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Parable of the Prodigal Son or Prodigal Father?

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Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
So Jesus told them this parable:
“There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them.

The definition of the word prodigal is: a person who spends money in a recklessly extravagant way. Or someone who is wastefully extravagant.

I don’t know about you, but I feel like I could use some wasteful extravagance in my life. For two long years we have been living small, keeping to ourselves, pairing down. Nothing these days happens with reckless abandon. Everything is cautious and circumscribed. If that prodigal son was feeling even a bit like we do, it is no wonder he was looking for signs of life elsewhere. 

This story of the prodigal son is a familiar story that most of us could probably retell the if we were we put on the spot. In fact, the term “prodigal son” can be applied to a person or situation, and most people will know the meaning. Even if most Christian images and symbols are being forgotten in culture, the prodigal son and his story endures. There must be something about this story that bears familiarity to our own experience and lives. 

But the problem with familiarity is that meaning can be reduced and simplified. The power of the parable can be lost. And the prodigal son, like all good parables that Jesus tells, is not meant to be a simplistic, straight across comparison where the Father equals God, and the son equals humanity. Instead, good parables demand that we put ourselves in the shoes of all the characters, that we put God in the shoes of all the characters, and even consider that we or God might not be any of the characters. 

A few years ago, a good friend who is also a pastor, shared about his experience teaching his confirmation class the parable of the prodigal son. To help the class embody the parable, he had the students act out the story. They found it easy to play the prodigal party boy son and the dutiful older brother. But when it came time to be the father who ran out to welcome home his lost son, the students would stand and wait with hands on hips, a frown on their face. Or they would scold the returning son for making his father worry. Some even grounded the son when he returned. They just couldn’t imagine a parent who welcomed a delinquent child home without some kind of reprimand.

This well-known parable maybe has something much deeper and radical to say to us that we usually remember. It is easy to assume that the parable of the Prodigal Son is a moralism about doing the right thing. Older son good, younger son bad. Don’t be a younger son, we think is the moral of this tale. But that judgement is not one the text actually makes and to really hear what the parable is saying, we have to step away from the morals and lessons that we assume from the get go.

As with all the parables of Jesus, we need to consider the audience. There are two very different groups that Jesus is speaking to. The first is tax collectors and sinners. Those who owed debts and those who collected, but both of whom were believed to be excluded from God’s forgiveness and mercy. Contrast them with the second group, the Pharisees and scribes, the virtuous religious authorities and leaders who controlled access to God forgiveness and mercy. An audience who represented two very different experiences of God’s love. 

With these two groups in mind, Jesus tells three parables about lost things, the third being about a man with two sons. The younger son asks for his share of his inheritance to strike out on his own in the world. But before we can set to the task of judging this son for his dissolute living, it is important to understand Jewish inheritance practice. In Jesus’ day, it was the norm that the elder son would inherit a double portion of his father’s wealth. The older son in this story would get two thirds of the inheritance, while his younger brother just one third. But not all things were divided this way. As land belonged to families or tribes, the older son would become the one in charge of all the land of his father. He would control not only two thirds of his father’s wealth, but all of his father’s land, his father’s tenants, workers and slaves. And this would include his younger brother. So while we assume that the younger brother is some party animal or that he can’t wait for his father to die to get his hands on his money, it might actually be the case that the younger brother just doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life working under his self-righteous jerk of an older brother. 

And while it might be easy to assume, like his older brother did, that the younger son went and lost his inheritance by immoral living, we don’t really know. It could have been a combination of circumstances, such as poor choices, famine, or being alone in a foreign land. 

Yet, to put the weight of the parable’s meaning on the younger son’s repentance and return home is to miss a key feature of good Hebrew story telling. The last part of the story is often the point. 

And the last part of the story is all about the older son. 

The older son’s refusal to celebrate his brother’s return is more than a mere attitude problem. This older son has fundamentally missed the point. As his father invites him to the banquet, the older son stands in judgement of both his brother and his father. He is indignant. He believes that he is the righteous one. He believes that he has earned his rightful place in his father’s house. He thinks his hard work and obedience entitles him to his father’s wealth and lands, to his father’s position and power. He complains that his father hasn’t recognized his virtue, not even with a modest young goat to enjoy with his friends. Yet, his father has killed the fatted calf for his delinquent brother. The injustice! Never mind that every goat and calf, every robe and ring, every slave and servant (including the younger brother) will one day belong to him. 

