PRESENCE THROUGH ABSENCE

By Dr. Richard Guentert

This is the Sunday of the Church Year we celebrate Pentecost. The Gospel selection is John 15:26-27, and 16:4b to 15. For the purposes of this blog I want to focus on 16:7, 12-13.

I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. . . . “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; . . . and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

In short, I think this Scripture text points out how Jesus understood the necessity of Aabsenting@ himself from them; but not before he promised them the coming of the Advocate – the Holy Spirit ... the very Apresence@ that would sustain them into an unknown future . . . the very Apresence@ that would help them discern and discover additional truths for their mission that neither he nor God had yet completely revealed to them.

As most of us think back over our faith journey, we can identify family, friends, church folk and pastors who, early-on, taught and mentored us about life. But then they went their way and we went ours. Life’s pathway took them down different avenues and turns in the road – so they no longer walked beside us as we journeyed on! But along the way, we still valued some of those significant life lessons – those “truths” they gave us, and we built upon them; we added to them; we expanded upon them; we used them as foundational footings – but not as hindrances that would restrict us from the exploration and discovery of new truths God had in store for us. As a result we lived our way into some future directions and pathways they could never have imagined.

In other words, we experienced their presence, even in their absence. And while we relished the truths that improved us, we did not allow them to totally impede us!. (And that is what this text is about today). Indeed, the absence of the Teacher was necessary, before those first disciples could begin to put the pieces together most meaningfully for themselves. Jesus had to create in them a sense of His AAbsence,@ before it would fully occur to them, just how fully “present” he continued to be in their lives . . . a presence that was always reassuring, though never suffocatingly stifling.

When I went away to College, I really thought I was getting out from under the watchful eye and the controlling presence of my parents. What I was surprised to discover was how really present they were in my dorm room and classroom with me each day. Their counsel continued to be ever present when I encountered a situation that demanded it. The values they fashioned in me kept cropping up whenever I would try to transgress them. The attitudes they had formed in me would surreptitiously sneak to the fore, just when I least expected them to do so. And the conscience they had created within me was a real Apain in the butt@ ... but in the long-run it safeguarded me from a lot of heartaches. (So, you see, I experienced their presence, even in their absence.)

Years ago I remember hearing Keith Miller talk about all those deceased folk in his life to whom he turned for insight and discernment whenever he faced life=s greatest difficulties. He said he would go to church and sit on the main floor of the sanctuary. But he could re-collect in his mind the image of all his forbearers up in the balcony behind him ... giving him the very advice and encouragement and support he needed all along the way.

And I guess that is just another way of understanding what the writer of Hebrews was calling AThe great cloud of witnesses@ who have gone before. Their Spirit is so absorbed and so incorporated into us that they continue to fuel our identity and our ideals; they continue to impact our personality and our practice; they continue to determine our propensities and our peculiarities. And that=s just the way Jesus said it would be with the work of the Advocate – the Holy Spirit. Instead of pointing them to the old hopes, he patiently directed them to the hope that was on the horizon .... the coming of his own Spirit-like presence that would abide with them forever – the one John called “The Advocate.”

Because there is APresence in the midst of Absence@ Jesus was not misleading us as he said, AWhen the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth!@ With Pentecost, God has provided a means for his continuing revelation – through the work of the Advocate – the Holy Spirit. The activity of the Spirit (the Advocate’s coming) on Pentecost was only the beginning. Throughout the centuries the Christian community has again and again re-experienced the truth of Jesus’ promise: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. [But] when the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. . . . He will declare to you the things that are to come.”

So it seems to me that perhaps Jesus’ truth wasn’t yet ALL the truth – since we couldn’t handle it then, he says. And neither are our truths ALL the truth there is. So, as my friend Dr. Jan Linn (pastor at Spirit of Joy Christian Church in Apple Valley, Minnesota) says, “We should speak all the truth we know, without claiming it is all the truth there is.”
The Spirit journeys alongside us and within us – forming and reforming us, shaping and re-shaping us, creating and re-creating us. And God’s revelation continues well into the 21st century.

