News Blog

for the week of April 9, 2023

For Monday, April 10, 2023

https://youtu.be/YKVS2LTmgWA

Hespeler, April 9, 2023 © Scott McAndless – Easter
Jeremiah 31:1-6, Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24, Colossians 3:1-4, John 20:1-18

Ladies and gentlemen, it is a beautiful, crisp and clear Sunday morning. The sun is just a little up over the horizon on this early spring day. The birds are singing. A gentle breeze is blowing. And a lively crowd of hundreds has turned out for the final leg of this first ever Sunday after the Passover footrace.

And, yes, it seems as if the patience of all of these spectators has finally paid off as I think… yes, I can see the two lead runners coming around the bend. My friends, this is so exciting, they seem to be running neck and neck. On the inside track is a figure that I know will be familiar to many running fans. He is big, he is brash, he is built as solid as a rock. With broad shoulders and the calloused hands of a man who has spent many years hauling in fishing nets on the Sea of Galilee, that can only be Simon who is known to his friends and fans alike as The Rock.

But alongside him, matching him pace for pace is… that other guy. You know, he is that disciple that Jesus was really very fond of, but I never seem to remember his name. The commentator in my ear is telling me that his name is John, but I am not sure whether or not that is right.

The Final Leg

Anyways, this race just got pretty exciting as it looks as if the other guy, you know the one who isn’t The Rock, just took the lead on the straightaway. Yes, as we come into the final stretch, he is a good length ahead of his nearest competitor. I can see the sweat on The Rock’s brow from here as he struggles to catch up, but he just doesn’t seem to have it left in him to make up that gap.

And now, as we come up to the finish line it is the other guy and The Rock – the other guy and the Rock. It looks like it’s going to be a photo finish, a photo finish. But now… what is happening? It seems as if the other guy is stopping short. He’s pulling up just before the finish line. I repeat, the other guy is not entering into the tomb. He’s pulling up and just looking in and, yes, Simon the Rock is rushing straight past him and going into the tomb! Ladies and gentlemen, this is so exciting! It appears that we have a winner!

The Rock has entered the tomb and he is examining the linen cloths lying there. And now the other guy has entered as well. He appears to have come in second in this race, but it looks like, yes, it appears that he believes! Of course, it’s not entirely clear at the moment what it is that he believes because neither of them seem to have understood the purpose behind what has happened here today because they do not understand that Jesus had to rise from the dead.

A Strange Intrusion

I’m sure that I am not the only one who is a little bit puzzled by this strange intrusion into the story of Easter morning in the Gospel of John. I certainly understand why the story of Mary Magdalene discovering the empty tomb, her conversation with two angels inside and then ultimately her meeting with the risen Jesus outside the tomb is really important.

But I cannot help but wonder why, in the midst of all of that, we have to take a break to hear the story of a footrace between Simon Peter and this other disciple. Why does that matter? It’s not as if they really discover anything of much importance. They simply confirm what Mary has already reported, that the tomb is empty.

They examine what evidence there is inside, but it certainly doesn’t amount to more than a few folded grave clothes. Sure, that might be interesting to a crime scene investigator, but it’s hardly conclusive proof of anything. So why is this reported? Why does it even matter?

Ignoring Women’s Discoveries

It does sort of feel like an example of the kind of thing that often happens when women make discoveries of significance or importance.

When Elizabeth Magie, a creative genius, invented a game that powerfully illustrated some of the excesses of capitalism and monopolistic practices, she called it The Landlord’s Game. But you’ve probably never heard of that game, have you, even though it became one of the most popular board games of all times? That is because two men, George and Charles, better known as The Parker Brothers, took her idea and renamed it Monopoly.

Or think about the scientists who have taught us about the nature of the universe. Everybody knows who it was that discovered gravity because his name was Sir Isaac Newton. Everyone knows who discovered the special theory of relativity. His name was Albert Einstein. So how is it that nobody seems to know who it was who discovered what stars are made of – that they are mostly made of hydrogen? That was a phenomenally important discovery and yet no one seems to know that scientist’s name. It might have something to do with the fact that her name was Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin.

Women have often discovered extraordinary things and made enormous accomplishments and yet, when it comes to writing down the stories of these discoveries, how often do we tend to focus only on the things that men did?

A Bit of Male Chauvinism

And so, yes, in the midst of the Gospel of John’s resurrection story, which should be focused only on Mary Magdalene making the most important discovery of all time, it is somehow not very surprising that we are forced to pause and listen to a story about a couple of men who apparently got into a competition to see who could run to the tomb first. It seems like a bit of a moment when the men of the world are saying, hey, I know these women did amazing things on Easter Sunday but, look at us over here! We found this folded cloth! Hurray for us!

