Contagion

Pr. Jasmine Waring

May 15, 2022

As my seminary journey comes to an end, I’m reflecting on what a unique and challenging experience it has been going to school full-time, interning part-time, and trying to live a normal life through a pandemic. Much of my seminary and internship experience has been defined by COVID-19, for better or for worse. My professors and supervisors have adapted the curriculum to accommodate and learn from this strange experience. One unexpected resource I found was the Book of Leviticus. The Book of Leviticus is of course everyone’s favorite book of the Bible. This book is an instruction manual for priests, which teaches priests in training how to perform rituals and keep the Law. Some of the instructions found in Leviticus are actually pretty relevant today. Leviticus 13 give instructions on how to diagnose a serious and contagious skin disease and requires those effected to quarantine for seven days. They are also required to wash all of their clothes, their body, and their home after they are healed, along with a sacrifice and purification ritual. Don’t worry, I won’t be performing any sacrifices or purification rituals today! The Torah, or the Law of Moses, which contains Leviticus, is as practical as it is spiritual. It is often misunderstood by modern day Christians. The purity and holiness laws have been misinterpreted by Christians as a judgement on personal morality. We have come to believe that purity is holiness, when in fact they are two separate categories. Purity is manageable. You can become ritually unclean through everyday activities such as being in contact is a dead person or bodily fluids, but there was a process you can go through to be clean again. Although those activities were morally neutral, there were also moral transgressions that would make you unclean, but there was also a process to become clean or right-standing again. Purity was preparation to encounter the holy. Holiness means to be set apart, it is transcendent otherness. The opposite of holiness is profane, simply common, or ordinary, which is not a moral failing. Only God is holy, but God can sanctify, or extend holiness to people, places, and things. If something is holy, then it belongs to God’s holy realm. The reason why ancient Judaism was so concerned about purity/impurity and the holy/ common is because the Torah is a gift from God that brings eternal life. It protects God’s people from the forces of Death. Death was almost contagious, it can infect any part of life and make us unclean. Blood however, was believed to be the source of life, or one’s life-force, and it had the ability to purge sin and the forces of Death. The rituals and commands in Torah helped manage sin and the forces of Death so that the Israelites can be in community with a Holy God. Its very common Christian belief that Jesus didn’t really follow these rules. When we read about Jesus’ healing ministry and how he was touching leapers, dead bodies, a woman with a bleeding issue, and a demon-possessed man living in a graveyard. It is very easy to jump to the conclusion that Jesus came to destroy the Law and get away from “religion” and villainize the Pharisees. These beliefs are anti-semitic, and it is something that I have had to repent from because I didn’t know better. Jesus was devoutly Jewish and faithfully kept Torah. In fact, there is a lot of evidence in the Bible that affirms that Jesus was a Pharisee. Pharisees were reformers! They were the movement that has led to modern day Judaism and Christianity. The conflict Jesus had with other Pharisees was in-group, not pointing his finger in judgement of a different religious group. So when Jesus was seemingly crossing ritual purity lines in his healing ministry, he was not violating the Law. In Christ’s divinity, he was extending holiness. Just like how in Leviticus, the blood in cleansing rituals was used to purge impurities, Christ became a contagion of holiness and blasts away the forces of sin and Death. Whenever anyone came in contact with him, even touching the hem of his garment he was infecting them with holiness. More specifically, Christ extended holiness to the margins of society: widows, orphans, disabled, poor, and sick. In his humanity, Jesus’ blood was shed on a cross, and his life force came into contact with Death, making even Death holy. In the moment when Jesus cried, “It is finished” Death lost its sting when it became infected with God’s holiness. So when we look at our reading today, we see Peter was caught up in a mystical experience that challenged his beliefs and tradition. He saw various animals that were both clean (Kosher) and unclean being lowered by a sheet, and a voice told him to have a snack. He gives a very pious answer, saying that he has never eaten anything profane or unclean. But then the voice replies, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane”. The Holy Spirit is at work within Peter, questioning everything he’s been taught, and it’s causing him to interrogate his tradition. To make matters worse, Jesus isn’t there in the flesh to answer his questions for him! But then Peter’s mystical existential experience became an incarnated reality. He was faced with a choice: To follow his tradition, or follow the voice and include gentiles into the community of God. Peter follows the voice as he is led to the home of gentiles, and the Holy Spirit fell upon them just like She did at Pentecost, and he is reminded of John the Baptist’s words about baptism. Holiness was being extended to the gentiles! Now Peter must take this mystical and embodied experienced back to his faith community, and explain what God is doing. Of course there was push-back, because sometimes God’s holiness extends to uncomfortable and scandalous places. There was a lot of in-group arguing, and probably some biases needed to be checked, and scriptures revisited…but they could not deny what the Holy Spirit was doing. Who were they to hinder what God was doing? Christ is a contagion of holiness, who confronts our experiences, causes us to lovingly critique our traditions, and look at scripture with new eyes. Who or what are you calling profane, that God has made clean? There is so much in-group fighting within Christianity, and even in Lutheranism (believe it or not). Gun control, abortion, transgender healthcare, white supremacy…who is Christ extending holiness to in these spaces? Perhaps you are the one being marginalized and feel unclean or common, even profane. May you receive the life-force of Christ in the wine May you honor your embodied experience in the bread And may you be infected by Christ’s holiness, because you belong in God’s holy realm. Amen

