Sermon for Sunday, March 11, 2012 Lent III John 2:13-22 “Form Follows Function”

Form follows function. So wrote the modernist architect Louis Sullivan at the turn of the 20^th century. Sullivan, whose work largely consisted of tall simple skyscrapers, believed that the shape of the thing should be determined by how it was going to be used. Anything else, anything that was part of the building simply for aesthetic purposes, was superfluous. And so we’ve got these tall boring office buildings, devoid of elegance, simply matchboxes set on their end, because Sullivan, and other modernist architects through the 20^th century, decided that the shape of the thing should be determined only by what would be done in it.

There is something in our hearts that fights this notion. We like beautiful design, whether as part of a sculpture or painting, or a stained glass window, or a clever tool. We troop to places like Biltmore in Asheville to see ornament on top of ornament, made with skill and at incredible cost, and we marvel at it. And the bulk of that ornament is extraneous to the function of the thing it decorates.

We here in Richmond seem to have a particular fondness for design that is only marginally related to function…why else would we take such pleasure in Barry Flanagan’s “Large Leaping Hare,” that gilded rabbit that seems to float across space at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts? Why else would we so love places like Maymont’s Japanese Gardens or the children’s treehouse at Lewis Ginter? We do like beautiful things, and that is not a bad thing in design.

But I’d submit that Christianity is a faith of form following function, despite the Gothic cathedrals that we have built and the exquisite art and music that have been created to the glory of God.

At its best our faith is a stripped down kind of thing, that takes away the things that distract us from focusing on God, and repositions our field of view toward the divine.

That seems to be what motivates God in giving the Ten Commandments to Moses. The wayward Israelites, wandering around the desert in search of the place where they belong after escaping Egypt, seem to be getting off track. They need a little shaping up, and Moses is exhausted and frustrated trying to do it alone. So God sends him back down from the mountain with a pretty straightforward set of rules designed to turn them away from the things that get them into trouble, and turn them back toward the God who brought them out of Egypt.

It also seems to be what is motivating Jesus in the Gospel of John. In John’s version of the story, unlike that of the other Gospels, this event occurs early in Jesus’ active ministry. He has just turned water in to wine at the wedding feast at Cana, something of a sneak preview to the disciples of what will follow. He comes to the temple in Jerusalem so that he can celebrate the Passover, and he finds the outer precincts of the temple full of people selling animals for ritual sacrifice and changing Roman coin – forbidden in the Temple – for Temple coinage. It’s probably pretty ripe-smelling, given all that livestock in an enclosed area, and it’s probably also pretty noisy, with merchants calling out to prospective customers and offering them the best price. Not exactly the holy temple of God, at least in that section of the building.

At first glance, it might seem to us that these merchants are following that dictum “form follows function.” After all, if the law says you need animals to be given for burnt or blood offerings, if you need to get rid of the Roman coin which had a picture of the Roman emperor lauded as a god on it, doesn’t it make sense that you need space dedicated to that function? These merchants are simply helping the worshippers at Herod’s temple to adhere to the law, right? So why does Jesus get so incensed?

And now we turn back to that phrase of “form follows function.” What is the function of the Temple? To be a place where the faithful can worship God. That is the sole function of the Temple. So if form follows function, of course Jesus would remove those extraneous things that distract from the primary function, the worship of God.

So Jesus starts doing the spring cleaning to end all spring cleaning. He goes after the merchants with a whip, driving them out of the temple, overturning the money-changing tables. He is going to clean this place so that it can be a place solely for worship again.

And this is, in fact not too surprising at the time of Passover, when the Israelites would clean their houses from top to bottom, removing the slightest trace of yeast or old food so they could be just the same as their ancestors who left Egypt in such a rush that they didn’t even have time to let the bread rise. Jesus is cleaning his house, just as his mother was probably cleaning out the family home back in Nazareth.

But he does get some pushback from the Jewish leaders, who may have gotten some sort of percentage of the profits those merchants made. They ask him, “what gives you the right to do this thing?” And Jesus responds with a phrase that is so modernist, so stripped down of explanatory ornament, that they don’t know what to make of it: “destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” They are shocked. This is Herod’s great temple. It is enormous and highly decorated and has taken 46 years to build…is he blaspheming? But as I said, they’ve missed out on the point. He isn’t talking about the building. He is talking about himself. He will be destroyed, but he will rise again in three days.