So yes, it seems to me that there is a bit of male chauvinism going on in this account. But I do not think that this is just about a couple of men trying to steal the limelight. This little footrace is actually all about a rather dangerous trend that has been part of Christianity right from the very beginning.

The Power of an Event

The Christian faith sprang into existence as a result of the extraordinary event that we celebrate here today. The resurrection of Jesus is an event of such power that it calls into question every other principality and power in this world. It destroys the power of sin and guilt which keeps so many enslaved by the power of shame and condemnation. It destroys the power of death and the fear of death that looms over everything that we do in this world. Above all, it offers to people freedom – freedom from guilt, from fear and from death.

But whenever you are dealing with something as powerful as that, we human beings have an immediate reaction. We want to control it. We want to make sure that this thing that could disrupt absolutely everything doesn’t do that. We immediately want to make sure that somebody is in charge. It is ironic of course, it is really an attempt to rob the resurrection of its true transformative power, but it is what we do.

A Power Struggle

And so, in the aftermath of their experience of the resurrection, the church was immediately plunged into a power struggle. There were people and factions who wanted to become the controllers and the conduits of this incredible power.

And that is also what this footrace between Simon Peter and the other disciple represents. Because clearly, these two figures represent two factions of the church that were in contention with each other. We know, of course, that Simon Peter was an acknowledged leader for many in the early Christian Church. The other disciple in this race, whose identity is very carefully kept obscured, clearly represents the leadership of the church for which this gospel was written.

Surely this is reflective of real-life conflict between those Christians who followed the leadership of Peter and those who saw themselves as part of the Church of the Beloved Disciple.

Mary Magdalene’s Leadership

In addition, we know that Mary Magdalene was acknowledged, at least by some Christians, as an important leader and as one who could speak for the risen Jesus. In many ways this race is all about the early attempts of various men to replace her in her role as a leader because some could not tolerate the very idea female leadership.

So I suspect that the author of this Gospel, by inserting this strange story of two men racing to the tomb to look at some folded linen, might have been trying to say something about the absurdity of what we have sometimes tried to do with the incredible good news of the resurrection of Jesus. We have tried to get it under human control. It just seems safer if we don’t let it shake things up too much.

“Do Not Touch Me”

There is an episode towards the end of this story that illustrates just how dangerous this impulse is. When Mary Magdalene is finally confronted with the risen Jesus, when she finally manages to recognize him through all of her tears, her first reaction is completely understandable. She reaches out to take hold of him. And let’s recognize this gesture for what it is. She wants to hold onto the power of the resurrection for her church. She wants to be the conduit through which others can experience this incredible power.

But what does Jesus say to her? “Do not touch me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”  The power that raised Jesus from the dead is the power of God. It will never fall under the control of Mary nor of the disciples nor of any church. If ever we try and restrict it and tell God whom God may raise and when and how and why, we will show ourselves to be fools. It is the power of God. We cannot hold on to it.

Transforming Power

So Mary cannot hold onto Jesus. What we need to do is allow the power of Jesus and of his resurrection to take hold of us. To transform us both as individuals and as a church. That is when we will experience the true power that raised Jesus from the dead.

You cannot control it. You have to let it control you. And that can be frightening because it destroys the power in this world that keeps people in line, that makes people feel guilty or shameful for who they are and who God made them to be. The power of the resurrection is meant to set us free from all such domination so that we may set others free – so that we may proclaim to all that they are loved and accepted just as they are because that is what the power of God does.

My friends, let us not get into footraces with people who perhaps approach faith and belief a little bit differently from us because we have to be right and so therefore they have to be wrong. That is a waste of our energy. Let us allow the power of Jesus’ resurrection to overtake us and set us free to love, to serve and to release the people of this earth from the domination that is preventing them from being who they truly are in the eyes of God. I believe that that is the power that Mary Magdalene learned by the end of that day. Some two millennia later, isn’t it about time that we learned it too?

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April 2, 2023

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Hespeler, April 2, 2023 © Scott McAndless – Palm Sunday
Isaiah 50:4-9a, Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29, Philippians 2:5-11, Matthew 21:1-11

I have a question that is a kind a test about whether or not you were listening to our gospel reading this morning. We read the story of the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem from the Good News Translation of the Gospel of Matthew.

Jesus sends his disciples to get some transportation to carry him in his triumphal procession into the city. They bring him what he asks for he sits on what they bring and the parade begins, right? I’m sure you all followed that just fine as we read it. My question is this: what did Jesus get on?