Sermon on John 10:1-30

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

“How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”

Just looking at this story, it might sound like there are some Jewish people at the Temple who are curious about Jesus and want to remove their doubts about him.
In this case, and pretty much whenever the Gospel of John talks about
“the Jews,” it means the Jewish religious authorities—the Pharisees, the scribes, the elders.

And again, it might sound like these religious leaders are earnestly asking Jesus to confirm his identity so that they can believe in him.

If that’s the case, then Jesus’ response sounds pretty harsh: “you do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep.”

It might sound like they’re dealing with doubts and that Jesus is being downright mean.

Doubt has kind of a bad reputation in church.

Sometimes we get the message that to be secure in our faith, to be “good” Christians, we have to know all the answers, we can’t have questions, and we can’t wonder if things we’ve been taught aren’t true or aren’t the whole story.

So, sometimes we slap a smile on our faces, answer every “how are you?” with “fine!” and swallow the questions that are sticking in our throats.

We think:

·        Maybe if we have doubts, it means our faith isn’t strong enough.

·        Maybe if we ask too many questions, people will wonder if we’re really “Christian enough.”

·        Maybe if we’re honest about our misgivings, God might say to us, “you do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep.”

That’s a heavy and terrifying load to bear.

But we can find examples of doubt from Jesus’ own disciples in the Easter stories.

Jesus’ disciples hid after Jesus’ death. They were afraid of suffering the same fate as Jesus if the authorities found them.

Then, Jesus appears to them—all except poor Thomas.

Thomas missed out on seeing Jesus and was so grief-stricken that he couldn’t muster enough hope to believe his friends when they told him they had seen Jesus. He told them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” (John 20:25)

And thus, he got the reputation of being “Doubting Thomas.”

But, Jesus made a special appearance again to the disciples, not to tell Thomas, “You do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep. ”No. Jesus made a special appearance to the disciples just so that Thomas could touch him.

And then, there’s Peter.

·        Peter, who denied not just being a follower of Jesus, but denied knowing him at all.

·        Peter, who did this not just once, but three times in a single night.

·        Peter, who swore up and down that he would die for Jesus.

When the resurrected Jesus appeared to the disciples on the beach in last week’s Gospel reading, he didn’t tell Peter, “You do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep.”

No. Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved him, giving Peter the chance to tell him, “Yes, I love you.” Jesus gave Peter the opportunity to make amends for what he had done, and together, they repaired their relationship.

Jesus’ own disciples show us that there is room in our faith tradition for doubt. Our doubts do not disqualify us

·        from following Jesus,

·        from being in relationship with the Holy Spirit,

·        or from being loved by our loving Shepherd who is Father, Mother, and so much more to us.

So, why did Jesus tell the religious leaders, “You do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep”?

Their request doesn’t sound that different from the doubts of Thomas or Peter: “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”

But what looks like doubt in this story at first glance is not doubt.

They were looking for proof, or more accurately, evidence.

The Pharisees, the scribes, the elders were invested in keeping their institution free of people like Jesus: a popular, but unconventional, rabbi who might start trouble. If we’re being charitable, we can say they wanted to protect the orthodoxy of their religious practice. If we’re being less charitable, we might say that they wanted to protect their power.