It is easy to see the parable of the Prodigal Son about one good son and one bad, yet when we set our assumptions aside and unpack the depths of the story, we can see that it is both sons who are equally lost. And we can see it is isn’t about trying to be more like one son over the other. Instead, we see that there are times in our lives where we have felt self-righteous and indignant, like we have earned our place in the world and more. And there might be other times where we have felt unworthy and unloveable, like we couldn’t possibly be shown mercy and compassion. 

Still, even with a perspective shift in how we see the sons, we are just as unable as those confirmation students to see the radical love of a parent, who loves without reprimand or condition. Yet, the newly understood lostness of both sons helps to sharpen for us just how loving this father is. 

The name western Christians have given this son says much about how we understand this parable: The Prodigal or Wasteful with Money Son. But the Eastern Orthodox church calls this parable the Loving Father. 

Whether it is the son who thinks he is unworthy and undeserving of his Father’s love or it is the son who is indignant and believes that he has earned more than he has received, the father seeks out his sons. Both sons. The well-to-do land-owner father runs down the road in a very undignified fashion welcome his lost younger son home. The generous and compassionate father still goes out to plead with his ungrateful and resentful older son, despite his son’s rejection. This father does not judge, this father does not reprimand, this father does not set condition on his generosity. 

Even when younger takes advantage of his father and loses all that he has been given. Even when older cannot see that he has not actually earned anything, but that his father has freely given all that he has to his son. Both sons are given love and mercy and grace by their father. If anyone is prodigal, if anyone is wastefully extravagant it is the father who is lavish with his love. 

What a radical image of God’s love and forgiveness for Jesus’ audience? A reminder to the Pharisees, Scribes and those of us who think we have earned it, that God’s love cannot be earned because it is already given freely. A reminder to the tax collectors, sinners and those of us who feel unworthy or undeserving, that God’s love is given freely and does not need to be earned. 

This Lenten season we have been confronted again and again with the relationship of love and power. Today, we are shown an image of God’s love that is more generous than we can imagine. 

Today, our Prodigally loving God shows us just how far God will go to find us.  

covid-19, Sermon, Theology & Culture

Love that couldn’t care less for power

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Luke 13:31-35
Some Pharisees came and said to Jesus, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’ Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

King Herod was not a well liked King. 

He was a puppet King for the Roman who didn’t really care about who was King over the backwater province of the empire, Judea. The people of Israel didn’t care for Herod, knowing that he was all about power. But like most people in power, Herod made the right allegiances; with Rome and with Hebrew the religious authorities. 

So when the Pharisees come to Jesus with a Message, he knows they too are puppet authorities, doing the puppet King’s dirty work in order to hold on to their own power and privilege. 

Today, on the second Sunday of Lent we continue with Jesus who can’t help but be confronted by people who think they have power. Last week, it was the Devil tempting Jesus to misuse the power of incarnation, the power that comes along with being God and being God in flesh. The Devil’s temptations set the stage for the recurring theme that Luke’s gospel holds up for us this Lenten season. The Devil tries to offer Jesus power. And now the Pharisees come to Jesus with a warning. They sound sympathetic, maybe even concerned for Jesus. Herod is out to get you, they warn. And it just so happens that getting rid of Jesus might also be convenient for them. 

Herod, the unpopular King and the righteous yet conspiring Pharisees, are concerned about their power. They are concerned about Jesus’s impact on their power and privilege. They have worked to build alliances, with their unpalatable overlord Romans, and with each other. Their power is tenuously held and only maintained by fear and division. With soldiers who intimidate, with control over money, over the temple, over the city of Jerusalem. 

Yet, no matter their work to maintain their power, they cannot gain the confidence and support of the people. Yet, Jesus who doesn’t seem to be looking for any power, is wandering the countryside, living off the generosity of others. Jesus is popular and therefore powerful in the eyes of Herod and the Pharisees. And while he hasn’t made a play for their power yet, they know it will come. And so they conspire. They will frighten Jesus off. Just as they frighten the people with soldiers or unrighteousness. They see Jesus as a threat who must be dealt with. 

