id you notice that nobody asked Peter to do anything? Peter was in Lydda when a highly respected and well-loved woman named Tabitha died in the nearby town of Joppa. And people had obviously heard something about Peter. He had a certain reputation for healing and for miracles, so they sent for him with an urgent request that he come, but that was the whole content of the message. They didn’t tell him that he was supposed to heal her (it was kind of too late for that anyways). They didn’t ask him to come and doanything – just come, please, as soon as you can.
And when he came, even then, they didn’t actually ask anything of him. They just took him to an upper room where they had laid out Tabitha’s body but they don’t even seem to have pointed her out to him. No, what Peter actually saw and noticed was not her body but a room full of weeping widows. They didn’t say anything, they just wept and showed him their clothes. And that is why they didn’t need to ask him to do anything. The clothes actually spoke much louder than any words ever could have.
The story of Tabitha in the Book of Acts, makes me ask, first of all, one immediate and very important question. If you were Tabitha, what would the widows show to Peter?
I am often called upon, as you would expect, to speak at the funerals of people who have passed away. I have always found it to be true that every person’s life has something profound and beautiful to say to us at such times and I do see it as a great honour and a privilege to be the one who gets to point out some of those profound and beautiful things.
But I have also noticed that there are often things that are deeper and stronger than words at times like that. They are objects or actions that hold special symbolic meaning and they often will prove far more enduring than the words we say about someone who has died. People will cling to something that the deceased gave to them or did for them and find great comfort in that. That was what those widows were doing when Peter arrived.
Widows are, in the Bible, kind of the stereotypical poor person. They were seen as the most helpless and needy people in all of society. Of course, there are problems with that stereotype. I would never be so foolish as to think of a widow (or any woman unattached to a man) in such terms today! In fact, some of the strongest and most capable people I have ever known have been widows or other women who, by choice or by circumstance, navigate this world without a husband.
And even the ancient perception that widows were helpless actually had nothing to do with the capabilities of individual women. It was just that, in that society, women were not permitted to make their way in the world without a dominant male controlling them. They were not allowed to participate in the economy in any honourable way and so they were forced to be utterly dependant on charity.
So these women in Joppa may have been very strong and confident women. They may have even been practicing the freedom of the Christian gospel by choosing not to be married. But they lived in a society that did not allow them to make their own way apart from a dominant man. These women, because they broke the conventions of society, became dependent on the community of the church.
And Tabitha, had been particularly generous to them. But it obviously wasn’t just the fact that she was generous that had moved them. She had made these clothes with her own hands. Her generosity to them had been personal, caring and individual. That’s what made the common, everyday tunics and dresses and robes they were showing to Peter absolutely priceless in their minds. These tunics represent to them everything that summed up Tabitha’s kindness, goodness and love shown to them.
And I don’t know about you, but if that were me and I had died or moved on in some other way, I just think it would be really nice if, after I was gone, someone could just hold up something and point to it and say, “This is something that tells me that Scott was here and that his presence in this place mattered.” So it is a really good question to ask, “what tunics would people show to Peter after you were gone?”
But actually, I have a much more urgent question to ask here today. The story of Peter and Tabitha is a terrific story to read just after Easter because it is a story of resurrection. Maybe I should have said, “spoiler alert,” before bringing that up, but we did actually read the story and you heard how it ended. Tabitha didn’t stay dead. So it would be very easy to take this story and apply it to our post-resurrection hope as followers of Christ.
Certainly one of the reasons why the early Christians remembered and repeated this story was because it reminded them of their Easter hope in a life after death. The life after death that we hope for is not exactly what happens to Tabitha. We don’t expect Jesus to restore us to thislife again after we die, but rather to a different kind of life in a new place that we can scarcely even imagine. But what Peter does for Tabitha is a symbolic reminder of that hope for life after death.
But there is, I think, another way to read this story as a story of resurrection. After all, it is not just people who die. Groups and organizations and institutions, they can die too. And, as a matter of fact, we are living in an age when institutions are passing away more quickly than ever before. Churches and congregations, in particular are affected by this and they are passing away (or amalgamating or changing to such a degree that they are unrecognizable) at an unprecedented rate today. So would it not be a good question to ask, as believers in the power of resurrection, what is the hope for resurrection for our churches and Christian institutions?
If your church were to die (or go through a radical change that might feel like death) what would you like to leave behind from its life right now that would tell the world that it was worth being here? Now, I know that when we think of our churches and the things that make them special to us, we tend to focus on the things that have been meaningful to us personally. We talk about our beautiful buildings and sanctuaries. We talk about memorable moments in worship services and about the things we have done there with our friends. We also have a certain tendency to go on and on about past glories and to celebrate the way that things used to be.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with loving these things about our churches. But the story of Tabitha makes me wonder, when our congregations are dead (or when they are transformed in coming years) what will make people remember them as they were and believe that they were important? This story makes me think that it may not be the buildings or the activities or the musical moments. What if, in the end, what really matters are the pieces of clothing.
