scheme to trap Jesus in a no-win situation.  The woman must have begun to understand what happened to her.  Jesus, I think, understood what happened to her as well.  But her good neighbors had already collected a rock pile and they were ready to use them.

Jesus understood that the woman was not the target.  Jesus was the target.  The woman was just being used in the backest of back room frame-ups.  Imagine how long it took to come up with this slime ball scheme, set it all up, and gradually work it out.  They would have find a man who would entrap the woman in a fake relationship to the point of having sex with her, only so they could be "caught" by the super religious patrol.  All that for the sole purpose of trapping Jesus with a seemingly no-win scenario.

Here's the trap.  If Jesus said, "Yes, stone her," he would immediately loose face with the everyday folk with whom he was so popular.  He would appear to be siding with the bad guys--the religious Pharisees.  He would lose face with the crowds, and slowly go away.

But, if Jesus said, "No, don't stone her," then he would be branded as a law breaker, and would be open to immediate arrest.

That's why the woman disappears, becoming invisible for a time.  She is not the main objective here.  Jesus is.  He is the target.  He is the one they are looking to stone, not the woman.  If she gets stoned in the process, tough break for her.  She was used in a heinous plot, and she can only have the sense that she is doomed no matter how Jesus answers.

Jesus is in a tight spot.  He must figure out a way to save both his and the woman's life.  He writes in the dust at his feet.  All the while he is being badgered by the morality patrol about what to do about the woman:  "What's your answer.  C'mon.  Hurry it up."  The fact that they're trying to hurry him up also tells Jesus something.  So he takes his time.  Jesus can be kind of aggravating some times, in a fun sort of way.  That is if you're a supportive onlooker.

Jesus just doodles.  Or, as some have conjectured, Jesus is writing all of their names--those religious guys.  Or even more interesting, some have suggested Jesus is writing their names, and beside each name a list of their particular sins.

Or maybe Jesus is trying to help these Pharisees remember, who should know their law, that it was the finger of God that wrote the 10 Commandments on the stone.  That it was that same finger of God they were all dealing with at the moment.

Finally, Jesus stood up.  He looked them all in the eye and said, "Go ahead and stone her..."  The religious leaders smiled a sickly pleasurable smile as they thought their trap had been sprung.  Jesus was caught.  The net was being let down.

But then Jesus finished his statement:  "He (notice the male singular) that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."  The lowering net quickly stops.  The super religious guys mouths drop open.  They have been caught by a cunning more powerful than their own.

What Jesus said can't be totally captured in English as it is in Greek.  There is a shade of meaning in the words he used, a slight of hand, a hidden force of words that doesn't come through quite as clear, because it's not clear.  A possible way to say in English what Jesus said in Greek is, "The man who has never sinned in this manner throw the first stone.  The man who is sinless of this particular sin cast the first rock."  To put it plainly, "The man who has never also committed adultery gets to throw the first stone."

Notice how they went away.  "And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last..."  No man there was guiltless.  With one deft phrase, Jesus took the rocks that loomed over this woman's head and hung them all where those rocks belonged: over the heads of the woman's good neighbors and the religious police.

When Jesus was done doodling, everyone was gone.  Everyone except the woman.  This is where she becomes visible again.  Jesus has made her visible by making everyone else invisible.

She thought she was a goner.  Jesus made her a gainer.  She thought she was dead.  Jesus made her alive.  She though she had used up all her chances.  Jesus gave her yet another chance.  She though she was unacceptable.  As usual, Jesus was more accepting than her good neighbors.  She thought she was invisible.  Jesus made her visible.

Jesus, as a Rabbi, wasn't even supposed to be talking to a woman.  That also was strictly forbidden.  Jesus just seemed to be breaking rules all over the place that day.  On the woman's behalf.  The woman caught with her hands in the cookie jar of adultery.



This sermon series has been about being emptied and being filled.  Sin empties us.  Sometimes we can get away with making bad choices that kind of go, for the most part, unnoticed by others.  But there are other times when the bad choices we make, and the sins we commit make, us very visible to everyone else.  Like having a scarlet letter tattooed on the forehead. Or having a big neon SINNER! sign with an arrow pointing at you, following you around.