Some Thoughts on John for the Second Sunday of Easter

This is new to me. I have been reading your blog now for awhile and enjoying it. I decided to volunteer to post some of my thoughts as a way to take my turn.
Here is what I'm going to do. I will share with you some of my thinking at this stage of the game. It is Monday and early in the process of building a sermon and for me that begins with looking at the scripture and letting it speak to me. So I will "think out loud" with you listening in.
The passage I will be looking at is John 20:19-31 and ,wow, I see a lot of things that peek my interest and stir my thinking. Here are some of the those things:
It is the fist day of the week, Easter evening and the disciples are hidden because of fear.Fear of the Jews we are told. but not all Jews, they were Jews. No, they were filled with fear because the authorities might do to them what they did to Jesus. So they are locked away behind closed doors. The Serendipity Bible asks the question, "Have you ever gone to your room and locked the door? Why?"
There seems to be a lot of matched statements and events. The disciples are afraid and Jesus comes to them and gives them peace. Jesus is sending the disciples as he was sent by God. They are warned that they have the power of offering forgiveness or withholding forgiveness. They see and believe and blessed are they who believe and have not seen. This might be an interesting track to pursue.
Another issue that jumps out to me and was mentioned by the New Interpreter's Bible is that while Thomas doubted the report of the disciples of Jesus resurrection, the disciples doubted the report of the women.Lots of doubters. Besides Thomas was only asking for the same evidence that others received. Jesus appears to him when he was with the other disciples a week later. Is this a lesion on missing out when you break fellowship? Jesus appears to him only when he is with the others not alone. Yet there is not criticism of Thomas by Jesus. Just the presentation of the proof asked for. Notice too, that Jesus shows both the disciples and Thomas the scars. The crucified Jesus is also the resurrected Jesus. The commentaries mention that Luke 24:41 tells the reason was to prove that Jesus was not a ghost. It is interesting to note that the disciples rejoice after seeing the scars not when they first see Jesus.
I want to go back to the greeting of "Peace be with you". That seems like a common greeting but it is repeated later. Is it like the toss off phrase we use, "How are you?". It can be asked in a way that dose not expect an answer or when you really want to know, "How are you?" Jesus is not just saying "Hi" He really wants to respond to our fear with the gift of peace.
The concept that keeps drawing me back is the promise that those that have not seen and yet believe will be blessed. That even ties to the way this passage ends. These stories we are told are not everything that happened but these are written that you may believe and by believing you may have life.
Is this the way to faith without seeing? Believing the stories of those who have seen?
These are some of my first thoughts. Sorry they are not more pulled together. Hopefully, and with the Lord's spirit, they will be pulled into a message by Sunday.

Tom Felts

What just happened?

Mark 16:1-8

If I were going to write the story of the resurrection, I just don’t think this is how I’d do it. I mean, the story—and most scholars think this is the earliest Easter story we have—ends with a bunch of women, having been told to go tell the disciples that Jesus has been raised, running off terrified and not saying anything to anyone. No one goes and tells anyone anything, and there’s no appearance of the risen Jesus in the story. (It’s almost like someone tore the last page out of the book of Mark—as a matter of fact, in the Greek the text ends in mid-sentence. Did Mark mean it that way, or have we lost the real ending?)

No, I think if I were going to write the story I’d do it more like what’s in the Gospel of Peter, which is one of the many Gospels that were floating around the early church, all but four of which didn’t make the cut when they finally put the Bible together as we have it today:

“…in the night in which the Lord’s day dawned, when the soldiers were safeguarding it two by two in every watch, there was a loud voice in heaven; and they saw that two males who had much radiance had come down from there and come near the sepulcher. But that stone which had been thrust against the door, having rolled by itself, went a distance off the side; and the sepulcher opened, and both the young men entered. And so those soldiers, having seen, awakened the centurion and the elders (for they too were present, safeguarding). And while they were relating what they had seen, again they see three males who have come out from the sepulcher, with the two supporting the other one, and a cross following them, and the head of the two reaching unto heaven, but that of the one being led out by a hand by them going beyond the heavens” (Gospel of Peter, translated by Raymond Brown).

