Courageous Love

Spikenard plant

This was some week in the United States of America. 

New Jersey U.S. Senator Cory Booker took to the floor of the Senate Monday night at 7pm and didn't stop speaking until after 8pm on Tuesday. He spoke with passion and pleading. And with an enormous amount of heart. 

And he spoke for many of us out here in the wilderness wondering, "How long, O Lord? How long must we suffer and endure this moment of fascism?"

A fascism that has resulted in the firing of hundreds of thousands of federal workers in Washington, DC, and across the country. 

People who keep up our national parks, test medicines, research cures to diseases, handle the phone calls from military veterans on suicide hotlines, staff the VA hospitals, map weather systems and warn of potentially dangeous storms, guide our airlines to safely land and take off from airports, administers Head Start programs....the list goes on and on. 

 In response to that...and the yo-yoing of the tariff wars...millions...including more than 1000 people in Tallahassee... poured into the streets on Saturday to join our voices to Cory Booker in crying out to God and all that is good...to please stop the madness.

What does this have to do with courageous love?

Everything!

Because the act of Mary using an abundance of nard oil to wash Jesus's feet was an act of courage given the criticism she received. 

And even more courageous if we think about her act being an embodiment of the type of love all of us are supposed to be practicing every day. 

At least that's my take. 

See what you think. 

Text: John 12: 1-8 

 

“Do you love me?”

That’s the question the milkman Tevye poses to his wife Golde in the musical, “Fiddler on the Roof.”

And if you’re familiar with that particular song, Golde’s answer to “Do you love me?” is listing out all the things she’s done: bore him three daughters…milked his cow…cooked…cleaned.

That’s all fine and good.

But what Tevye wanted to know is not all the things Golde does for him…but what does she feel for him after twenty-five years in an arranged marriage.

And by the end of the song…we understand that for Golde…what she does for him is her own way of saying, “Yes, I suppose I do love you.”

In our Gospel…we have Mary doing something that signifies her love for Jesus. He’s come to Bethany…to the home of Martha…Mary…and Lazarus.

In the chapter before this one…we have the story of Jesus’ sixth miracle in the Gospel of John when he raises Lazarus from the dead.

Martha is serving.

Lazarus is at the table.

And Mary enters with a pound of nard oil…which in today’s measurements comes to about twelve ounces.

Then…as is the case now…nard oil is not cheap.

It’s from a plant grown in remote parts of the Himalayas…so just a small amount of it is almost 30 dollars.

So…if you’re doing the math…yeah…in today’s money…that’s a really expensive footbath!

She’s using all of this oil…filling the whole house with the aroma…one that is a little woodsy…and earthy.

Not quite like being around someone who has washed themselves in patchouli…but the same idea of an aroma that is both sweet and strong.

Besides having a healing calming property…this is the same oil that was used to prepare a body for burial.

Is it any wonder then that Judas is angry.

Maybe he’s one of those people with a sensitivity to odors. He’s calculating the expense of this oil being poured freely on Jesus’ feet and this is just too much for him.

I’m going to sidestep the comment in John’s Gospel about Judas being a thief…and I have a good reason to be skeptical of that accusation.

Our evangelist John…and his community that he was writing for back in the 100 CE period…were in a fierce and bitter internal struggle.

You’re going to hear this from me a lot in these next couple of weeks…but I want us to always remember that all the characters…unless otherwise identified in the Gospels…are Jews.

And the Evangelist John was the leader of a community of Jews…as well as Gentiles…and even Samaritans… who had come to believe in Jesus as the Messiah.

This put them in tension with their fellow Jews who did not believe the Messiah had come…and were getting angry and fearful that John’s faction was going to draw unwanted attention to them from the Roman Empire which had just destroyed the Jerusalem Temple for a second time.

This is an intra-family struggle.

A battle between parent and child.

And so John is making the claim that Judas is a crook.

For John…Judas becomes a stand in for this group of non-believers.

Judas is one of “those people.”  

In fact…this same story of a woman anointing Jesus happens in the other three Gospels.