Embarrassing visibility.  Like being paraded naked in front of everyone.

But then, Jesus in his graciousness, moves the spotlight off of us, and lets it fall on him.  He takes our sinful visibility, and allows himself to be the target instead of us.  All the pointing fingers.  All the morality police.  All the embarrassment of being caught red-handed at whatever it was we did.  He makes us invisible so he can deal with that sin that emptied us so piteously.

Then, when that's done, Jesus makes us visible again.  But we're different.  We're cleansed.  Forgiven.  Washed of our shame.  Giving us chances when we thought we had erased all of ours.  Not only turned the SINNER! sign out--Jesus threw it away.  Feeling totally empty, Jesus filled us with a new self.

And bids us go, and from now on, sin no more.

Do You Want To Be Healed?

"Do You Want To Be Healed?"
John 5:1-9


Jesus entered the walled city of Jerusalem through the Sheep Gate.  It was the gate closest to the Temple.  There was a pool there.  Five covered porches butted out like docks into the pool.  On these porches and all around the edge of the pool was every kind of sick person imaginable.

The Pool of Bethesda was the nursing home of Jerusalem.  Every hopeless human condition was there.  Only, there were no individual, antiseptic rooms where these patients could be hidden away.  No nurses to change their dressings, take their blood pressure in the middle of the night, and provide a smiling presence.  No doctors dispensing medical assistance.  No pharmacists doling out medications.  No volunteers bringing magazines or mail or flowers.  Just people who had been dumped and left by family or friends.

There were the sick.  They not only had diseases of every kind, but there were those who were afflicted with dis-ease:  the inability to cope with what life had thrust in their faces.  Those with dis-ease showed no physical signs of wounds or illness, but they were sick nonetheless.  I like the way the King James Version describes these people:  “...a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered..”  I like the terms “halt” and “withered.”  The halt describes people who have just stopped in life.  They landed there, and they will go no further.  The withered describes, to me, not just a physical condition, but a spiritual condition.  The soul has just gone limp and shriveled away.

In the cartoon, “Lockhorns”, the husband comes home, puts his briefcase on the table by the door.  He is taking off his coat and saying to his wife, “The day went the way it usually does when your life is going down the drain.”  That kind of dis-ease of attitude is just as debilitating as being sick.  Maybe more so.  You can take medicines for physical illnesses and injuries, but what do you take if your spirit is “going down the drain”?

John tells us that, “Hundreds of sick people...were laying close to the pool…”  These diseased people were laying close to the pool because the pool symbolized for them a hope, a cure, a chance.  The closer they were to the pool, the closer they were to having their hopes come true.  they could play with their fingers in that liquid desire.  They could dangle their feet and ankles in that pool of possibility.

It was a pool of superstitions.  Every once in a while the water would spontaneously shudder and ripple.  It was believed an angel descended into the water.  The water, with the angel’s presence, would come alive.  The first person to roll, jump, dive, or fall into the angel-filled waters would be healed.

When I was a kid, I nearly lived all summer in the waters of a pool near our home.  Every hour, the lifeguards would clear the pool of us kids.  For 15 awful minutes, we had to stay out while the adults--what few of them there were--got the whole pool to themselves.  Some kid would dangle his hand or feet in the pool, and the rest of us would shout, “Not fair! Get your hands outta there--the lifeguard hasn’t blown the whistle yet!!”

Then the lifeguards would come out.  One would have the whistle in her mouth, playing with it in her teeth.  “C’mon, blow the whistle!” we’d shout.  Finally she would blow the whistle.  With a frenzied rush of excitement, that only a hundred or so kids can create, we’d throw our bodies into the pool, flying from every direction.  Off the diving board.  In controlled or uncontrolled leaps off the side.  Sliding over the wall of the baby pool.  Into the big pool we’d come--a wild horde of kids invading the placid surface of the empty pool.  It was a race, a competition we had to see who could get in first.  It was simply for bragging rights, until the next hour.