I can think of this quite literally because we have, in this congregation, a clothing ministry called Hope Clothing where we are regularly handing out really good quality used clothing to people simply because they need it and can make good use of it. So I do know just how meaningful such a simple act can be. I am in the church often enough when people come in and bring their donations of clothing. Just knowing that it is our intention to give it all away according to need means a great deal to people in the world today – a world where used clothing has become a big business that creates large profits for some.
I also get to hear the stories that they tell me as they bring the clothes in. Not too long ago, I had a woman come in bearing the clothes of her mother who had passed away recently. She joyfully and sorrowfully (it’s amazing how the two of them can go together sometimes) told me very sacred and holy things about her mother and her sense of style and how she dressed and some of the things she had struggled with over recent years. I know without a doubt that it was a healing moment for her to be able to share her mother’s clothes and her stories in that way. And providing that opportunity is absolutely something that will last long beyond the present state of this congregation.
Of course, I also get to be part of it when people come to take the clothes that they need. We could tell you so many stories of people finding just the right piece of clothing at the right time in order to go to a job interview or a wedding or some other really important event. We could tell you stories of the right piece of clothing showing up as a donation only minutes before someone comes looking for that very thing. It is a little shop where minor miracles happen every week. Sometimes you know you’re participating in a miracle when you are just there and ready to respond when someone comes up against an emergency – a house fire, a situation of abuse or whatever it might be.
And let me tell you, if someday our congregation should cease to exist and the Apostle Peter were to drop by and ask me what really mattered about St. Andrew’s Hespeler, I think we could do a lot worse than to show him those pieces of clothing that were shared and the impacts they had on people’s lives. I know he would be moved by that. And of course, it is not always literally clothing but it is the acts of kindness that manifest themselves in concrete things that are shared with others.
For example, last week I preached this sermon at St. Andrew’s Church in Guelph and they don’t have a clothing ministry. They are, however working diligently towards welcoming a refugee family into Canada. I promised them that the concrete things that they do for that family will be of eternal value and will indeed endure beyond the present life of their congregation.
So I hope that this story of Tabitha might make us re-evaluate the things that we feel are really important about our churches and ask ourselves what we really need to spend our time and energy investing in as congregation. Maybe it is time for some of those priorities to change.
But remember that I said that this is a post Easter story. It is a story of the power of Christ’s resurrection and what it can do for us in our churches today. And I do see us living in an age where death is a real possibility for our congregations. Please understand, however, that I am not, in any way, predicting the death of St. Andrew’s Guelph or St. Andrew’s Hespeler. In neither case do I see that as a likely possibility and I am not here as a prophet of doom today.
But I will tell you this: we are living in days of great change for the church. We have a Lord who will not abandon his church in these days. Christ will be with his church through whatever change may come. That’s the good news. The somewhat more troubling news is this: Christ has a particular strategy for renewal in his church and in his people’s lives. And it is not a strategy of incremental change that never makes us feel uncomfortable. Christ’s favourite strategy for change is death and resurrection.
For me that means that maybe even many of our strongest and liveliest churches may be heading for a Tabitha moment – for a time when it may just feel like we have been washed and laid out in a room upstairs and that we are done. I fully expect many of our congregations to deal with moments like that in coming years.
Why would God allow us to go through such painful moments of loss? Not because he has abandoned us. He will send for Peter to come and raise us up again to new life and new beginnings. Christ will not abandon his church. So why would he put us through that?
Well maybe, just maybe, it’s because he wants us – like those widows in Joppa – to realize what really matters about who we are and what we do as a church together.
#TodaysTweetableTruth The widows showed Peter Tabitha’s tunics proving she had mattered. What would they show him after yr church was gone?
Hope Clothing is a key ministry at St. Andrew’s Hespeler and a wonderful resource for our community. Open three days a week on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, we are there to give out clothes, accessories and footwear to every member of the family. We carry a wide range of sizes for babies, children, men & women. If we don’t have something in stock we do our best to find whatever is needed. In the winter we have a good selection of winter coats and boots.
One of the things that makes Hope Clothing great is that it is not a work that stands alone. It is a part of a much larger circle of hope and care that provides a powerful way for us to Live in Christ and Share His Love. This circle includes:
The Thursday Night Supper and Social: From mid-October to the beginning of April, every Thursday evening, we serve a wonderful, nutritious, home made meal to anyone in the community who would like to enjoy some good food and a safe place to visit with friends. This meal helps people in our community stretch their budget while enjoying a friendly and supportive time of fellowship.