Yeah, I think that’s how I’d write it, only I think maybe I’d want that giant Jesus to go up to the Romans and the Jewish elders who were there and say, “Hah!”

But this Gospel didn’t make it in. Instead we have Mark’s version, which goes by so suddenly we don’t even have time to ask, “What just happened?” I wasn’t there, and so I don’t know the discussions that might have gone on, but somehow the people who finalized the canon determined that Mark’s Gospel is in and the Gospel of Peter is out. And the whole issue of how they decided what books got in is very interesting, but not really germane on Easter morning, except to say that the fact that Mark’s Resurrection story is in the Bible and the one from the Gospel of Peter isn’t says something important to us.

Now, of course, as we have it today there’s quite a little bit of stuff at the end of Mark after verse 8, where our reading for today ends. There are resurrection appearances in Mark, and a sending out of the disciples. And there’s that troublesome verse that says certain signs will follow those who believe, including the ability to pick up snakes without being harmed. But this longer ending seems to most scholars to have been pieced together from stories in the other three Gospels, and the style of writing isn’t a thing like the rest of the book of Mark. It may have been added much later by Christians who knew the other Gospel stories, and knew that there were eyewitnesses who said they’d seen Jesus after the resurrection (see Paul’s discussion in 1 Corinthians 15, for instance). I think this ending was added by folks who may not have trusted that those who read the Gospel of Mark would get the point he was trying to make by having the story end in mid-sentence, and before anyone had actually seen the risen Christ.

Remember that each one of the Gospels is written for a different place and time and purpose; each of the four Evangelists had a slightly different point to make. Mark’s Gospel, many think, is a training manual of a sort. It conveys the basic outlines of the Gospel story, with a tremendous sense of urgency. Everything in Mark happens “suddenly” or “immediately.” When the story begins, Mark doesn’t devote any time or ink to telling stories of Jesus’ birth—there are no angels, no shepherds, no wise men, no Mary and Joseph, no manger, no star.

First John the Baptist appears in the wilderness (that’s the exact word Mark uses: appeared), and then Jesus comes and gets baptized, and by the fourteenth verse of the first chapter of the Gospel, Jesus is preaching. He calls his first disciples in verses 16-20, and then they’re off and running.

The point of this Gospel might be to get new believers to understand the basic story in a hurry, so they could et to work and be able to make disciples and teach and heal in whatever short time they had before the end-times, or they got arrested, whichever came first. Mark’s resurrection story is equally brief: Jesus died, he was buried, and then on Sunday morning some women came and found the tomb empty.

But the women told no one, and at least in the earliest form of the story, Jesus never appears. So how does it happen that we’re here today, if the story ends with three scared women saying nothing?

Well, it seems that Jesus did appear, because the rest of the Gospels talk about appearances and people who see Jesus—and Paul, as I mentioned, talks about eyewitnesses, and he wrote 1 Corinthians before any of the Gospels, even Mark, were written. But I think even if there hadn’t been resurrection appearances—and I am certain that there were—the story would have spread.
Easter just isn’t something you can keep to yourself—at least, it shouldn’t be. Look: if Christ is really raised from the dead, and churches would be empty on Easter Sunday if those who are there didn’t believe that on some level, then the back of death and sin and evil is broken. And if that’s the case, then what on earth do we have to be afraid of?

Do we have to fear being kept alive by machines or tubes—or do we have to fear those machines and tubes being turned off or disconnected? Do we have to fear the loss of our jobs, our prestige in the community, or even our money? Do we have to fear that if we don’t do something ourselves, our churches or our regions will not be here in 50 years?

