Sensual Anointing

 

April 6, 2025, Saint Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y.

Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany …Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. John 12:1-3

This is one of four biblical accounts of a woman slouching toward Jesus to anoint his head or feet with very expensive oil. 

Every time I heard these stories discussed in Sunday church school, they were quickly divided into two categories:

One, how perceptive is the woman – in this case, Mary – to recognize Jesus as the Son of God; and, two, how shortsighted are the disciples (namely Judas) to look upon the act as a waste of money.

Whether it’s a waste or not, the oil with which Jesus is anointed is big money. Mary is pouring a year’s income worth of oil on Jesus. Judas, who sees many other ways the money could be used – including his own purse – is appalled. But Judas, the sly old grifter, hides his greed by complaining the money could have been given to the poor.

Jesus’ response is quoted in many legislative committees seeking to maintain a low minimum wage, or cut back on programs to supplement the income of families living below the poverty line, or redirecting taxes to benefit the rich at the expense of the poor.

“You always have the poor with you,” Jesus said, “but you don’t always have me.” (Jn 12:8)

We know, of course, that it’s ridiculous to assume Jesus is saying the poor are always here so we need to strategize how much money we should spend on them.

We know these walked among the poor, ate with the poor, cured their illnesses, and at all times identified with the poor.

Also, writes Lindsey S. Jodrey of Princeton Seminary, we may be interpreting Jesus’ words wrong.

“There’s a funny thing in ancient Greek, Jodrey points out.  “Sometimes the present indicative form of a word (which just indicates or states something — such as “you always have the poor with you”) matches the present imperative form of the word which commands you to do something … In this passage, which is translated ‘you will have’ can be indicative or imperative … it looks exactly the same. So maybe we should read Jesus’ statement not as an indication of the way things are, but as a command: Have the poor with you always. Or Keep the poor among you always.”

This is an important distinction because, God knows, the poor are with us, even in the richest country in the world.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, there are too many hungry children in our nation.

* 47.4 million people live in food-insecure households.

* 12.2 million adults live in households with very low food security.

* 7.2 million children live in food-insecure households in which children, along with adults, were food insecure.

* 841,000 children (1.2 percent of the Nation's children) live in households in which one or more child experienced very low food security.

In this passage, Jesus points out that the oil had been purchased “so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.” (Jn 12:7)

This adds a helpful dimension to what we might regard as a scene of extraordinary intimacy between a Palestinian man and woman. But maybe it’s not that, we tell ourselves, because preparing Jesus for his burial is a holy portent of what he will face in Jerusalem to bring his redemptive ministry to a close.

That was the approach I expected the Rev. James Martin, S.J., to take when he referred to the anointing stories during a recent lecture about his book Jesus: A Pilgrimage.

Instead, Martin asked: “Was Jesus turned on?”

Given that Jesus was equal parts God and human, it’s a fair question. And the answer is unavoidable: yes, no doubt. It’s one of the inescapable realities of Incarnational Theology. 

If Jesus the man was tempted in all things, his human hormones would have vied fiercely with his God side. As the woman’s shining face presses moistly toward him and he feels her warm breath on his weary feet, the God in him exults, “Bless you, dear child, for your chaste and pious devotion.” The human in him chokes back the words, “Come here often?”

It’s difficult for most of us to think of Jesus as being thoroughly human as well as wholly God. We can see the scriptural evidence that Jesus laughed, cried, hungered, enjoyed wine, and occasionally ate to satiation. Father Martin also points out that Jesus the Human must have suffered headaches, painful sunburn, blisters on his feet, episodes of projectile vomiting and violent diarrhea. He may also – since God is not known to have made a special dispensation for him – that he was sexually stimulated..

I may be crossing a line in stating my assumptions about just how human Jesus was. Indeed, I fear Mrs. Montfort, my childhood Sunday school teacher, would have been aghast to realize Jesus’ underarm odor carried the same pheromones as Mr. Montfort. But these are the challenging veracities of Incarnational Theology.

It’s difficult to face these realities and many congregations never acknowledge them. This may be one reason millennials (adults born after 1980) are leaving the church in droves. The Jesus we have tried to present to them is a two-dimensional Barbie Doll replete with pious promises but bereft of the human flesh that makes him credible as God incarnate. If Jesus didn’t battle with his hormones and his headaches the same way we do, how can we be sure that God really understands what it’s like to be us? 

It is undeniably difficult for many Christians to understand the union of body and soul. For one thing, it’s usually the body that causes people to sin so we try to keep it as far away from our souls as possible. 

This diminution of our physicality crops up in unexpected ways. A lot of us don’t like to think of our pastors, priests, nuns, or bishops as real humans because we expect them to be spiritual creatures.

When a pope gets sick, for example, it’s hard for the faithful to know how to pray. In the 1970s, when Pope Paul VI had his prostate removed, the actual procedure – whether retropubic or perineal – was too horrible to contemplate for a pope. Realizing the awkwardness of portraying the pope as a mere man with mere man maladies, the Vatican released as few details as possible.

In contrast, Pope Francis – who came near to death during his recent hospitalization – allowed the doctors to tell us everything about his illness, including the respiratory crisis when he inhaled his own vomit. In many ways, seeing the Pope as an old man struggling with illness and facing his mortality brought him closer to those who follow his lead.

An awareness of the humanity of Jesus greatly expands our appreciation of the Gospel stories.

Father James Martin does us a great service by reminding us that Jesus was human and “tempted in all things,” just as we are tempted. To know this is to know Jesus better, because we come to realize that Jesus knows what we go through every day: our pains and discomforts, our fears, our frustrations, and our perpetual temptations.