The Cambridge Self-Help Food Bank: St. Andrew’s Hespeler hosts the food bank on every second Thursday. Recently the Food Bank did a survey of its services and the Hespeler site received an extremely high rating because of the ways in which Hope Clothing and the other ministries at St. Andrew’s work in synergy with that service. Thanks to this excellent review, the Hespeler site will be receiving more resources to better meet the growing needs of our community.
A-A, Al-Anon, Al-Ateen: St. Andrew’s is the only site in Cambridge where all three groups meet together which offers another wonderful mutually supportive circle.
Cambridge and North Dumfries Counselling: Being able to provide professional counselling to those in need of it one day a week is a wonderful addition to this all-around ministry.
Hope Clothing is maintained with a minimal budget and is not directly supported from the general funds of St. Andrew’s Hespeler. We are definitely on the lookout for ways to continue to support this work, financially and otherwise, to maintain its viability into the future.
Visit standrewshespeler.ca for more information about Hope Clothing and Hespeler's Place of New Hope and to find out how you can help to sustain it.
Here is yet another story that illustrates how important and meaningful the work of Hope Clothing is:
Would you help us share the story of Hope Clothing and what it means. Go to the following link and then click "Share" for various ways you can help us to tell the story.
Note: I have created the backstories of Mary and Joanna that are featured in this sermon. My speculation on these two characters began with the introduction of these disciples of Jesus in Luke 8:2-3 and has spun off in some interesting directions as I have been working on a future book that may be titled something like “The Seven Demons of Miryam of Magdala.”
Luke 23:50-24:3, Luke 24:13-32, Psalm 118:1, 2, 14-24
M
ary Magdalene opened the package of spices and ointments that Joanna had brought back from the market and inhaled deeply. She was suddenly overwhelmed by the scents: cinnamon, cassia, balsam and resin. She could even smell the small amounts of frankincense and myrrh that her dear friend, Joanna, had only been able to afford by selling the very last pieces of jewellery that she had plundered from her abusive husband, Chuza, when she had fled his household to follow Jesus.
It smelled beautiful, but it was also emotionally dangerous for her. Smell is a powerful trigger for the memory. The part of your brain that processes olfactory information is only separated by a few synapses from your amygdala which is the part of your brain where your most powerful and emotionally charged memories are stored. That is why sometimes just getting a whiff of some scent that is connected to your past can transport you back to events that you may have thought you had completely forgotten.
And there was no question that the smells of these spices and resins were connected to many traumatic memories in the lives of all the women who were there in that room. Mary herself was instantly transported back to the day when her intended husband was drowned while fishing on the Sea of Galilee. She remembered the deep grief and confusion that she felt as they carried the body of her promised husband to his family tomb outside the town of Magdala. At that moment it had seemed as if her entire life had been over and, in a very real sense it was.
Beside her, Joanna was reeling from the fact that the same smells had taken her back to the day, so many years ago, when she and her servants had laid to rest the tiny, stillborn body of her only child. She was suddenly filled with a grief that was so raw that it was as if no time had passed at all. And the same was true for every woman who was present as each one of them felt as if a scab had been ripped off the poorly healed wound in her life that had formed when she lost someone whom she loved: a parent, a child, her sibling or cousin or best friend. Life in Galilee could be very brutal indeed. Their new grief at the loss of their teacher, Lord and friend mixed and mingled with so many old griefs.
There was a reason why they all reacted so similarly. Women in that culture had very well defined roles and duties around death. When someone died, everyone always automatically looked to the women to do what needed to be done. They sang the laments and songs of grief. They told the story of the person’s life and death. They led the procession to the tomb. Most especially they washed and prepared the body with the traditional mixtures of ointments and spices and wrapped it in the linen cloths.
Everyone (even the men) agreed that men just weren’t any good at that kind of thing. So heavy were the expectations of so-called “manly” behaviour placed upon them that men could not express emotions like grief or sorrow in any sort of helpful way. So it was always left to the women – one of the few places in public life where they were actually allowed to take a leadership role. So they had all done it so many times before.
It was somewhat distressing to the women that they had not been permitted to prepare the body of Jesus for burial – that a man named Joseph, a secret ally on the council – had taken care of it by quickly wrapping the body in linen cloths and stowing it in some tomb that had no connection with Jesus’ family. But there was no helping that. Not only had there been no time to do things properly as the sun was setting and the sabbath was about to begin, the situation was also far too dangerous for any open displays of grief on the day when he was crucified.
