Where is Our Loyalty?

Where is Our Loyalty?

Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God who is Creator, Christ, and Comforter.  Amen

In the Narrative Lectionary, we have now moved from the upper room to the garden in John’s Gospel telling of the last week of Jesus’ life.  We skipped what scholars have called the “Farewell Discourse” which are the final words Jesus spoke to the 11 disciples after Judas left.  We will catch some of this in the Easter season. 

Jesus was in the garden, a place where the disciples frequented, so Judas would know where he was going, and there he, with a detachment of soldiers and the chief priest’s police come to arrest Jesus.  What a chaotic scene! 

They ask for Jesus, he steps forward and the soldiers lose their footing and fall.  I wonder what they were expecting – certainly not such an easy admission of identity! 

Jesus tries to protect those who are with him – making sure they arrest only him and not the whole group.  Peter lashes out in fear and cuts off Malchus’ ear. 

Peter and another disciple follow the crowd and are finally in the courtyard where they can witness the mockery of a trial that Jesus underwent.  As they are in the courtyard, three times Peter was asked if he was a follower of Jesus and three times, he denied it. 

The rooster crows – bringing back to Peter’s memory the words Jesus had spoken to him just hours earlier…Will you lay down your life for me?  Very truly, I tell you, before the cock crows, you will have denied me three times.

Stupid rooster.

Stupid Peter.

Loyalty.  We don’t hear much about loyalty these days.  But this lesson is filled with instances of loyalty…and disloyalty.  

First, there is Judas’ loyalty to Jesus – let me unpack this a bit.  At a meal in Jesus’ day, there were two places of honor, one at the right and the other at the left of the host.  We know Jesus was the host of this meal and we know that John, the disciple whom Jesus loved was at one side, because John so poignantly describes John placing his head on Jesus’ breast. 

But, in order for Jesus to give the bread dipped in the dish to Judas, he would have had to be at the other hand.  The host would dip his piece of bread into the dish, and then give that bread to the person to whom he wanted to show his greatest love and esteem.

He did that by dipping into the common dish and then placing the dipped bread in the person’s mouth.  In doing that, he would show to all those present, and to the person receiving the sop, the love and honor he had for him.

Jesus knew that Judas was about to betray him.  Yet, there he sat, quite possibly in a position of honor at the meal, and Jesus gave him the bread.  Some would say this was perhaps to discourage Judas from doing what our gospel portrays…but what if Jesus did this to Encourage Judas to do what needed to be done to complete the plans they had made together?  Remember, Jesus washed Judas’ feet, too; and Judas held the common purse for the disciples – you don’t give that job to just anyone – but only the most loyal and honest among a group.  And now Jesus publicly tells the disciples that Judas is the one who he trusts enough to do the job of alerting the Chief Priest of Jesus’ whereabouts.  What if that other disciple that went to the courtyard with Peter was Judas, not John as many scholars suppose?  He would be known by the Chief Priest! 

Judas was loyal to the plan – even when he knew it would ruin him. 

Peter was loyal when things were going well and bragging would be beneficial.  He was loyal even after cutting off the ear of the slave, and followed Jesus to the trial.  His loyalty became a thing of the past when he stood in the courtyard of the High Priest and denied Jesus, three times.  His heart must have been in shreds when that rooster’s crow finished echoing through the courtyard.  Other gospel stories tell us he leaves the courtyard and weeps, but not here in John. 

And then there is Jesus.  He is loyal to the plan that God had laid out before him.  He knew who was going to put the plan into action, and loved him and held him in esteem.  He knew who would deny him when the going got rough, and loved him and at the end of this gospel commands Peter to feed his sheep.  Jesus knew that things were going to go from bad to worse, from flogging to death, but that the promised resurrection would come!  He was willing to endure all of this shame, face slapping, torture and ultimately death…for Judas, for Peter, for you, for me. 

Loyalty – loyalty to Jesus, to our faith, to each other as sisters and brothers in Christ – it’s what this whole story is all about. 

Where does your loyalty lie today? 

If your own life is your first loyalty, then you’ve turned your life into a lie.  Your life is a gift from God. 

If your family is your first loyalty, then you’ve turned your family into an idol.  Family is a gift from God

It your job is your first loyalty, then you’ve turned it into a false god.  Your job is a gift from God. 

Loyalty to God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – is to be our top priority as Christians.  Now…that is as counter-cultural as I can think!  We are taught, especially in our advertising, that you take care of your self (how many you deserve…ads can you think of?), your family, your work and God will bless you, but it’s an  inverted image.   Maybe that’s why we are so anxious and unhappy as a society.  There’s an old song I learned as a kid called “JOY.” 

Jesus and others and you, what a wonderful way to spell JOY.

Jesus and others and you, in the life of each girl and each boy.