Got on What?

Here is the verse I am curious about. Verse seven reads like this: “They (the disciples) brought the donkey and the colt, threw their cloaks over them, and Jesus got on.” (GNT) So it clearly says that the disciples brought back two animals – a mother donkey and her colt. It says that they then threw their cloaks over both of them. And then it says that Jesus got on. Got on what? On the mother? On the colt? On both animals? No, that can’t be right, can it? I mean, can you imagine somebody riding two donkeys at once? That would be ridiculous!

Ah well, I guess we just don’t know. In fact, the translators of this passage have led us to think that they don’t know either. Presumably the original Greek text of this Gospel did not make it clear which animal Jesus rode. I mean why else would they render it into English using such an imprecise phrase as “Jesus got on.”

What it Actually Says

But wait a minute, we don’t need to speculate. We can just find out for ourselves. I can show you what is actually written in the Greek. Do you want to know what the original text says that Jesus got on? Was it the mother? Was it the colt? Because, I mean, it can’t possibly be both, am I right? Ha, ha, ha, oh.

Well, just in case some of you are a little bit rusty on your Koine Greek, it does say very clearly which animal Jesus got on. It says he got on them – on both animals. The translators clearly understood that very well, they just decided to translate it as something that was unclear because, well, it just seems a bit silly that it would say that. But it does.

Who Wrote the Gospel?

The Gospel of Matthew, according to tradition, was written by none other than Matthew, the disciple of Jesus. And if that is true, then surely the author of this passage would have been there that day, would have been reporting on that triumphal entrance as a first-hand witness.

But wait a second. That can’t be, can it? Because if the person who wrote this passage was present and reporting as an eyewitness, how could he not describe how it was that Jesus managed to ride both of these beasts into the city?

Did he ride with one foot on the back of each donkey like a water-skier? Did he sit on the bigger one and put his feet on the smaller one? Did he put the colt on the back of its mother and then ride on top? If you had seen any of those feats, how could you possibly resist describing what it looked like? Come on, Matthew, you have got to let us know!

The Writer Wasn’t There

But we have no such description, which is probably an indication that the writer was not there that day. In fact, the Gospel itself never claims to have been written by Matthew, never claims to have been written by anyone, in fact. There was no name on the original document.

And most scholars today would argue that there are other reasons for thinking this gospel writer was not an eyewitness. For one thing, we know that he used at least one other Gospel as a source. He copied whole passages out of the Gospel of Mark into his Gospel. Generally, you would not expect a firsthand witness to be copying descriptions of things from another book!

The Changes Matthew Makes

He does often copy things from Mark word-for-word. But sometimes he also makes some changes. For example, in Mark’s story of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the story is told in almost the exact same words, but there is a significant difference. Mark says that Jesus only rode into town on one donkey. Jesus sends the disciples to get one animal, a colt, they bring back one animal, they throw their cloaks on it and Jesus sits on it. Yes, the story does seem a bit more sensible in Mark’s Gospel.

But that immediately makes you ask a question, doesn’t it? Why would the writer of Matthew (let’s just call him Matthew, whoever he was, because that’ll make it easier) make such a change? He seems to have done it intentionally, even though it doesn’t make much practical sense. People have wondered about that question for centuries now. It’s one of those hot topics in New Testament scholarship.

The Usual Explanation

And many scholars will try to explain the reason why Matthew made that change. He actually tips us off in the passage itself. He adds something to the account from the Gospel of Mark by saying, “This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet:’Tell the daughter of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’”

So, you can see what Matthew is doing here. He knows that what happened when Jesus entered into Jerusalem was the fulfillment of this prophecy from the book of Zechariah. Of course, the other gospel writers knew this as well, as did most early Christians. But Matthew is the only one who says that explicitly in his Gospel, even taking the trouble to quote the passage.

Matthew Notices Something

But, when he quotes the passage, he notices something that maybe Mark didn’t pay much attention to. He notices that the passage in Zechariah speaks of the Messiah arriving on two animals – “mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

And so, having gone to the trouble of quoting it, Matthew says to himself, “Oh look, it says in the Bible that the Messiah has to enter on two animals. So, I guess that’s what must have happened, and Mark just forgot to mention it.” So, when Matthew comes to tell the story, he tells it that way. That is pretty obviously what has happened.

Hebrew Poetry

But there is one thing that is a bit funny about that. The two animals are not really there in the Old Testament passage. The prophecies of Zechariah were written in poetry. And ancient Hebrew poetry had a unique form.

