Isaiah 59:9-20
Psalm 13
Hebrews 5:11-6:12
Mark 10:46-52

The Old Testament reading and the epistle reading this morning seem made to order to make both the preacher and the congregation uncomfortable. In the Old Testament passage, the prophet focuses on the problem of injustice and puts the blame squarely on his hearers: “For our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us, and we know our iniquities” (Is. 59:12).

The Hebrews passage threatens about the dangers of apostasy. The apostle warns that in the case of those who have fallen away “it is impossible to restore them to repentance . . . since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt” (Heb. 6:4, 6). Should I preach a sermon to a chapel full of seminarians in which I accuse you of injustice whose “transgressions are multiplied” before God? Or rather should I go down the path of suggesting that you might be apostates who are guilty of crucifying the Son of God to your own harm? Best to stick to the Gospel story of Jesus giving sight to Blind Bartimaeus.

However, I think that both the Old Testament passage and the epistle are on target for where we find ourselves in contemporary culture. The problem of injustice is a concern that plagues not only the culture but the church. We approach a political election in a matter of days in the midst of what feels like the most politically divided period in my lifetime. And the rabid disagreements between both political parties are primarily moral. The resentment of both sides of the electorate against one another stems out of a kind of moral outrage that is rooted in mutual accusations of injustice.

And of course, the church itself has had to deal with issues of injustice in the past couple of decades, particularly connected to issues of clerical abuse, primarily sexual abuse but also leadership abuse that has led to the scandals of clergy being defrocked, but also disagreement about the nature of Christian morality that has led to denominational splits among the mainline churches.

Concerning apostasy, we are living in the midst of an abandonment of Christian faith in the last several decades that seems unprecedented. The brief religious revival of the Jesus Movement and the charismatic renewal of the 1970s was followed almost immediately by the rise of the New Age phenomena in the following decades, of the cultural popularity of the New Atheists in the early twenty-first century, and the recent phenomenon of Christian Deconstruction in the last decade.

If you are hoping that I will resolve any of these problems this morning, you are expecting far more than a seminary professor can offer in a chapel sermon. I am not going to tell you how to vote next week, how to resolve the disagreements that have divided the mainline churches in the last two decades, or how we can reverse the numbers of people who are leaving the church.

I do think however that the lectionary passages from Isaiah and Hebrews can tell us something about what the Bible has to offer concerning the issues of injustice and apostasy. (more…)

Sirach 38
Psalm 147
2 Timothy 4:1-12
Luke 4:14-19

II would be surprised if I were the only one here this morning who has found the last few weeks to be particularly discouraging. As of last week, there are now two major wars going on in the world – one in Ukraine, and one in the Middle East. The attack on Israel last week deliberately and cruelly targeted non-combatants, including women, children, and old people. Those who did this certainly should have realized that Israel would respond in kind, and Israel’s response has already resulted in the death of over two thousand Palestinians, many of whom were themselves women, children, and old people. The United Nations estimates that 4,200 people have been killed, and over a million displaced in the last ten days. Meanwhile, here in the United States, political division is so intractable that one of the major parties cannot even agree among themselves to elect a leader, let alone work with the other party, and, at a time when strong US leadership is certainly needed, there is no functioning Congress.

Christians also experience these divisions in our own churches. A former student of mine recently posted on Facebook that his church had been able to purchase some land to build a new building after they had lost their old building in the church wars. A well-known older combatant in the church wars commented in response that this was a waste of time because when the Baby Boomers in the congregation die in the next few years, the new building would be empty, and Generation Z are all abandoning the church. There will not be any need for church buildings in the future.

Any sober description of the world today would have to acknowledge that human beings are divided from one another. Indeed, various groups hate one another. And the only solutions we seem to be able to come up with are attempts to settle disagreements through coercion. If one side wins, the other has to lose.

The lectionary readings for today are for the feast day of St. Luke the Evangelist. Commentators regard Luke 4:14-30 – the story of Jesus reading from the Isaiah scroll in the synagogue in Nazareth followed by a short sermon – as the key to Luke’s entire Gospel. The passage contains all of the themes that Luke will develop, not only in his Gospel, but also in his sequel, the Book of Acts. I am going to focus this morning not simply on this Gospel passage, but on how these themes fit together in both Luke and Acts. Since I cannot talk about everything in the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, I intend to focus on one issue, what Luke says about the role of the church within a hostile culture. To make it a sermon rather than a Bible study, my title will be “Luke’s Guide for Christians living in a divided culture.”

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A live version of this sermon can be found here.