At the Pool of Bethesda, it wasn’t for bragging rights for which this collection of sick people vied.  It was for healing.  It was out of desperate hope of being made well.  When the whistle was blown, when the angel troubled the waters, imagine the rush of sick, diseased, and crippled bodies the leaped from the sides of that small pool, hoping against hope to be the first one in.

The sick people lay close to the pool because they never knew when the waters would come alive.  It was not something that happened as dependably as Old Faithful.  Sick and infirm people couldn’t just show up at the prescribed time, stand like a crowd of swimmers on their starting blocks, ready to dive in at the first indication of rippling waters.  So full of expectation, imagine how many “false starts” there must have been.

Waiting became a way of life.  Waiting became a main ingredient in their vigilant hopefulness.  But there are many different kinds of waiting.  There is an old Sanskrit poem that reads:
Spring is past,
Summer is gone,
Winter is here,
And my song
That I was meant to sing
Is still unsung.
I have spent my days stringing and restringing my instrument.

Always being in the process of waiting to be waiting, or forever preparing to wait, keeps us from other moments of healing and filling when they come.  So many chances go by to grasp the very thing we desire, simply because we were too busy “stringing our instruments.”  When we bet the farm on just one way to fill our unhealed lives, we miss the other ways that God provides.  We think we can be healed in only one way, and we miss the other ways.

The Pool of Bethesda represents, to the hundreds of crippled and dis-eased people around it, the last chance at hope.  Maybe all these people have given up on any other kind of hope.  Given up on God.  Maybe they’ve said all the prayers they’re going to say.  Maybe they’ve prayed until they were blue in the face.  Maybe they are at the point of desperation--desperate hope--grasping at this last chance opportunity of magic, rippling waters.

Hope emerges when all the things that we thought were in our control are now uncontrollable.  Hope is what we have when we think we don’t have anything else.  Hope is the willingness not to give up precisely when we find no consolation from anywhere else, or anyone else.

Into this area of Jerusalem, into this pool area where people are waiting for ripples, their eyes and attention glued only to the surface of the water, comes Jesus.  Jesus saw, in their longing eyes, the hope that would not give up, even though it was grasping at something hokey.  Jesus looked upon this community of the dis-eased--people who were waiting--waiting and hopeful, for healing and wholeness.

The world is full of hopeful people who still think there has to be a way to make life good for themselves again.  It is a deep yearning in the face of certain realities.  The man, sick for 38 years--basically his whole life--symbolizes the length to which people will wait.  For our whole lives we have been in need of healing, of our emptiness being filled.

But like the man sick for 38 years, we are full of mixed motives.  Do we really want to be healed or not?  Do we want to give up our “illness”?  Do we really want a Savior?

Jesus asked the man a question that only required a yes or no answer.  Instead, the man gave a lengthy “maybe” answer.  Being healed after using his 38 year illness as an excuse and a crutch, the man is not sure he wants to be fully alive, fully healed, fully filled.  He has gotten used to a life of empty dead ends.

Doesn’t that describe where we are?  We are caught up in our style of diseased self-centeredness, and we’re not sure we want to be totally healed of it all.  There’s some of it we kind of like.  We pray for a Savior.  We hope for healing.  But when the Savior shows up, when he’s standing right there next to us, we suddenly start back-peddling.  We’re not sure we want to let go of everything that has defined us for so long, even though it’s a definition of sickness.  Being “sick” suddenly doesn’t look all that bad anymore.