But, as theologians have also been reminding us for two millennia, Jesus differs from us in one all-important way: he never succumbed to temptation. He was a human without sin, a human who never strayed from God Creator or rejected God’s will for him.

That makes Jesus unique among all of God’s creation. 

Jesus struggled every day with the same temptations that that threaten to drown us. 

And in renewing our awareness of his humanness, we may find ourselves more powerfully drawn to his God-ness, and the eternal font of unconditional love. 

It also puts our own humanness and fleshly temptations in a clearer perspective.

C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity, “The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins.” 

Lewis wrote, “All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport, and back-biting, the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute.”

Of course, Lewis added, it’s better to be neither.

Jesus encouraged us by his own example to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh, if not its sins.

If that helps us become more generously loving and less diabolically priggish, we owe it to a deeper understanding of Jesus’ human side. The side that was more like us than we have dared imagine.

How Prodigal Are We?

March 30, 2025, First Lutheran Church of Throggs Neck, Bronx, N.Y. 

Have you ever found it awkward that Jesus eats and drinks with the type of folks your mother told you avoid?

Actually, it makes sense. There’s no way you or I could tell a Ponzi fraudster or a sex worker that their sins are forgiven, go and sin no more. Only Jesus can do that.

But I think it is good news for all of us that Jesus “welcomes sinners and eats with them,” because he’s making it clear he will turn his back on no one.

No one. Not an adulterous woman. Not a thieving tax collector. Not an officer of a brutal army of occupation. Not a pompous Pharisee. No one.

Jesus is making his very lifestyle a lens through which to understand the parable of the lost coin or the parable of the lost sheep, or even the parable of the Prodigal son.

Jesus will drink, eat, and commiserate with anyone, regardless of how sinful and unsavory they may be. To Jesus, every sinner he meets, every blind person, every soldier, every centurion, every leper, every thief, every prostitute, every rich man seeking salvation while keeping his fortune, is a lost sheep to be rescued, a lost coin to be found.

And the same goes for you and me.

We Lutherans savor this reality as God’s grace. And that grace comes with rejoicing in heaven for every sinner who repents.

The story of the Prodigal son is perhaps the best known parable in the New Testament. I remember hearing it cited repeatedly in the late1960’s when many families were torn apart by the Vietnam War and lifestyle issues. Some “hippies” preferred to form their own communes rather than live with Mom and Dad, and they chose cannabis and LSD over Dad’s bourbon and Utica Club. But inevitably it became clear there was little future in that lifestyle and many returned home: prodigals all. If they were lucky, their parents celebrated their return.

In case you’re wondering, there is a modicum of autobiography in these memories. I was not a quintessential hippie. I did grow my hair past my shoulders but I never inhaled. And I was never estranged from my patient and loving parents. Instead of seeking a life of riotous living and a diet of pig pods, I opted for the Air Force and, later, college. But I ate and drank with hippies and I remember many with affection. 

The story of a prodigal son is a classic story of a family in crisis. We know the characters as well as we know our own families.

Across two millennia, perhaps millions of sermons have sought to clarify who these characters are meant to represent.

Each of us could sense what Jesus wants his listeners to understand.

The father, of course, is God. God whose love is constant and unconditional. God the patient parent who will always welcome back those who have strayed. God the father who rejoices dramatically and unreservedly when the lost return.

The younger son. This poor lad is a stand-in for all who turn their backs on God, squander the gifts and blessings God has given them, and quickly fall into squalor and degradation. When they realize their stupidity, they return to God begging forgiveness.

The older son. Some preachers believe the older son represents the just. Others say he represents self-righteous people who take God’s love for granted and resent it when obviously inferior people receive God’s grace.

To put a finer point on it, Stephen Arthur Noel DSouza, a Catholic scholar, sees the father as representing the Holy Trinity, God the Father, Jesus, the Holy Spirit.

The elder son represents the Pharisees, teachers of the law, who are repelled by God’s grace toward sinners.

And the younger son represents the Gentiles who ignore God and celebrate life with the decadent world. Only when it’s too late, when they have lost much, do they repent and bathe in the forgiving grace of God. (per Dsouza)

Like all of Jesus’ parables, the story is rich with meaning and the characters play many roles.

To get a closer look at these characters, let’s employ the Ignatian bible study approach and imagine ourselves inside the parable.

Which role would you choose?

If we look carefully, I think we’d conclude that we can easily fill each of the three characters in the parable.

Whether we are parents or not, most of us can identify with the father in the story.

We have all known persons we have loved unconditionally, whether sons or daughters or parents or siblings or friends.

We have all felt disappointed when someone we love drifts away from us, or ghosts us, or slams the door in our face. Many parents have felt estranged from their children when their hormones flow turbulently and they pull away from parental authority. No, they don’t want to get a job. No, they don’t want to go to college. No, they won’t stop dating the person who makes you cringe. 

These are times that call for parental patience. Parents will not stop loving their children, even when they are hurtful and disappointing. And when children or any age return to the nest, it is a matter for celebration.

Who is the father in the story? Could it be you?

What about the younger son?

Has there ever been a time in your life when you were so bored and oppressed by the status quo that you would do anything to escape? Did your parents put you on a strict curfew and ground you when you broke it? Did they refuse to allow you to date the older person you do desperately loved because they had an unsavory reputation? Did they refuse to allow you to get a driver’s license because you were too immature to drive?