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Psalm 105:1-11
Acts 3:1-10
Luke 24:13-35

After I graduated from college, I was the only Southern Baptist who was studying for a Master’s degree in theology at the local Roman Catholic seminary. I took an unusual course while I was there that was simply titled “Death.” I remember almost nothing from that course, but I do remember an idea that comes from the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. Heidegger claimed that a unique characteristic of human beings is what he called in German Sein zum Tod, or, in English translation “Being Toward Death.” According to Heidegger, one of the things that makes human beings unique is that we alone of all other animals are conscious that we are someday going to die, and this knowledge functions as a kind of background awareness behind everything that we do. To be a human being is to be aware that we are “being toward death.” Paradoxically, the ultimate outcome of our living is that someday we are no longer going to be alive. We do not know when or how it will happen, but we know that death is inevitable. In the end, all life ends in death.

One of the most characteristic ways of dealing with this awareness of death is self-deception – to find some way of ignoring death, of attempting to stave it off, of pretending that death only happens to other people. Perhaps the three most typical characteristics of American culture today are money, sex, and power. If we think about it, each one of these is in its own way an attempt to deny the reality of death. If you have enough money, you can avoid all those things that might threaten you or cause you to fear for your safety – to fear death. In a culture in which people do not believe in much of anything beyond their immediate awareness, sexuality is the one thing that provides the closest thing to a kind of transcendent experience, something that can at least distract us from our eventual mortality. Power has lots of equivalents. If we don’t seek power over others, perhaps we seek status or a sense of identity as part of some larger group. But power, status and identity are all ways of saying “I matter. I’m important.” For now, at least, I can ignore the inevitability that some day I won’t matter. Some day I’ll just be one more headstone in the cemetery. Despite all of our attempts at denial, the one thing that we can be absolutely certain of is that all life ends in death – that death is the ultimate outcome of life.

And that is why the message of Easter is so radical. Easter is completely contrary to the one thing that we know with certainty is absolutely true. As we read the story this morning of Jesus’ appearance to two of his disciples on the road to Emmaus, we hear a radical claim, a claim that goes directly contrary to something we all know to be true. In what follows, I am going to look at three themes in this morning’s Gospel reading.

The first theme is that if there is a God who created the entire universe, a universe in which it is indeed true that all living things eventually die, nonetheless, it is also true that in this universe where death prevails, the God who has created this universe has also raised his Son Jesus from the dead. What that means is that it is not the case that all life simply ends in death. The Christian claim is not that life ends in death, but that life comes out of death. (more…)

Proverbs 31-12
Psalm 119: 33-40
2 Timothy 3:1-17
Matthew 9:9-13

T

he readings this morning are not the usual Sunday lectionary readings, but the readings for the Feast Day of St. Matthew. Matthew is both an Apostle and an Evangelist. He is identified with Matthew the tax collector or publican, mentioned in today’s Gospel reading (Matt. 9:9). Matthew is also traditionally identified as the author of the Gospel identified by his name, the first book in the New Testament. Many modern scholars question Matthew’s authorship, but for the convenience of this sermon, I am going to assume that both the converted tax collector and the writer of the Gospel are the same person. I’ll be focusing on the first Gospel because it is the book that has really given Matthew his influence in the church.

Matthew’s Gospel was the most popular of the four Gospels in the early church, and it has continued to be influential, both in the history of the church, and even in modern secular culture. After hearing the Gospel reading from Matthew on the Commissioning of the Twelve Apostles at a Sunday mass in February 1208, Francis of Assisi decided to devote himself to a life of poverty, and composed a simple “Rule” for his mendicant order – to follow the teachings of Jesus and to walk in his footsteps. Thomas Aquinas claimed that the entirety of Christian ethics could be summarized in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel. At the time of the Reformation, Mennonites found their inspiration for pacifism in Jesus’ commands in the Sermon on the Mount to not resist evil and to turn the other cheek. Anglican and founder of Methodism John Wesley found his doctrine of Christian perfection or “entire sanctification” in Jesus’ command in the Sermon on the Mount: “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5: 48). Mahatma Gandhi found the inspiration for his philosophy of non-violence in the Sermon on the Mount.

Even modern secularists have found themselves coming back again and again to Matthew’s Gospel. In 1964, Italian film director Pier Paolo Pasolini made a film titled in its English translation, The Gospel According to St. Matthew. In 1971, John-Michael Tebelak wrote a script that became the off-Broadway musical and later Hollywood film Godspell, based on Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus of Montreal is a 1989 Canadian film about a group of actors who stage a modern version of the Passion Play. As they continue to enact the play, the actors lives are transformed as they begin to resemble Jesus and his followers. The Jesus of Jesus of Montreal is clearly the Jesus of Matthew’s Gospel.