Here’s the remarkable thing about Jesus, about this passage: he is the ultimate embodiment of “form follows function.” What was his function? To bring us back into a relationship of love and worship and praise and respect with God. To do that, he would have to come among us and teach us in a way we human beings could understand. He would have to serve as the one who could redeem us from our brokenness. That function, that mission, required that he take on human form. It required that he should teach us and heal us and then die for us on the cross. Only then would we be saved, and only then would we know how much God loves us.

So let’s take away the artwork with the gorgeous soft-eyed Jesus with the halo around his head. Let’s take away the worry about whether we are doing our worship right, whether somebody else is doing it better. Let’s take away layers of stuff that we have encrusted upon Jesus and the church over the centuries, and take it to its simplest “form follows function” best.”

What does God expect from us? The ten commandments tell us. Love God, and no other gods. Spend some time in prayer and worship with God. Respect God by not using his name to curse others. Translate the love of God into love and care for others. That is the function of each one of us as people of faith, nothing more, nothing less. And the form is equally clear: pray, worship, share, love. Nothing more, nothing less.

Form follows function in faith as well as architecture. Let us live it.

Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, March 4, 2012 Mark 8:31-38 “Be Careful What You Wish For”

Up until the moment of today’s gospel passage, the evangelist Mark lays out a picture of a powerful Jesus, preaching and teaching and healing all over the Galilee. No wonder, then, that just before this passage, Peter responds to Jesus’ question “Who do you say I am,” by responding “You are the Messiah.” Of course he is the Messiah. Who else could do what Jesus has done?

And this sense that Jesus was the Messiah was not just something that Jesus’ disciples were pondering – the news of his miracles had spread throughout the area and beyond. How the people of Israel must have been excited by the news of this Rabbi and his shocking words and gifts for healing! They must have thought “Finally we get the one we’ve wished for, the one we’ve prayed for, the one who can rescue us from our miserable lives, oppressed by the Roman emperor who considered himself a god, confused by the different religious leaders who are just as political as the Roman emperor. At last, someone who can save us.”

Peter got it right. The people who heard of the miracles were right. Jesus was indeed the promised one, the Messiah. They got their wish.

But the old saying is right: be careful what you wish for. You might get it.

Yes, this was the promised Messiah, this carpenter’s son from Nazareth. A wish, a prayer, fulfilled.

But what did Jesus promise? No sooner than Peter had identified Jesus as the Messiah, than Jesus told him, and the rest of the disciples what that really meant.

It meant that Jesus would undergo great suffering, be rejected by the Jewish religious leaders, and be killed, and then rise again after three days.

Not quite what the disciples expected.

I wonder if those disciples thought that Jesus would banish the Romans, crush them as he had crushed the physical and mental ailments of so many, out-argue the religious leaders, sit on a throne of glory, and they would be his princes, sitting by him and enjoying riches and power and pleasure beyond anything they could imagine.

Instead Jesus was telling them that he was destined to die an ignominious death, broken, scorned. No king of earthly glory. No princehoods. No thumbing their noses at the Romans and the Pharisees and all those who made life difficult in first century Israel. Not a glorious King, but a broken body, bleeding, on a wooden cross.

Was this what they had left their families, their fishing boats, their relatively comfortable lives for? It seemed incomprehensible. How could the man who could drive out demons, heal unimaginable disease and even death, who could win an argument with those scribes and Pharisees, how could this man be killed? It was ridiculous…but this was what he was saying.

His message was plain: if you want to follow me, you have to be prepared for what will come. It will not be princehoods. It will not be earthly glory or wealth. It will mean pain and loss and death.

Not what would encourage them, to be sure, but an important message. They needed to know what they were getting themselves into, and perhaps all the healings and such had distracted them from the work at hand. Perhaps they thought that this would all be about the adulation of the crowd.

They would have to do what he did, to commit to following no matter what the cost – and there would be a cost – and it might well end badly.