Perhaps you didn’t run away to pursue a dissolute life. Maybe you stayed home but hid in your room, stopped talking to anyone, hating your parents, looking forward to your liberation. But soon you began to realize there was little you could do without the emotional, physical, and financial support of your parents. So you came out of your room and started speaking to them again. And how happy they were to have you back.

What about the older son?

I have no hesitation about this one. I was the eldest of five, three brothers and a baby sister. I was not the easiest son in the world. Instead of studying in school, I read many books articles about my boyhood idol, John F. Kennedy. While my brothers were out working with Dad in the garden, I was upstairs in my room, typing essays and short stories, and drawing amateur comic strips about Superman and the Lone Ranger.

While I was doing this, my siblings graduated with honors and, in two cases, as valedictorian and salutatorian of their classes. I graduated by the skin of my teeth.

But that didn’t stop me from feeling angry and resentful toward my younger siblings. I was angry when my parents bought a car for my younger brother so he could drive to college. I was annoyed by the honors my sibs were receiving. I couldn’t wait until I joined the Air Force the week after my 18th birthday. When I returned home four years later, I was welcomed with love and joy by my parents.

And having said all that, I realize I was an amalgamation of the younger and older brothers.

Do you see yourself in any of these roles? “All the world’s a stage,” Shakespeare said, all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts.”

Regardless of whose role we might play in the parable of the Prodigal Son, we know that it doesn’t matter to Jesus.

Jesus will drink, eat, and commiserate with anyone, regardless of how good or how sinful they may be. To Jesus, every sinner he meets, every blind person, every soldier, every centurion, every leper, every thief, every prostitute, every rich man seeking salvation while keeping his fortune, is a lost sheep to be rescued, a lost coin to be found.

That is the good news of God’s grace. No matter who we are, we are simultaneously saints and sinners, Luther said.

And the God of Grace loves us and welcomes us all into God’s eternal realm.

Amen.

A Mind Is a Hard Thing to Change

March 23, 2025, Saint Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y. 

As we open our bibles to the 13th chapter of Luke, Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem is interrupted by a frantic delegation of Galilean citizens.

They are not agitated with Jesus. They are angry with their governor, Pontius Pilate, and they are eager to hear Jesus’ views on an appalling event.

Pilate has ordered the execution of Galilean citizens and – to add grievous insult to injury – Pilate mingles their blood with the blood of their sacrifices. It’s hard to imagine a more loathsome affront to Jewish law and practices.

There is no record of this barbarity outside of Luke, but there’s little doubt it happened. It has Pilate written all over it, and there are ample records of his vicious cruelty.

This disgruntled delegation coming to Jesus may have wanted to hear Jesus rebuke Pilate, which would be like criticizing Hitler within earshot of the Gestapo.

But Jesus, who reads people with uncanny accuracy, senses a deeper concern on the part of the delegation. He know they are worrying about whether these executed people had done something to deserve it this awful fate.

“Do you think,” Jesus asks, “that because these Galileans suffered this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?” (Lk 13:2)

Jesus also cites an event that is not mentioned outside of Luke, the death of eighteen people who were caught in the collapse of a tower in Siloam.

“Do you that they were worse offenders than all the other people living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish just as they did.” (Lk 13:4-5)

“As Jesus speaks to a crowd, some of those gathered seek Jesus’ opinion on current affairs,” writes New Testament professor Jeremy L. Williams. “Jesus as a prophet places the local issue within a cosmic frame that yields a divine imperative for the audience. Rather than focus on a past event and what cannot be controlled, Jesus encourages them to change what they can—their minds.” 

And that, asd we know, is not an easy thing to do.

Have you ever tried to change the mind of an adolescent whose under-developed frontal cortex deprives them of flexible thinking?

When I was a teenager, my mother tried without success to convince me that President Kennedy had Addison’s Disease, an often life-threatening disorder in which the adrenal glands don’t produce enough hormones.

I absolutely refused to believe it. JFK was my boyhood hero, and I had read that Bobby Kennedy had specifically denied his brother had this disease.

And the Kennedys wouldn’t lie, would they? My mind could not be changed.

Years later, when my cortex was complete, I began to see the evidence that was in front of my face, including autopsy records that the President’s adrenal glands had shriveled away.

At long last I had to face the truth.

There were many other difficult truths to face about JFK’s private life and I gradually absorbed them all. He was a perfect example of what Martin Luther described:  “Simul iustus et peccator.” We are simultaneously saints and sinners.

I find that when we open our minds to facts, when we repent of those times when our thoughts and actions fall short of God’s love, it is liberating. If we have been held captive by our stubborn ignorance and willful prejudice, our moral horizons are expanded exponentially.

Sadly, we can all think of persons and groups who are unable to break free of their sinful ignorance.

I think of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, a hateful congregation that acts on its hatred for LGBTQ people by picketing so-called liberal churches. Members of this church have interrupted funerals for fallen soldiers to protest the Defense Department’s practice of enlisting gays, lesbians, and trans people into the ranks.

I think of white supremacists whose minds are locked into the fantasy that Caucasions are the superior race (it used to be termed “master race”). They believe their superiority gives them license to discriminate against, denounce, and assault, persons of color, Jews, and members of other religions.

Most recently, and perhaps most tragically, I think of the fractures that have sprung up between supporters of Israel and supporters of Palestine since Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

There is no doubt that the Hamas attack on hundreds of innocent Israeli citizens was an atrocity. Men, women, and children were massacred, raped, and taken prisoner in 21 Israeli communities. The governments of 44 countries denounced the attack as terrorism.