Like the Pharisees, our world too is full of misuse of power. As we watch an awful and tragic invasion of Ukraine, we see a desperate despot casting about for power and former glory. Closer to home we also see politicians and corporations pandering to our consumerist desires in the hopes of acquiring our votes and our dollars. We also look about and see our unhappy neighbours, friends and families lashing out at the world, frustrated by all the ways they feel their power and freedom slipping from their grasp. We look at this community and other churches like it, and we see something that once occupied a place of central power and importance in the world, being slowly sapped of energy and resources, crumbling before our very eyes. 

Power does that. Power makes the powerful manipulate and play games. The loss of power splits, divides and demoralizes. 

And in all of that, the powerful King Herod, the power hungry Pharisees and we who feel as though we are leaking power, all share in one thing:

We all feel threatened by Jesus. 

There is a something inside of all of us that gets anxious and concerned when Jesus starts talking about what God wants for us. A thing inside of us that is tangled and twisted. That thought in the back our minds, that feeling that makes our blood pressure rise. It is the thing inside of us that makes us fearful of our neighbours. It it the thing that makes us resentful of having to change our lives for the sake the world around us. It is the thing that inside of us that closes us off to people who think differently than we do. The twisted tangled thing makes us shout our opinion louder, makes us wall ourselves off to the other, makes us fear difference, makes us angry when we feel aggrieved. 

The twisted, tangled thing is what Martin Luther called the Old Adam, the Old Sinner.

It is sin. 

And the sinner inside of us bristles when Jesus starts talking about the first being last, and losing our lives to save them. The sinner doesn’t like the idea that God’s forgiveness isn’t deserved, that we aren’t entitled to it.  

The twisted tangled sinner is the part of us that thinks power will save us. That controlling the world around us will keep us from being hurt. That protecting ourselves from anyone different from us is the way to be safe. 

And when Jesus starts talking about giving up power, the old sinner feels threatened. And when Jesus starts talking about prophets being stoned and hinting at crucifixion, the old sinner will have none of it. Like the Devil who thought power was the purpose last week, the old sinner thinks power is our salvation. 

The pharisees warn Jesus that Herod is willing to kill Jesus for the sake of power. 

Herod is worried that his power could be taken by the popular preacher Jesus. 

How wrong can Herod and the Pharisees be?

How completely off the mark can the twisted, tangled sinner inside of us get?

Jesus has come in weakness, not power. 

Jesus has come to be open, not closed off. 

Jesus has come to be vulnerable, not fearful. 

Jesus has come to show love. 

Love that will change us. 

Love that will undo the twisted, tangled thing inside of us. 

Love that risks being hurt, being unsafe, being weak in order to come close and near. Love that gathers and holds us together under its wings. 

Love that couldn’t care less for power. 

Herod and the Pharisees don’t live in a world of love. They don’t know how to let go of the little power that they have. They can’t see that Jesus hasn’t come for power, they cannot see how Jesus is trying to show God’s love to the world. 

And Jesus knows this. Jesus knows that the same crowds will chant “Blessed is He who comes in the same of the Lord” on Sunday, will shout crucify by Friday because they want a King of power, not a King of love. 

Jesus knows that the Pharisees who are warning him to get away will soon cry to Pilate to do their dirty work. 

Jesus knows that the King Herod will defer to the power of Rome to finally rid his Kingdom of this popular preacher. 

Jesus knows that their desire for power will lead to death. 

It is the way of the Old Sinner. 

But Herod and the Pharisees don’t know that Jesus is willing to die for the sake of love, willing to die to save the world. 

But we do. 

And still this Jesus who saves the world, who endures our greatest power of death to show love, still threatens us. 

Because the old sinner within us who pushes us to fear, to resent, to be closed off, to divide and to control… this old sinner, this twisted and tangled thing knows that the love of Jesus will change us. That love will untwist and untangle. That love will forgive and show grace. 

