This is your brain on biblical inerrancy

I want to be like Father Matthew when I grow up. He decided that this internet thing, and especially YouTube, might catch on someday and has turned his videos "Father Matthew Presents" into a terrific ministry. His latest video is on Biblical Inerrancy.



His video is timely because there is another new book about Jesus, the early church, and the variety of scriptural voices that is out there but a Biblical scholar named Bart Ehrman. Here is goes for a second round on the Colbert Report.

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Previously, Ehrman wrote a fine little book a few years back that describes how Biblical texts went from their original writers to today. Called "Misquoting Jesus: The Story Begind Who Changed the Bible and Why" he provides a very accessible discussion of textual criticism and textual transmission.

But the most poingnant part of the book is not found in his discussion but in his story. He writes how he was raised in an Episcopal Church and that he had a "born again" experience as a high school sopomore. This tracks pretty closely with my own story: I was "born again" as a high school freshman.

He came to hold the view, as I did, that the Bible was completely without error in the original texts. He even attended Moody Bible Institute, later Wheaton, and then went to Princeton Theological Seminary. (I wanted to go to either Wheaton or Gordon-Conwell, but my parents would not pay for me to go to those schools, so I went to Drew instead.) Eventually, the challenges of the text itself showed the glaring weaknesses of an inerrant approach and, as in Father Matthew's video, Ehrman's faith came tumbling down.

The problem as I read Ehrman's work, is that with the loss of inerrancy went the loss of his Christian faith (or at least a significant chunk of it). He came to his most dynamic religious expression as a teenager and young adult in what he calls the "robust" world of born-again evangelical Christianity. And that robustness of faith depended on a doctrine that can't stand up to the storm. He disagrees with his mentor Bruce Metzger, in that the textual variants he finds challenge the basic understandings of basic Christian doctrines. For him, Luke's perspective on the crucifixion and John's are different, therefore they disagree and therefore any theological musing that works on the tension between the two (and may find a synthesis) are invalid because they are "later" additions.

The more he looks at the scriptural texts, the more he finds the human side of the equation and with it error, and if there is error then the whole house of cards falls. What I find poignant is that he can't shake his inner fundamentalist: if the doctrine or theology cannot be supported by a uniform witness of scripture then the whole things falls away, and since there is no uniform witness of scripture because the manuscripts (both in their original form and in their transmission) is shot through with error, there is nothing to believe.

What Ehrman, and many others (both fundamentalists and even some Biblical scholars) forget is that what is inspired is the community of believers who witness to God at work and that it is the community (not the Bible) that makes the claim about who Jesus is and what God is up to through and in him. The Bible's authority and witness emanates from the Church not the other way round.

As I said, I identify with portions of Dr. Ehrman's story. I used to think that what made for a robust faith was a robust view of the Bible. Nope. As Father Matthew says, that makes the Bible into an idol and idols always fail us. What makes for a robust faith is Christ manifested in a dynamic gathering of Christ's people doing and learning the work of Jesus.

Two hat tips to Episcopal Cafe: Episcopal Cafe video and The Lead.

New life, episode one

I am suspicious of sequels. Some (most!) movies should never have sequels. It seems, though, that Hollywood can’t resist the temptation. If they have a good story, and if the film is a hit, then producers want to see if they can catch lightening in a bottle twice, maybe three or more times. And even if the first sequel works sooner or later the whole thing just collapses.

About ten or fifteen years ago, the estate of Margaret Mitchell authorized someone to write a sequel to “Gone with the Wind” with an attendant television mini-series (turns out no one would risk a theatrical film). The fans of the original novel and famous 1938 film had tons of questions about whatever became of Scarlett O’Hara, Rhett Butler and Tara. Frankly, my dear, they shouldn’t have bothered.

Hell, to me, would be an eternal movie house with locked doors, endless popcorn with not enough butter, a bottomless cup of flat soda ice-water, where the people next to me talk and twitter through the whole film and where the only shows playing would be the middle movie of a three movie “franchise.” Imagine endless back-to-back showings of “Back to the Future II!” Ugh!

