He is Risen

April 20, 2025, Saint Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y. Partially reprised from earlier posts. 

For the past several hours, the disciples have hidden in a darkened room, confused, grief-stricken, frightened. 

The central figure in their lives, Jesus of Nazareth, has snatched from them. They have watched his agony on the cross. They have watched him die. They may even have thought that their own lives are over. What could the future hold for them in the dangerous byways of Roman Palestine?

But now it’s Sunday morning. Mary Magdalene is the first to visit the tomb of Jesus. In one of the most moving stories in scripture, in John’s gospel, she encounters a man she assumes is the gardner. 

“Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means teacher.)

How quickly her grief turned to joy. 

But why didn’t she recognize him?

Perhaps Jesus was the last person she expected to see walking around a grave yard and her mind wasn’t focused on the man.

That could be. I once didn’t recognize my brother on an elevator because I didn’t expect to see him. The mind plays tricks on you.

But Mary was not the only apostle who didn’t recognize the resurrected Jesus.

In Luke 24, the resurrected Jesus joins two of his disciples on a walk to Emmaus, but Luke reports “their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” (v.16). Mark reports, a bit mysteriously, that Jesus appeared to them “in another form” (Mark 16:12), which, as author Garry Wills writes in What Jesus Meant, is “hard to interpret.”

In Luke 24:36b-48, the resurrected Jesus startles the disciples with an abrupt and unexpected appearance. 

He appears ghost-like through a solid wall.

But Jesus insists he is no ghost. He demonstrates the solidity of his flesh by eating fish. 

How does he do it? What is going on?

“Jesus appeared in numinous form (Wills writes) … his body was not the earthly body anymore, but one both outside time and space and affecting time and space.” 

The resurrected body of Christ could pass through walls and, ultimately, ascend into heaven, but Jesus could also allow Thomas to touch his wounds of crucifixion. Even more amazing, Jesus could eat with his companions. 

And now it is Easter and we’re still wondering. What was Jesus’ resurrected body really like?

We can’t get the question out of our minds because the Jesus we see moving in and out of the closing scenes of the Gospels is not the Jesus we thought we knew.

That Jesus was – how shall we put it? – a hale fellow well met. He was good company, a charismatic preacher and teller of tales, an imbiber of wines, a bon vivant. His enemies took advantage of his epicurean ways by calling him “a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” (Matthew 11:19). When Jesus was offered the physical pleasures of a foot massage or a soothing anointing by a beautiful woman, he accepted. When a fruitless fig tree denied his impulse to nosh, he cursed it (Mark 11:20).

Jesus was so into the pleasures of the flesh that he made eating, drinking and foot washing mnemonics of his mission, lest any of us forget.

There are other things we know about the pre-resurrected Jesus. When anguished, he wept. When struck, he bled. When he met an obstacle, he had to go around it.

But in his post-resurrection period, so much about him is different. The dark circles of overwork have disappeared from beneath his eyes. His face seems younger, more relaxed. He looks like the old Jesus but he can make himself unrecognizable when it suits him. He somehow manages to walk through walls, but his body is corporeal enough to eat broiled fish. Even odder, the nail wounds of his crucifixion are visible, observable, touchable. He isn’t a ghost. He isn’t a zombie. Jesus’ resurrected body, which he defines in his own words as “flesh and bones,” is an unprecedented manifestation, a new state of being not seen since the dawn of creation.

We can’t stop wondering about it. We’re overflowing with questions we can’t wait to put before God. And one of those questions is, why did Jesus need a body? Wasn’t his soul’s immortality enough? Wasn’t it supremely liberating to shed his body and allow his spirit to fly free and unfettered for all eternity?

Let’s face it. The human body can be an uncomfortable thing to carry around with you, especially when it ages or falls ill. St. Francis of Assisi referred to his own body as “Brother Ass,” an obstinate encumbrance that led him into unspeakable temptations and had to be beaten into submission. Both Francis and St. Benedict, another mystic, punished their insubordinate bodies by throwing themselves naked into patches of thorns and writhing until they were suitably chastised and bleeding. Toward the end of his life, Francis concluded such behavior was patently nuts and began to protect his body to keep it well enough to labor, as a humble ass, in the vineyard of the Lord.