And yet, there was also a promise of something wonderful, just not the kind of thing that they had been thinking of. There would be glory, but it would not be an earthly glory, and it would not be immediate.

Deferred gratification. I doubt the disciples were any better at it than we are.

Be careful what you wish for – you might get it. The disciples wished for a king, a messiah. They got it. But the Messiah they got was not necessarily what they expected. Sure, he had the power to heal the sick and to outpreach anyone anywhere. But the work that he was on earth to do was not about getting crowns of laurels here on earth…no, he was intended to wear a crown of thorns here on earth. The crown of crowns wouldn’t come until later.

Yes, Jesus was quite clear about the cost of discipleship: you follow me, you risk all, because this is about your soul, not about your personal aggrandizement. But the corollary is an equally important one for us to remember: you follow Jesus, you don’t get a free ride from the troubles of this earth.

I think of this often when I am with someone who is suffering. Occasionally a relative may say “Why is my loved one suffering so? He has always been such a good Christian. It doesn’t seem fair…why do good people have to suffer?”

And once again, I hear Jesus’ words: “take up your cross and follow me. Those who want to save their life will lose it, those who lose their life for my sake will save it.”

We are not promised a trouble-free life if we are followers of Christ. In fact, we are promised our earthly life will not be easy. Christians don’t get a free ride. Sounds like bad news, doesn’t it? But along with the suffering comes a second promise: follow Christ, and you will be blessed by him when he comes “in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Those of us who suffer are not being punished, we are walking with Christ. As he walks along the way of the cross, we too are walking along that painful road. And most important, he is walking with us.

We wish for a king that will take away our suffering and pain, our doubts and our brokenness…and we have gotten what we wished for. We are getting that king. But this king’s own journey of pain and death before resurrection reminds us that while we get what we wished for, it may not yield exactly the result we anticipate. This king did not avoid earthly pain and suffering, he took it on and went through it. That pain, that suffering, was part of a plan of redemption for our sins. He would not rise in glory, perfectly healed of his suffering, until he suffered. He would not be seated on his king’s throne until another time beyond time and another place beyond our own vision. So, too, will we. This is Jesus’ promise to those who take up the cross and follow him. We have gotten what we wished for. We have our Messiah. He will be with us always, and we will be with him, in a place that is beyond our imaginings, in due time. In the meantime, take up that cross. Follow him. That is the way to the end of the struggle, to the end of sufferings, by going through those sufferings to the place he promises.

So wish for it. You will get what you wish for, and then some. Take up your cross. It takes you to the fulfillment of the promise, at the side of the one who never left your side.

Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, February 26, 2012 Mark 1:9-15

What is Lent about? Is it about giving up chocolate or beer for the season? Is it about depressing hymns and no mention of the “A” word, no joy?

Or is it about something else? Is it about transformation? We talked about that last week, on Transfiguration Sunday, didn’t we? We talked about how we can be changed, how we can become more ourselves, and more deeply children of God.

And now that we are in Lent, it may well be that this is less a time of what we are giving up and more of a time of what we are becoming.

That is clearly what this gospel is about.

We have an incredibly compact version of the beginning of Jesus’ story. As the scholar Marilyn McCord Adams reminds us, this is a familiar story pattern in the Bible: “a candidate is singled out, then taken for a proverbial length of time into a [special space somewhere between earth and heaven] where old identities dissolve and new ones are forged, before being thrust back into society to occupy new roles.”[1]

And this is exactly what happens to Jesus here, isn’t it? The selected one has to go through something akin to a hazing before he is officially in his new role.

It is a violent transformation, this first series of events. It is not a warm and relaxed bath in the Jordan that Jesus experiences when John baptizes him. It is something that causes the heavens to rend open so that the Spirit, in the form of a dove, can come down upon him.

Perhaps we would feel the drama of the moment more if the Spirit came down like a hawk, intensely focused, single-minded on the task at hand, affirming Jesus’ unique mission as God’s Son. Certainly that is not a sweet little gray dove that pokes and prods at Jesus so that he will go out into the desert, that creature that “drove him out into the wilderness.” It is a creature with the intensity of a raptor, bringing Jesus to a place that is uncivilized, not outfitted with the comforts of home, without a 7-11 on the corner to pick up a snack.