Either way, the religious leaders wanted a simple yes or no answer from Jesus about whether he was the Messiah. Not because they earnestly wanted to follow him if he said he was, but so that they could get him to either undermine his own authority or say something that would get him arrested.

And, as usual, Jesus wouldn’t play their games.

He wasn’t barring people with genuine curiosity from his sheepfold. He was making sure he’d be able to care for his sheep a bit longer.

And after his resurrection and he was preparing for his ascension, when he would no longer be physically present on earth with us, he made sure someone would be looking after his sheep.

Each time after Peter affirmed that he did love Jesus, Jesus told him: “Feed my lambs,” “tend my sheep,” and “feed my sheep.” (John 21:15-17)

Jesus was entrusting Peter, who in his fear and doubt had denied Jesus,—Jesus entrusted the care of his people to Peter, doubts, failings, and all.

Jesus didn’t give Peter a list of truths to affirm—a creed of beliefs to assent to. He simply asked Peter if he loved him. And then, he gave him the responsibility to care for others.

Just as Jesus told the religious authorities that they should have known he was the Messiah by looking at what he had been doing, Jesus gave his followers a charge to care for others—an act that would let people know they were followers of Jesus. He also, on the night before he died, instructed his disciples to love one another, because “by this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35)

Jesus was concerned with how people treated others, not whether they had doubts or questions.

So, if you have doubts or questions or frustrations about faith, you are in good company—with Peter and Thomas and me and so many of the Psalms and pretty much, if not absolutely, everybody who has ever tried to follow Jesus.

Doubting is faithful. It means we’re paying attention. It means we’re not settling for what we’re told. It means we’re thinking critically and that we’re curious. We don’t have questions about things that don’t matter to us.

One of my favorite writers, Madeleine L’Engle, had a lot of thoughts about doubt. Here is one:

“The value of doubt is to keep you open to God’s revelations. If you don’t doubt, you don’t change. You don’t ask questions. You stay stuck wherever you were. If you have to have finite answers to infinite questions, you’re not going to move… Faith is not reasonable. Faith is marvelous.”

May you be blessed and frustrated by infinite questions.

May you never succumb to easy answers.

May you rest in the company of so many other doubting saints and sinners, secure in the hands of our mysterious and loving Shepherd.

First Lutheran Church

May 1, 2022 

The Third Sunday in Easter

Acts 9:1-20  1Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. 3Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” 5He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. 6But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” 7The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. 8Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. 9For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

10Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” He answered, “Here I am, Lord.” 11The Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, 12and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.” 13But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; 14and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.” 15But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; 16I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” 17So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, 19and after taking some food, he regained his strength. For several days he was with the disciples in Damascus, 20and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.”

Sermon

“Seeing Is Not Always Believing”

Pastor Greg Ronning

“Seeing is believing,” right?  How often have you lived by that motto - when someone tells you something just too fantastic and outrageous?  A few months ago, the person who cuts my hair casually mentioned something about some kind of “bald spot” on the top of my head.  What? I quickly dismissed it as nonsense, outrageous!  About a week later I was watching the Livestream video of one of our worship services, and I saw myself from a different perspective, one I never get to see, from behind and above; I watched myself turn and face the altar, and there it was, in plain sight, - a bald spot!  When did that happen?  Sometimes you need to see it to believe it.  Empirical data! “Seeing is believing.”

But seeing is not always believing!  Sometimes our brains are fooled by illusions, sometimes we are mocked my magic, sometimes we only see - what we want to see, sometimes the truth remains hidden even when we think our eyes are wide open.  So it is that sometimes we need, “not to see,” in order to truly see and believe!  Sometimes, “There’s more than meets the eye.”

This is the story found in today’s appointed reading from the book of Acts, the story of the conversion of Saul, also known as the Apostle Paul.  It is the story of someone who in many ways lived by the motto, “seeing is believing;” until he was struck blind on the Road to Damascus, and in that experience, - came to believe.

Saul of Tarsus was born a Jew, and he describes his early life, (as found in his letter to the Philippians,) in terms of the things that he achieved, the things that can be seen, life viewed and life lived - from the outside - in. Saul was extremely “confident in the flesh.” He was rightly “circumcised on the eighth day,” he was a descendent of “the tribe of Benjamin.”  He was exemplary, “a Hebrew of Hebrews,” “a Pharisee,” educated by one of the best teachers of the Torah.  And he lived according to the law, and with great “zeal” and pleasure he persecuted the early church.  He concludes his early life biography with these not so humble words, “as to righteousness under the law” – I was “blameless.”  Saul was not insecure or timid, he was not filled with doubts, he was convinced of the truth, the things that he saw, the law lived and experienced from - the outside – in.