There are lots of films with open-endings. What happened to Benjamin and Elaine after they rode off on the bus? What did Shane go when he walked off into the prairie by himself? Did Rick and Captain Renault really begin a beautiful friendship? Do Phil and Rita stay in Punxsutawney?

And then there is the biggest cliffhanger of them all; the biggest lose end of all time: Will Mary, Mary and Salome overcome their fear and tell anyone about the angel and the Risen Jesus?

Mark’s Gospel ends on an open question. The women go to the tomb of their friend, master and teacher, Jesus to finish caring for his body. Jesus was executed on the cross and his dead body was placed in the first available grave. They approach his grave wondering how they are going to get in, because the tomb had a big stone rolled in front of it. When they arrive, they find the stone rolled away, an empty tomb where a dead body ought to be. Instead of their dead friend, they find an angel. The angel says that Jesus has risen from the dead, just as he said. And the angel tells the women to tell the other disciples and then go to Galilee where they will see Jesus.

But they don’t. The women are so frightened and so confused that they run away and don’t tell anyone. No one at all. That is the end of the Gospel of Mark. We are left wondering, well….what happened next? What now?

Besides the fact that Mark loves playing with this theme—earlier in the Gospel, when Jesus wanted people to be quiet, they could not contain themselves and now when they are supposed to tell, they are too scared to say a word—Mark, who is after all writing to Christian believers—is throwing the story back in our lap. There is no sequel. We are the Gospel now.
Mark’s gospel can be described as a Passion Narrative with a long introduction. Everything hinges on the cross. Jesus dies on the cross. He is not injured. He is not knocked out cold. He is not in a coma. He died. And in that death, God is at once glorified and the rift between humanity and God is healed.

A century or two or three after Mark, some of the early Christian scribes could not stand the ambiguity. They had to borrow from the other Gospels some neat, tidy ending that made everything okay. They wanted a sequel that wrapped everything up and left no questions unanswered.

Except that the resurrection is not a sequel. It is not a convenient day-saving plot device, like the cavalry riding over the hill or the hero suddenly reappearing from certain doom. Neither is the resurrection a metaphor for going to heaven or the spiritual musings of some fanatical followers.

Jesus who was dead is now alive. The other Gospels describe Jesus as physically present. He meets his disciples. He speaks with them and interacts. He touches, he looks, he eats. But he is paving the way for the rest of us. He is still human. He is showing us the life and humanity that God wants and has in store for us.

This is good news because our lives are often a series of unanswered questions. We wonder how things will turn out. We wonder if there is a purpose or reason for us. Making meaning out of real life—our relationships, our choices, our families, work and play—is something we all strive to do. Without meaning there is no hope, no direction, no future and not much of a past. And as we seek meaning, we will write scripts for ourselves and for those around us.

The resurrection shows us that while God may not have written the script—we are free people, after all—we all have a direction and a guide and a hope. God desires for us to live in a vital, healthy relationship with God and each other and all creation. God wants us to be aware of the people around us and the world we live in. God has made capable of love and has given us the ability to choose to move towards that love and to act on it.

In Jesus’ incarnation, God shows us that God cares for creation and for us, and that we are to care for the people around us. God’s creativity is reflected in our creativity. Our desire for right reflects God’s longing for justice.

And in Jesus’ death, we see that God will not only join with our humanity, but God will enter into our suffering, take on all our pain, sorrow, fear and all the wrongs we have done, and even take on death itself.

Think of what gets in the way of a full life for us. Think of the things deep in us that cause us to feel alienated, lonely or without purpose or hope. All these things are left behind in that empty tomb. With the resurrection, real life begins.

Do you really want to know if the two Mary’s actually told anyone about the Risen Jesus? Do you really want to know how the story turned out? Look around you. They had to have told someone. You are here. Two millennia later, you and me and all of us are here telling the story once again: Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

The story did not end. We are the Gospel story now. We are the ones who show off the incarnate, risen Jesus to everyday people. We are the ones who demonstrate through our words and actions that Jesus is alive and God’s Spirit is active and that God is renewing and rebuilding creation.