But the women were determined that they would do whatever they could to make it right. A lot of people have wondered why the women would have returned to the tomb where Jesus had been laid on the third day and why they would bring with them the spices and ointments that were commonly used to prepare a body before burial when he had already been buried, even if hastily so. It is not as if they could have unburied him in order to do it all over again. Even if it had not been for the large stone covering the tomb and forming an impossible barrier, such an act would have unacceptably disturbed the dead.
But we do know that there was a custom in many ancient Mediterranean societies – and in ancient Palestine as well – of a special visit to the grave that took place on the third day following a death. It was a celebration that was led, like all other activities around death, by women. The mourners would go out to the tomb where a beloved friend or family member had been laid and they would take with them a simple meal: bread, wine, maybe some fish and olive oil. These things would be taken as a special gift to the dead, so it wouldn’t be all that surprising if women were to take as well such things as burial spices and ointments.
But the point of the third day gathering by the tombs was not merely to honour the memory of the dead with gifts. There was a belief, common among many cultures and, the evidence suggests, also among first century Jews, that when they gathered to share this simple kind of meal by the tomb of a beloved friend or family member, the dead would join with them in that meal. This was something that all of the women who followed Jesus from Galilee would have experienced before. They had gone with other women to tombs and experienced the presence of the dead on the third day.
What exactly had they experienced previously, I suspect, would have been something like the kinds of experiences that people still sometimes report to this very day. I have often had people tell me about the ways that they were comforted after losing a loved one – how they just felt the presence of that person watching over them or saw something that confirmed to them that their beloved was still with them in some very important way. These are not unusual experiences. Many have had them following a death. People doubt such experiences, of course, because it is notoriously hard to prove any very personal experience, but many have been greatly comforted by these things that reassured them that their loved ones were still with them.
So it wouldn’t really be that surprising if these women were preparing to go out to the tomb and minister to their dead Lord and friend with an expectation of finding some kind of reassurance of his presence. They packed up the spices and ointments, some bread and wine and the other elements of a simple meal and they waited for the dawning of the third day. But it seems that they were about to get more than they had bargained for.
The women who went out to visit Jesus’ tomb at the dawning of the third day had all experienced grief and loss before. Everyone in that society agreed that grief was women’s work. So it was all so very familiar to them – the feelings, the smells, the songs that they sang and the atmosphere. And, given that human life was cheap in Galilee, they had all doubtlessly lost people that they loved. It had been very personal before.
But this was different. Jesus hadn’t just been a friend or a teacher to them. He had been a reason for them to start to live again. He had given them hope that things could actually be different. And so, as they headed out to the tomb to share a meal there and bring offerings for the dead, they may have expected to experience the presence of their now-dead Lord in the same way that they had experienced it before for their other loved ones, but surely they were hoping for something… more.
Christians believe that they did experience something more than the commonly experienced reassurance of the presence of the dead. What exactly happened to them would be impossible to describe precisely because even the Bible has a hard time pinning it down. There are four different accounts of what those women experienced at the tomb in the Bible and not one of them agrees in all the details with the others. But I don’t necessarily think that that is a problem because what these passages are describing are deeply personal experiences that changed the lives of the women who had them irrevocably. It wasn’t just about what they saw and felt and heard and touched, it was about what all of that meant on a very personal level.
I imagine, though, that they arrived at the tomb and they told, one more time, the story of how he had died and what his death meant, just as it would continue to be told whenever the church gathered in the years to come. And then, as was traditional at these sorts of third day gatherings, they took some bread and they broke it. And how could that not have made them think of him – not only because of the last meal he shared with this disciples but also because of how he loved to gather and eat with all sorts of people and especially with outcasts and sinners and all the other people that everyone else rejected. That act alone must have made it seem as if Jesus was very near.
But there was more to it than that. As they took the bread and shared it, as they drank wine from a common cup, they knew that he was there – not just in their memory (though, of course, he would always be there), not just in spirit as they may have experienced it with others they had lost, he was there in body, in whole person. Most of all, he was there in reality. It was like the realest thing that any of them had ever experienced.
And that experience, my friends, is the basis of our Christian hope. I believe that those women experienced it there outside his tomb on the third day after his death. That was when it all started. That is not to say that they immediately understood everything that they had experienced. I wouldn’t be surprised, in fact, if it took them years to really put it all into words that could even make sense to people. And, of course, it wasn’t just that one time outside his tomb either. None of it would have probably amounted to anything if people had not continued to consistently experience the reality that he was alive.
Each experience of the risen Christ was unique, but clearly one of the ways that people continued to experience him was when they shared these same kinds of simple meals of bread and wine and common foods when they gathered. They were often surprised that he was present in those meals with them just as the women had experienced.