But none of them place this woman at the house of Lazarus.

And in none of those accounts did the evangelists name Judas as the lone naysayer.

So, John has an agenda with his particular depiction of Judas.

Still…I think we can look at what’s happening here…and see both a glimpse of ourselves…as well as the amazing extravagant and irrepressible love of God.

We know Judas gets angry about what Mary is doing.

Why?

Was it simply because…as John has stated…that this was really expensive perfume and she was slathering it everywhere and it could have been sold to collect a handsome sum for the poor?

Was it because she was a woman who was doing something scandalous and out of line?

I mean, washing feet was one thing…but with nard oil?

And a woman washing and touching the feet of a man?!

Especially with her hair.

Or was it that Judas felt convicted because this Mary of Bethany… saw something in Jesus…knew something intuitively about his fate…even if she didn’t know exactly what was going to happen to him…and was so moved by her love and appreciation that she did something courageous and so over the top to demonstrate her love and devotion to him?

Did her unfettered love for Jesus make Judas uncomfortable about his own reservations about this rabbi he was following?

Throughout our various Gospels we have a picture that emerges of Judas.

He’s a revolutionary.

He was a zealot who wanted to overthrow the Roman Empire.

And he was ready for Jesus to be the Messiah of his own making.

The same way we can be guilty of wanting a God made in our own image.

Judas was looking for the guy to lead an insurrection…just like so many others had been doing in those days.

But Jesus was not that sort of warrior.

He’s not one who believed that using brute force and weapons to fight would make the lives of those oppressed by the tyrannical leadership of the Empire any better.

Jesus was leading a movement…the Jesus movement…to get everyone back on board the Love train to God.

And this is what Mary has figured out.

Her act of taking this expensive and highly aromatic oil and using it like water to wash Jesus’s feet is her way of demonstrating her love.

Think about this for a moment:

Our feet take a real beating having to support our whole body.

And in the First Century…where one had to walk for miles and miles in sandals…the feet were definitely in need of some tenderness and love.

What an incredible act of generosity and kindness for Mary to care for Jesus’s feet in this way.

What insight she must have had…living under the thumb of the Empire…and knowing that Jesus was taking a huge risk in challenging people to refuse to give in to despair and to lean into that source of Love…and resist the power structure in a non-violent way.

She must have sensed the danger and the very real possibility that violence was on the horizon. Especially since Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead on the Sabbath…in that way that Jesus kept always doing miraculous things on the Sabbath…and offending the status quo.

Mary’s act of taking something of such high monetary value…and so much of it…and simply spilling it all over Jesus’s feet is the same wreckless and wasteful behavior of a Father who throws a massive party for his ne’er do well son.

Or that sower who throws seeds everywhere…no matter where they land…instead of carefully tilling the ground and planting them.

Mary is showing us how to love as God would have us love: with extravagance.

Unbounded.

And without checking for credentials…straight A’s in school…or how much money is in the bank account.

God doesn’t care whether we check every box that we have going in our own heads that we think would make us worthy.

God’s love is freely offered to everyone.

Which is the sad state of Judas….and why the poor will always be with us.

Because too many who have abundance to give…refuse to let go…share their wealth.

Or they’ll give a small amount…while those with next to nothing contribute what they have…sometimes to their own detriment.

The poor will always be with us because greed is an ever-present reality…whether it’s financial greed…or the greed that makes us turn against one another in a manufactured culture war designed to dehumanize certain segments of the population…and divide up the Body of Christ.

As we approach this final week of Lent…I think there’s a question that’s laid before us:

If we say we love God…and if we call ourselves “followers of Jesus”…do we do it with a love that is joyous and without reservation…courageous like Mary…or is there a piece of ourselves that we hold back out of fear or out of greed…or out of a sense that we can’t or shouldn’t let go of too much?

In the Name of Our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

 

Tears Will Keep Us Together

Some of you may remember the 1970s Captain and Tennille hit, "Love Will Keep Us Together." 