These old saints are nothing if not interesting, but you’ve got to wonder: if God placed enough value on Jesus’ scourged body to raise him from the dead, does it make sense for the rest of us to pillory our bodies with briar patches and humiliation?

C.S. Lewis, in Letters to an American Lady, said he understood what St. Francis meant by calling his body, “Brother Ass.”

Not that you and I have now much reason to rejoice in having bodies! [Lewis wrote]. Like old automobiles, aren't they? where all sorts of apparently different things keep going wrong, but what they add up to is the plain fact that the machine is wearing out. Well, it was not meant to last forever. Still, I have a kindly feeling for the old rattle-trap. Through it God showed me that whole side of His beauty which is embodied in colour, sound, smell and size. No doubt it has often led me astray: but not half so often, I suspect, as my soul has led it astray. For the spiritual evils which we share with the devils (pride, spite) are far worse than what we share with the beasts: and sensuality really arises more from the imagination than from the appetites; which, if left merely to their own animal strength, and not elaborated by our imagination, would be fairly easily managed.

For Lewis, the human body is as likely to steer us toward faith as it is to lead us into temptation.

There is a stage in a child’s life at which it cannot separate the religious from the merely festal character of Christmas or Easter [he wrote]. I have been told of a very small and very devout boy who was heard murmuring to himself on Easter morning a poem of his own composition which began ‘Chocolate eggs and Jesus riz.’ This seems to me, for his age, both admirable poetry and admirable piety. But of course the time will soon come when such a child can no longer effortlessly and spontaneously enjoy that unity. He will become able to distinguish the spiritual from the ritual and festal aspect of Easter; chocolate eggs will no longer seem sacramental. And once he has distinguished he must put one or the other first. If he puts the spiritual first he can still taste something of Easter in the chocolate eggs; if he puts the eggs first they will soon be no more than any other sweetmeat. They will have taken on an independent, and therefore a soon withering, life.”

The pleasures of the flesh may the succubae that lead us to sin, but they are just as likely to lead us to a more intimate experience of God. Olympic sprinter Eric Liddell preached that sermon in a single line in Chariots of Fire: “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.”

There is no better instrument for detecting God than our bodies, even when they become old rattle traps. We feel God in the kiss of the sun on our backs, in the soothing caresses of a lover's hands on our shoulders, in the culinary pleasure of a good meal, in the relief of slaked thirst or the contentment of a good wine. As a lifelong Baptist, I like to fast before partaking in Episcopal or Lutheran Eucharist because the warmth of the wine fills my chest like a subtle indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And although our Baptist instincts tend to label rich, chocolaty desserts as “sinful,” I think of them as portals to heaven.

C.S. Lewis also believed that erotic pleasures were portals to heaven. Christianity’s embrace of sensuality – beginning with Jesus’ own fondness for food and drink – sets Christianity apart from other more ascetic religions and from  the heresies of Christians who believe God wants them to suffer, flagellate themselves or avoid earthly delights as a preparation for heavenly bliss. The body is a gateway, not a barrier to God, and the more people love one another, the better they will understand what heaven is like. “To love another person,” the chorus sings at the end of  Les Misérables, “is to see the face of God.”

But perhaps the definitive evidence that God created the body as a gateway rather than a temporary encumbrance is the resurrection of Jesus. Because Jesus’ soul, like ours, is immortal and indestructible, his eternal personality – like ours – was never in jeopardy. Mysterious as it is to us, God deemed that our bodies would be inseparable vessels for our souls and essential transoms for our insights into God’s truth.  The resurrection of Jesus seals the relationship between our body and our soul forever.

And just as important, the resurrection of Jesus seals God’s deal with us that we, too, will have the same experience.