The Savior has come into such a world for such a people.  We are such a people.  Unfilled.  Empty.  Ill.  The 38 year veteran at the Pool of Bethesda is us.  The Savior is standing next to you.  The Savior has asked the question, “Do you want to get well?”  Imagine the dialogue that might take place between ourselves and the Savior.  Maybe something like this:




“Do you want to get well?”
“Do I want to?  Do I want to?  Let me explain.  I’ve tried.  I’ve been to all the doctors.  They all say the same thing.  It’s just not going to happen.  This is as good as it gets for me.”
“Get up.  Stand up.  38 years is too long to be unhealthy.”
“How do you know how long I’ve been ill?  You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know all about you.  Now, stand up.”
“You’re new around here, aren’t you?  How would you know anything about me.  About us here at the pool?  No one else notices us.  If you did notice me, you’d have seen my muscles are all atrophied.  I can’t get up.  I’ve accepted my limitations.  If you really cared, you’d accept my limitations as well.”
“Your only limitation is trying to brush me off and keep me at arms length.  I have not avoided you, nor will I accept your limitations.  I’ve come to make you whole.  Now, get up.  Stand on your own two feet.”
“But I’ve tried.  The best I can do is roll.  Even when I try to get up to get myself into the pool, someone knocks me down or holds me back.  It’s not my fault I’m not well.  Don’t you have any sympathy?”
“Quit making excuses.  And quit blaming.  Stand up tall.”
“But I’m so inadequate.  People wouldn’t know how to relate to me if I were any other way.  And I don’t know if I would know how to relate to them if I were healthy.  They’d have different expectations.  They would expect me to do things for myself if I was healthy.”
“Up on your feet, now!”
“Why do you keep challenging me?  Can’t you see?  Look at me?  Why do you think I can be anything different than what I am?  I can’t change.  People don’t change that fast, if at all.  Do you think that in the time it would take me to stand, that I could change, just like that?  If I could change, it would take a long time.  No, I will always be a worthless cripple.  That guy over there will always be blind.  That woman over there will always be chronically sick.  That woman over there will always be a loony bird.  All of us here are what we are, and we can’t be anything else.”
“If that were true, then I have come for nothing.  If people are only doomed to remain as they are, and have no chance whatever to be different, then there is truly no hope.  And definitely no need for a Savior.  But I am telling you you can be changed in the blink of an eye.  You can be healed.  You can live full.  Now is your chance.  Stand up!”
“I might fall.  People will laugh at me.  I wouldn’t know how to act.  The others here who are still ill would resent me because I got healed and they didn’t.  They are my only friends.  How would I make new ones?  Or, someone might say I didn’t deserve to be made well.  Nobody would help me anymore.  I might be left to myself.”
“So you don’t want to be healed?  Is that what you’re telling me?”
“I want to be healed.  I want to be full of life.  I want to discover what my purpose in life is as a healthy person.  I want to grow.  I want to see the world beyond this pool.  I want to rub shoulders with the world.  But it’s all so scary.  Would God be with me if I were made well?  Would God go with me out into that scary world?  Could I really be sure of that?”
“Look into my eyes.  What do you see in my eyes?  God is here.  Stand up.”
“I don’t know.  This is all I’ve ever known.  I won’t have anyone to show me the way.  I’ll be on my own.  I can’t do it on my own.  It’s safer to just lay here with my friends.”
“That’s why I’m here.  Come.  Life is lived forward, not stuck in one place.  Take my hand.  Stand up and go forward with me.”
“Why should I trust you?  I don’t even know who you are or what your name is.”
“I am the One God sent to bring you to your feet.  I am the one God sent to save you from your serious condition.  I am the one God sent to show you the way.  I am the one to move you from here to out there.  I am the one God sent to keep you safe when you are on your way.  I am the one God sent to fill you up and make you whole.  All you have to do is believe what I say, and show me that you believe what I’m saying by standing up.”
“OK, OK.  I believe you.  At least, I want to believe you.  I hope that’s enough, because here goes.  (pause)  I’m standing!  I’m standing!.  Hey, everyone, look at me!  Whoa.  I feel light-headed.  I feel like I need to lay back down.  But I don’t want to ever lay down again!  I’m walking!  Now I’m standing!  I’m walking.  I’m standing.  Look at me!  Thank you!  Thank you so much!  Let’s go.  Can we go?  I want to get out of this place!”
“After you.”