No, Jesus is sent to that in-between space where nothing is familiar and everything seems vaguely threatening. He is sent into the wilderness for this preparatory event, a hazing by Satan, to see if he is really made of the right stuff to be who God intends him to be. He is to be tested. Now, Mark’s version of the story simply mentions who does the hazing, without specifying what this weird initiation rite might be. Jesus is there in this strange place, attended by angels and living with wild beasts. He is tempted, but he does not succumb to the temptation, and we don’t hear about Satan again for quite a while. And then it’s over and Jesus is on to the next part of the story.

When you go away for a period of time in the wilderness, in the wild places, you come back changed.

Mark gets that. What does he tell us? Jesus is baptized, and the heavens are torn asunder in that moment. Jesus goes into the wilderness, and Satan is dismissed. John the Baptizer is arrested, his reform movement stopped in its tracks, and Jesus, that guy who used to help out his dad in the carpenter’s shop, who would bring firewood for his mother to cook with, this changed Jesus takes up his new role as the one who brings God’s word, and proclaims that he has brought good news.

The heavens torn asunder, the hero challenged and transformed, a new message cried out in the land.

All in six verses.

But in six brief verses, there is more that goes on underneath the surface. It is always so when one moves through the end of one’s old life and into a new one.

Part of the change is about what happens in the baptism. When John the Baptizer came out of the wilderness and took Jesus into that water, I doubt that anyone there expected the dramatic thing that happened. But something did happen. We do not know if the onlookers heard the voice, saw the sky rent asunder, watched the dove descending. But we do know that Jesus certainly saw and heard and felt that he was being brought from his old world with all its comfortable normalcy, into a new wilderness, akin to the wilderness that his baptizer had resided in during John’s ministry. He was now in a place where little doves had the power to shove him into the wilderness and where God spoke out loud, tearing apart the clouds of heaven to make room for his voice. This was a traumatic event, not a gentle one, and perhaps it didn’t take all that much of a shove from the Spirit to send this shocked Jesus out into that space of wilderness, an empty space but for wild animals and the overshadowing presence of temptation and evil.

And so the next part of the change is about what happens in the wilderness. Mark gives us only the barest statement of what happened there: Jesus was in the wilderness with the wild animals, and Satan tempted him and the angels waited on him. So much left unsaid! But the image that remains in my mind is of Jesus sitting and thinking about what had happened in the baptism, with a couple of wild animals sitting there with him, and he’s thinking, “right now I feel like I have more in common with these wild animals than with my family back home. God has affirmed me, I’m out here alone. I’m something different now than when I started.”

Doesn’t wilderness always make us feel isolated, unlike any other, without the conventional touchpoints that make us feel safe? This was a dangerous place. If the wild animals weren’t going to eat you, the devil was going to try and get you to do something stupid. And yet, forty days later, Jesus walks out of the wilderness to assume his new role, and in doing so, he brings more of the wild animal with him and less of the domesticated pet religious leader…this is the man who will consort with lepers and Samarian women, who will eat with tax collectors and sinners, who will heal on the Sabbath, and who will decry a lukewarm tame faith. In some ways, the wild animals have transformed Jesus more than Satan ever could, since he is now an untamable power.

And if we forget what that time in the wilderness did to Jesus, we will have a reminder a few chapters later when Peter rebukes Jesus for predicting his own demise, and Jesus rebukes Peter: “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” It is Satan who would have us worry about what the everyday world thinks of what we do when we follow our Lord…it is this wild animal Jesus who reminds us who we are following, and what is expected of us as a result, something very different from that everyday world and its cares.

Time in the wilderness is transforming.

As I was meditating on this passage this week in preparation for this sermon, I found myself recalling the story of Aron Ralston, the young rock-climber whose story was made into the movie “127 Hours.” Ralston went alone into the wilderness of Canyonlands National Park for a day of solo mountaineering. This was, of course, the height of idiocy – smart people do not do these things alone, they go with a partner in case of emergencies.