Just how that will happen is unclear, and Christians have always wondered about it. Even in the beginning of the church, so many had doubts about it that Paul adopted a scolding tone:

How can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain … For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” (I Corinthians 15:12-17)

I suspect the debate in Corinth was sparked by the same notions we have today. It’s easier to imagine our souls flitting around the firmament as disembodied spirits than it is to imagine our often infirm bodies raised to a new life. There are just so many unanswerable questions: what will our bodies look like? Will they be young again? Will they be better looking? And what about the bodies of persons who were dismembered at death? Will they, like Jesus, be resurrected with their scars intact? What about the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki whose bodies were broken down into atoms that melded with molecules of dust? What about persons whose cremains are scattered in several locations? How is the resurrection to take place?

Beats me.

You can spend hours in theological libraries or on the Internet, reading tomes and sermons about each of these issues, and many of them are exceedingly clever. Some surmise that our resurrected bodies will have no gender and cite the Pauline declaration that “in Christ there is no male nor female,” while others conclude optimistically that our resurrected and improved bodies will be spectacularly superior to our old shells.

Those answers will have to wait and may depend on whether our resurrected bodies are still curious.

But what is clear today is that God created our bodies to fulfill the destinies of our immortal souls, and Jesus affirmed it when his sudden appearance scared the disciples out of their wits. It seemed ghostly enough, but he said, “It is I myself. Touch me and see.”

The resurrection of Jesus that was witnessed and proclaimed by his followers is, as Winston Churchill said in another context, a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

Even more so is your resurrection, and mine.

But amid all the speculation and puzzlement, one fact emerges clearly enough: God proved his love for us in “that while we still were sinners, Christ died for us … For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.” (Romans 5: 8-10).

Something extraordinary happened that Passover long ago that kept Jesus’ contemporaries returning worshipfully to the site of his crucifixion and inspired his disciples to risk their lives to keep his story alive.

How closely did Jesus’ numinous body resemble the body of the Jesus his disciples knew and loved? That’s hard to tell. As we have seen, Resurrected Jesus was often not recognized until he did something to call attention to himself. Only on rare occasions could the disciples actually touch him, and Jesus – when he chose to affect time and space – could eat food and – when he chose to be outside time and space – could disappear in front of their eyes.

What is that to us?

According to Paul, the numinous body of Jesus gives us a glimpse of our own numinous bodies when he shed our earthly shells.

“So it is with the resurrection of the dead; what is sown as a perishable thing is raised imperishable. Sown in humiliation, it is raised in glory; sown in weakness, it is raised in power; sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body.” (I Corinthians 15:42-44, REB)

What will our numinous bodies be like?

We hope, of course, that our resurrected bodies will be young, attractive, and more vigorous than the husk we carried through life.

But more than that, I think.

Our daughter Katie had a dear friend who, like her, was developmentally disabled on the autism spectrum. Joseph was a charming young man who, despite his limitations, was a loving and delightful presence in all our lives. He was a caring and giving person and I have no doubt he walked this earth exactly as God intended him to be.

When Joseph fell ill with leukemia, neither he nor Katie were fully able to understand what was happening. We loved him and when he died, we mourned him deeply.  

Not long after his death, I dreamed I was sitting at a table with a young man I slowly recognized as Joseph. He was relaxed and his eyes twinkled and we engaged in light conversation. It was only after I woke up that I realized Joseph and I were conversing at a level he could not have attained when he was alive, a conversation filled with humor and subtle nuance. He demonstrated insights and understandings that would have been beyond him.

I like to believe I was receiving an important message in that dream. I was introduced to Joseph as he will appear at his resurrection.

I certainly do not suggest that Joseph was incomplete when he lived among us, but there were many things his disability prevented him from understanding. But so it is with all of us: while we live on this earthly plain, there are many mysteries we will never comprehend. 

But the promise of Jesus is that God will restore us to a higher level of understanding when our own numinous live outside time and space but continue to experience the effects of time and space. 

Exactly how that will happen, as Professor Wills acknowledges, is “hard to interpret.” 

But for those who view death as an inevitable result of the time and space in which we are imprisoned, it’s good to be reminded that God transcends our earthly limitations.