We begin to take part in that real life right now. Through faith and in our baptisms, we join with Jesus in continuing the story. Through Holy Eucharist and the rest of our sacramental life; through our life among other Christians, and in our caring for others we discover this new risen life unfolding in us right here, right now.

The cross is not the end and the resurrection is not a sequel. It is the beginning of renewed, redeemed life. We are not a sequel, either. We are the Gospel story unfolding.

From Darkness to Light

A meditation on an Easter Vigil

The Light of Christ!
Thanks be to God!

Our modern world is different from what has gone before in two ways: life is noisy and life is bright.

It is noisy because we never have to go anywhere without bringing along some kind of music, talk, or just plain noise. One can hardly buy a car without even a basic radio in it, and we do not go far without turning it on. The sound of our media and our machines are so basic to our life, that we hardly notice them.

Our life is bright because we can light up everything from roadways to basements at the touch of a switch. Even as we walk in the woods, we can carry a bright light to lead the way at very little cost.

I remember my first overnight camping trip as a Boy Scout, when I discovered just how dark and just how silent the forest can be. Sitting around a campfire singing songs and telling scary stories was my first introduction to that ancient way of keeping the night and the silence at bay. We forget that this was the way of life for most of our history.
The night and the silence represent the places where uncertainty, separation and even evil lurk.
While we seem to have kept the night and the silence at bay with electricity, we have only disguised with technology the silence and the night within us. For all of our streetlights and stereos, we still encounter dark places where uncertainty, separation and even evil lurk.

The Light of Christ!
Thanks be to God!

Imagine a dark room, filled with people.
Gathered are people of every walk of life. Some are rich, some poor. Some are old, and some are young. Some came with friends and loved ones, others wandered in alone; some seem contented, and for others, their troubles have sculpted their faces with deep lines of worry. The people here have brought with them their hopes and their deep fears. They have gathered with their deepest darkness and their loudest silence. And they wait.
Every day we meet folks like these, in our travels, our work or in our play. They may even be us. People who want to do their very best and often falling short of their hopes; who have known both joy and sorrow. People waiting for light, purpose, meaning and hope.

The Light of Christ!
Thanks be to God!

Then light appears. This light, which peels back the darkness, is the light of Christ. It is the light of Jesus who died and is now alive. Not a resuscitated wounded body. Risen from the dead. What was once a corpse is now alive, Jesus paving the way for us. As the light approaches, we find that all those failed hopes, those deeply creased worries, and those relentless insecurities no longer stand between us and God. In this light, the power of sin is vanquished. In this light the barriers between neighbors fall away. In this light we can begin to be the persons God has created us to be. In this light, the coldness of our hearts becomes warmth.

Christ is risen from the dead! He has entered our hearts with hope, humility and triumph. All those very real concerns that we brought into that dark room no longer have final power over us. We can begin to live in expectant, joyful hope.

Easter faith is that this little shred of Light shared with each of us—the Light of Christ—is more than enough to dispel whatever darkness we face.

Rejoice and sing now, all the round earth,
bright with a glorious splendor,
for darkness has been vanquished by our eternal King.

The cross in an inattentive world

You want to know what I find so startling about today, this Good Friday, in the middle of most important three days of the Church’s year? What I find startling is that today is not that different from any other day. Sure, the stock markets closed today in New York and in Europe. I haven’t looked to see if it the banks were open, but who cares? There are ATMs and on-line banking anyway. I think the mail came. I know that UPS delivered a package to our closed office this morning. But in my trek from Trinity over to St. John’s Lutheran for the noonday ecumenical service, there was the same traffic. More actually. There were loads of kids and their parents going into the Crayola Factory. The restaurants are busy, and the buses were stacked up at the west side of the Circle right on time.

Life is going on right around us, with hardly a thought as to what day today is.