Ancient Hebrew poems didn’t rhyme or use particular metres like English poems often do. Rather than repeating sounds, they repeated meanings. In a typical Hebrew poem, and there are lots of them in the Bible, the poet generally says something in one way in one line and then, in the next line, says the same thing  just using different words.

Take, for example, the closing lines of the twenty-third psalm: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days  of my life, / and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.” Those two phrases are essentially saying the same thing, just using different words. And that kind of pattern is all over ancient Hebrew poetry. So actually, when the prophet Zechariah says, “mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey,” that is just two ways of referring to the same donkey. The prophet never thought that the Messiah would arrive riding on two beasts.

Is Something Else Going on?

So the whole question then becomes, did Matthew simply not understand how ancient Hebrew poetry worked? Is his whole insistence that there had to be two animals for Jesus to ride based on a simple misunderstanding? There are a number of scholars who seem to think so. And maybe they are right. But I cannot help but wonder whether there might just be something else going on here.

What if Matthew actually did understand how Hebrew poetry worked? And what if he was hoping that his readers would just pay attention to what he did here? Doesn’t every writer hope that? Maybe he expected us to read this passage and say, hey, wait a minute, wouldn’t it have looked kind of silly for Jesus to ride in on two animals? He wanted to make us stop and think for a moment.

And maybe the two donkeys are not about what actually happened that day; maybe they are not based on a misunderstanding of ancient poetry. No, I think it might have been Matthew’s symbolic way of saying something important to us readers.

Of course, if that is the case, then it is really a shame that the translators of the Good New Bible have obscured what Matthew actually wrote. I’m not sure that the Gospel writer would be happy with what they did here.

A Theme in this Gospel

There is a theme that runs through the Gospel of Matthew. Several times in the course of this gospel, Matthew makes a point of talking about what happens when you mix the old with the new. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus quotes from the old law of Moses and then goes on to give new interpretations of how it should be applied. This pattern is followed several times.

And then there is a parable of Jesus that is found only in this gospel. Jesus says to his disciples, “Therefore every scribe who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” (Matthew 13:52)

A Message in This

So this idea of carefully putting the old and the new together in some creative way runs throughout this whole gospel. In fact, a number of people have suggested that Matthew sees himself as the scribe in that parable that only he repeats. This is how he saw his job as gospel writer, to carefully put together the old and the new and, in so doing, to create a completely different understanding.

So I somehow do not think that it is an accident or a mistake that Matthew is the only gospel writer to tell us that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the backs of two donkeys. Because, of course, these were not two ordinary donkeys. It was a donkey and a colt – a mother and her child. It was an old donkey and a new one. I think that Matthew was saying something very important to the church – something much more important than would have been accomplished with a simple literal description of what happened when Jesus rode into Jerusalem.

Expectations

It seems clear that when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, he was met with very high expectations. Many of those expectations were likely based on old ideas – the restoration of the old kingdom of David, the restoration of old traditions and ways of doing things. They may not have used the exact words, but I am sure that many of the people who cheered Jesus on that day were shouting out their own version of, “Make Judea Great Again.”

But Matthew was not content with telling a story of Jesus coming into Jerusalem on an older donkey, on old ideas, traditions and an idealized past. He managed to slip in there that there was a new donkey coming into town as well. If Jesus was going to be Messiah, his messiahship was not going to be only based on old ideas or restorations of old kingdoms. Jesus was coming in the name of the God who was about to do something new.

Old and New Together

And that makes me wonder where we are on this Palm Sunday. This is a Sunday that is full of old traditions. People have been waving palms and marching down aisles for a long time in this and in many other churches. I think it’s a day that brings a lot of nostalgia for an idealized past. And I love that nostalgia. I also feel it. But I’m also very thankful for Matthew who reminds us that Jesus also rode in on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

So, I think Matthew would challenge us to think about the young colt today. He also carried Jesus into town. What are some of the new ways in which Jesus is presenting himself to the world today?

You know, for centuries, the church developed ways of presenting the message of Jesus to the world. One of the ways they did it was by building beautiful buildings like this one. They would build beautiful buildings, ring beautiful bells, and people would just come in. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but that strategy doesn’t quite work as well as it once did.

The New Colts

So, what are the new colts? Does the church today need a social media strategy? I would absolutely say that it does. Do we need to find ways to bust out and learn how to be the church outside the building? No question. We are live streaming. We are engaging people right around the world with some of the media that we create. Yes, Jesus is riding a new Colt into town. But will we welcome these innovations with a waving of our palms today? Or will we just say, that sounds ridiculous? I suspect that Matthew wanted to challenge us with those kinds of thoughts in our reading this morning.