I'm calling this entry "Tears Will Keep Us Together" because I think we are all overdue for a collective cry in the face of the madness that is swirling around us. 

And I think it is through our crying that we can arrive at the realization that for those who are wondering, "Where is our God?"...the answer is "in community." 

COVID forced us apart. Now is the time to pull together because we are going to need to lean on each other and work together if we want to maintain the ideals of this country: life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

With God's help, we can get there.

Text: primarily Psalm 51

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Normally…when I preach a sermon…I like to focus on the readings we’ve just heard.

I like to expand upon them…maybe fill in some gaps here and there…offer a slightly different take on familiar passages.

And the longer I sat with all the readings from this service for Ash Wednesday…I found myself drawn to a part of our opening collect…and how it confirms the words at the end of Psalm 51.

Specifically…I want us to remember these two ideas…and keep them close…and let them sink in:

“Almighty and everlasting God…you hate nothing you have made…”

And from Psalm 51…which we will be reading later…

“The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit;

a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

God hates nothing God has made. That means God does not hate you, or me, or anyone. 

God’s only requirement is for us to bring our broken and remorseful hearts to God’s altar.

These are the words that felt the most important for a time such as this.

We’re living in a moment in this country where so many are feeling that up is down and down is up.

The very core teachings of our faith…things such as having empathy for other people…seeking to build a more just society for all…following the Biblical mandate to welcome the stranger…simply showing loving-kindness to one another…these are getting ridiculed…tossed aside as weak…labeled unpatriotic.

Even…by some…these ideas have been called “demonic.”

I mean…Bishop Mariann Budde…who is definitely not one of those in the ranks of the purple shirts looking to be the center of attention…came in for harsh criticism for asking the President to be merciful toward minority groups feeling afraid.

Five Georgia Congressional representatives signed onto a House Resolution to censure her.

Such legislative attacks are performative and silly.

The Episcopal Church is religious denomination and not a branch of government.

And yet they are heartbreaking.

Our basic values…the core of our faith…and the ability for us to live as E Pluribus Unum in this country…is under daily assault.

I admit…it has left me at times…shedding some tears.

Perhaps…some of you have cried, too.

But…despite what might pass for conventional wisdom in the world…I will tell you that tears are good.

They’re normal.

They’re not signs of weakness.

On the contrary…they are signs of strength because we care.

About ourselves.

About other people.

About the beautiful creation that surrounds us.

And about goodness…fairness…and justice.

My wife shared with me a blog written by a Roman Catholic priest in Wisconsin named Father Derek Sakowski.

Father Derek describes tears as “a precious gift from God.”

Rather than be fearful or ashamed of our tears…we should see them as God’s way of helping us to let go and acknowledge that we really aren’t super humans.

We have countless examples in the Scriptures that confirm the importance and rightness of our tears:

Jesus wept at the grave of his friend Lazarus.

Mary Magdalene wept at the tomb of Jesus before she saw his resurrected self standing in the garden.

Peter…who was so wanting to be heroic and stand by Jesus in Jerusalem…wept when he heard the cock crow a third time and realized he had let his friend and teacher down…just as Jesus had predicted.

We heard this recently…Joseph and his brothers wept when they discovered that this youngest son of Jacob who the brothers had abused and sold into slavery…was alive and was in a position to save them from famine and death.

And of course…Psalm 51 is King David’s lament over his failures…both as a leader and as a man.

By bringing our tears…our broken and contrite hearts before God…it’s a way for us to say…without words…”I need help.”

And we do need help.  

Think about our responses to those five pledges we make in the Baptismal Covenant.

We cannot accomplish the tasks of staying with God in prayer, resisting evil, proclaiming God’s Good News in word and example, seeing Christ in all people, and respecting the dignity of every human being as we strive for justice and peace….we cannot accomplish any of those laudable goals without God’s help.

And that means…we can’t do the work of Love without each other.

Lent is often seen as a time…and was once upon a time…a period in which the faithful and sin sick people of God separated themselves from community.

I would offer that we do not do that now.

Now…perhaps more than at any other time…is a time for us not to go our separate ways and “give up” on each other.