Lifestory Conversations

"Lifestory Conversations"
John 4:1-29


Probably the most painful thing a person can experience is meaningless.  Life no longer makes sense.  The present seems dead, and you are just going through the motions.  Your past may seem to lock you into this endless, repeatable loop that makes you wonder if you will ever be able to jump off the merry-go-round.  You feel cursed by a sense of emptiness.

Most of us feel this way at some time in our lives.  But at other times, everything seems to make sense.  Our past, present, and future are like a bus that’s going somewhere, taking us somewhere.  We clearly see who the leading characters are in our story; and where the significant turning points have been.  We are able to name that which is really insignificant.  We understand the lessons that we’ve learned.  We have passed through a number of challenges coming out on the other side as better people.  We see life as a great quest that we are on, and it is good.

But circumstances can change in the blink of an eye.  Or the slow hurt of discontent, of apathy, and of meaninglessness empties out our glass.  In those times, what are we to do?  Where are the places we can turn to refill those emotional and spiritual drinking glasses?  Who are those we can lean on who will remain strong and not let us drop?  How can we start writing a new chapter, when the previous one ends?  Or will we be able to write a sequel when the first story of our life seems to have come to an end?

That’s where the woman at the well is.  Her glass is both literally and spiritually empty.  There are a number of signs of her emptiness in this story.  The first sign of it is created by John, the storyteller.  John doesn’t tell us her name.  In the flow of this story we don’t even find out who she is.  She’s just a Samaritan woman.  Emptied people feel like they have no name.  They could be called anything and anyone--it wouldn’t matter to them.  They are nobody’s who don’t even have a name to hang a person on.

Enter Jesus, thirsty and so tired of dealing with people who not only have names--they have titles.  People like the Pharisees.  People who tried to put him in direct competition with John the baptizer, rather than recognizing both John and Jesus were living under the same God.  All of this stuff of his ministry made Jesus feel, as John describes it, “wearied.”  Jesus himself is feeling a bit emptied.  Maybe, not only for the woman’s sake--the woman with no name--Jesus strikes up a conversation, hoping to find some strengthening for his own empty weariness.  Two strangers looking for something real to fill them up.  Engaging in conversation.

How much are we the walking weary?  Even in smaller towns like ours it’s not hard to become a community of strangers because we’ve lost the art and grace of engaging in real conversation.  Even in church we can say polite hellos and shake hands, greeting each other, but still go away feeling lonely and disengaged--in a word, empty.

The late Samuel Miller, a commentator on modern American church life, wrote often about how we in the church have used corporate business models by which to organize church life.  By doing that we end up relating to each other in a mechanically forced way.  He wrote:
Organization can be a quick substitute for redemption.  When two people are relating to each other--and it takes time, reflection and imagination for that to happen--then both are changed, whether they like it or not.  In organization, people merely make contacts, and the result is that no one is changed.  The redemptive quality of human relationships is dropped out; there is no time for it.  It is easier for a church to organize 3,000 people than to redeem one of them.  (Dilemmas of Modern Belief, p. 65)

Add to that what the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber concluded that “all real life is meeting.”  Not “meetings” but “meeting”:  Hearing and sharing conversation, of what I call “lifestory” sharing.  Meeting and conversing with a real person.

That’s what unfolds between Jesus and the nameless woman at the well.  A conversation.  Jesus masterfully moves the conversation from small talk to God-talk, or by the theme of this sermon series, from being empty to being filled.

I’ve talked already about how we may need to be emptied before we can be filled.  That, that is a painful process fraught with huge choices that create all kinds of anxiety.  In this message we find out how we can be a part of that emptying and filling process for another.  We do that through an ongoing conversation where two real people meet and go away changed--maybe even redeemed.

The first part of the conversation between Jesus and the woman, in order to fill her glass, is “making contact.”  Someone has to take the first step.  Someone has to take the initiative to open up the conversation.  Someone has to say, “Hello.”

Jesus’ way of doing this is by asking for a drink.  His opening hello is a statement of his need.  He needs something.  He’s thirsty.  He’s tired.  He’s weary.  He doesn’t even have the strength to lower the bucket into the well.  He doesn’t have anything to drink with, even if he got the bucket raised up out of the well.