That kind of process is described to us in the story from the Gospel of Luke. It takes place on Easter day when two disciples are walking to Emmaus. They have heard about what the women experienced at the tomb: “Moreover, some women of our group astounded us,” they say. “They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive.” They know about what the women experienced, but they don’t seem convinced – not until they experience it for themselves as the stranger with them breaks the bread and shares some wine and they are suddenly part of the same feast that the women shared outside the tomb.
And that is what Easter is really about. It is not just about what they experienced, as real as that was. It is an invitation to all of us to share in that experience together. It is an invitation to share a bit of bread and some wine and to know that this is an event that is not limited to this particular place and time. If you are open to it, it is a meal that can transport you back to the moment when those women gathered on the third day outside his tomb. I pray, and I hope that you join me in this prayer, that at least some of us here today might find some small taste of that in this simple shared meal. That is why we do it.
#TodaysTweetableTruth #Easter isn’t about their experience at the tomb. It is an invitation to experience an event unlimited by time & space
Please plan to join us for our Holy Week and Easter services.
Come for a short time, or as long as you like. Devotional materials will be available. You will have the opportunity to light a candle while you keep watch and write down a prayer and place it in the prayer box.
n the Gospel of Mark we are told that, as Jesus was approaching the city of Jerusalem, he stopped and he pointed at two of his disciples and asked them to do something for him. He told them to go into the village just ahead of them, find a donkey, and untie it and bring it right back. He said he needed it in order to make his big entry into Jerusalem. It doesn’t say which two disciples he sent in the gospel. I’ve always wondered about that. Who were they? Surely, if it were two of the famous twelve, they would have been identified. If it had been Peter, James, John, or even Bartholomew, wouldn’t Mark have wanted to tell us?
So do you know what I think might have happened? I think that Jesus went to the second string. He didn’t send any of these big name disciples or top talent. He sent a couple of the other guys, the ones who didn’t quite make the cut. They were the sort that history doesn’t quite remember, of course, but I’ve heard that their names were Donald and Ted.
And, in fact, I have some good news. It seems that an amazing new archeological discovery has been made in the Holy Land. Apparently, Donald and Ted kept a record of the conversation they had as they made their way to pick up the donkey. And eventually this conversation was written down as the Gospel of Donald and Ted which was, unfortunately lost to history when one of them left it behind one day in the back room of the Jerusalem Tim Hortins. Well, that long lost gospel has finally been found and I am pleased to announce that I have it here today.
So here’s what this long lost gospel says: “And lo, it came to pass that as the two disciples made their way even unto the village where the donkey lay, Donald did say unto Ted, “Hey, Ted, I am just so excited about this assignment. This is finally it. We’re going to Jerusalem and the teacher has obviously decided to make an entrance. And we get the job of making sure that it’s spectacular. It’s going to be huge.”
“Yeah,” replied Ted, “it’s all finally happening. Jesus is going to restore the kingdom of David. It’s going to be the glory days of the past all over again. Jesus is finally going to deport all of those Romans from the country, he’s going to make sure they never come back again. In fact, you know what I heard some of the other guys talking about? I heard them say that he’s going to build a wall around the whole country so that they can never come back here again.”
“I heard that too,” said Donald. “But that’s not all. I heard that he’s going to get the Romans to pay for the wall. And if they give him any trouble, he just said that the wall got ten feet higher.”
“Yeah, I heard that too. But I was wondering, everyone seems so sure that this is what it is all about, but nobody seems to have heard Jesus say exactly that. How can we be sure that that is what he’s going to Jerusalem to do? I mean, maybe he’s expecting something different to happen there.”
Donald thought about this for a few moments. “Well, I do remember a few months ago he said something about going to Jerusalem and then being arrested and put on trial and something about dying, but I think that Peter told him off about that – said that he shouldn’t talk like that – and I’m sure that must have straightened him out. After all, he’s been going on and on about establishing a kingdom. And everybody knows how kingdoms work. A kingdom is only established through strength.
“And now he’s sent us to fetch him a ride for the grand procession that will start his great revolt. What an honour! When people look back on this day, they’ll remember that it was us who started the whole thing, you mark my words!”
“Yeah,” said Ted, “but there’s one thing that’s been bothering me. Why did he send us to get a donkey? Why not a beautiful white horse or, I don’t know, an elephant or a tank to ride on? Wouldn’t a conquering king ride something like that? A donkey is, well, just not so impressive.”
Donald smiled, “Don’t you worry, I’m sure it’s going to be the biggest, most impressive donkey you have ever seen. It is going to be huge! Did you hear him tell us what we’re supposed to say when people yell at us for stealing the animal? We’re supposed to say, ‘The Lord needs it.’ Get it, we have to call him ‘the Lord.’ and everybody knows that being a lord is all about being big and impressive and strong and huge.”