For most Christians, Matthew’s Gospel is likely the one with which we’re most familiar. When we think of the Christmas story of the Magi, we think of Matthew’s Gospel. When we think of the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount, and the Lord’s Prayer, we usually think of Matthew’s version, not the parallel versions found in Luke. So in addition to the writings of Paul, Matthew’s Gospel is perhaps the most influential book of the New Testament. It is through Matthew’s Gospel that most people have come to know the story of Jesus.

Despite the average Christian’s love for Matthew’s Gospel, it has sometimes been problematic for theologians, and we see the reasons why in today’s lectionary readings. (more…)

Preached at the Ordination of Greg and Noel Collins Pfeiffer to the Priesthood

Isaiah 6:1-8
Psalm 145
Ephesians 1:15-23
Luke 10: 1-9

One of the things I enjoy most about having been a seminary professor for awhile is that I get to go through the “entire process” with my students, from beginning to end. Nine years ago, I saw a young couple arrive at Trinity, having recently finished their undergraduate schooling in Chicago, now coming to study together – Greg and Noel Collins Pfeiffer. There are no typical seminary couples these days, but Greg and Noel were not typical even at Trinity. He was a Starbucks barista. Sometimes it seemed like his sense of style was stuck in the 90’s — the 1890’s. She sometimes worked as a swimming lifeguard. They read fantasy literature, especially Tolkien, and they hung around with a group of students who called each other “The Scooby Gang.” They lived with some other students in a kind of intentional community. Both Noel and Greg took courses from me, and while faculty are not supposed to have favorite students, I confess that I developed an especial fondness for Greg and Noel. I had the privilege of directing Noel’s thesis on Gregory of Nyssa. I saw both of them graduate in 2013. Noel’s hair was the same color as her graduation hood that day. In August 2013, Noel used her secret connections to get me invited to give some talks on Reformation Anglicanism for the first CANA West Diocesan Synod in San Antonio, Texas. Among my other jobs, I am on the Commission on Ministry for the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh, and I was on the committee that interviewed Greg and Noel to enter the ordination process – one week before their son Elian was due to be born. And today I am privileged to preach at their ordination to the priesthood. I am honored and grateful to be part of the end of this journey, as I was at the beginning. It is, of course, a truism, to say that this is really not an end, but another beginning. But while it may be a truism, it is not trite. Noel and Greg will now be exercising the ministries that they first came to Trinity to begin studying for. Noel, Greg, I thank you for this opportunity to speak at your ordination to the priesthood. I have not taught any students of whom I am so happy to see this moment arrive as I am for you.

Greg, Noel, as I speak to you this evening, I can’t help but wonder about the path you have chosen, as I am sure you probably have yourself. To take the path of ordination to the priesthood these days is to set out on a hard road. Why would anyone want to be a priest today? The culture seems to be going through what is called a process of “secularization” that began in the 1960’s, but it finally seems to be reaching its apex. In the last generation, church membership in the United States has plummeted. From 1937 through the 1990s, membership regularly averaged around 70% of the population. From 1998 until now, church membership has dropped to just around 50% of the population. Since the turn of the 21st century, the percentage of Americans with no religious affiliation has doubled, from 8% to 19%. The shift is also generational. Among millennials, those of Noel’s and Greg’s generation, only 42% are members of any church. And, of course, church attendance is lower than church membership. Only about a third of the population attend church weekly, but among those aged 18 to 29, only 17% attend church every week.

Along with the decrease in church membership, respect for clergy as an occupation has also dropped. A recent study found that among those who attend church regularly, 75% view clergy positively. However, among those who attend church only once a month, only 52% think clergy are trustworthy. And if you attend church less than once a month, the chances that you consider clergy to be honest and intelligent is only 27% to 30%. The population as a whole views teachers, doctors, scientists, and members of the military more positively than clergy. Only 42% of average Americans have a positive view of clergy. In terms of trustworthiness, clergy are viewed about the same level as lawyers.