In response, Israel launched a scorch-earth invasion of Gaza. No matter how enraged we were by the Hamas attacks, it was difficult to watch as Palestinian children were killed by Israeli arms. It was difficult to watch as Palestinians lost their homes, their livelihood, their medical support, and their lives. And whenever the smoke cleared, it was difficult to watch Palestinian children starve.

Here in our country, college campuses became the scene of pro-Palestinian demonstration, pointing out that Israel’s blockade of Gaza, the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements, and mistreatment of Gaza citizens, were the match that set off the powder keg.

So much wrong, so much hatred, so much ignorance on both sides; so many minds that can never be changed; so much suffering.

God weeps.

But when Jesus was questioned by the Galileans who fretted about who was sinning the most, he reminded them that everyone sins alike, “Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the other people living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish just as they did.” (Lk 13:4-5)

It's not easy to hear that God does not rank sins. We gluttons would prefer to think our sins are not as serious as the sins of murderers. God doesn’t rank sins from bad to not-so-bad. Jesus said. “Unless you repent, you will all perish.”

Professor Williams writes, “Jesus tells them to repent—to change their mind about their current commitments to injustice and unrighteousness. Changing one’s mind in this way leads to a change in conduct.” He calls upon his listeners “to return” or “to go back” or even “to go home.” Jesus invites the audience to adjust their current course and return to God. “Jesus is not suggesting that repentance will prevent them from a physical, catastrophic death. Rather, he is stating that changing their minds will prepare them for whatever they will experience, including producing fruit.”

There is little we can do about the horrible things we see in our world, and there is little we can do to make right the mistakes we have made. 

When he calls upon us to repent, he is calling on us to stop doing the things that disturb or injure others.  Repent and begin to do those good things, those righteous things, that may begin to have a good effect on the people and on our neighborhoods and on the world around us.

In the parable of the fruitless tree, Williams says, Jesus’ message is clear: do not be like the fruitless tree. Rather than focus on the gravity of others’ transgressions, make sure you are producing good. Instead of assigning causality to others misfortune, ensure that you are not ignoring your own missing fruit. Jesus’ words suggest that tending to one’s own life and positively changing one’s own mind is the best strategy to prevent or even persevere through unexpected calamity. If one refuses to do that type of work, they are already ruined.

Repent, Jesus commands. 

What are signs of repentance? A useful check list to identify repentance is offered by Paul in the letter to the Galatians.

Before we repent, before our minds are changed, before we adjust our attitudes, our spirits are captive to the flesh. “And the works of the flesh are sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery,  idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy,] drunkenness, carousing, and things like these.

But we will see the evidence of repentance through the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. 

God, as we follow Jesus’ Lenten trek to Jerusalem, give us the courage to change our minds, to repent, and to seek God’s guidance in all that we do. Amen.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem

 

March 16, St Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y.

In early October 2001, I stood at the edge of Ground Zero with several World Council of Churches colleagues.

The acrid smoke was still hanging in the air weeks after the terror attacks that felled the World Trade Center. Mounds of twisted metal debris were being created by huge bull dozers, and scores of hard-hatted workers labored amid the rubble.

I stood next to a Russian Orthodox priest from Moscow, a member of the World Council of Churches Central Committee. Other WCC representatives were from Europe, Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific Rim, a delegation of sympathy and support sent to U.S. churches.

We stood in silence as the General Secretary, a German Lutheran, prayed over the vast smoking crater. I felt my eyes filling with tears as I recalled a visit my friend Sonia and I made to the twin towers only days before the attacks. It was a warm summer day and we were glad to stand in the shade of the towering edifices.

And now, unbelievably, they were gone, leaving a forlorn emptiness on Manhattan’s famous horizon.

We all felt that anguish, if we were around then, in September 2001.

The anguish helps us understand Luke’s emotions as he writes about the Jerusalem Jesus laments.

When Jesus cried out, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” he was addressing the spiritual center of the Middle Eastern world, the seat of the great Second Temple, the focal point of Jewish worship that had stood magnificently for 500 years.

But when Luke was writing the story the temple had been reduced to rubble by Roman forces led by Titus. According to Wikipedia, “The Romans ultimately captured the entire city … with tens of thousands killed, enslaved, or executed.”

When he records Jesus’ lament, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” Luke’s heart is filled with pain over what was and is no more.

What is going through Jesus’ mind when he stands on the outskirts of the city? “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.” (Lk 13:34)

Jesus’ words are expressions of love for the people and the city he loves.

Jerusalem kills the prophets. But Professor Richard W. Swanson of Augustana College in Sioux Falls, notes that is not all that Jerusalem does.

Swanson writes, “Christians who only know Jerusalem from church … may well imagine that Jesus is setting up a basic conflict between a religion centered on Jerusalem and one centered on the Messiah; between organized, formalized, entrenched religion and the freedom of the Christian. They may even imagine that this way of understanding saves them from anti-Semitic or anti-Judaic interpretation.

“I hear in this a theology that remakes Jesus into a modern Christian, one who is not tied to a place, to a Temple, or to a priesthood whose job it was to bring the world back into balance. But in Luke’s story, Jesus comes from a family that goes up to Jerusalem for the pilgrimage festivals every year, “as usual.” 

Remember, Professor Swanson says, that Jesus is not like (modern Christians). He is a Jew of the first century, and Jerusalem is, for him, the center of the world. When he says, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” he is grieving for a city that he loves. 

It’s worth noting here, I think, that when Jesus expresses his grief, he is addressing Pharisees.