No!

If Christ is really raised from the dead, then death is swallowed up in victory, in whatever form that death might take—death of our churches, death of our social status, death of our bodies or our ability to control what happens to our bodies. So let us live as people who have nothing to fear!

This brings us back to the reason Mark’s Gospel, with its abrupt mid-sentence ending, makes it into the Bible where the Gospel of Peter with its mile-high Jesus and walking, talking cross doesn’t: By leaving the story unfinished, Mark is telling us something very important.
Mark begins his Gospel with an introduction: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” I suppose he could be saying, “I’m going to start telling you about Jesus now,” but I don’t think that’s what he’s doing. I think he’s introducing the whole book as “the beginning of the good news.” And by ending so abruptly, he’s saying to all who read his Gospel: “Now it’s up to you to be the rest of the story.”

The story began with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. You’ve been introduced, and you know Jesus came out of the tomb, even though the women initially were afraid to say so. Now keep your eyes open, because the risen Christ will appear to you; you will know his presence in your church and in your life. And when you do, then you get to add your witness to the story that continues from where I left off.

The Lord is risen! He is risen indeed! He is alive among us here, and as we go out into the world, as people of the Resurrection, we are part of the rest of the story.

March 29 - 5th Sunday of Lent

"Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life." John 12:24-25.

I am not preaching this week; however, I do have a few illustrations to offer up in regards to this scripture passage. A few weeks ago, I preached on Matthew's version of this statement. In that sermon I said:

Keeping the church alive is not our mission. That’s not our primary focus. If we put all our efforts into keeping the doors open, the lights on, and keeping enough people in the pews to keep the bills paid, then we’ve become like a sports team that has all but forgotten about the game it is supposed to be playing. If all our efforts go into saving our church’s life, then we will surely lose it, because we’ve already lost our focus. But those who lose their life, those who are willing to give their life away, for Christ’s sake, for the sake of the gospel, will find that their life has been restored.

(The full sermon is here.)

Likewise I remember hearing a chaplain at a boy scout camp use an apple to illustrate this scripture: He took the apple and cut it in half. I believe he cut it in half sideways, so that the hidden star was revealed. Then he took out the seeds and asked, "how many seeds are there?" The scouts counted the seeds. Then he said, "If you plant these seeds in the ground, how many apples will they produce?" Of course there is no way of knowing, although it is likely that many, many apples will come from these few seeds. It was a simple, yet effective, object lesson.

For God So Loved the World

by Brian Kirk

John 3: 14-21

On the way to understanding this text, I think it helps to remember the situation of John’s community, living in the aftermath of the Roman-Jewish war. As Jewish life in this time begins being reconstructed around the synagogue rather than the Temple, John’s community finds itself outside the newly-drawn Jewish social boundaries. Rejected by their fellow Jews as well as the Romans, they begin to see the world as hostile and alien. In their understanding, the world persecutes them just as it persecuted Jesus.

The writer of the gospel senses the angst of his community and fears they are falling apart and that some, if not all, may be tempted to return to their old ways. He illustrates this crisis in the gospel as a crisis of faith: “Do you believe Jesus is the way? Do you trust the things that he taught?” The “I am” statements in John (I am the way, the truth, the life, the gate, the vine, etc) are likely responses to those members of John’s community who are asking “Did we make the right choice? Was Jesus really the one?” John preaches a “realized eschatology” which urges the listener to make a decision for Christ now -- not in the future. Judgement day is an existential experience -- it occurs the moment you meet Christ. Those who step into the light of this moment and choose to ignore it or reject it are already, then, living under the consequences of that decision.

And yet, notice that the real focus of the text is God's love, not God's judgement. Maybe it is our own guilt or knowledge of ourselves that makes us see the words "judgement" and "condemn" and "evil" in big bold letters when what we really need to see is the words "love," "live," and "saved" in this passage. Those are the words that lead to transformation, that lead us out of the darkness, that open our beings to be able to meet and receive Christ in our midst.