Good Friday is important to us Christians, so central that we think that everyone ought to get the message and slow down. I remember when 9/11 happened. I was living about 800 miles away from Ground Zero in Marietta, Ohio. And what I remember most about that day and the weeks that followed is that everyone seemed to be equally affected by the enormity of that tragic day. Flags were everywhere. Respectful silences were observed. People talked in hushed tones.

But Good Friday is not like that. Not at all. Everyone is resolutely going about their business. People are buying…ironically, they are buying Easter baskets and Easter dresses. There was an Easter egg hunt going on within sight of our church.

Now some of us may be shocked by that. Those of us who have twinge of nostalgia for the old days…who remember Blue Laws and such…may think of this as bad news. But the news here is neither good nor bad. It just is. It is how the world works. It is just this kind of busy, distracted, workaday world that God sent his son into.

I remember when my father died, and then six months later, my mother was dying. Both times it meant a long drive from southeastern Ohio to New Hampshire, where my parents moved to be near my oldest brother. Both times it meant going through the rituals of funeral home, funerals (in my Dad’s case in two places…one where he was a deacon, and one at the church where he was interred), of meeting people—some of whom I had not seen in ages if ever—and then going from place to place and then the long drive home.

And during all of that, when my world was so focused on my parents and my family and each loss, the normalcy of the world seemed so out of sync with the very small, very slow world I was living in with my brothers and our families. Both times it felt like I was inside a bubble where time, even light itself, seemed to slow to almost nothing, while the world around us sped as if they were on fast forward.

I think that for the people who walked that first way of the cross, this is just what was going on. The parade of prisoners on the way to Golgotha was probably a nuisance, holding up traffic. The wailing women were a public disturbance. The practiced urbanites of Jerusalem probably saw demonstrations and spectacle (and marches to the gallows) so they just averted their eyes and walked past as if it weren’t there.

Besides if you stopped to stare at the spectacle, you might be unlucky enough to be picked out by one of the guards and forced to carry one of those gawd-awful filthy crosses. Like that poor Simon of Cyrene. As if the guards were saying, you wanna look? I’ll give you a real close look! Now wouldn’t that just ruin your day?

But even the guards, except for a few who had eyes to see, saw this as just another day at work.
No, the world just went about its business when Jesus was crucified. Time only stood still for those who were most deeply involved. Jesus’ mother and the women who stayed with Jesus through it all, the disciples who watched from a distance: they were inside the bubble. They were the ones that saw the rest of the world in Fast Forward, if they noticed the world all.

For us in here, we who are gathered in darkness at the foot of the cross, it may have something of the same quality. Of being in a bubble, an alternative world from the rest of life “out there.”
But come to think of it, there is that quality about living life in Christ, isn’t there? That we are aware of something that others might miss. We’d be tempted to hold it over them. To hold it against them.

Except that I have this strange feeling that if I found myself along the Via Dolorosa before it was called that, that I would be looking at my Treo, drumming my fingers, averting my eyes waiting for the parade to pass by. Maybe I’d mutter a “poor sap” at the poor fellow with the thorns around his head.

This procession, this execution, might have been just another execution of just another prisoner. Just another man without a name, another prisoner without a number, except for the people who did witness was going on and who did understand.

They did not stay inside their bubble for long. The resurrection would burst their bubble, and they would step out of the slow time of grief, and enter, not into the Fast Forward time of the world, but into God’s time. They would come out and first tell each other that this death was like no other death, and this man like no other man. Soon they would be telling a very busy world, that God was there among them and they didn’t even know it and he was killed and he is alive. And through his death, we are made whole. Their seeing allows us to see.

When we walk to the cross, we are not in a different time. We are in God’s time. And when we step out of here, we who have witnessed the cross will through our words and story help others see the cross for themselves.

Dean Nicholas Knisely has a similar theme in his reflection which you can find here. We did not check each others notes.