Often we come at people we think we can help from a misguided sense of power.  We posture ourselves into some Tarzan-like position, swinging in on our vine, calling out our arrival to signal we are here to save all the helpless natives.  “I’m here to help you,” is what’s being exuded from all of our pores.

Jesus reverses that position of power and puts himself in the position of the needy one.  He gives the woman a sense of power she may have not felt for a long time.  He expresses his dry and tired need and casts the woman in the position of being his Tarzan.  It was a pretty amazing tactic Jesus used.  But the point still is, no matter how you do it, someone has to take that first step.  Why not you?

Secondly, in order to engage another in a lifestory conversation, you may have to risk bridging barriers.  You might have to charge through long held prejudices and preconceptions.

When I was pastoring in Nebraska, I was in the small town of Hickman.  It was a hamlet of 1000 people.  There was only one church.  The Presbyterian Church.  It was started by a town that had basically transplanted itself from Wisconsin to Nebraska.  They were German Presbyterians, close knit and interrelated.

About five miles to the south and east was the little town of Holland.  It was smaller than Hickman, and it had only one church--the Holland Reformed Church.  As you can imagine, they were all Dutch.

The Hickman German Presbyterians called the Holland Dutch Reformed people “peelunkers.”  I have no idea what that derogatory term means, and wasn’t able in the eight years I was there, to find out.  None of the Hickman people even knew what it meant anymore.  Or so they said.  Maybe it was too callous of a term to tell the meaning to their pastor.  The German Presbyterians weren’t allowed to date a Dutch Reformed.  God forbid they’d intermarry.  All that went on up to 20-25 years before I arrived on the scene.

For the woman at the well she was conditioned by over seven centuries of prejudice that went all the way back to the Babylonian conquest of Israel.  The Babylonians transplanted a bunch of their people into Israel to intermarry and intermix.  Those people became the Samaritans.  The Samaritans were thus looked down on by the Jews who were “pure blood,” and culturally “uncompromised.”

That’s what Jesus and the woman had to cut through in order to have filling conversation with each other.  They could have used the past 700 years to beat each other over the head with, and further empty each other.  Or they could set it all aside so true meeting and conversation could happen.  Some times that has to happen in order to have a filling conversation.

The third aspect of Jesus and the woman’s conversation is helping the other find the intersections of their story with The Story--with God’s Story.  The Biblical story is such a profound story because of its many entry points.  It’s those entry points that you can make available to those who are feeling empty.  Ultimately you have to usher an emptied person into something much bigger than just your advice.  You have to bring them to the many doors of God’s Word, and God’s Story.  To help those who are feeling meaningless to be able to say, “God’s Story is my story, too.”

I have found that if I look deeply enough into God’s Story, I don’t find it, it finds me.  The more you connect with God’s Story, the more you can help others make the same connection and say, “I am Adam.  I am Eve.  I am Moses.  I am Ruth or Naomi.  I am Nicodemus.  I am Mary.  I am Martha.  I am the nameless woman at the well.”  In God’s story there are so many intersections we can cross where we can say, “I’ve been here,” or, “I am here.”

Fourthly, know what you have to offer, and don’t be tricked into giving something else.  The woman at the well was trying to pull Jesus into a discussion he didn’t want to have.  She was asking something from him, baiting his hook, that he didn’t want to bite on.  She was asking for answers to questions that ultimately didn’t matter.

Jesus had the “living water” to give, and he wasn’t going to be dissuaded from offering that and giving it to her if she asked.  Living water is a term that was used back then for flowing, fresh water.  That’s what she was hearing.  But Jesus was using the term to mean something else.  In John’s Gospel, whenever Jesus talked about “living water,” he was meaning the Holy Spirit  (7:38-39).  What Jesus knew he had to offer her was the Holy Spirit who comes like a drink of fresh, running water--not stale well water.