Rather we need to find ways to come together…in mindfulness and loving kindness…and drop this idea that our rugged individualism makes us strong.

This is the false self…the front we put up for others…in our effort to project some idea of what it means to be “tough.”

Perhaps the thing we “give up” this Lent is our pulling away from each other…our diehard self-reliance… and recognize that we need community.

Because it is in community where we find the Spirit of God….and that sense that we belong to something greater than ourselves.

Maybe our tears are a way of clearing our eyes…and giving us a chance to see each other as siblings in Christ…with our quirks and particular gifts…as we keep on the journey with Jesus…to the cross…through his death…and into a resurrected life.

It could be that this is the Lent where our tears…having watered the garden of our hurt and anger and frustration at things happening in the world…will grow the garden of that tiny mustard seed planted in us at our Baptism: that seed of a faith in a Love that will never be defeated.

Because Love is the best antidote to a culture of self-centeredness and death.

For this Lent…may we rediscover our connections and our interdependence on God and each other…and this be the beginning of building the bonds that will sustain us in times of sorrow and remind us of the joy of friendship.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

Seeing Jesus

For a third week in a row, I have found myself challenged with what to say and how to say it when it comes to the Gospel. I had stuck in a joke about "seeing Jesus" as in the Ralph Kramden, "Pow, zoom, to da moon, Alice! To da moon!" idea of "seeing Jesus" but when I read it out loud to my wife, she didn't get it. So I dropped it. This is more or less what I said from the ambo. 

See what you think.

Text: John 12: 20-33

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There’s a line that stood out for me in this Gospel…possibly for some of you as well.

It’s at the very beginning.

Some Greeks come to Philip, and they say to him:

“Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

That kicks off a game of telephone with Philip passing the word on to Andrew and then Andrew passing the word on to Jesus.

And Jesus takes this idea of “seeing him” in a direction that might not have been what these Greeks initially meant.

He starts talking about death.

Jesus uses the description of a grain of wheat falling to the ground that brings about more life than if it just stays standing tall. 

Jesus talks about being “lifted up from the earth and drawing people to him”.  

This is an allusion to his death on the cross.

And then he says that one must lose one’s life in order to gain eternal life.

This whole portion we’ve heard from John’s Gospel takes place  right after he’s entered Jerusalem.

 He knows that he’s in for a showdown with the powers and principalities of his day.

And as he considers the meaning of his death…we hear him acknowledge his fear and vulnerability.

Jesus says, “Now is my soul troubled.”

His death will be a literal death…a terrible public execution meant to frighten anyone daring to stand up to those with power and privilege.

Why wouldn’t this make him afraid?

But there’s also death in a more metaphorical sense… this idea of “dying to self” that is also important and necessary.

And it too leads to fear the command to be vulnerable.

It is a “death” that I think troubles us…his disciples of today.

Because we must also “die” that metaphorical death if we are to live into eternal life.

Our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry I think rightly points out that the thing that is the true opposite of “Love” is not “Hate.”

It’s self-centeredness.

It’s that sense of our self-importance that puts us…you and me…at the center of the universe.

It creates in us a need for self-preservation…and protection.

Being so centered on ourselves can manifest in ugly ways.

It leads to greed and selfishness.

The type of selfish ambition that when push comes to shove…we are more willing to trample on others…separate ourselves from each other… just to have power…and avoid feeling vulnerable.

These are the walls our ego likes to put up around our hearts to preserve that sense of “self” to keep us thinking that we don’t need each other.

And if we don’t need each other then we definitely have no use for God.

Imagine our Christian story if Jesus thought he could face the Roman Empire and the bullies and the tyrants of his day all on his own?!

I think we wouldn’t have much of a story to tell on Easter.

This all goes back to that idea of these Greeks who show up at a time of a Jewish festival saying,

“We wish to see Jesus.”

Jesus says basically says to those Greeks…the Gentiles of his day…

”Oh, you and my fellow Jews will see me in my glory.”