Our murdered savior

I preached this a week ago. It was at the funeral of M. who was shot to death in a bar not far from my church. I used the Gospel from Mark for this coming Easter Sunday, Mark 16:1-8. I was not originally going to post this but I found that on this Good Friday, I could not get away from the power and the sadness of that day a week ago. It seemed to belong to Good Friday.

I am very grateful to D. and to L. and to M’s. mother and father, R. and J., for asking me to be here today, to officiate at M.’s funeral. On the whole, I wish that we were not meeting for the first time like this, but there is no place I’d rather be right now than right here as we remember and say farewell to M. and try to make meaning out of something senseless.

I have a question for all of you. How many of you are right now wearing a cross or a crucifix? Maybe as jewelry or a patch or maybe even as a tattoo? Do you know that cross is? The cross was the thing on which Jesus died. We don’t think of it this way because try to nice it up…but Jesus was executed on a cross. He was murdered.

Our savior died on the cross. But he died because of someone’s fear, someone’s greed, and someone’s need for power. He was just like us in every way but without sin and he still died. Jesus was murdered.

So what you are wearing is an instrument of torture and death.

I think that Jesus’ friends, when they went to the grave of Jesus were feeling the same things that many of you might be feeling now: they were feeling sad, shocked, stunned and angry. They were probably feeling pretty numb, too. Because it was the third day since their friend was murdered.

Jesus was with his friends when they came and arrested him and took him away. And they tried him in a kangaroo court and he was beaten, and spit upon, and stripped naked and paraded through the streets and he was very publicly murdered by the Roman Empire. The Romans crucified people to make them an example for all to see. Don’t mess with Rome. Obey the rules. Or else.

We want to make it all pretty and nice, but here is the truth. Jesus was executed. He was murdered.

And he didn’t deserve it. Everyone knew he was innocent, but they killed him anyway. Jesus said nothing in his defense. He was mostly silent. When some of his followers wanted to fight for him, he stopped them. Why? Because unlike M., Jesus chose this path. He was doing this so that all of us, you and me, might be made whole and healed and right with God. When he died on the cross Jesus—who was himself both all God and all human—ended the power of sin and death over us. In Christ, God has healed the rift between us and God and gives us a chance to live, really live, as God made us to live: with love, with hope, with power, with purpose and direction and for the care of others.

The cross did all that, but on that first Easter morning, Mary Magdalene and the other women did not know that yet. They went to Jesus’ grave to finish caring for his broken body. And they found the tomb empty. Jesus was not there. Instead, they met an angel who told them Jesus was risen from the dead and where to meet him.

The women who went to Jesus’ grave were his friends and companions. They must have felt many things. They may have felt shocked, stunned, sad and even anger. They went to grave of their friend to care for him, just as you all are here now: because you care for M.and want to care for both family and your own hurt.

You want to know what was strange? They probably said to themselves “I wish this never happened” and “I wish I could see my friend again.” And then they come to the grave and find the tomb empty. An angel tells them that what they wished in their hurt and loss has come true. Jesus is alive! And they have the chance to see him again!

So what do they do? Do they say “Hooray! I can see my dead friend again!” Not at all. Instead, they ran away. Despite all their hopes and their wishing, deep down inside that their friend was dead and gone. They ran away from the empty grave because they were afraid. This is where Mark’s Gospel ends. That’s it. No more. End of story.

Jesus was murdered. Jesus was buried. Jesus is raised from the dead…and the women don’t tell
anyone! Why? Because they were afraid!

Grief is like that. It can make one feel so sad, so helpless, so washed out that sometimes you don’t want to do anything. Even when you know you have to. Even when you know you want to. Grief can make you feel numb, and tired and scared so that you don’t want to do anything except sit in your hurt.

But you know what? They must have told somebody. How do we know that? Because we are here! Because millions and millions of people over thousands of years know the story: they know that Jesus died, Jesus is risen and Jesus will come again. We know it because of all those crosses and crucifixes you wear. In a way, all of you show us that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were able to get past their sadness, anger, sorrow and shock and found a way to tell someone the truth. Jesus who was dead is now alive.