So how should the church respond to this changed situation? Noel, Greg, perhaps this is a time to rethink. You already know how to make coffee and coach swimming. It’s not too late to change your minds. I really don’t want you to change your minds though. If anything, clergy are more needed now than they were a generation ago. There was a time when the local pastor or priest was something like those doctors who used to give house calls. Someone you could depend on, just part of the way things were, but not someone you thought about much until someone got sick. In the current situation, the priest is something more like an emergency medical technician in the midst of a major catastrophe. Clergy are more necessary now, not less. Matthew 9:36 speaks of an event in the life of Jesus: “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” When the sheep have lost their way, we need shepherds to find the sheep and bring them back into the fold. There is a passage in the gospel reading this evening that is right on target. Jesus said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Greg and Noel, the church has called you to be laborers in the harvest.

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Amos 8:4-12
Psalm 138
1 Timothy 2:1-7
Luke 16:1-13

One of the most popular of traditional stories is the “Robin Hood” or “Cinderella” story. The story begins with a setting of injustice. There are a group of powerful and usually wealthy figures who are in charge – the “bad guys” – who are unfairly oppressing someone else – an individual or a group of people who are poor, powerless, and unable to defend themselves. In “Robin Hood,” the bad guys are Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham. In Cinderella, they are the wicked stepmother and the ugly step sisters. In the midst of this injustice, a previously unknown, poor, and apparently powerless figure appears out of nowhere, but this figure surprises everyone by defeating and overcoming the powerful and wealthy villains, the poor are delivered, and everyone lives happily ever after. Robin Hood and Cinderella play this figure in their versions of the story, but the story is still very much with us in contemporary culture. Orphaned teenagers Peter Parker and Harry Potter are Robin Hood and Cinderella respectively in our own day.

There are lots of ways to tell the biblical story, and the Robin Hood/Cinderella variation is one possible framework. Jacob’s son Joseph is the youngest of twelve brothers, who is sold into slavery, but eventually rises to be Pharaoh’s right-hand man, to deliver Egypt from famine, and to save his own family, including the brothers who had betrayed him. Jacob’s descendants are slaves in Egypt, but they are delivered by Moses, himself the son of poor Israelites, who was pulled out of the Nile as a baby floating in a basket. In the New Testament, we are familiar with Mary’s prayer, The Magnificat: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. . . . He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” (Luke 1:46-48, 52-53)

The Robin Hood story can provide a kind of common framework for making sense of this morning’s lectionary readings. Turning to Amos, we find that the theme of the reading is the exploitation of the poor by the wealthy. Amos is historically the first of the writing prophets, written between 760 and 740 BC. The book is a judgment on the sins of the nation of Israel, and, unlike later prophets, Amos’s message is entirely negative. He offers no message of hope or forgiveness. Amos threatens that Israel will go into exile, and that is exactly what eventually happened. (more…)

This is a sermon I preached at the 2019 Ancient Evangelical Future Conference at Trinity School for Ministry.

Luke 20:27-21:4

This morning’s lectionary reading from Luke’s gospel consists of a number of stories about conflict between Jesus and different opponents. Each one of these could be the subject of a sermon in itself. In Cyril of Alexandria’s Commentary on Luke, Cyril preaches three different sermons on what for us this morning is a single reading. I don’t have time to preach three sermons, but I don’t intend to focus on only one of the conflicts in which Jesus is involved in this passage either. Instead, I want to focus on the issue of conflict itself. Each one of the conflicts in which Jesus is engaged is essentially about a theological disagreement, and I am going to suggest that in this morning’s lectionary reading, Jesus provides an ideal example of how to deal with theological disagreement. We live in a culture that does not handle conflict very well, but, more to the point, this is a theological conference in which Christians of different theological traditions are gathered, so there are certainly issues of theological disagreement among us. Yet, this is also an ecumenical conference, in which, despite not agreeing on everything, we presumably believe that we agree enough on some things that we can meet together both to engage in mutually beneficial discussion and to worship. So how does Jesus address theological conflict in these stories?

In the first conflict story, Jesus encounters some Sadducees, a Jewish group who disagreed with the Pharisees in that they did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. Jesus’ Sadducee opponents engage in a reductio ad absurdum argument. They try to discredit the notion of resurrection by showing that if taken to its logical extreme, resurrection would lead to absurd results. They tell the story of a woman whose husband dies. Under the principle of levirate marriage, found in Deuteronomy 25, the brother of a man who had died was obligated to marry his brother’s widow in order that the man would not have died without heirs, but also as a form of financial security for the widow. The central plot of the book of Ruth in the Old Testament revolves around this practice. As the Sadducees tell the story, the woman marries the surviving brother, but he dies as well. The widow keeps marrying brothers, all of whom die, and then finally she dies. This leads to a question with all of the sophistication of a social media debate: If there is a resurrection, out of the seven brothers, whose wife would the woman be?

So how does Jesus address the conflict? (more…)