And again…as it happened at his baptism…and at the transfiguration…an other-worldly voice confirms that Jesus’s glory has come.

The time is now.

Seeing Jesus…in this case…means more than perceiving him in his flesh and blood body.

To “see Jesus” means seeing his way and his teachings come to life.

Jesus becomes manifest in what will bloom in the hearts of his followers in the wake of his death…when his ministry begins to take root.

People will see Jesus when we liberate the oppressed…help those who have been blind to God’s abundant love to see and experience it fully.

People will know Jesus when we bring release to those trapped in their own versions of hell…and free them to experience a life where they’re no longer being held back.

In other words…the way to “see Jesus” comes through the way his disciples…both then and now…make him visible to others through living…and being…Christ-like in the world.

That’s the promise Jesus is making in this Gospel.

It’s a promise kept….if we are willing to embrace it.

And that’s the key here: we must make that commitment for ourselves.

We have to break down the walls we put up that keep us from being in relationship with God and with each other.

That includes examining and questioning our prejudices.

I remember one time there was a woman in my massage therapy class who I really didn’t like.

Just everything about her rubbed me the wrong way.

And I felt uncomfortable being in her presence…like these bubbles of anxiety would start percolating in my body whenever I was around her.

One day…while I was sitting in a local coffee shop with my journal…I decided I needed to do something about my attitude toward her.

So I started to write.

I put down on paper the things that bothered me about her.

And about halfway through this exercise…. I began to realize that some of the basic things I didn’t like about her were really related to those parts of me that I wasn’t fond of either.

I remember putting the pen down…and re-reading what I had written…and thinking, “Whoa!”

I can’t say that I ever really liked this person.

But having realized that the things that I didn’t like were just as much about me as they were about her…helped me to be less anxious…and more compassionate toward her.

By clearing away all that clutters our hearts and minds…and refusing to stay focused on the real and perceived slights that cloud the light of Christ within us…we can become more capable of relationship.

Then we can live more fully into the mission and ministry that Jesus calls each of us to engage in every day of our lives.

We don’t know which “Greeks”…will come across our path on any given day seeking to see Jesus.

But they will come…and they will be looking to us to see the God who is Love.

They will be watching us and listening to us to see what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

And we need to be ready to show them.

Give some thought to who in your life has helped you to see the light of Christ.

What was it about that person that helped you to see Jesus?

I’ll leave you with this prayer…taken from the book “Daily Prayer for All Seasons”:

God of love…give us the grace to see your hand at work in the lives of those around us so that adversity will not overwhelm us, nor resentments possess us. Remain with us, for the sake of Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amen.

 

The Voice Underneath the Voice

This was a tough one to preach just because the words of John 3:16 are soooooooooo well known. But thank goodness I listen regularly to NPR when I'm driving and can catch snippets of programs that help me find a good frame for my message!

See what you think. 

Text: John 3:14-21

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The other day as I was driving to meet a client for a massage session…I was listening to an interview on the radio with the United States Poet Laureate Ada Limon.

She was speaking to a live audience in San Francisco…sharing some of her poetry…which draws upon her love of nature…from both her childhood in California and her home in Kentucky.

A young third grader got the last question.

This sweet little voice asked Limon, “Why do write poetry?”

I love how children get to the very basic questions…the things we adults don’t even think to ask.

And I also loved Limon’s response. You could hear her smile as she spoke back to this little girl.

She described poetry as “the voice underneath the voice.”

She said she can be her truest self…on the safe space of a page…and give voice to those things that are at the center of her heart.

What a lovely description of that inspiration to create poetry!

And what a beautiful way to describe what it means to put one’s truest self down on a piece of paper.

The more I thought about that answer…the more I thought how it fits so well with describing scripture…particularly today’s Gospel lesson from John.

The evangelist John writes in ways that are meant to provoke our imagination…because John’s purpose is to make the strongest connection to Jesus as God…the embodiment of Love on Earth.

In the reading we had today…we’re dropped into the tail end of the heady exchange that Jesus has with the Pharisee Nicodemus.