And Jesus knows that love makes us anxious, that old sinner, the twisted and tangled thing doesn’t want to be loved. Jesus knows that loving us will transform us. Jesus knows that loving us will make us care less about ourselves and more about others. Jesus knows that love will make us less afraid, less closed off, less divided, less controlling, worry less. 

Jesus knows love will make us let go of power… 

Herod wasn’t a well-liked King and the Pharisees weren’t well-liked religious rulers. We are people threatened by love.  

And Jesus isn’t either of these things either. Not puppet King, nor religious overlord, nor symbol of power and influence. 

Jesus is a mother hen with nothing but love to give. Love for sinners who feel threatened. Love for tangled and twisted people who get anxious. 

And just like stubborn chicks who need their mother hen, Jesus love will gather and change us too.

covid-19, Sermon, Theology & Culture

Jesus in the Wilderness and Temptations that aren’t Temptations.

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GOSPEL: Luke 4:1-13
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, 2where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. 3The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” 4Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’ ”…

Here we are, on the doorstep of the mysterious season of Lent. Mysterious because unlike Christmas and Easter, Lent is mostly a non-event outside the walls of the church. Beginning with Ash Wednesday – a Wednesday hardly noticed by the world – we enter into this strange springtime season when we know that we are supposed to be more solemn, more serious than usual. 

When I first started as a pastor, the congregation I served only vaguely knew about Lent. The colours changed at the front of the church according to some kind of calendar, but for what reason wasn’t known. 

And at times in my time in ministry, people have pushed back against observing Lent. 

“Can’t we just have one song with an Alleluia Pastor?” 

“Do we have to give something up?”

“Can’t be a little less serious and more happy?”

Of course we *can* do those things, it isn’t about what we can and cannot do. Rather the question is what ought we to do as ones who belong to the Body of Christ, as a world -wide community of practitioners of this common faith in Jesus and how we walk together through the different seasons of our life and witness. 

And so, as we step into this season of Lent, we so do following paths trodden by the faithful over centuries. Paths towards a deeper understanding of faith, towards a growing awareness of God’s mercy to be poured out for us in Christ. 

Each year on the first Sunday in Lent we journey into the wilderness with Jesus. We hear how Jesus is tempted by the Devil. This is the place where our Lenten journeys begins. In the wilderness, on the road to Jerusalem and Good Friday. We are being made ready for a transformed life in Christ. But this is only the beginning. 

We stand by while Jesus and the devil interact. We watch as Jesus is offered things that the devil hopes will divert Jesus from his mission. 

As we watch Jesus, the model resistor, this familiar story is often upheld as a formula for Christian living. Jesus’ responses are said to be sure-proof ways to avoid temptation, as if two people slapping each other with bible verses prevented anything. 

Of course there is no manual and this is not a video guide demonstrating the right techniques of temptation avoidance. 

In fact, as we hear this familiar story today there is a strange tension about these temptations. They are things that have caused all the prophets who have come before to fall: 

Moses  committed murder, 

Elijah  stuck his neck out and then last all hope, 

And Abaraham, Isaac, and Jacob, 

And King David and Solomon… 

even God’s chosen prophets, especially God’s chosen prophets and kings fell for one reason or another. 

And yet, Jesus is different. It isn’t that Jesus has some kind of super human will power, it is that these temptations for Jesus, the son of God, the prophet of the most high God, are not really temptations at all. 

The Devil has forgotten or doesn’t really understand just who he is speaking with. 

Jesus has been declared God’s chosen, God’s son. The Devil thinks he is dealing with another prophet, he does not understand that this Prophet is not only one who speaks with God’s voice, but is the very Word of God made flesh.

The devil is trying to sell power that the devil does not have to give and Jesus knows it. The devil is really doing something that we do on a regular basis. The devil is trying to act as God, trying to be God in God’s place. To control and handle God. To make his will, God’s will. 

The devil asks God to bend to creaturely concerns, to the whims and desires of the finite and created. The devil’s temptations are not offers of power, but demands that God act according to the devil’s desires.

And if we are honest… the temptations that the devil offers aren’t really temptations to us either, because we all too often seek them our shamelessly.

If we could command the angels, we would! It would be a virtue, we would feel like superheroes. We would wish this pandemic way, we would send them into the hospitals and grocery stores, to provide childcare and senior-care we would find a million places to put them to work. 