And so it came to pass that Ted found that his fears were assuaged and, greatly comforted, he and Donald pursued their road to find the donkey. And lo, as they walked they began to make up the cheers that they would get the people to shout as they entered the city. They decided that they would get everyone to chant “HO SAN NA” They liked that one because it meant “save” and they figured they knew exactly how he would save the nation from all their enemies. And then Ted came up with on that went, “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!” which Donald thought was good, but maybe not everyone would get it because some people weren’t that great with history.
“Why don’t we just yell, “Make Judea great again”? That’s what bringing back the times of King David means, isn’t it? Oh, and wouldn’t it be great if we made up some hats and put that slogan on them. Man, Jesus is going to be so happy that he sent us to do this job, won’t he?
Here endeth the lesson from the Gospel according to Ted and Donald. And I know that you of have figured out by now that there is not and never has been a Gospel according to Ted and Donald. But the creation of this gospel seemed to me to be the best way to make a little bit of sense of a pretty amazing phenomenon that we see taking place in the United States these days.
I don’t know how many people I’ve had express to me their dismay at what they see happening in American politics right now. People just don’t understand the rise of Donald Trump and the likelihood that he will be the Republican nominee for president. They also express even more dismay at the thought that he could actually becomepresident. And, of course, a lot of it really is very hard to understand. But, as I was reading again the story of Palm Sunday this year, it seemed to me to be a story that might help us to understand some of what is going on.
It seemed to me that the crowds that were shouting out to Jesus that day, many of them at least, had a lot in common with those who cry the name of Donald Trump these days. Now, I know that the two men, Trump and Jesus, don’t really have a lot in common. In fact, I think that they would disagree profoundly on a number of topics such as money, how to treat strangers and outsiders and poor people just to name a few. But Jesus, at least for a certain time around that day that we call Palm Sunday, seems to have attracted a crowd who at least thought that Jesus was promising to give them very similar things to what Donald Trump seems to make his followers today expect, despite the fact that Jesus made his very best effort to tell his followers that he was heading for something quite different.
What were they expecting? We cannot know exactly, of course, but they seem to have been looking for some sort of shortcut to glory and the solution of all their problems. The word most associated with Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem that day is the word “Hosanna,” a Hebrew word that means “save” or “help.” It is a phrase that is sometimes used as a prayer for help or salvation in the Bible, but in the stories of Palm Sunday, it is used in a different way because the people shout it as a sort of a cheer. It is a hurrah as much as it is a call for help. This makes it clear that the kind of salvation that they are looking for is an immediate triumphant victory. They are looking for their enemies to be swept away before them, for everything to be immediately made right as they understand it.
The other phrase that they are shouting, according to the Gospel of Mark is, “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!” I find this one particularly telling. It is not even immediately clear what this means. How could people be welcoming the arrival of the ancient kingdom of a long dead ancestor? But the recent rise of Donald Trump in the United States has helped me to understand what this actually means. It means the same thing as the Trump slogan, “Make America Great Again.”
That slogan also doesn’t make a lot of logical sense. People have just been accepting it at face value and without asking critical questions like, “When exactly was America great before and at what moment did it stop being great.” It really works best if people don’t think about it very much at all because it works in the same way as that slogan shouted out by the crowd on Palm Sunday: “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!” Basically they are holding up a past idilic time that nobody actually remembers and saying, if we just go back to that time, everything will be alright and it will happen with no trouble or pain or difficulty. That’s what I mean when I call it taking a shortcut. It’s the idea that all you have to do is set the clock back to an earlier time that no one actually remembers and every problem is just solved.
And I get why people want that and I certainly don’t blame them for that. There are lots of good reasons why people are upset at what has gone wrong in their society, the lost opportunities, the corruption of a political system and a party system that doesn’t really listen to what people want. There is a lot that is right about that impulse to tear apart the whole system so you can rebuild it all from the ground up. But the thing that people miss is that are no shortcuts to the kind of change that is really needed. You can’t just get there by marching into Jerusalem or by building a wall and making Mexico pay for it or slapping on a hat that says, “Make America Great Again.
The thing that sets Jesus apart from Trump and others like him is that Jesus kept repeating over and over that there were no shortcuts to glorious victory. He chose to ride a donkey into Jerusalem and that was no traditional mount for a great victor according to the rules of this world. He had told his disciples at least three times that he was going to be arrested and killed when he went to Jerusalem. He knew what was in store for himself and he had decided that he couldn’t avoid that route. There really were no shortcuts to the victory that Jesus was heading towards.