These Pharisees have come to Jesus not to criticize him, as is often the case, but to warn him of a threat against his life. “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” (Lk 13:31.)

But Jesus’ determination to continue his trek to Jerusalem is unabated. 

“Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today, tomorrow, and on the third day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.” (Lk 13:32-33)

How is it that Pharisees are so worried about Jesus’ safety that that they go out of their way to protect him?

Even a cursory reading of Scripture gives us the impression that Pharisees, in general, were the bane of Jesus’ ministry. They gripe when Jesus performs miracles on the Sabbath. They seethe when Jesus outsmarts then in debates about the law. They deplore when Jesus’ disciples rub their hands together on stalks of grain to gather a Sabbath breakfast. They blanch when Jesus’ disciples stuff food in their mouths without purifying their hands.

But it seems that if Jesus was not around, the Pharisees would miss him.

And there are also instances in Scripture when Jesus and Pharisees get along. Jesus has dinner with Pharisees, speaks cordially with Pharisees, and seems to seek out their company.

Professor Swanson writes: 

“Interpreters sometimes imagine that they knew this because they were in the room when Herod was hatching the assassination plot. They were not. The Pharisees were not (at least not in the main) collaborators with Rome or with Roman stooges like Herod. The Sadducees collaborated, certainly because Rome forced them to, and also surely because it was to their economic advantage to do so. But not the Pharisees. They generally held themselves separate from Roman culture. They extended the holiness of the Holy of Holies to even Jewish dinner tables because they recognized the danger posed by Roman chaos and violence. 

“And they warn Jesus about Herod. Jesus probably does not really need to be warned. He already knows that Herod is a fox, a sneaking predator. But their act of protection is an act of allyship, and forgetting that leads to a serious misunderstanding of the complexity of this scene and of Luke’s entire story.”

Some scholars speculate that Jesus was, himself, a Pharisee. He trained to be rabbi and it is possible that his education took place in the Pharisaical tradition.

Hyam Maccoby, a Jewish-British scholar and dramatist, speculates that Jesus was a Pharisee “and that his arguments with Pharisees is a sign of inclusion rather than fundamental conflict (disputation being the dominant narrative mode employed in the Talmud as a search for truth, and not necessarily a sign of opposition.”

This is interesting speculation and we may never know for sure on this side of heaven. But there are many mysteries about Jesus of Nazareth. As John wrote at the end of his Gospel, “There are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” (Jn 21:25)

So let us revel in the mysteries of the triune God. 

Let us continue our Lenten pilgrimage to follow Jesus at this stage in his ministry when, as Luke writes, “the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” (Lk 9:51)

We know he will not go alone.

To quote Professor Swanson one more time, “The Messiah has more allies than you might imagine. So do you. Recognizing that is how you prepare to welcome the one coming in the Name of the God Whose Name Is Mercy.”

Amen.

Just Imagine

March 9, 2025, St Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y.

Saint Ignatius suggested we may hear God’s voice more clearly if we imagine ourselves in the midst of Gospel stories we are reading.

I love to follow this advice. It enables us to divert our eyes from the fading prints of Salman’s Head of Christ and begin to see the real Jesus. As we imagine ourselves in the crowds who witnessed his baptism, or place ourselves in the synagogue as Jesus declares “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” (Luke 4:18:21), we begin to see a man of extraordinary charisma. Unlike the blond Christ on stained glass windows, we may behold an actual brass age Palestinian: a man with brown skin glowing with sweat, unruly black hair, and large biceps developed by his years as a laborer. We may behold the man whose powerful presence and contagious compassion attracted curious crowds wherever he walked.

Sometimes the stories we read take Jesus away from the adoring crowds. In Matthew 4, after his baptism, he is led by the spirit into the wilderness.

I don’t have any difficulty imagining the Palestinian wilderness, which I visited as a young man in 1974. It is truly desolate with pale, jagged rocks and rugged mountains, so much like the American southwest desert. In 1969 Episcopal Bishop James A. Pike visited the wilderness where Jesus prayed. Pike got lost, attempted to keep hydrated by drinking his own urine, and prayed for help. His body was found days later as he knelt against a rock in a position of prayer.

Clearly it is no small thing to go into this wilderness to pray. And it’s daunting just to imagine yourself, in Ignatian contemplation, at Jesus’ side. There are no other witnesses to hide behind. Just miles of arid emptiness and silent rocks.

In my mind’s eye I see Jesus sitting on one of those rocks. He is looking straight ahead and I wonder if he is praying. Or perhaps he is thinking of the cool waters of his recent baptism, now so far away. 

I move slowly toward him, wincing as sharp rocks press into my Sketchers, and sit on a boulder a few feet from Jesus. Jesus continues to sit quietly and so do I.

Long moments pass and our shadows disappear as the sun climbs high over head. Beads of sweat begin to collect on Jesus brown forehead. 

I glance at my Apple Watch to see how much time has passed. I begin to wonder how much longer we will be sitting silently on unforgiving rocks and the thought jumps into my head that Jesus is supposed to be here for forty days. I gasp. Is that, I wonder, a literal forty days or a metaphorical way of saying “a long time.” And, if so how long?

Jesus turns his head toward me and I sense both his loneliness and his compassion. But we continue to sit in silence.

Over head birds of prey are circling. Probably seeking some distant carrion, I tell myself. Jesus and I are clearly too alive to tempt birds who feast on decomposing flesh. I look at Jesus for reassurance but he has closed his eyes in prayer.