Regardless of the forensic details, this is most certainly true:

The Creator God who loves us all unconditionally sent God’s son into the world to conquer death. Regardless of how God did it, Christ is raised. And because Christ is raised, so will we be raised.

We cling to this hope: that what has been sown in us in weakness will be raised in power.

Christ is Risen. Hallelujah.

Good Friday

 

April 18, 2025. Saint Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y. Partially reprised from an earlier post.

Nothing displayed Roman power like crucifixion, an act designed
to publicly execute revolutionaries and slaves with utmost shame
and disgrace as a means of punishment, cruel amusement, and
deterrence for revolutionaries present and future.

In 71 BCE, when Spartacus was defeated by Pompey, six
thousand survivors of the revolt were crucified, lining the Appian
Way from Rome to Capua, a distance of more than 100 miles.
Josephus describes the crucifixion of thousands of Jews during
the siege of Jerusalem (70 CE) in the first war with Rome. “So the
soldiers, out of the wrath and hatred they bore the Jews, nailed
those they caught, one after one way, and another after another,
to the crosses, by way of jest, when their multitude was so great
that room was wanting for the crosses, and crosses wanting for
the bodies.”

For the readers of John, written in the traumatic aftermath of this
war and hurtling toward the cataclysmic second war (132–135
CE), the crucifixion of Jesus would be understood as a prophetic
foreshadowing and in profound solidarity with all those noncombatants
hungry for peace and life in the face of overwhelming
death. John takes Jesus’ crucifixion, intended by Rome as a
triumphant display of Roman power and glory over a humiliated
enemy, and narrates it as the victory of God over the forces of
death and dominion, a victory achieved by the self-controlled and
unflappable martyrdom of Jesus. Today, in yet another time of
war, famine, immense suffering, and death in Judea and
Palestine (and elsewhere), we do well to return to John’s Passion
for a renewed vision of peace, resilient agency, and life.

The lectionary passage begins under the cover of darkness with
the arrest of Jesus at the hands of soldiers from both Rome and
the chief priests and Pharisees highlighting the alliance of
powerful elites arrayed against Jesus.

Rejecting apprehension, Jesus offers himself in place of his
accompanying disciples, and he affirms the anti-violent path of
liberation given to him by God, rebuking Peter for his attack on
the high priest’s slave Malchus. We see clearly here John’s
insight that the power to overcome violence comes not from
violence, but rather from sacrificial love and from light that
eschews both flight and fight.

From there, Jesus (bound and beaten, yet ever unbowed) is
paraded before both high priests and Pilate, where his innocence
is interrogated and repeatedly pronounced.

Jesus’ confrontation with Pilate, the face of empire in Judea and
emissary of the imperial “ruler of this world”, displays most clearly
Jesus’ distinct path of liberation apart from violent revolution.
Jesus insists to Pilate, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my
kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to
keep me from being handed over”. Rather, Jesus’ mission and
power is his testimony to the truth , a revelation that unmasks the
myth of violence and domination.

Jesus’ distinct path of liberation stands apart from the other
postures toward Rome displayed as foils in this passage. Though
united in their opposition to Jesus, we see starkly different
sentiments displayed by the various Jewish groups depicted. On
the one hand, we see the powerful chief priests aligned with
Roman rule, who go beyond sending officers to join the Roman
cohort at Jesus’ arrest to ultimately proclaiming, “We have no king
but the emperor”, an existential inversion of the zealous
revolutionary cry “No King but God!”

Conversely, the Judeans clamor for the release of Barabbas, the
anti-Roman insurrectionist. Though divided in causes, all three
parties (Pilate, the chief priests, and Judeans) are united in the
perception of the threat Jesus’ path to liberation and life poses to
them, a union begun in the raising of Lazarus that set in motion
their resolve to kill Jesus, and they join in sending him off to his
wrongful execution. Jesus, however, remains in control until the
end, pronouncing, “It is finished,” then bowing his head and
handing over his spirit.