And what an emergency Aron Ralston had! As he was climbing in one of the canyons, one of the boulders came loose, and pinned Ralston’s right arm, trapping him. He tried to call for help, but there was no one there. He would have to find a way to survive on his own. During this time, he recorded what was happening, and what he was thinking about, in a video diary on his little camera. As he weakened, he had visions of his family, and after five days had a vision of his future child. He found the wherewithal to make a tourniquet, break the bone in his arm, and hack off his pinned arm with the dull knife in his backpack, and then he walked out of the desert, covered in blood, to find people who could take him to the hospital.

The same pattern that Dr. McCord Adams described: a hero identified and separated out from the rest of the world, tested in a wilderness experience, and returned to the world transformed. Ralston, now with one arm, was physically transformed by what happened to him, but he also seems to have been transformed in other ways.

In an interview with National Geographic Magazine, Ralston was asked about the video diary, and his response may help us in understanding our gospel today: “It gave me a sense of completion. Not only did the camera let me tell my family and friends what had happened, but also it gave me the opportunity to tell them how I was feeling and that I loved them. I liked the thought that I wasn't going to leave an unexplained mess.”[2]

Ralston came out physically transformed, but the process of getting through his time in the wilderness demanded that he speak of it, that he connect with those who were part of his other world. And perhaps this is what happened to Jesus as well.

He spent his time with the wild animals, with the temptation of the Evil One, and he came out the other side. When he got back into the world, he found out that John was gone, locked away in prison. And he had to speak. He had to talk, not so much about what had happened when he walked into the Jordan or when he sat for forty days in that wilderness, but about the outcome of what happened: he had God’s good news to share with people in strange new ways, and they had better pay attention, repent and believe.

So what does this mean for us? Most of us don’t get prodded into the wilderness by a bird, or get our arms pinned under a boulder in a canyon.

But don’t we all have our own wildernesses that transform us as well, for good and for ill? Wildernesses of loneliness, of illness or loss or spiritual dryness, that leave us shaken and hollowed out like an old termite-ridden tree?

Lent is the time in the wilderness. It is the reminder that until the day we are with God at the heavenly banquet, we are all in the wilderness, being shaken, being changed. And our only right response to the time in the wilderness is to do what Aron Ralston attempted in that video diary, to do what Jesus did when he came back from the wilderness: tell people what it meant to us, what it continues to mean to us, that we have come through the time in the wilderness to a new understanding of who we are and who God is.

Take it as fact that you will be changed by your time in the wilderness. So what will you tell others about it, about what it did to you and what it continues to do to you, as you meditate on your life this Lenten season?

Amen.

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[1] Brown and Taylor, Editors. Feasting on the Word, Year B Volume 2. Louisville: Westminster Knox Press, 2008, pp. 44-46.

[2] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/08/0830_040830_aronralston_2.html

Sermon for Sunday, February 19, 2012 Mark 9:2-9 “Come Down from the Mountain Transformed”

Climbing mountains is not my thing. I’m a little afraid of heights. To be honest, I’m a lot afraid of heights. Even the thought of going up Old Rag Mountain in Shenandoah National Park gives me a queasy sensation in the pit of my stomach.

But every now and again, I’m in a place where I’m up high, and even through my fear, I must admit that the view is amazing. I just wish I could look without feeling like I’m going to fall.

You know that feeling – it’s a sense that your stomach is dropping faster than fast, and you feel dizzy and disoriented.

Can you imagine how that feeling hit the disciples who accompanied Jesus up that high mountain, when suddenly Jesus was changed before their very eyes? His clothes as white as bleached linen, his face aglow…and beside him, the ancient patriarchs, Moses and Elijah.

Those disciples who went up, Peter, James and John, may have wondered why they went on this strenuous hike. Jesus probably did not say to them, “come on up this mountain and watch what happens, guys!” He probably didn’t say that he would be transformed before their eyes, blessed and affirmed by the presence of Moses and Elijah, with his divinity shining so brightly that they had to shield their eyes, his heavenly father’s blessing so absolute and clear that they were speechless...