It took time for the truth to sink in. But when it did everything changed forever.

In the days and weeks and months to come, you will be coming to terms with M.'s death. You will have to come to terms with its suddenness, with the violence of it, and with the simple fact that M. is no longer here to share your life. D. you will need to raise your little girl knowing that her father will not see her grow up. R. and J., you are doing the impossible: you are burying a son and that feels backwards and wrong. You friends and family will be there for you, and they will need to find out how to live their lives without M. as well.

And you will have to find ways to honor him and remember him. I am glad to see all the t-shirts that someone took the time to make with that great picture of a smiling, M. who seems to be in on some joke that only you and he are in on. Your t-shirts with his picture is a sign to me and everyone else that M. has a story that went beyond the front page of the newspaper, a story that was way more than the lead story on the evening news.

And there are other ways to tell his story. The most important way is how you are with each other and the community beyond this funeral home in the days, weeks and years to come.
I don’t know what happened to make some person choose to shoot M., and frankly, I don’t care. I’ve ministered in jails, in soup kitchens, half-way houses, drug and alcohol programs and in hospitals. I have heard all the stories. You can tell me about the “real” life that I don’t understand all you want, or about “codes” or whatever else might describe this. I don’t care. It all boils down to this: what happened Monday was the act of a coward and it was sin.

Now all of you have a choice. If you want to remember M. and you want to make it right, then you will choose to put aside violence, and you will choose to put away hatred. You will choose to put it aside. You will tell the story of what M. brought into the world by how you choose to live your lives. You want to remember M.? Live so that no one else has to face the choices or the violence he did. You will make sure that his daughter, I., is raised surrounded by love and safety and creativity and hope. And all of you will have to work make sure that no one else has to hold or face a gun to prove their manhood. Here are a few things you can do: Plant a tree. Write a song. Work for a better city. Stay in school. Mentor a youngster. Care for and respect your elders. You want to build a monument to M.? Be the best you that you can possibly be.

And most of all, you can remember M. best by turning to the one who makes it possible to stand up to and stare down evil: the One who was executed, our murdered savior Jesus Christ.
Yes. We still have to contend with evil. Yes. We still have to deal with the bad things people do. Yes. The world can still be a scary place. But in Jesus, we find the way to win over evil, we find the tools that bring hope and we discover the purpose God has for us.

And what is God’s purpose for us? That we decide to follow Jesus everyday; that we see Christ’s face in each and every one of us; that we serve each other with love and respect; and that, empowered by God’s love and living in the company of God’s faithful people, we bring God’s love to every single person—especially the one’s who seem farthest from it.

We are just like those two women who found Jesus’ tomb empty and had a vision of angels. They were scared, stunned, frightened and maybe even angry at the death of their friend. We don’t know how they did it. But they made their way through their grief and told the story, and ever since we have finding new life even in the midst of death.

Evil is still out there. But it has lost the war. Death still happens. But it is not the end of us. Why? Because of that cross, which is more than jewelry, God has defeated evil. Because Jesus rose from death that first Easter morning, he opened the way for us to live as God’s people: with love, with hope, with purpose and with real power.

Tertiary!

Happy Opening Day:



Here is the original:



"I cannot tell!"

"Tertiary!"

H/T to NYTimes Laugh Lines.

Facing the full force and fury of sin

We are always looking for someone to blame. When things go wrong we need someone to blame. These days we have turned this into a kind of ritual.

Today we need to blame someone…anyone! The investment bankers! The politicians! The business journalists! Celebrities or sports stars. Sooner or later, someone must take the blame.

When that person or entity is found, apologies must be made. In front of microphones and klieg lights, someone will solemnly will say "Mistakes were made." The person on the hot seat will say (supportive spouse at the side) “If anyone has been injured or offended by words or actions, then I am truly sorry.” Then the punishment begins. It might not be by jury trial or hearing, it may instead be by the media. Rehabilitation may or may not come. But you can be sure of one thing: when the next crisis comes along, blame must be placed.