Some questions I would consider when reflecting on this text:

1) What do you make of John’s Jesus and his view of the world in this text?
2) How do you react to the counterbalance between judgment and mercy in the text?
3) Think of biblical stories where God’s judgment ultimately resolves into God’s love for the world. What are the theological implications for this motif which repeats itself throughout the biblical texts?
4) The verb pisteuo meaning"to believe/trust" repeats seven times in the text. Five times are present tense (vv. 12, 15, 16, 18, 18). The present tense suggests continual action: "don't stop trusting," "keep on believing." How do you understand the difference between belief and trust? Does such a distinction change the way we read this passage? What do you see as the implications, for John’s community and ours, of belief/trust not as a one time event but as a process leading into the future?

FLOOD AND FAITH

By Dr. Richard Guentert

Two of our four lectionary passages this week spotlight the story of Noah and the flood: Genesis 9:8-17 and 1 Peter 3:18-22.

I can seldom approach this ancient story without being reminded of the cartoon which pictures Noah’s Ark beached on the ice of Antarctica. Stranded on the frosty lip of the continent! Marooned aground on this expanse of white ice! Noah’s wife is standing beside him complaining stridently: “I told you that you should have sent forth the dove instead of that stupid penguin!!!” Much humor and wisdom have found their source in this rich story from the Hebrew tradition.

As we approach the text this week, our homiletical consideration needs to move beyond the question of “Did it really happen?” to an affirmation about the “multiple meaty meanings” that are encapsulated in this remarkable tale.

I would quickly acknowledge that some of its wording demonstrates a deficiency of scale. The covenant, according to verse 13 is “between me and the earth.” This raises an intriguing issue. What does it mean to hear this passage in light of a God of the whole universe? Since people of earth will eventually move to populate the planets, does the covenant extend to the reaches of interplanetary space? In order to make application to a people who will ultimately be living in a larger frame of reference, if not actually pioneering new realms beyond planet earth, we 21st century Christians (who know little of existence beyond terra firma ) stand on the verge of having to re-articulate much of our “earth centered” testimony about the nature of faith and the message of Scripture for a new time.

As we re-read this oft-told narrative many other thoughts, questions and concerns come to mind (each of which will shape the way we deal with this foundational text).

>> Is the flood story an abrogation of “the good” of the original creation? Or is the flood story God’s “new strategy” for re-creating a people who are willing to live in an obedient faith relationship with their Creator? Or is it a story that encompasses both of these truths?

>> In the Noah epic God’s creative work appears to have moved from populating the earth afresh, to re-populating the earth all over again. And is there a sense in which the new circumstances of each generation re-present us with this task of re-populating the planet (so to speak) with a fresh incarnation/embodiment of new life and innovative experiences of reconciliation?

>> Whatever the real dimensions of the flood, it covered the whole known world, of its story-teller. The author’s intent was obviously to connote both the dimension of the catastrophe, and the breadth of God’s act of ultimate salvation in the 15th verse of today’s text: “and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.”

>> This week’s lectionary segment, only part of the larger story, emphasizes the Compassion of God for both the human and the non-human creation.

>> The quality of what occurred in the concluding promise of Noah’s epic is, in many ways, a foretaste of John 3:16 … a portrayal of the kind of God who “so loved the [entire] world.”

>> This passage is ultimately about “covenant.” And covenants, by their very nature, require fresh signs and repetitive affirmations of them.

>> It is not insignificant that this covenant is God-initiated. Verses 9 and 11 both say, “I am establishing my Covenant.”

>> Verse 13 says that it is when the bow is in the clouds that we will be reminded of this covenant promise. In other words, it is in the “stormy” times that remembrance re-occurs. (Parenthetically, I just purchased a new Blackberry Storm …. with a GPS navigator function. My Blackberry, along with this passage, remind me that it is in the midst of the “storm” that I most need navigational assistance.)