…except for Peter, who, being Peter, had to say something. “Shall I build some shelters for you and Moses and Elijah?” he asked. A ridiculous question. A God and a patriarch and a prophet have no need of shelter. Dizzy with shock, unable to figure out how to understand what was going on, he tried to do something appropriate, although there are no guidebooks for hikes with this kind of view at the top. All Peter wanted to do was to create a way for them all to stay up there, to continue to feel the glow of this amazing thing, to be close to this transfigured Jesus, and perhaps even Moses and Elijah. He wanted to cling to the moment.

But the moment was not meant to continue indefinitely. Suffice to say, Peter never built those shelters. After God the Father spoke, the dramatic moment ended. Jesus was back to being their traveling companion and teacher. Moses and Elijah were nowhere to be found. There was nothing to do but to go back down the mountain, to the others. But Jesus was clear that they were not to share what happened with the others.

Difficult, that order, wasn’t it? Wouldn’t you want to tell the others about this amazing thing? But these disciples, Jesus’ inner circle, kept their promise and said nothing.

But they were changed by what had happened. How could you not be changed after you saw what they saw?

What are your mountaintop moments? The moments when you are shocked into a different, deeper understanding of what it means to be in the presence of Our Lord?

I had the privilege of seeing this in action when I accompanied our young people on their mission trip last year. I watched them be transformed, learning new skills, learning compassion for people whose lives were very different from them. They were very different on Saturday when we came home from the kids who had left Richmond a week before. Their sensitivity, their willingness to see Christ in the people whom they served, their desire to do something concrete to assist people in need, was a beautiful thing to see. And when it was time to go, they, too, did not want to leave. They wanted to stay up on that mountain. They spoke of frustration that they hadn’t been able to finish everything that we had started. They wanted to continue in community with new friends and old, doing something that was meaningful and powerful. They wanted to continue to be the people that they had become on that particular mountaintop, people who had the skills and capacity to help others. And yet we knew that you cannot stay up on the mountaintop forever. You have to come down. The challenge is what you do with the way you have been transformed once you’ve come down from that mountain.

Mission has a way of doing that to you. It changes you. You may leave thinking you are going to help others, but it is you who is changed. The process of change is not without its challenges – fear and confusion, that vertigo in your head and stomach, are all a part of being transformed. We’d prefer simply staying unchanged, but who would miss a chance to feel closer to God?

This Sunday is not only the last Sunday in Epiphany, not only Transfiguration Sunday, it is also World Mission Sunday. It is a time when we raise up the possibility of helping others and sharing the Word of God by love in action.

Why would we link World Mission to the Transfiguration?

Take a look at the words that Jesus uses at the end of the passage: Jesus “ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.” We focus on the fact that Jesus told them to be quiet, but we forget the final phrase. They were ordered to keep quiet, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. Reframe it in the positive rather than the negative, and it translates to “after I’m risen from the dead, tell people about what you saw. Affirm my divinity as you saw it affirmed.” Go and proclaim the word…and isn’t that the heart of mission?

But how do we proclaim Jesus Christ in his power and glory, as seen up on that mountaintop? Certainly proclaiming with words is a part of it…that’s what we saw Jesus do again and again. But what else did he do? He healed, he helped, he prayed. He acted in ways that demonstrated what he said. And that is the other part of mission, the other part that we are asked to do.

The mission of the church is to proclaim the risen Christ through words and through actions. We are asked to bring Christ, to be Christ’s hands and feet in the world, to those who need Christ.

But the thing that happens when we do that is not just that we help another human being, it is that we are more deeply connected to the Christ who bade us to do these things. We climb the mountain with Jesus Christ, not knowing what is going to happen when we get to the top. When we get up there, we see things – and the Jesus we climbed with – in a clearer, deeper way. We are transformed. When we come down from that mountain, or back from that mission trip, or home from helping at Lamb’s Basket, or back from driving our Caritas guests to take a shower or clean their clothes, we are changed. We help others, we show them Christ, but we also show ourselves we are the ones whom Christ told to share his message by our words and actions in the world.

When Peter and James and John went up that mountain, they saw Jesus transfigured. But those disciples were the ones who came down transformed.

This is what mission does – it shows us Christ in ways that we never saw him before. So on this day, be willing to climb the mountain, even if you are afraid of heights. Be willing to do mission, however you are called to do it, wherever you are called to do it. Be transformed, and transform the world.

Amen.