So, when we are in conversation with someone who is emptied it’s important to discern what they need, not what they want.  It’s important to see beyond the smoke screens hurting people blow out, masking their needs.  Once their needs are discerned, if you have that to give, make sure that’s what you give.

Fifthly, understand the other person’s pain.  Seek to understand before you are understood.  For the nameless woman, there are a number of indicators of her pain.  First, she came to the well at noon.  Women normally came in the morning, congregating, chatting, filling water pots.  The fact that the nameless woman came at noon means, possibly, she was avoiding the other women.  Avoiding their mean gossip.  Avoiding the judgements.  Avoiding their taunting and catty comments.  That is part of the woman at the well’s pain.  She was ostracized.

The other part of her pain is that she’s been five men’s wife.  Jesus went right for her pain on that one.  In Israel at that time, a man could give a certificate of divorce to a woman, but a woman couldn’t do the same to a man.  And a husband could simply abandon his wife for very trivial reasons.  The wife was powerless to do anything about it.  She could have been kicked to the curb for simply accidentally burning the toast.  Who’s to blame for that?  As with any divorce, and the pain associated with it, it’s important not to be quick to judge.  Jesus certainly showed no judgement.  He simply commended her for being honest about her past.  Jesus was asking for a glimpse into her pain, and she let him in.

When I was serving a church up in Lincoln, Kansas, I went to visit an elderly woman who lived out in the country.  I was looking around her living room, and asked about one of her pictures.  It was her and her husband.  “Is this your husband?” I asked.  She immediately burst into tears.

I asked her what was wrong.  Her husband had died about 10 years previous.  Right after he died her adult children gave her a trip to Hawaii to “get away from it all.”  When she got back, all her friends wanted to talk about was the trip.  No one wanted to talk about her husband and the great loss she was feeling at his death.

She had never worked through her grief, and had no one who was willing to walk with her in her pain. They created this conspiracy of silence around her.  For ten years.  Until I arrived, and in a simple pastoral visit, asked an innocent question about a picture.  As a result of that question, she let me in on her pain.

If we are going to participate in God’s filling up of a person with the living water of the Holy Spirit, we must first fully gain a glimpse into the pain that bubbles up out of people’s emptiness.

Sixthly, we want to bring the emptied people we know into the presence of God, not the presence of religion.  As I mentioned before with point four, the woman kept trying to find her answers in the traditions of her religion.  Jesus kept bringing her back to God.  Jesus, finally, tried to bring the woman back to relationship with himself.  It’s not about religion.  It’s about relationship.

That’s the seventh and final aspect of having filling conversations with people.  In the conversation of bringing the woman into the presence of God, Jesus revealed something important about himself, that up to this point in John’s gospel, he hadn’t revealed to anyone else.  That’s how Jesus brings this healing conversation to a close, in a daring and caring self-revelation about who he really is.  Jesus brings her back to dealing with a person, not a religion.  Instead of avoiding through traditional theologies, the woman is being forced into a relationship with Jesus.  “Forget about what you knew,” Jesus is saying.  “Here I am.  Deal with me.”

In that way, Jesus’ surprise self-disclosure is a gift to the woman.  She gets in on a divine secret that elevates her sense of self-importance way above anything she’s felt before.  She’s included, by God, in the divine mystery of the Messiah.  She is!  And that self-disclosure creates a sense in the woman that this guy is genuinely interested in her as a person, and is showing caring concern for her.  For her!  Don’t be afraid to reveal something of yourself that creates the bridge of genuine caring between you and those who you talk to who are empty.


The story ends with a masterful storytelling stroke.  The woman leaves Jesus by the well (did he ever get that drink of water?).  But the story says she left her water pot at the well.  She has been filled.  She has no need for the well water.  She’s been filled with the “living water” Jesus had to give her--a living water he says will literally last her “forever.”  She accepted what he was offering her.  What she thought were her needs are no longer needed.  And she is filled and empowered simply by their conversation.  So much so, that she goes to have a similar conversation with her village about how she’s been filled by the self-revealing Messiah.

Oh that others will go away from us, and our conversations with them, just as filled.