Good idea, I think. I try to remember devotional words from Luther’s Small Catechism. The words of the Lord’s prayer spin through my mind, and so does the Jesus Prayer: “Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Usually the words are a great comfort to me, but I’m a little self-conscious thinking them with Jesus so close. Can he hear me? Are my prayers intruding on his?

I continue to sit quietly, resenting the rock beneath my uncomfortable backside. My hungry stomach begins to grumble and thoughts of the Bagel Emporium menu push the Jesus prayer out of my head.

Cinnamon raisin, poppy seed, blueberry, all sorts of bagels danced in my head. I was sure the rumbling in my stomach could be heard over the desert wind. Jesus turned toward me again.

“Are you okay?” he asks gently. I am startled by the sound of his voice.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I’d be happy to spring for a dozen bagels if there’s a bakery nearby.”

Jesus smiled. “I’m good,” he said.

We had been sitting for a long time and Jesus stood up, stretching his arms. I was grateful for the cue and lifted my aching bums from the sharp rock.

Jesus walked slowly toward a crevasse in the rocks and I followed him cautiously. At the bottom of the chasm was a small trickle of blue water. I suddenly realized I was thirstier than hungry and began to calculate a safe route down the cliff to get to the water. I am not a rock climber and I could foresee a dangerous and perhaps fatal descent.

Jesus looked at me and I was sure he was reading my mind.

“Jesus,” I said, “that’s a long way down. I guess it would take a miracle to get to the bottom safely.”

Jesus smiled. “Then forget it,” he said. He turned and walked back to the rocks where we were sitting. Reluctantly, I leaned against my rock and tried to shift positions so my ass wouldn’t fall asleep.

Jesus closed his eyes again and visions of Fiji water bottles and egg bagels pushed the Jesus Prayer out of my head.

I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what it must be like for Jesus as he sat in the wilderness awaiting his tempter.

Emboldened by our recent exchanges, I cleared my throat. Jesus turned toward me.

“Still okay?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I was just thinking what it’s like for you, the Son of God who was present at the creation of the universe, all this power at your fingertips.”

Jesus looked at me but did not respond.

“And here you are, alone in the desert, no food, no water, no acolytes, no assistants or aides.”

Jesus did not respond. I cleared my throat again.

“I mean, look at all the earthly power that has been amassed in your name. Emperors, monarchs, popes, presidents, television evangelists, superchurch pastors.”

Jesus continued to look at me silently.

I shifted uneasily on my rock.

“I mean, doesn’t it drive you crazy, all this power humans have seized in your name while you – the ultimate power in the universe – sit here on a rock in the Palestinian desert?”

Jesus was silent.

“It doesn’t make you crazy?” I persisted.

Jesus turned away from me.

“Nah,” he said.

We spent the next hour sitting in silence. The silence was putting me on edge and I began to plan my exit from this Ignatian revelry that was bringing me closer to the real Jesus.

I leaned against my rock for a few more minutes and then stood to signal my ethereal departure. Jesus turned to me one last time.

“It’s been real, Jesus,” I said, “and I feel I’ve gotten closer to you than ever before.”

Jesus smiled.

“But I gotta ask,” I said. “Weren’t you supposed to be tempted by the Devil here?”

Jesus smiled again. 

“Oh? You missed him?”

He closed his eyes and turned away from me.

I opened my eyes, grabbed a water bottle out of the fridge, and hopped in the car for a brief drive to Bagel Emporium.

How Close is Heaven?

March 2, 2025, First Lutheran Church of Throggs Neck, Bronx, N.Y.

Heaven, like star systems millions of light years away, is unreachable without a special means of getting there.

 When God transfigured Jesus, God opened the curtain ever so briefly to show that Heaven is not “up there” but here and now, all around us.

 In astrophysical terms, God opened for just a few minutes a holy wormhole to Heaven.

 A wormhole, as Star-Trekkers know, is a hypothetical and unobservable phenomenon related to Einstein’s theory of relativity. While no one has ever seen a wormhole, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and other science fiction doyens posit they exist.

 Wormholes are conceived as celestial corridors that enable one (if one is so inclined) to travel incalculable distances in an instance, as if the fabric of space was folded together like a blanket to unite distant point A with unreachable point B.

 On the Mount of Transfiguration, God has opened the wormhole for a stunning glimpse of Heaven.

 The Transfiguration is one of many mind-blowing events in the life of Jesus. But, as anyone knows who has tried to argue with secular humanists, that is not definitive proof of divinity. A lot of the miracles could be figments of fertile imaginations. Turning water into wine, walking on water, curing lepers, raising the dead – all are remarkable to be sure. But none of these events would be difficult for a skilled illusionist to duplicate. In a recent Broadway reprise of Godspell, the wine and water events are convincingly displayed.

 It’s also possible that purported witnesses to these events, eager to portray Jesus as special, made them up. In the years before and after the birth of Jesus, magicians, mystics and prophets wandered Palestine hoping to draw attention as potential messiahs. Many of them used miracles to convince crowds of their specialness. 

 That doesn't necessarily diminish the uniqueness of Jesus of Nazareth. But he wasn’t the only rabbi working the crowds.

That is why the Transfiguration is hard to ignore. The unique event is less likely to have been made up by a group of retired disciples quaffing new wine while reminiscing about major miracles. The Transfiguration seems likely to have been based in reality than on some one’s creative fancies. You couldn’t make it up. 

 Here’s Jesus with Peter, James and John, all by themselves, on a high mountain. No one knows which mountain, although the Franciscans built the Church of the Transfiguration on Mount Nebo. Others think it was Mount Hermon, which was closer to Jesus’ stomping grounds of Caesarea-Philippi. But wherever it happened, there are consistently remarkable reports about what happened there.