I’m often puzzled by people who immediately assume that this conversation is an adversarial one.

Again….I think that’s because there’s been some misguided teaching in the church. Because Nicodemus is a Pharisee…the assumption has been he’s a foe and an opponent of Jesus.

I’ve heard some diss Nicodemus because he approaches Jesus “at night” to ask him questions about his teachings.

What we must remember is that this is John’s Gospel….John’s very poetic…metaphorically-rich Gospel.

And John uses “light” and “dark”, “day” and “night” for dramatic effect.

So….it makes sense that this first encounter between Nicodemus and Jesus happens “at night.” Much later in the Gospel…we’ll see Nicodemus return…once to step in to stop an attempt to arrest Jesus (7:50)…and then after Jesus’ crucifixion…Nicodemus comes with myrrh and aloes to prepare Jesus’ body for burial according to Jewish customs (19:39).

He moves from dark…to half-light…and finally to full-light.

But back to this conversation that’s happening at night.

Nicodemus…a pillar of his community…goes out to have something of an intellectual discussion with Jesus.

Rabbi to Rabbi.

There’s actually a lot of respect going on…with Nicodemus acknowledging Jesus as a teacher who had come from God.

But as the conversation unfolds…what Nicodemus finds is that Jesus is no ordinary… learned Rabbi.

Instead…he’s being met with an intellect that is way more than what he had bargained for.

Nicodemus hears Jesus talking about “being born from above” and “being born of water and spirit”.

Nicodemus wonders if one must enter the womb a second time.

And Jesus is like, “Oh, man! You’re being too literal. Don’t you see?  How can you teach the people of Israel if you cannot hear the voice? And then detect the voice underneath the voice?

Why can’t you get that you must renew your heart and your mind?”

Jesus then references the scene from our first reading in Numbers…a scene in which Moses raises up a snake on a pole as the antidote to poisonous snake bites.

By looking upon the bronze serpent…the Israelites…who had been kvetching about Moses and cursing God for their misery in the wilderness…are made well from their snake wounds.

Jesus uses this analogy to foreshadow the healing he will bring to the world…albeit at great cost to him in his death on the cross.

And then we hear the words that have become so familiar to us:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have everlasting life.” (3:16)

We’ve all seen that phrase and know those words.

Many a football fan has made sure we don’t miss that verse any time somebody is kicking a field goal or an extra point.

There’s always going to be that guy holding up a “John 3:16” sign in the bleachers.

But the voice underneath that voice…underneath those words…comes in the next five verses.

“Indeed God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (3:17)

When we think about it…Jesus came into the world to teach the world…to teach us…how to live in Love.

Jesus came into the world to show the world…to show us…how to treat all things…people…animals…the planet we live on…with respect and dignity.

To serve as stewards to one another…help and guide each other through the ups and downs that come with living.

Give respite to those who are weary…and receive the aid from those who offer to shoulder some of our burdens.

To find ways to incorporate people into community…not push them away or allow our prejudices to prevent someone from knowing the love of God.

But…as Jesus also notes…even when offered the chance to make this turn toward a better future…a more hopeful vision…and a Godward direction…” the people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.” (3:19)

The people…when given the chance to look to Jesus….believe in his teachings…amend their lives…start really practicing living in beloved community with one another…will instead opt to go back into themselves…their ego-driven ways of self-protection.

This is where greed begins to take route and when we start building up walls with the “us” on one side and the “them” on the other.

And this is the behavior…this clinging to a self-centered instead of a God-centered outlook wishing to fashion and shape a world where we are the dominators…that ultimately puts Jesus on a cross.

This truth that Jesus shares with Nicodemus sticks with this particular Pharisee.

And we can see how these words ultimately move him in a direction of such concern for Jesus and what he represents that he interrupts an attempted arrest…and later pays due respect by assisting Joseph of Arimathea with the burial.

We’re deep into Lent…the moment for us to take time with ourselves to examine our lives…and how we are living into putting our belief in Jesus into daily practice.

Where are we hearing that voice underneath the voice that frees us to show more love…more compassion toward each other and all of creation?

