Happy Easter. Luke loves to juxtapose two groups, often male and female. And it is no different here at the Resurrection. Often it is for two ends of a spectrum. Sometimes it is to show different reactions to the same proclamation of the Word. Today the women and Peter are juxtaposed (with the apostles being an indeterminate group). The Word is the Resurrection. Both believe, but their starting place is much different. Their starting places just might be the extremes of the people showing up for Easter Services.
Good Friday service as I run it most years is a reading by the congregation of the passion story in the gospel of the year broken into seven parts, usually: Gethsemane Betrayal, Jewish Trial, Peter’s Betrayal, Pilate, Herod, Crucifixion, Burial. After each reading there is an appropriate hymn, a short meditation, and the dowsing of the light. It’s a guided contemplative service. Every year for me as a preacher this is typically the toughest service. Those meditations have to be tight. My normal Sunday sermons runs 1500 words or around 12-15 mins. When I do occasional or midweek preaching, or the Pastor’s Corner articles, I aim for half that length. Both of those have some room to develop an argument and provide examples. Maybe even on the longer one a tangent not fully explored but offered. The Good Friday meditation is aimed at 300 – 400 words. It is a work of compression. One image, one thought, right to the point. And it needs to be emotionally obvious such that examples aren’t needed. That said, this series of seven such mediations felt right.
Biblical Texts: John 12:12-19 (Palm Sunday), Luke 23:1-56 (Passion), John 18:28-38 (unread, but referenced)
It was Palm Sunday also known as the Sunday of the Passion. It’s the first Sunday of Holy Week. The passion account is given its own days the week on Thursday and Friday, but the church has cycled through periods of greater focus on the Palms and periods of greater focus on the Passion. (They 1960’s/70’s were probably a high water mark on the Palms. Growing up I never remember hearing the Passion on a Sunday. But Good Friday in those days was almost as well attended as Easter.) I’ve found the juxtaposition of the Triumphal Entry and the Trials is fruitful in preaching and meditation. (And this Hymn – LSB 444 – is the perfect bridge.)
The day structured like that is about The Two Kingdoms. The City of God and the City of Man. The Kingdom of the Right ruled directly by Christ and the Kingdom of the Left ruled through mankind. And what we call politics is often just life in the overlapping of the Kingdoms. This sermon meditates on those two kingdoms. How Christ rules the Right directly. And the responsibilities of the Left and living in the overlap for Christians.
Biblical Text: Luke 23:26-56 (Concentrating on v48)
The full text was the crucifixion, but Luke gives us the scene through multiple pairings of people. He calls is “The Spectacle” which is something pulled from the world of Greek Theater. That world had two forms: tragedy and comedy. And Luke’s pairing of folks to me displays what kind of Spectacle they thought they were in. And Luke’s account places us as watching the Spectacle. With the question, what are we watching? The Sermon hopes to orient us toward a proper viewing of Holy Week.
Of all the genre of biblical literature I think we hear the parable the worst. Maybe that is in line with how they were originally told. When asked Jesus said he spoke in parables “so that they may hear and never understand. (Matthew 13:14).” We either think they are too easy and we walk away with a dead letter. Or we try and make them way too complex looking for esoteric meanings. There is usually nothing wrong with the too easy, except that they just become cute stories with no current relevance. The too complex is usually heretical. They do require some meditation. And they are usually a little more challenging than just a cute story. The parable here is of the wicked tenants. The sermon has quick examples of too easy and too hard. But what most of the parables want to tell us is what the Father is like. And in this case it is about the patience, love and promise of the Father. The parable tells us how the vineyard runs. And leaves us in the vineyard. Leaves us with the question of if we would stay in the vineyard, or will we too lose it.
We are continuing our midweek read through the passion story. And we are up to the trials of Jesus. In Luke there are really two phases. The Jewish trial ends when Jesus answers the Chief Priests questions. That is the last time that Jesus Answers anything. Jesus is completely quiet with Pilate and Herod. And it is interesting how in Luke Pilate is the chief arguer for Jesus. His failure to me is like one of the visual trick pictures that have two images in one. That’s where this meditation starts.
The parable of the Prodigal Son is the text. It remains one of the few biblical stories in common purchase. Which is good because at it most simplistic it is the Old Old Story. It is the pure gospel of the Father’s Welcome. But Jesus’ parables are always deeper than the simple application if we are willing to ponder them a bit. This sermon is an attempt to do that. Starting with the fact that the Bible doesn’t seem to like eldest children. There are three main points:
The Providence of God is for everyone. The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike.
There is only one way into the Father’s house, as a son.
The feast is going to happen, the question is if you are there. (And to be there means to live as a member of the household whose currency is love.)
Give it a listen and think along with it. I could be wrong, but we tend to emphasize the love of God, but we don’t really think about the means. We think about it as some generic force that has no implications. But the parable brings one son back, but at the end leaves the son who had never left outside the festival tent.
This is a meditation on how one’s belief – one’s confession – shapes who we are. Psalm 115:8 lets us know that you become like what you worship. Your belief forms you. But that belief is not an immediate change. Formation is not an overnight experience. Even the Apostle Paul was not as immediate as you think. The meditation then looks at Peter’s betrayal and Jesus’ confession.
The Gospel Lesson for the day is one of the great teachings of Christianity even though it is not explicitly in the creeds. It is one of the teachings that you won’t really find in world religions and goes contrary to our natural intuition. And that is its teaching about suffering. Our intuition and most of world religion teaching about suffering would fall under the idea of karma – “you get what you deserve.” That might be a little crass, the more refined teachings might allow for some randomness or spread over time, or multiple lives, but the gap between crass and refined isn’t that great. Nothing compared to Jesus outright rejection that suffering tells us anything about the status of an individual soul. Suffering in Christian thought, the kind the spurs thought – that of the innocent – is only good for two things. First the recognition of the general sinfulness of the world, and second as a sign calling for repentance. The cross, the place of the suffering of the truly innocent, is the ultimate call to repentance. It is also the place where we see the guilt of the entire world paid for. The Christian cannot look at suffering and derive a moral status hierarchy. Because we all deserve that cross.
Jesus proceeds to talk about fruitfulness. The parable he tells is mostly about a truer theodicy. God who is after repentance, faith and fruitfulness is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The soul is given plenty of time, support and chance by God. But if suffering cannot be used as an external sign of faithfulness and love. Fruitfulness can. The parable contemplates the soul planted in grace that bears no fruit. It just takes up ground. It is not works righteousness to encourage fruitfulness. The soul where repentance has taken root will produce the outward signs of faithfulness towards god and love for the neighbor. The sermon meditates on these two movements: suffering and fruitfulness.
Sometimes you come up with something you really like. For example, this sermon. I think this is really good. Except that it might miss the time a bit. For a midweek meditation, it is probably a little too serious. I’m sure that agony of the spirit is a real thing. I’m not sure if our age experiences it. What we call agony is usually more a paper cut. But the image of Gethsemane, even if our agony between the Spirit and our Spirit doesn’t rise to the same level, it is still ours. And the promises are still given. The Angels are there. Prayer is available. The Will of God will be done.