Notably, though Jesus’ anti-violent resistance to the forces of
death is ultimately endorsed by God in the resurrection of Jesus
as the true way of faithfulness, his betrayal and crucifixion are
both condemned as sin, making clear that God neither requires
nor desires the death of Jesus to bring salvation. In addition to the
multiple metaphors of salvation in John (including spiritual union
with God and spiritual rebirth) John takes the death that Rome
intended for shame and dominion and transforms it into a sacred
sacrifice of liberation, evoking the Passover liberation by placing
Jesus’ crucifixion at the same time as the sacrifice of the lambs
for Passover.

The transformation of death into life is completed by the birth
imagery evoked in the eruption of blood and water when Jesus’
side is pierced. For all who struggle and die in pursuit of peace,
truth, and justice—especially peacemakers in Palestine, Israel,
and throughout the world—John’s portrait of Jesus’ martyrdom
shows the life, love, freedom, and rebirth that are possible in
active resistance.

Chrtistina Rosetti, a 19th century poet, places these words on our
hearts amid the darkness of Good Friday:

Am I a stone, and not a sheep,
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross,
To number drop by drop Thy blood’s slow loss,
And yet not weep?
Not so those women loved
Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter, weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;
Not so the Sun and Moon
Which hid their faces in a starless sky,
A horror of great darkness at broad noon –
I, only I.
Yet give not o’er,
But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock

Wash one another's feet. Seriously

April 17, 2025, St. Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y. Reprised from an earlier post.

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 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.

Hosanna

 

April 13, 2025, First Lutheran Church of Throggs Neck, Bronx, N.Y.

Shall we join Jesus’ long journey to Jerusalem in our mind’s eye, Ignatian style?

There you are, a wedding guest in Cana, raising another cup of the marvelous new wine. 

There you are on the mount, cupping your ears to hear the words of Jesus float down the hill.

There you are in the bustling crowd, watching as Jesus turns to heal a woman of her constant bleeding.

There you are in Gennesaret, where the sick were placed in market places on mats, and all who touched the hem of Jesus’ coat are healed.

There you are on the Mount of Transfiguration, blinded and dazed by Jesus’ sudden incandescence.

There you are at the tomb of Lazarus, speechless and 

Stupefied when Jesus’ summons the dead man to walk into the light of day.

And now, here you are in the midst of the crowds as Jesus enters Jerusalem. 

Close your eyes and imagine the crowds ripping fronds from the palm trees and waving them in jubilation. 

Listen to the people shouting their vociferous but, as it turns out, shallow hosannas. And watch as Jesus makes his way through the bustle of crowd, riding on an ass.

An ass? If you use your imagination to the fullest, this image alone will seem strange. Jesus, the Messiah, the son of God, riding on a silly beast of burden? And once that image is fixed anew in your mind's eye, your fancy may take you further than you have ever gone.

You may find yourself asking new questions. For example, why didn't Jesus walk?

And if he didn't walk, why ride on an ass? Why not a horse?

Most likely you will suppress that image quickly because most people have difficulty imagining Jesus on Trigger.

Perhaps Jesus chose not to walk because that would have placed him on the same level as everyone else, just another pilgrim in the dense Passover crowd. That would have made him virtually invisible unless he was a lot taller than everyone else, which - if so - was not mentioned in the gospels. If an average size Messiah required a triumphant entry into Jerusalem, he had to ride in on some conveyance that set him apart from the crowd. Strolling wouldn’t do it. A cart ride would have been silly. A chariot would have been out of the question. 

So why not a horse?

Horses don’t make a lot of appearances in the bible, unless they are the stuff of visions, such as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. But horses were surely common in Jerusalem and would easily overcome sheep and goats in the excremental sweepstakes. According to a cache of credible Internet information, riders of the Roman Equites Legionis were used as scouts, messengers, and defensive screens when soldiers were surrounded by overwrought Goths. Horses also served to make Roman officers look big and scary. 

Horses were beasts of war. Any king who rode a horse through the streets of an ancient city had either already conquered or was signaling his intention to take the city by force of arms.

This is hardly an image fit for the Prince of Peace.