Which parts of us prefer darkness…and remain fearful?

When we gaze upon the cross….can we muster up the courage to lay down our need for control and our pride in being right…and allow more light into our lives and accept those changes we must make in our lives?

“Those who do what is true come to the light.”

Do not be afraid.

In the name of God…F/S/HS.

 

Inequality Spurs Righteous Anger

This is Year B, the Year of Mark's Gospel. But the original evangelist doesn't always give us enough meat on the bones of the Jesus story. And so, this week (and next) we will have stories from the Gospel of John. And John's Gospel puts Jesus in Jerusalem right away...in Chapter Two...and he's already geared up and ready to challenge the system of Empire that has permeated everything...including religion. 

And--oh my--what a difficult text to have on the same weekend that an important commemoration was happening on the Georgia coast to remember the largest slave auction in the 19th century!

This was a moment of "Come Holy Spirit" as I wrestled with how to say things that need saying in a way that they might be heard...understood...and taken in with the hope it might make at least a few people do some self-evaluation and make a turn toward a way of striving for equality and equity.

That is my prayer.

See what you think.

Text: John 2: 13-22

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Most of the Episcopal Churches I’ve been to in my lifetime have something we don’t have here:

a plethora of stained-glass windows.

The sunlight streams through them creating beautiful and mesmerizing patterns of golds…blues and reds on the floors and the walls.

Often times…the scenes depicted in the stained-glass feature one of the Gospel stories about Jesus.

Sometimes….he’s the surprisingly Northern European white Jesus with blonde hair and blue eyes.

Other artists have captured him with darker hair and a darker complexion more reminiscent of people from the Middle East.

Frequently…Jesus is shown lovingly cradling a lamb in his arms.

Or he’s washing Peter’s feet.

Or talking with the Samaritan woman at the well.

In more majestic imagery…he’s either ascending into heaven…or we see him in his dazzling brightness of the Transfiguration through his bleached white robe.

Those are all great.

But once…just once… I would love to see a Jesus in a stained-glass window…his nostrils flaring…his muscles flexing as he’s flipping tables…sending money flying everywhere and chasing people and animals with a whip of cords!

I want to see the human Jesus…the one who knows what it means to get angry and be fed up.

I think a lot of people would be able to maybe see themselves in such an image of Jesus.

I think it’s important for us to understand why Jesus has this massive hissy fit in the Temple that seems so un-Jesus-like.

One of the shortcomings of the church…at least in this priest’s opinion…is that we’ve allowed our Sunday schools…especially for children…to cast this scene as “Jesus cleanses the Temple.” We’ve stopped the lesson at a simple, “Jesus was angry about the House of Prayer being a marketplace.”

That’s really only half right.

And that half-truth has fed into some of the anti-Semitism that we see raise its ugly head… especially in this time of year…and is becoming prevalent in this country and around the world.

It’s that whole ugly idea that Jews only care about money and controlling commerce.

So what’s “the more” going on here in the Gospel?

To understand Jesus’ anger…we need to look at both the where and when that this happens.

This Second Temple…built by Herod the Great over the course of 46 years…was an enormous structure….the size of five football fields…. a massive stone building taking up several city blocks…with many entry gates.

It was the center of everything in Jerusalem.

There was an area for prayer happening in the Jewish section of the Temple…and there was also something like a shopping mall.

Along the Temple’s outer courtyard was the place reserved for Gentiles.

This is where the money changers would have worked…taking in Roman coins with the image of Caesar…in exchange for the Jewish currency which had no graven image.

Think about those Ten Commandments we recited in the Decalogue and heard in our first reading.

The Roman Empire treated Caesar as a God.

Jews would never attempt to make an image of God…so the money used to pay the Temple tax had no face on it.

The time that this scene takes place is just before Passover.

Lots of Jews would have come from all over the countryside into Jerusalem to commemorate the festival of their deliverance from Egyptian slavery…and liberation from oppression.

They would be needing to come into the temple to get their lambs for sacrifice…or doves if they didn’t have money.