As I said, it is a ritual. I did not say that it was a ritual that satisfies, but it is what we do. Even when we know it doesn’t work.

Last fall, just before the election, someone put up on YouTube a video. It was an excerpt from a German film depicting Adolf Hitler’s last hours in the bunker underneath Berlin. The clip shows him raving and moving from rage to self-pity, over to self-loathing and then demanding the death of the people he blamed for the failure of his own choices. A frightening performance.

Except that on this YouTube video, some satirist changed the English sub-titles to make it appear that his ranting was because he lost his 401k and his real estate dropped in value.

The satirist was making a point: we will often blame everyone else for both the choices we make and for the things we cannot control. This is actually not very new. It goes all the way back to Jonah. When something goes wrong, someone must be at fault. Someone must atone.

To be sure, there are times when people do things that deserve punishment. And there are times when we must hold people accountable for their actions. But sometimes the search for accountability stops being a search for truth and instead becomes a search for a Jonah or a scapegoat: someone on whom we can place all our troubles and who will take it far away from us.

We do this when we are angry. We do it when we are afraid. We do it when we don't understand or are threatened. What we do is pay lots of attention to someone else's sin. That is what we mean by scapegoating.

When we scapegoat someone else, what we are doing is changing the subject. We are hoping that people will look more at the other person's failings than our own. It tends to work because none of us can stand up to the fact that all of us are sinful, frail, limited, and self-serving. God made us one way, and we are another way and it far short of what God would have for us. But if we can make someone else take the rap, then maybe no one will notice.

Here is the ironic thing about Jesus’ condemnation and execution. The people made him into just that kind of scapegoat…and he willingly entered into it. It is also ironic that what the people wanted to blame Jesus for and what Jesus was taking on were two entirely different things. People laid on Jesus the symptom. Jesus is addressing the source.

Jesus enters the city on the back of a small, not-quite=full-grown horse. Other Gospels say a donkey…whatever the case, Jesus was not coming in on a mighty steed. He was greeted by throngs of ordinary people as a king, a deliverer. They called him “messiah” but for them this “messiah” would be the one to throw off Roman rule and end religious and class corruption and so restore Israel to greatness.

Jesus became for many a national figure on whom the national and economic hopes of an oppressed and struggling people rested. And when he failed to deliver…when his confrontation with the powers of both and Rome met with resistance, arrest and failure…he become the one they blamed for all their troubles.

The Gospel of Mark goes to great lengths to describe the unfairness of the trial: Mark says that the statements against Jesus did not agree with each other (14:56b); he says that some gave this false testimony against Jesus (14:57b) and but even the false testimony was inconsistent (14:59). Compared to the other Gospels, Mark emphasizes Jesus' silence by telling us "He gave no answer" (14:61), while only Mark has Jesus answer the question, "You, are you the Christ, the son of the Blessed?" with "I am" (14:61-62). He is spit upon, stripped, heckled and beaten all the way to Golgotha, where is executed by slow torture in public. The entire process is meant to reinforce Roman power over the people but also allow people to focus on the sins of executed while they entered the walled city.

So why would Jesus willingly enter into this game? If he knew that people expected him to a liberator when he was preaching peace, faithfulness and repentance, then why didn’t he go the other way? Why would Jesus choose to go into a place where the cards would be so stacked against him?

Because what we blamed him for had nothing to do with what he was doing. Jesus chose this route because while still live in our sin and denial, God is busy reconciling the world to himself.

We cannot fully appreciate what Jesus did and who Jesus is without the cross. Jesus always refers to himself as a “human being,” as “the son of man.” There are only a few times in the whole Gospel of Mark that the phrase “Son of God” appears. In the very beginning of the Gospel, once or twice when a demon blurts it out too soon, and then after he is crucified. When has died on the cross, a centurion watching all this says “"Truly this man was God's Son!" Mark’s Gospel shows us that the only way to really know Jesus is know him crucified.