Jesus has a plan for bringing redemption, hope and new beginnings to this world in spite of all its troubles. He probably would have had the power, had he called on it, to sweep into Jerusalem and take over and drive out his enemies and impose his idea of the kingdom of God by force. Does anybody believe that would have ended well? Jesus knew that it wouldn’t. People still try and take that shortcut, though. Some are pushing for it right now. That is why I will put my faith in someone who chose to ride into town on a donkey and who knew that rejection, suffering and death were what waited for him. He may not be the saviour that people are shouting for in the streets, but he is the kind of saviour we need.
#TodaysTweetableTruth As Jesus comes to Jerusalem, they cry #MakeJudeaGreatAgain Jesus knows there’s no shortcut to change the world needs.
very year the National Hockey League, the NHL, pauses in middle of its season to celebrate its very best players. The All-Star game has always been a big fan favorite – a chance to celebrate the players that the fans love most. And, in January of this year, the league really needed a successful All-Star game as it found itself in the midst of a season that many fans seem to find rather uninspiring. Instead what it got was a bunch of really bad mistakes. And I know that you may not think that the story of an All-Star game has much to teach us about the Biblical truths, but I hope you’ll stay with me for a little bit here because I think that it can.
The first mistake that the NHL made was to include the fans in the selection process of the All-Star team. Now, that was not a new mistake this year. Fans have been helping to choose team members since 1985, but a lot has changed since way back then. Today fans are connected to each other through social media in ways that could never have been dreamed of back in 1985. And this year someone somewhere on the internet decided to disturb the NHL’s plans for a nice little, brand-boosting All-Star game.
A social media campaign was started to get people to vote John Scott onto the team under the hashtag, #VoteJohnScott. I’m not sure why someone started this campaign but it seems that people lashed onto it as a way to get back at the league for all kinds of reasons. Scott was a player who really had no business being on the team according to any regular measures. Some people have suggested that he had no business being in the NHL at all. Playing for the Arizona Coyotes this season, he has spent as much time in the minor AHL league as he has in the NHL. He had only played 11 major league games, scored no goals, had only one assist and spent about a half hour in the penalty box. An enforcer and big brawler on the ice, he seemed anything but a good representative of what is good in the game.
But the campaign really took off and before long Scott had not only got on the team but came in ahead of all the other top players. The fans made him captain of the Pacific Team. Clearly the NHL had made a mistake in letting the fans have the kind of power that they could use to sabotage the league’s plans. But it probably would have been alright if they had just left well enough alone. They did not.
The league (and I think that most people have blamed everyone’s favourite commissioner, Gary Bettman) decided that it would be too embarrassing to allow Scott to play. None of this is proven, mind you, but it seems that they tried any and all means to get him off the roster. They tried to bribe him to decline. They even went so far as to tell him that his children would be ashamed of him. When that didn’t work, they got mean. He was suddenly traded from Phoenix to Montreal and no sooner had he arrived that the Canadiens immediately sent him down to their minor league farm team in Newfoundland. The argument was that since he could no longer represent either the Coyotes or even the NHL because he no longer played for either.
So all of a sudden, in the middle of winter, Scott and his family are moved from hot and sunny Arizona and into exile in deepest darkest Newfoundland. But, I have to ask, what did John Scott do to deserve such treatment? He is, by all accounts, a really nice guy who loves hockey and loves his kids and is only dangerous if you meet him on the ice. He also didn’t make any mistakes. If anyone did, the league did. But it looked as if he and his family were going to be the only ones to pay the price.
But isn’t that the way it always goes. It is a story as old a human society. It is certainly as old as the Book of Isaiah. There are a series of passages in the Book of Isaiah that are sometimes called the Songs of the Suffering Servant. These songs are found in Isaiah 42, 49, 50 and 53. We read the final song of the Suffering Servant this morning.
All of these poems tell the story of an unnamed figure who is simply called the Servant of the Lord. This is a man, called to serve God in the world and to do much good and no wrong, who is nevertheless terribly abused over and over again. As it says in our reading this morning, “He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account.”
In all likelihood, when the prophet talks about this figure, he is thinking about somebody he knows personally – someone in his nation whom he has seen God use to do good but who has been terribly mistreated. He may even be talking about himself, in a roundabout way, and how he has been abused despite being a prophet of God. But whoever the prophet was initially thinking about, there is something universal about his description of the Servant of the Lord. He is describing something that seems to have happened over and over again in the history of the world when a good person is unjustly punished for doing good.
Christians have taken these passages, for example, and applied them to the story of Jesus and his death upon the cross – and rightfully so – for there is no question that Jesus’ story is absolutely a working out of the same theme that is found in the Book of Isaiah. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the suffering and death of Jesus is the definitiveexample of somebody living out this pattern. Jesus lived out the universal story of the suffering servant more perfectly than anyone else in history both before and since. And, since the death of Jesus is an eternal event – an event whose impact far exceeds the moment in time when it happened – it is even possible to say that the Songs of the Suffering Servant in the Book of Isaiah are based on the story of Christ even though they were written long before his time. That is one of the things that it means when we call them prophecy.