In ancient times, the donkey was regarded as an animal of peace, and on the first Palm Sunday the pacific intentions of a king on a donkey were unmistakable to the teeming crowds.

The donkey also provided another advantage for Jesus. A person straddling a donkey attracts more attention than someone merely walking, but that person is not lifted too high above the crowd. Seated on a donkey, Jesus was accessible to the masses. They could reach out to touch him as he passed. The donkey permitted him to pass through the people as one of them, not as a king on a horse whose prancing hooves would frighten them out of the way. 

It’s obvious that Jesus had given careful thought to the sermon he wanted to preach by riding on the donkey. Somehow he knew a donkey had already been arranged for him in a suburb of Jerusalem before they entered the city.

When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and said to them, 

“Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. If anyone said to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ just say this: ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.’” (Mark 11:1-3)

One thing we might conclude by the promise to return the creature unscathed is that used donkeys do not depreciate in value during a test-drive.

Another thing we might conclude is that Jesus knew exactly how the sermon on the donkey would be remembered through the millennia. Neither a horse nor a stroll on foot would say it as clearly: here, on a humble ass, is the monarch of the universe, who was in the beginning with God, who took on human flesh to experience all the joys, pains and travails of humanity, who was one of us, who came to rescue us from sin, who came in peace to reconcile us with the God we had rejected.

It’s impossible to envision Jesus on the donkey and mistake him for a shock-and-awe conqueror. He rode on the ass through the streets of Jerusalem to say, my time is near. Raise your palms and spread your cloaks before me as signs you know who I am. Then depart in peace and ponder this revelation in your hearts. Leave the violence and flogging and crucifying to others.

Five days later, we know, the fickle frond wavers joined the vicious crowds to call for a brutal end to the sermon. They stood outside Pilate’s palace shaking their fists and chanting, “Crucify him.” 

It’s an excruciating story to hear every Passion Week, all the more so because it set a pattern of church brutality and carnage that has lasted to the present day. Even the peaceful donkey ride through Jerusalem was re-invented by the church as an opportunity for mayhem. According to another credible online source:

In the 16th and 17th centuries, Palm Sunday was marked by the burning of Jack-o-Lent figures. This was a straw effigy which would be stoned and abused. Its burning on Palm Sunday was often supposed to be a kind of revenge on Judas Iscariot, who had betrayed Christ. 

What a travesty of the sermon Jesus was preaching, but less a mockery than other incidents of church history: the Crusades, stake burnings, beheadings, disembowelments, and other hideous tortures of Christians who didn’t believe what the Christians in power believed. 

Christian persecution of Christians continued relentlessly throughout the centuries. The Mennonite Martyrs’ Mirror records countless examples of Christian-on-Christian cruelty. 

For example, a Mennonite named Dirk Willems who was jailed for heresy by his Dutch Lutheran neighbors in 1569, and sentenced to die. Willems escaped from jail and was hotly pursued by angry Lutherans, one of whom fell through thin ice and was about to drown. Willems, a true Christian to the end, stopped running and pulled the man to safety. It was just enough time for the crowd to catch up with him. They arrested Willems and burned him at the stake. 

No wonder we cannot repeat Tertullian’s Apology without snickering: “‘Look,’ they say, ‘how the Christians love one another, and how they are ready to die for each other.’” The quote is from an essay written in 200 C.E. And looking back, one wonders if it was ever true after that.

As we begin the last week of Lent, Passion Week, it will be good to reflect on these matters. Lent is a time of reflection and repentance. It’s a time to remind ourselves of the reasons Jesus came to us. It’s a time to recommit to the commandments Jesus said were the essential ingredients for human behavior: to love God with our heart, mind and soul, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Jesus expressed all of this in the simple symbolism of riding a donkey through the gates of Jerusalem. 

And as we watch him in our minds eye, making that astounding passage one more time, may we remember the message he intended.

And may our imaginations allow us to join the cheering crowds in that cleansing refrain:

Hosanna!

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!

Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!

Hosanna in the highest heaven!

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.