Doves were reserved for the poor.

Even Mary and Joseph had to buy a pair of doves for their sacrificial offering.

Doves were also used by lepers and menstruating women.

So all the activities going on in this part of the Temple were normal.

Sacrifices and getting the right coinage were part of the religious practice. 

That’s not what was sticking in Jesus’ craw.

What infuriated him…and it was the thing that sent John the Baptizer out to the Jordan River in protest… was that the Roman Empire…and its religious cronies…had so profaned the religion within this structure that the poor were especially exploited and oppressed by the system.  

This is why in the Gospel accounts…we hear that Jesus particularly targeted the tables of money changers and dove sellers.

And…since this is the Gospel of John…Jesus is making it explicit that his body…his own flesh and blood… is replacing this temple of massive stones.

That the religion of justice is in him and not the ginormous edifice with demands of taxes and sacrifices by the poor.

What Jesus could not abide by was this conflation of religion with the privilege and wealth…and how it oppressed the poor.

His protest was against an unjust system.

Such systems still exist.

In fact…it’s something that has haunted the Episcopal Church.

At the founding of our United States…a number of the most powerful men who crafted and signed the Declaration of Independence and created our U.S. Constitution were affiliated with the Episcopal Church.

One of those men was General Pierce Butler…a South Carolina Senator and veteran of the Revolutionary War.

General Butler was farmer and landowner.

He held property in several states…including much of St. Simon’s Island.

His Butler Plantation in Darien, Georgia, was left to his grandson Pierce Mease Butler.

The Butlers owned the land in Darien are where St. Andrew’s and St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Churches stand today.

Owning so much land had made the Butler family quite wealthy…. growing sea island cotton and rice.

But with that generational wealth comes the truth about how they were able to become one of the richest families in the country during the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

The Butlers owned slaves.

Hundreds of them.

When Pierce Mease Butler’s English wife…the actress Fanny Kemble…came to the States and stayed on one of the Butler plantations…she was horrified by the treatment of the slaves.

She couldn’t accept the arguments her husband and others made to justify the institution.

She became an abolitionist.

As you might imagine…the marriage fell apart and she went back to England.

Maybe she threw over a table or two.

One of the saddest moments in the history of Georgia and the young country…happened on this date in 18-59.

Pierce Butler…having squandered 700-thousand dollars of his wealth…sold 436 African men…women and children at a racetrack outside of Savannah. 

It was the single largest slave auction in the nation’s history.

It took two days…and it poured down rain from the start to the finish.

They call it The Weeping Time.

The thought was that the heavens wept… watching families being sold like cattle.

There are commemorations and vigils of this travesty happening on the Georgia coast in Darien this weekend.

Pierce Butler regained some of his wealth…about 300-thousand dollars’ worth.

But at what cost and pain inflicted on others?

To benefit from a system that dehumanizes people?

And at what further cost to us?

Because sadly…we’ve been handed this legacy…wealth gained on the backs and bodies of other people.

This is the heritage we have…all of us…as a people.

Fortunately…the Episcopal Church is doing the work this weekend by participating in the vigil in Darien to own its part of that heritage.

This is how we begin the work of repairing the breach of history.

We can’t change what has happened in the past.

But we can acknowledge that it happened.

And then we can metaphorically work toward flipping over the tables of systems that have benefitted some… at the great expense of others.

One small but helpful step is to pay attention to where and how we spend our money.

Maybe instead of eating at a chain restaurant…perhaps we go to a local one owned and operated by a black or brown family.

That’s one simple and yet conscious way to make a difference.

Our Gospel is giving us permission to see inequality…and to get angry about it.

Our God calls us to not just get angry…but to flip the script and to take actions to address injustices in the system.

Perhaps one day…I’ll finally see a stained-glass window in an Episcopal Church of a blonde blue-eyed Jesus turning over tables in the temple.

That’ll be a church ready to live into our Baptismal Covenant: resisting evil, striving for peace and justice, and respecting the dignity of every human being.

In the name of God…F/S/HS.