 “Jesus was transfigured before them,” Mark writes, succinct as always. And lest his readers fail to grasp what that means, he adds a somewhat tedious clarification akin to a Clorox commercial: “And his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.” (Mark 9:3) 

 Matthew adds that Jesus’ face “shown like the sun” (17:2), and Luke reports, “they saw his glory” (9:32).

 None of the gospel writers actually witnessed the event and their descriptions were based on traditions that had been repeated through several generations. They undoubtedly captured the essence of what Peter, James, and John told people all their lives, and even their references to bleached garments are passably poetic.

 In our own era, computer generated images may simulate what the Transfiguration must have looked like, but even then it would be an illusion based on digitally produced light and virtual images. It wouldn’t answer the ancient question, what was it that the disciples really saw?

 Luke mentions (9:32) that Peter, James, and John “were weighed down with sleep” when Jesus began glowing and Moses and Elijah appeared at his side. Were they dreaming? Back in the psychedelic sixties, when I was in college, this kind of question seemed reasonable because we knew the mind was capable of generating some fantastical illusions. But as one who never admitted inhaling, I doubt a simple toke is the equivalent of divine inspiration.

An acid trip may be full of colors and wavy motions, but there is nothing miraculous about it. One of my summer school roommates was a dabbler in LSD and his excursions from reality were evidently terrifying. Late one July night I returned to our room in the midst of a violent thunder storm. I was wearing my Air Force raincoat, which billowed behind me like a cape, and when I stepped into the room my roommate awakened to see me silhouetted by a flash of lightning. He stood wordlessly, walked deliberately to the window, and jumped out. (Fortunately we were on the first floor.) The next morning, after a night of fitful sleep in the dayroom of a neighboring dorm, my roommate returned. “What a night,” he said. “I thought Dracula had come for me.” Whatever his experience had been, it was not a metaphysical revelation.

 The Transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain transcends and surpasses any glib encounters with magic or spirits. For one thing, the event could not have been simulated by sleight of hand or optical illusion.

 When Jesus’ face glowed like the sun, the sheer potency of the unexpected event scared Peter, James, and John out of their wits. And when Moses and Elijah appeared, Peter succumbed to babble. 

 Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. (Mark 9:5-6)

 Peter stopped just short of calling on John to send out for matzos and mackerel. The three disciples had seen Jesus perform miracles before, but this one was a stunner that took their breaths away. 

 That’s what sets the Transfiguration apart from other miracles: it shook the very souls of its human witnesses and left them without doubt that they were viewing a pivotal moment in the history of creation. Here on the mountain, God and humanity connected. Time bonded with eternity. And the medium that brought heaven and earth together was Jesus of Nazareth, the evidently normal man with whom the disciples ate, drank, walked, and slept. The Transfiguration showed a dimension of Jesus they couldn’t imagine, and with frightening clarity before their very eyes.

 And ears:  “Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came as voice: ‘This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him!’” (Mark 9:7)

 The disciples swung around to see Moses’ and Elijah’s reaction but, with exquisite timing, they were gone. “They saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.” (Mark 9:8) In the snap of a synapse, the Transfiguration was over.

 But the effects of the Transfiguration were eternal. The disciples stood on the mountain with Jesus so briefly but in the few moments that passed they saw who Jesus was and is and will be forever. That is why Christian theology assigns such significance to the Transfiguration. It is the bridge between Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, a holy glimpse of the perfection of heaven, a clear declaration from God that Jesus is “my son, the Beloved.”

The Transfiguration is also a bond between the disciples, and between other Christians who lived and died across the centuries.

 In his book, Reaching Out, Henri J. M. Nouwen tells of an encounter with an old friend he had not seen in a long time. They greeted each other and sat in the sunshine.

 “It seemed that while the silence grew deeper around us we became more and more aware of a presence embracing both of us,” Nouwen wrote. “Then he said, ‘It is good to be here,’ and I said, ‘Yes, it is good to be together again,’ and after that we were silent again for a long period. And as a deep peace filled the empty space between us he said hesitantly, ‘When I look at you it is as if I am in the presence of Christ.’ I did not feel startled, surprised or in need of protesting, but I could only say, ‘It is the Christ in you who recognizes the Christ in me.’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘He is indeed in our midst,’ and then he spoke the words which entered into my soul as the most healing words I had heard in many years: ‘From now on, wherever you go, or wherever I go, all the ground between us will be holy ground.’”

 When Jesus and his three disciples climbed the mount of Transfiguration, they sensed what would follow: crucifixion, martyrdom, persecution and terrible suffering. But for a moment, the Transfiguration transcended all that and reminded them of the salvation promised by God.

 So it is with all of us. Life has its ups and downs, its moments bitter and sweet, and none of us know when or how our lives will end.

 But in Reaching Out, Nouwen reminds us that all our worries and fears are in God’s hands: 

 “Jesus showed us all that the very things we often flee – our vulnerability and mortality – can, at any moment, become the place of holy transfiguration, for us and for our world.”

Satyagraha. Luke 6:27-36

February 23, Saint Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y. 

I have led a Forrest Gump life.

As a church magazine editor, I never did anything important. But I got to stand next to some amazing people.

I have shaken hands with Dr. Jonas Salk. I have schmoozed with Jimmy Carter. I have watched the tall, august figure of Civil Rights icon Dorothy Height stroll the corridors of the United Nations. I have smelled the aroma of cigar smoke clinging to burley form of Teddy Kennedy. I have sat in a meeting with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict, though I was not sure I really knew which of the white-haired red-capped cardinals in the room was him.