J-is for Jesus, for he has first place.

O-is for others you meet face-to-face.

Y-is for you, and whatever you do,

Put yourself third and spell JOY.

In the remainder of this Lenten season, I invite you to examine your loyalties, and if you don’t already, but God first in your life through: prayer, fasting, Bible reading, taking care of those less fortunate.  God first, then family, friends, job, nation, self (in alphabetical order).

Loyalty…it’s not just a word…it’s a lifestyle. 

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

I Am Judas

I am Judas

Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God who is Creator, Christ and Comforter.  Amen

I am loving this narrative lectionary!  I hope you are, too.  Today’s text has us in Holy Week already, and it’s only the 2^nd Sunday of Lent! Yet, how wonderful that we will be spending time, lots of time, in the week that makes Christians…Christians! 

We have this beautiful scene as Jesus celebrates the last Passover meal, actually  the last meal he will ever eat, with his best friends.  They have walked with Jesus for three years by now.  They have heard him preach, participated in miracle feedings and healings, and seen how he continually moves among people – touching them just when, and where, they need it. 

And, now, tonight John reminds us that Jesus loved these people – loved them to the very end! 

I invite you to imagine with you mind’s eye the scene that John so beautifully describes for us.  Close your eyes if it helps…

Jesus, fully God and fully human, gets up from the cushions that have supported him as he and the disciples recline and eat the Passover meal and goes to the servant’s entrance. 

There he takes off his outer robe, and finds the foot-washing basin and ties the foot towel around his waist.   He pours the ceremonial washing water into the basin.  (I wonder if the disciples even notice what is happening yet). 

Then he comes back to the table, maybe sloshing a few drops of water on the packed earth floor, and gets on his knees and begins to wash the feet of his best friends. 

Who was first in your imagining?  Andrew, the first disciple?  James? John? 

The water keeps being poured on those dusty, dirty, manly feet.  I’m sure Jesus had to empty the basin several times along the way. 

Was it silent as Jesus performed this task?  Or are the disciples whispering to each other?  What do their faces reflect?  Astonishment?  Humility?  Embarrassment?  Fear? 

Jesus comes to Peter.  Peter is someone I can so wholeheartedly relate to!  He speaks before he thinks…he cannot abide the idea that Jesus would wash his fisher-manly feet!  They have the conversation that John so wonderfully records for us…Are you going to wash my feet?  You don’t know what I am doing.  You’ll NEVER wash my feet!  If I don’t wash, you aren’t part of me.  Then not just my feet, but all of me!  Peter, chill, I only need to wash your feet! 

And then, Jesus comes to Judas and he washes his feet.  Judas, who would betray him to the authorities and set the whole cycle of trial-death-and-resurrection in motion.  What is going through Jesus’ mind?  Judas’ mind…as this most intimate action is being performed? 

Jesus finishes this act of service by telling the disciples that they ought to wash one another’s feet.  As your pastor, during Maundy Thursday’s service, when you are invited to have me wash your feet…it is one of THE MOST holy and sacred moments I have with you…and it makes me tear up just thinking about it.  I love this time of washing and praying and thinking about the feet I hold in my hands.  This space becomes sacred ground for me. 

And…I think of Jesus – as much as I love you, I know that Jesus loves you even more! 

Jesus knew who was to betray him according to John.  And, as much as historians and theologians have wanted to put all of this betrayal on Judas, if we remember our Holy Week history – every last one of the disciples betrayed Jesus!  They all ran away and hid when the soldiers came to the Garden of Gethsemane (oh wait, Judas stayed)!  They all cowered in the Upper Room after Jesus was buried, too scared to show their faces lest they be the next ones on a cross. 

And, in my heart of hearts, I know that I am Judas!  I have betrayed Jesus so many times in my life.  I have denied him, cursed him, NOT spoken about him when I should have, and then USED his name in times and places when I should not have. 

My sins put him on the cross. 

I am Judas.  I have hurt him, and abused my relationship with him by continuing to do the very things I have begged for his forgiveness – and have had that forgiveness freely granted – yet I do not change! 

How many times have my actions and attitudes kept Jesus on that cross? 

I am Judas.  I’ve loved Jesus for nearly all of my life.  I’ve tried to follow Jesus’ teachings and lead the life I feel God has called me to lead as a daughter, sister, mother, wife, aunt, friend, and pastor. 

A couple of weeks ago, I was teaching in Confirmation about the Second Article of the Apostle’s Creed…I believe in Jesus Christ, only son of the Father… and I asked if they knew what a mess-up they are.  You know, in those moments of intense honesty, when you really look at yourself and realize that you are a total mess-up…and if people REALLY knew you and what a phony, fake, mess-up you are, you would be totally and utterly alone. 