>> In this story God seems to be shaping God’s own divine identity around being “a God who remembers covenant.” This engenders the insight that “being created in the image of God carries with it the obligation to be a people who keep on rehearsing/remembering the Covenant Relationship.”


The second lectionary text (I Peter 3:18-22) also depends on knowing the Noah flood epic. It tells us that following Jesus’ crucifixion his resurrected spirit visited those sinful scoffers of Noah’s flood-time warnings. The resurrected Spirit of Jesus “made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark” (verses 19-20).

Many centuries after the flood story, we have again in First Peter the portrayal of a pursuing God’s compassion. Noah’s God is unwilling to let the drowned-deny-ers and the ark-scoffers soak in their sinful consequences. No! With the resurrection of Jesus, our Christ’s Spirit reaches back to rescue and redeem them, each one.

In what seems to be a stretch of “comparative effort gone amuck,” the I Peter text then notes how “eight persons were saved through water” [verse 20], (i.e. riding out the flood in a vessel of salvation, populated by 8 humans and a passel of animals.) And this, says our author, is a “prefiguring” of the Baptism “which saves us” (verse 21).

The waters of Baptism put our minds at ease (i.e. "a good conscience" in verse 21) . . . even as Noah and kin had some peace of mind in riding out the storm and being rewarded by the covenant promises of God. And if such a good outcome came to Noah, how much more can we, who believe in the resurrected Christ, trust in the covenant relationship and look forward to composed minds – tranquil and serene – calm with shalom and benefiting from the serenity of the Spirit?

Transfiguration Sunday

My apologies for those looking for a discussion about the gospel text but after preaching the Transfiguration every year of my 25 years in ministry, I’m taking a year off and going to the 2 Kings 2:1-12 lesson. I will offer this note however on the Transfiguration which could be described as a “Thin Place.” Marcus Borg in The Heart of Christianity, says Celtic Christians t described as “Thin Places.” those occasions where the veil is lifted and the truth about God becomes apparent. God is with us and around us all the time, but there are moments when you sense it more fully. Times in worship, nature, community, retreat and service can all become “thin places” for us and have a transfigurative quality to our spiritual journey.

I’m drawn to the Elijah/Elisha story because of the chariot of fire. (All the gear-heads will appreciate it if you point out that God is their kindred spirit because God invented such a spectacular vehicle). But the story isn’t really about the chariot or even Elijah’s mystical departure that allows him to be an eschatological figure who returns as John the Baptist and on the mount of Transfiguration.

The story is about transition. Folks kept saying to Elisha, “Don’t you know that today the Lord will take your master away from you?” I hear echoes in the church halls. “Soon all the ladies who cook the funeral dinners will be gone, then what?” “Don’t you know that the financial resources to the region have nearly dried up?” “Don’t you know that we are we are in dire need of theologically educated younger clergy?

I love Elisha’s response. “Yes, I know; keep silent.” That is “shut up” about the losses we will experience. Turns out that God is still on the job. Be silent and trust that God will provide.

Before Elijah mounts his sweet ride home, Elisha asks him for a double share of his spirit. A bold request! The spirit of Elijah carries on in his successor—God provides! During the ordination service in the United Methodist Church, candidates about to be ordained ask the retiring pastors for a double share of their spirit. At that point the retirees present the new pastors with a clergy stole—just like Elijah handing off the mantle. It’s a powerful service.

I’m wondering if there might be a way to incorporate something of that service into a Transfiguration service where an older generation will give a symbol of blessing to the younger folks. Before you object and say that the older folks still have a ministry too, I say, “Yes I know; be silent.” All who remain on this side of glory have ministry to do—that is our inheritance from Christ.

David Clark
Ankeny Christian Church
accdoc.org