I have led a Forrest Gump life.

In 1982 Columbia Pictures invited church communicators to preview Gandhi, the epic biographical film of the great Indian leader. I was among the privileged few to view the film from luxuriously padded chairs in a small screening room. And although our hosts never let our wine glasses go dry, I stayed awake throughout all the 191 minutes of the film.

I was deeply impressed by the story of Gandhi and his confrontation with the British empire. The next morning I went to the Columbia bookstore and bought every book on Gandhi they had, about five books. Over the next several days I devoured them as if they were brain candy. I learned the details of Gandhi’s life that couldn’t fit in the film. In particular I learned about Satyagraha.

Satyagraha, which means “truth force,” is a policy of nonviolent political resistance against oppressors. Without firing a shot, Gandhi led a massive movement that led to India’s independence in 1948.

Here, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., used satyagraha to show the evils of Jim Crow and racial abuse by white oppressors.

And, if you look closely at today’s scripture, Jesus is advocating a form of satyagraha to his listeners, a satyagraha based on love and forgiveness.

“Love your enemies,” Jesus said.  “Do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you; pray for those who mistreat you.” (Lk 6:27-28)

These are not easy commandments.

My three older daughters, now adults, are mixed race or Black, and for many years we attended a Baptist church in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. I taught a Sunday School class of seventh grade girls.

There were, granted, some tiny cultural differences between them and me. Like we were speaking different languages.

I didn’t realize how different until I tried to teach the passage we read today.

“Jesus,” I began confidently, “said to love your enemies.”

I thought I heard a gasp so I paused. The girls were staring at me with gaping mouths and horrified eyes.

“He what?” said one.

“Naw, he didn’t say that,” said another.

“Stupid,” said a third.

I hesitated. These girls had good and loving parents who made sure their hair was braided with colorful ribbons and they wore Sunday dresses and patent leather shoes. They were in church every Sunday. How could they miss this essential teaching of Jesus?

“Well,” I said, “you can see where he said it in the Bible …”

“Then he was wrong,” said one of the older girls, no amused at my ignorance. “Jesus tried loving bullies in the seventh grade, he’d be beaten to a pulp.”

The other girls nodded.

After class, I realized the girls were teaching me.

Jesus may have been telling us to turn the other cheek. But surely he wasn’t advocating being beaten to a pulp.

In some churches, Jesus’ commandment to love those who persecute has been taken to an extreme. Wives who tell their pastors that their husbands have beaten them are told it’s because they aren’t showing their husbands enough love. They are sent home with instructions to be more loving and more submissive.

And certainly there are episodes in scripture where Jesus did submit and allow himself to be beaten. But there was also the Jesus who rose up against the abuse of power and tossed the tables of the money changers while flailing a whip.

Scholar Mary Hinkle Shore writes, “The great majority of the Sermon on the Plain …  including its exhortations to love enemies and show mercy like that of the Most High, is spoken to the community of those listening to Jesus. This ethic is not meant to be tried alone. The text is not a directive, for instance, to an individual suffering spousal abuse to bear up under it while the rest of her Christian congregation looks the other way. In the reign of God, we live and act in community, which means, bluntly, that we concern ourselves with each other’s business more than the transaction ethic might suggest we should.”

This is where the concept of Satyagraha takes on a Christian aura.

“Jesus offers his ethic as a way for the community of his followers to resist the tit-for-tat of the present age, not to be passive in the face of it,” Shore writes. “When we live the ethic of this Sermon in the face of this world’s violence, we are collectively saying to those who hate, abuse, strike, judge, and condemn, ‘You are not the boss of me.’ We are demonstrating that bad behavior cannot goad us into reacting in kind. We are resisting the evils we deplore.”

When I look back on my life, I am appalled by the times I allowed evil to be the boss of me.

I grew up in a tiny hamlet in Central New York State. Madison County is rural and predominantly white. However, Peterboro, N.Y., was an outpost of the Underground Railroad and in the 1860s several African American escapees settled there. I knew many of their descendants, and I also observed how they were insulted, belittled, and mistreated by my fellow white folks. I did not participate in the abuse. I ignored it, to my shame.

When I was growing up in the fifties and sixties, many persons had to struggle in solitude with their sexual orientation. This was decades before the Stonewall uprising or Act-Up of Pride, and for many their sexuality was a cause of shame. It wasn’t until I attended class reunions decades later that some classmates showed up with partners of the same gender. They were welcomed, of course, with love. But I cringe to think what it must have been like for them as teenagers when they hid their truth in silence because their contemporaries were not ready to hear it.

When we consider times when we allowed evil to be the boss of us, it is good to revisit the portion of the Sermon on the Plain that we read last week, and update the context:

Blessed are you suffer racism, for you will be free.

Blessed are you who are gay or lesbian or trans, for you will be loved.

Blessed are you when you suffer domestic abuse, for you will find safety.

Blessed are you who feel the darkness now, for you see the light.

Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you, for you are to be counted in the beloved community of the most high.

Love is the thread interwoven throughout the Sermon on the Plain. Love is the thread interwoven thought all scripture and Holy Writ. Love is the thread interwoven through all the mountains and valleys of our lives.

“Love,” said Zora Neale Hurston, is like the sea. It’s a moving thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from the shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.”

“Love,” said Zora Neale Hurston, “makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.”

“I believe,” said Martin Luther King, Jr., “that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality … Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

May love and light and justice embrace us all.

Amen.