They knew what I was talking about.  Do you?

That’s when the Second Article of the Creed comes in, I said.  When you are the most real and honest and realize what a mess-up you are, Jesus is right there beside you saying, “I know everything and I’m here to tell you that’s why I died.  You are not alone – never have been, never will be.  All of those mess-ups?  Every last one of them nailed to that cross.  You are mine! You are forgiven.” 

I am Judas…but the story doesn’t end there…I belong to Jesus. 

Amen! 

Ashes and Weeping

Ashes and Weeping

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God who is Creator, Christ, and Comforter.  Amen

         Ash Wednesday is one of those public days in our Christian faith and life.  Besides the rite of baptism, when the newly baptized wear the oily mark of the cross on their foreheads, what other day do Christians have such visible mark on their skin as…Ashes?

         As the ashes are placed on our foreheads, we hear these words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  These powerful words remind us that we are made from the dirt of our planet.  We come from this earth / and we will return to this earth / and it is through the dirt of this planet we are connected to ALL that has ever lived or will live.

On this  Ash Wednesday – as I hear the news and look around me, and if I am truly honest – as I look closely into my own heart – I can’t help but think of ashes.  Ashes in their deadliest reality. 

There are ashes of war and ashes of hunger.  I saw a woman as she stirred the last ashes of the last fire from the last of the food that will be cooked, because there is no food left and there is no fuel for fire.   

I’ve seen ashes of war fought far away from home where men and women from both sides die for their countries.

And, ashes of the funeral pyres as loved ones are laid to rest. 

And, the ashes of homes destroyed as lives turned inside out. 

The ashes of Auschwitz, Dachau and Buchenwald, still swirl around our planet.

All of these ashes make me want to weep when I am my best self.  Most of the time…I am numbed to the true affect of what I witness on the nightly news.

It happens without our noticing you know.  We become numbed to suffering,,,habituated to the sly creep of resignation…inured to the ways the powers and principalities exercise their insidious reign.  But, on this day of ashes, {if we are blessed} we may leave numbness behind..for just a moment. 

This makes us uncomfortable, though.  Many of us in the western world are reluctant to lament in public.  To name those things which are the cause our lament – personal and intimate to be sure, but also social, economic, local, regional, political, planetary.  Truth be told, we are not just numb to other people’s grief, but far too often, we are numb to our own.

Or maybe we are just too polite. 

Or we have bad memories of Christians being offensive in their public displays…carrying around signs and wearing sandwich boards condemning one thing or another.  And we do NOT want to be associated with that!

Or, maybe we have fallen prey to the privatizing of religion. 

Here in the US, there is not as much distance between knowing “Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior” and the “feel-good spirituality” of those who have left Christianity behind.  Both ends of this spectrum are deeply personal and deeply private.  The true essence of the Christian faith is that Jesus makes our lives whole, and this IS deeply personal.  When Jesus makes our lives whole, nothing is more personal!  At the same time, we cannot keep this to ourselves!  We are to proclaim that this Jesus who touched us so deeply and so personally is the “Savior of the world.”  He came to make this difference in all of us!  We are to proclaim loudly that God loves all the world in such a public way that all are welcome to experience this amazing, saving, redeeming love!  Personal?  You bet!  Private?  Never!

Jesus, who is the Christ, is the one who makes our actions and our hearts function together.  We have to be about inviting the world to the feast that bears THEIR name; a feast and a fellowship to which they never even knew they belonged!   

Accomplish in us, O God, the work of your salvation.  With the ashes we bear, we lament the state of the earth and its inhabitants, its wounds and cries of despair, and ultimately to the silence of the dust of death. 

We repent of our own complicity in the inflicting of these wounds on our earth and all of its creatures.  We confess that we have distanced ourselves from all of creation, which, coincidentally, is made of this very same dust of the earth that we are…and with whom we will someday share the same dusty end. 

We denounce together the powers that harm the world, which is our own most grievous fault; and in our private practices of the discipline of Lent: self-examination and repentance, prayer and fasting, sacrificial giving and works of love, remind us that we are in communion with God’s love and lament for the earth and all its creatures. 

We will be joining in a collective lament in just a few moments.  Lament is truth-telling.  Lament is witness.  Lament denounces.  Lament offers hope. 

And in our public witness, we begin the church’s forty day preparation for the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus, who is the Christ.  We  will continue to practice communion every time we gather here.  And, in this season there are other practices like: the washing of feet, the veneration of the cross, Jesus’ death, the silence of the tomb, and Jesus’ glorious resurrection.

Justice, healing, repentance: so often begins with tears.  Do you think, with all that is happening in our world…and what is happening within us - that God is not weeping with us? 

Ashes…Ashes and weeping. 

Have mercy on us, O God.    Amen