If we had the power over kingdoms… we know well the pursuit of power in this world. Power on any scale from families, neighbourhoods, workplaces all the way up to cities and nations requires controlling others, taking away their power. We are watching the worst of it unfold before our very eyes Ukraine. The Power over Kingdoms and armies sought by one unstable dictator means violence, destruction, war and death. It means sending our young to sit behind tanks and guns to destroy cousins and neighbours. 

If we could turn stones into bread… it is the most seductive temptation of them all. The temptation to survive at all costs, to seek our own satisfaction, to put ourself first above all others. A temptation that looked like convoys rolling down Portage Avenue in protest of masks and vaccine passports, while at the Jets game the Hoosli choir sang for freedom in front of Winnipeg and the whole world.

These temptations that are presented to Jesus are things our world simply strives for, often at all costs, often proclaiming the virtuousness of power, control, of being satiated and comfortable, of putting ourselves first. 

At their core, these temptations are about getting Jesus to set aside his mission. To set it aside in favour of just being, just striving, just existing. But at the cost of giving up something of himself, to be less than the full Son of God, less than the full Messiah sent to save. 

The same thing that these temptations do to us…by asking us to set aside our callings and purposes, in order to just be, to just exist, to just take up space without moving forward.

And yet, there in the hot, dry, sandy landscape of the wilderness, there tired, hungry, thirsty, chapped lip, windblown, and dusty Jesus sticks to the mission. 

As the Devil says to the same God who spoke all of creation into being from nothing…  If you are God, turn this rock into bread and Jesus says, “One does not live by bread alone”. God in Christ reminds the devil that the Word is standing there in the flesh.  

And then on top of world, the devil offers Jesus power over all nations if he would only bow down to chaos and confusion personified. The devil offers earthly power to the same God who has just been born in a manger as powerless baby, who has come to live in the created world, to play in the mud and sleep over at the neighbour’s house, to stub his toes and hug his parents, to go to weddings and learn the torah in the temple as a teenager. 

Then the Devil says worship me, and Jesus says “Worship the Lord your God and serve only him.” God in Christ reminds the devil that being God is not about power, but rather about giving up power in order to love and to love deeply. That being worshiped is not about being on top, but how God comes down to us.  

And then from the top of the world to the temple of Jerusalem. The devil asks Jesus to prove who is. The devil asks Yahweh Elohim, the God of Abraham and Sarah, of Isaac and Jacob, and Joseph. The God of Moses and Elijah. The devil asks this God to prove who he is on top of his own house, on top of the place that God’s chosen people come to worship the one true God.

The Devil says throw yourself from this temple, and Jesus says, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test”. God in Christ reminds the devil that there is no need to prove who he is… that this whole mission, that incarnation, ministry, crucifixion and resurrection are about God showing us who we are  – God’s beloved children. 

Jesus sticks to the mission. Because Jesus has come to fulfill God’s love and mercy given for us, to bring us back from being less than and to reclaim in us our calling and purpose. Jesus has come to pull us back from the brink of temptation and set us again on the way. The way to God. 

And so we begin each Lent in this same way. This mysterious, mostly unobserved season meets us in the messy world. In the world where we are seeking the satisfaction of bread, reaching for all power, looking to worship and follow the wrong things… and this year especially in all the worst ways. 

And Jesus reminds us that he has come into our world for a purpose. For a purpose revealed last week on the mountain of transfiguration, but soon to be revealed again on the mountain of Golgotha. Jesus has come not to prove who God is to us, but remind us again and again and again who God says we are. 

So as we set out on our Lenten journey today, God in Christ sets out with us knowing that we will forget who Jesus really is, but God never forgets who we are. 

covid-19, Sermon, Theology & Culture

Practicing life and death with the ashes – A Sermon for Ash Wednesday

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GOSPEL: Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Jesus said to the disciples:] 1“Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven…
5“And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you….

Growing up my family was committed to being in church every Sunday, and often another night of the week for youth or orchestra practice or another church event. 

But Ash Wednesday was one of those days that seemed to get lost in the shuffle of family life. The way it moved around because of Easter, it sometimes landed on the same night as sports or music practice, some years its was during reading week at University. 