But, as I say, the story of Jesus is just the most perfect example. It is far from the only one. And I told you the story of John Scott this morning because I also see it as an echo – perhaps a dim echo, but an echo nonetheless – of the same universal story. Of course, I would never suggest that Scott’s abuse was anywhere near what was suffered by Jesus or even what was suffered by Isaiah’s Suffering Servant. To suggest any sort of parity would be ridiculous. But Scott’s story is a reminder that nothing really changes in the world – the pattern remains the same. The powers of this world, whether they be kings or priests or commissioners or sports franchises, have their plans. And a key part of their plan is that they don’t really have to suffer for their own mistakes – they’ll always find a way to get someone else to pay the price. That’s what the John Scotts and the Suffering Servants and the Jesuses of Nazareth are for.
To give another rather egregious example from recent events, when Michigan State officials made the very serious mistake of choosing to save some money by drawing the City of Flint’s water from the terribly contaminated Flint River, who paid the price? Not the officials but the ordinary people of Flint who, for generations, are going to be dealing with the effects of lead poisoning.
But the best part of the universal story of the Suffering Servant is that it doesn’t end there. It doesn’t just end with John Scott finishing his career playing for the St. John’s IceCaps in the AHL. It doesn’t end with Jesus on the cross. If it did, we might get mad and enraged, but we would in no way see our need for justice satisfied.
Let me just quickly tell you how John Scott’s story ended. The fans didn’t buy the excuse that he couldn’t play in the All-Star Game because he was no longer in the NHL. They said, “We don’t care, let him play.” On twitter, the hashtag was #FreeJohnScott. The fans said it so loud and so insistently that the league really had no choice. And Scott went and he played as beautiful a game as he had ever played in his whole career. Everyone could see that he had made the game. Yet, despite that, the league wouldn’t put his name in on the ballots for Most Valuable Player. Do you think the fans cared about that?
No they did not. At the game they started chanting, “John Scott” and “MVP” and before you knew it, John Scott, despite not even being on the ballot at all, had taken the whole thing as a write-in candidate. All of this led to the most beautiful moment when Gary Bettman, commissioner of the NHL and the guy that most people blamed for the whole debacle, had to stand at centre ice and smile and pretend that he was happy as he handed John Scott a check for one million dollars.
I have heard people predict, in the midst of a rather unimpressive NHL season, that perhaps the one thing that people will look back on and see as the high point of 2015-16 season will be the All-Star game and it is all because of John Scott. We will see, of course, once we get into the post season, but I think that it might be true. John Scott, the guy that they tried to get rid of, may end up redeeming the entire season.
But, once again, I think that story is most interesting because it contains the merest echo of a story that matters on an eternal scale. Jesus was the ultimate victim of this world’s systems of power, privilege and domination. And they thought that they had beaten him – that they had put him exactly where they wanted him, upon a cross. But it was in the very moment of his defeat that, we believe, Jesus actually defeated the dark powers of this world. The truth of what Jesus accomplished for us is perfectly spelled out for us in the Book of Isaiah: “The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”
For that is how our God operates. Yes, the powers and authorities of this world will lay their plans. They will decide that they do not need to pay for their own mistakes, their own sins and their own errors. That is what the “little people” for. And they may even get away with it for a season. They may seem to thrive and get richer and stronger and feel ever more secure. But we have a God of justice. He will not let that stand forever.
But God has a particular way of making his justice work out in this world. He doesn’t necessarily go for that straightforward confrontation with the powers of this world. That kind of clash often doesn’t make things better and can often make things worse. God’s plan is to stand with the victims, the lost and neglected, those who are not allowed to prosper in this world. And God has a sense of humour – I’m sure of that, because he loves to use those very downtrodden and abused people and win the victory through them. Jesus showed us the absolute power of the seemingly powerless victim and he is the model for all the rest.
When this world has got you down. When you start to be discouraged and to believe that the weak will just continue to be used and robbed, hold one picture in your mind: John Scott holding that check at centre ice. Sure, but maybe even a better picture – one that gives the model to all the others – Jesus, taking on the powers of this dark world, doing it by dying before their very eyes. He wins, not just the battle, but the entire war.
This is the message of Easter – the message we get to celebrate in a couple of weeks. And it is a message that brings us hope by exposing the weakness and emptiness of this present world’s power system.
#TodaysTweetableTruth The powerful tried to make #Jesus pay for their #mistakes. Jesus, as #victim, exposes how empty this world’s power is.
On April 10, our Youth challenged the session of St. Andrew's Hespeler to a "friendly game" of Heads Up.