To minimize the cross is to minimize the power of human sin. To minimize the cross is to take away the urgency with which God desires humanity and all creation to be healed and reconciled to God. To dodge the cross as something gruesome and distasteful (it is!) is to dodge the weight and power of human sin.

Jesus goes the way of the cross and so confronts the full weight and force of human sin. No scapegoats. No easy outs. No apologies in front of microphones or tearful admissions of failure. No phony mea culpas. Jesus, the fullness of God and the fullness of humanity, does not skirt sin but walks straight into it.

Facing the full force of sin will result in his death. But here is what no one expected: Jesus dies, but so does sin and everything that separates us from God and each other and creation. Because Jesus faces and turns into the full force of sin, we have life.

We walk the way of the cross, as well. Only we follow in Jesus’ footsteps. We follow because now can stare unblinkingly in to the truth of our sin and brokenness, and know that by virtue of the cross and resurrection, because of Jesus’ death to which we are were joined in our baptisms, we can go to the cross and instead of seeing death, we find life.

All of us in the Church are called to go to the cross again and again and again, in ritual and sacrament, yes, and also in service and compassion. When we care for the hungry, the addicted and the homeless, we go the cross. When we go to victims of violence, terror and degradation, we go to the cross. When we speak truth to power and hold our leaders and each other accountable for forgetting the least and the lost, we go to the cross.

This kind of journey to the cross is not so we can gloat over or judge the sins and failings of others. The way we journey to the cross is that we go and see the world precisely how it is…and bring hope, comfort, shelter, direction and rest.

We walk the way of the cross because for us to know life, to we know the depth of love God has for us and fullness of our rescue from the power of sin, evil and death.

This week we will walk the way of the cross. On Thursday, we will see Jesus serve his disciples one last time and then in agony face the depth, the darkness and power of human sin. On Friday, we will go with him to the cross, where the power of sin will take him to his death. On Saturday, when everything seems dark and absent, we won’t hide, but we will feed the hungry in The Ark Soup Kitchen. And then that night, on Easter Eve, we will wait in darkness and discover in dazzling new light that when Christ is raised from the dead, sin, darkness and evil are defeated once and for all.

Jesus goes to the cross so that the world may be reconciled to God.

And we follow Jesus to the cross for the sake of the world.

Proper Liturgy for Opening Day 2009

Dear Baseball Fans:

The Baseball Fan observes with great devotion the days of the Baseball Season, and it became the custom to prepare for Opening Day by a season of reflection and prediction.  This season provided a time for converts and seasoned Fans alike to share with each other their allegiances and analyses so that conversations, whether appointed or joyously unexpected, could begin with mutual understanding and awareness.

I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Game we love, to the observance of a truly great Season by self-examination and objectivity; by reflection, contemplation, and self-awareness; by differentiation from past rivalries and present and obligatory pay-backs; and by reading and studying The Sporting News' Baseball Annual, the sports pages, baseball blogs, and websites, and, perhaps, conversing (at arm's length) with baseball handicappers of renown (one of whom in The Great Gatsby sports cuff-links made of human molars).

And, to make a right beginning to the Season, let us now kneel in silence to determine the results of our studies and our hopes for the Teams, and to set forth those results below:

Andrew's 2009 Baseball Season Predictions*

Winners of Divisions and Wild Cards, League Champions, and World's Champion

AL East: Boston Red Sox

AL Central: Minnesota Twins

AL West: Los Angeles Angels (of Anaheim)

AL Wild Card: New York Yankees

AL Champion: Boston Red Sox

NL East: New York Mets

NL Central: Chicago Cubs

NL West: Los Angeles Dodgers

NL Wild Card: Philadelphia Phillies

NL Champion: New York Mets

World's Champion: Boston Red Sox

Play Ball!

The text of the liturgy (above the predictions) comes courtesy of the Custodian of the Book of Baseball Prayer, The Ven. "Dusty" Stringfellow.

* = "A good therapist always reserves the right to be wrong." -- Virginia Satir