Yet, on the years when we did make it, it felt like it came out of nowhere. 

Church has just been merrily humming along through Christmas and the new year. Stories of Jesus’ miracles and the memorable story of Jesus going up the mountain, being transformed into dazzling white. A story that I can remember occupying my imagination as a child. 

Then all of sudden, the brightness of that moment is gone and rather than a mountain top, Jesus is giving a dinner table lecture on pride and boastfulness. Jesus’ instruction to pray behind locked doors invoked the image of praying in the closet to my mind as a child. 

But then the year that I did my pastoral internship, my supervisor had me help him burn the palms from the palm Sunday the year before. And a strand of connection materialized, a circle from humanity’s act of welcoming and then crucifying Messiah was made. This Ash Wednesday confession both rooted us in our great sin of trying to be God in God’s place both before the day of ashes and in the time to come as we retold the story of Holy Week soon again. 

In my first years as a pastor, the weight of Ash Wednesday would eventually hit me like never before. Ash Wednesday in its pacing and words feels like a funeral liturgy. Funerals which can come at any time and out of nowhere, interrupting any season of life. 

A good friend and seminary classmate wound up serving neighbouring coigretaion, and so we shared Ash Wednesday worship. As we stood together at front of the church, while worshippers came forward to receive ashes, the blessing took on more weight. 

“Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return” takes on all kinds of new meaning when you have stood over a casket being lowered into a grave, and while dirt made the sign of the cross while declaring “Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust.” Especially so when you are imposing ashes onto the foreheads of spouses and siblings and cousins and friends of those whom you have blessed into the earth. 

As we made the sign of the cross in ashes on those that we served, finally it came time for my friend’s eldest son to receive ashes, maybe 5 or 6 years old at the time. I remember my friend stumbling back as if hit by a wall. He tried to compose himself to reach forward with his ashy thumb to mark his son. But he was barely able to choke out the words, “Remember you are dust…”

It is a pleasure to bless those whom we love. But it is a terrible burden to make that same sign of the cross in ash, to receive that sign of the cross in ash from those that we love – a souse, a child, a parent, a friend or even any cherished sibling in Christ. 

I could not help but think of that Ash Wednesday moment this week when I saw the video of Ukrainian father weeping as he hugged his young daughter goodbye. It was an Ash Wednesday moment seen around the world. 

For you see, Ash Wednesday truly the acknowledgement of the realities of sin and death in our world. WE confess both the truth of our sinfulness and the truth of our mortality.

And we practice. 

Just like in Nighttime Prayer, when we entrust our selves into God’s care through the night, it is an echo of the same blessing of entrusting ourselves to God that is said at funerals, the same blessing repeated at grave sides just before “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” On Ash Wednesday we rehearse having ashes and dirt put on us in the sign of the cross.

But even if we do not make it to Ash Wednesday each year the Ashes – the signs and symbols of sin and death – are still all around us. The signs of humanity’s sin, and suffering, the signs of our morality and dying are all around us. 

What is the pandemic if not Ashes?

What were the convoy protests if not Ashes?

What is this war in Ukraine if not ashes?

And yet…

And yet even though the Ashes dominate the day, even though they seem to ever surround us… 

The ashes are not the real point of the day.

The Ashes are a symbol that blows away in the wind, that washes off without a problem, that disappears as easily as they appear. Their impermanence is the point.

The Ashes only ever reveal what is already and was always there – what is underneath the sign they mark.

The mark of the One who has claimed us from the beginning.

The sign of the One of will not leave us to our morality, who will not leave us to the ashes and dust.

The cross of the One who turns the Ashes into something new, who turns us into someones made new.

Just as the ashes are all around, so to is the sign of the one in whom we are made new. 

The Ashes remind us that we are finite beings on our way to death AND they also remind us that One whose Cross they are marked in is the God of Life. 

The One who is also all around, found among the ashes wherever they are.

The One is comes to us in Word, Holy Baths and Holy Meals. 

Who does not abandon us in the time to trial and tribulation, who holds pandemics, occupations and even war in God’s hands. 

The One whose cross marks our bodies forever a sign that while we practice for the time when we die… we also rehearse and practice the promise that we too, on the 3rd will be called forth from our graves, as the ashes fall away, into resurrection and new life. 

covid-19, Sermon, Theology & Culture

God’s Interruption of Our Expectations – A Sermon on Transfiguration

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GOSPEL: Luke 9:28-36 [37-43a]
Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. 29And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. 30Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. 31They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. 32Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. 33Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah”—not knowing what he said. 34While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. 35Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” 36When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen. 

Today, we come to the end of an unusually long season after Epiphany… Nearly two months ago, a lifetime ago, we gathered with the wisemen around the Christ-child to worship this new king sent to save the people. And in the weeks that followed, the divine Christ was revealed to us in different ways, each time pushing us, making us ready for today. For this journey up the mountain of Transfiguration… because on the mountaintop everything changes and the world as know it will come to an end. On this mountain, Jesus charts a course that puts him on a collision course with our efforts to be like God, to be in control of our own fate. 

Transfiguration Sunday is a hinge Sunday, a Sunday that swings us from one part of the story into the next. From the dark of Christmas night, into the bright noonday desert sun of Lent. Transfiguration is that moment where the bright lights are too much to take in and our eyes need some time to adjust.

These past two months have shown us a world that we were not prepared to see, a world that we did not expect. It has felt as between Sundays, between the stories that showed us again and again the Christ revealed in ways – in his baptism, at the wedding of Cana, filling fishing hets on the lake, preaching in Nazareth, and preaching blessings on the plain…. In between of all that a Pandemic thought to be winding down has raged, our family friends and neighbours occupied streets in Ottawa, important border crossings and the roadways outside of provincial legislatures all in name of freedom, with some white supremacy accelerationismon the side. And then as if that wasn’t enough… a peace between western nations that has last, if not uneasily, for 70 years, was broken as Russian military forces invaded Ukraine. 

In in twist of sick irony, the bright lights of bombs and gun fire has revealed to us a whole new world. 

Back on the mountain of transfiguration, things begin innocuously enough down in the valley, where Jesus decides to bring a select few with him to climb a mountain. Peter, James and John… oh, and the rest of us… are chosen to follow Jesus up the mountain. If you have ever had the chance to climb a mountain, you will know that it is not as glamorous as it sounds. It is mostly staring at the ground and the feet of the person in front of you as you tiredly trudge uphill. Once in a while there is a stop or pause to admire a view, but then more trudging. 

So after Jesus, Peter, James and John have trudged up their mountain, the disciples are understandably tired, sleepy even. And in their tired and sleepy state all of a sudden, Moses and Elijah appear. The two greatest prophets of Israel. And they are standing next to Jesus… but not normal Jesus. Jesus in dazzling white, looking suitably prophet-esque himself. 

Now before unpacking what happens next, it is important to know about all the clues we missed up until this point. The religious practice of Israel of the day was centred around the Jerusalem temple and laws of Leviticus. Making sacrifices in the temple and keeping the laws to maintain one’s purity and righteousness was how you stayed in God’s good books. The burden of righteousness of salvation rested on the shoulders of people. And the Jerusalem temple and its priests were the chief judges and gatekeepers of righteousness, making sure that only those who could keep the law and make sacrifices were given righteous status. 

But before the levitical laws and Jerusalem temple, there were the prophets of Israel. Messengers appointed by and speaking on behalf of God who brought God’s righteousness and mercy and compassion to God’s people. These prophets were the patriarchs of Israel, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But chiefly Moses and Elijah. And these prophets represented God away from the temple, and apart from the following the law. They often came preaching from the wilderness, they met God on holy mountains, they brought the very voice of God to God’s people. 

So as Jesus and his disciples trudge up this mountain, the clues are there. Jesus is not aligning himself with the centre of religious authority, with the temple and its laws. But rather with the prophets of old, those appointed directly by God to represent God to the people. 

And there on the mountain of transfiguration, Jesus receives his prophetic appointment, just as Moses and Elijah did. Confirmation that God was sending Jesus, the Messiah, to bring God’s righteousness, God’s love and mercy to God’s people. 

And yet even in this moment Peter cannot escape the burden of keeping the law, the sense that he must do that work of saving himself. 

“It is good for us to be here, let us make three dwellings.”

Peter wants to preserve this holy moment and make it a holy place, a place where the faithful can go to earn their righteousness. Peter just cannot imagine a faithfulness that doesn’t include his responsibility to earn his salvation. Peter cannot imagine a faithfulness outside of what he knows and experienced outside of his expectations.

We see you Peter. And we know you. 

We totally get this feeling. 

As for the past 20 years our world slowly shifted and twisted away from our expectations, as the church slowly but surely stopped being a given in Canadian society, in the lives our neighbours, friends, and family… maybe even in our own week to week routines… We understood that feeling that Peter has… we know in our bones what the world is supposed to look like, we know what being faithful Christians takes. And it almost hurts things aren’t just woking they are supposed to anymore. 

Following the rules, paying taxes, working hard is not the guarantee of a safe, secure, peaceful life it once was. Showing up to church with an offering envelope – when Sunday morning didn’t conflict other more exciting options – isn’t the promise that church will just be there when we need it that it once was. 

And certainly these past 2 years have crumbled our expectations that life will just keep going as it always has, the pace of change accelerated while we have held on desperately to the hope that we can go back to what things were. 

Finally this week, the 70 years of relative security and comfort for the Western World has come crashing down. Where we go from here no one knows, but building a dwelling place on top of a mountain is possible any more. There is no going back. 

So yeah, we totally get Peter’s feeling of being burdened. We would almost certainly want to do the same thing if we were standing on that mountain, we would try to capture the moment, hoping to continue life as we once knew it. 

Yet, before Peter gets too far into his plans to hold on.

God interrupts. 

Just as God spoke in Jesus’ Baptism, just as God spoke over the waters of creation, God speaks again. 

“This is My Son, My Chosen, listen to him!”

And what is that Jesus has said?

Well, he has NOT told his disciples and the crowds that earning their righteousness comes through keeping the law and making sacrifice at the temple. 

In fact, the last time that Jesus said anything before going up this mountain was to predict his death. That he will suffer, be rejected and be killed. And on the third day be raised again. 

Jesus has just told his confused disciples that he is coming to meet God’s people, to meet them in the midst of their suffering and rejection. And to die just as they die. Jesus has just told his disciples that he has come to bridge the distance between God and creation, and has come to carry their burdens. 

Jesus has come to carry their burden of righteousness earning to the cross.

Jesus has come to carry our burden of faithfulness to the grave. 

Jesus has come to carry the burdens of God’s people so that we don’t have carry our burdens alone.

This Messiah born in the manger, baptized in the Jordan, who turned water into wine in Cana, who filled the fishing nets on the lake, who preached on the plain… this Jesus, transfigured Prophet of the most high God does not stay on the mountain for an important reason. 

God’s prophets are not sent to go up mountains.

They are sent to go down.  

To bring God down to God’s people. 

Jesus the Messiah is coming down the mountain with Peter, James and John… and the rest of us… so that we can know that it is not our burden to earn our righteousness nor our right to stay on the mountain-top. So that we can face our changing world, even though we would rather stick with a world that meets our expectations. 

Still, God has always been coming down to meet us and to carry our burdens, to walk with us in suffering, to show us the way through uncharted waters.

God comes down to meet us every time we gather as community, no matter how many of us there are. 

God comes down to us whether we are in church every week, or have forgotten that church entirely. 

God comes to down to us in a world that we hardly recognize, to remind that us in the midst of the chaos God reminds the same and holds us to a faith that roots us in the image of God, that gives us an identity in the Body of Christ. 

God comes to meet us in this place and in many more places of worship whether they are full or nearly empty, whether the budget is easy to meet or underwater, whether we follow the success comes easy or we have no idea where to begin. 

God comes to meet us because we are God’s people, weighed down with burdens that only God can carry. 

And so God comes to carry them and to carry us. 

In God’s Word spoken here, in the waters of God’s cleansing grace, in the bread and wine of mercy, Christ’ body and blood – in all these things, God comes down the mountain to us. 

And so on this Transfiguration Sunday, as we also go down the mountain with Jesus, we are reminded  God is always on the way down to us.