We first read about this confident and zealous Saul in the seventh chapter of the book of Acts.  He is present and “approves” of the execution, the stoning of Stephen, one of the first missionaries of the early church.  “Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.”  He then appears in chapter nine, today’s appointed reading, “Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.”  Saul was a man on a mission, a man of great conviction, a man with strong core beliefs, a man with a clear understanding of his calling in life.  Once again, Saul lived from the outside – in, seeing and believing according to the law written in stone.  No room for questions, no room for different interpretations, no room for something “more than meets the eye.”

And then something happened to him, on the road to Damascus, he has an encounter that will change his life dramatically and forever. A light from heaven flashed, a voice cried out, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” And suddenly, “his eyes were open,” but “he could see nothing.”  And then, “for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.”

And in the middle of this “divine blindness,” he is unexpectedly visited by grace and mercy. In the dark, deprived of his sight, hungry and alone, the unknown, and somewhat reluctant healing hand of Ananias reaches out and touches him. The Holy Spirit descends, and “something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized.”  Seeing is not always believing, Saul comes to believe without seeing. 

Up to this point in his life, Saul lived life primarily, if not only, from the outside-in. He was a student of the law, he was raised by “the disciplinarian,” and he was all about following the rules. His obedience, his accomplishments, the way he measured up to others, - those were the things that defined him, - seeing was believing.  And accordingly, though he may not have showed it, deep down he must have lived in in great fear.  In fear of not measuring up, in fear of failure, in fear of making a mistake, and in fear of death - the ultimate punishment under the law.  Defined by the external law, Saul rose to power and demanded respect from others, but did he live in peace, was he free, did he know unconditional love?

On the Road to Damascus, it all comes crashing down on Saul.  His life comes to a standstill, a stand-off.  But Saul is not the only one traveling on that road!  We too can be found on that very same road, living life from the outside-in, deceived by illusions that claim to be the truth, trapped by the law in its various manifestations, anxiously wanting “to see” and then “believe.”  And we too, can be found living in fear, in fear of not measuring up.

Yes, we have been blessed by grace, but sometimes grace slips through our hands, because it is just so tempting to want to find our self-worth, our purpose, and our identity; - in our own good works, our own achievements, in rules carved in stone, in proving our own goodness, in demonstrating and substantiating empirically that we deserve to be loved, not because we are, but because of all that we have done.  Yes, we have been blessed by grace, but let’s be honest, it’s very easy to be tempted away.  Ego and pride are just not that interested in grace and mercy.  We’d rather be “saved” by our own merits.

This is the human condition, the struggle to trust grace and mercy over doing the good works of the law. To trust our identity as “beloved” in the humble proclamation of the cross, over and against trusting our identity in our own achievements, “circumcised on the eighth day,” “of the tribe of Benjamin,” “a Hebrew of Hebrews,” “blameless under the law.”  What do you trust in?  Baptized at First Lutheran, a third generation Lutheran from the Midwest, an American, a good citizen, …. It’s hard to trust solely in grace.  But thanks be to God we are not on that Road to Damascus alone, Christ awaits us.

On that road Paul was struck down by Christ, left blind, and in that encounter, he realizes everything he had done and accomplished was meaningless, everything he held to be dear and true was worthless, living under the law proved to be empty.  Is that what await us on this road we sometimes travel?  Is that the good news this morning?  Christ is waiting for us on the road to strike us down?

Hey if that’s what it takes, - that’s what it takes!  But perhaps there is another way to encounter Christ, perhaps this morning we are invited to put life on pause for a bit, to close our eyes and to honestly reflect on our life.  And in doing so encounter grace and mercy anew, opening up our eyes to a new way of believing, a faithful way of believing.  Perhaps we are being invited to let go of religious legalism, to set ourselves free from all our vain attempts to live from the outside-in; and to discover ourselves once again from the inside out, to be reminded that we are the beloved of God simply because God loves us – and for no other reason!

It's true, seeing is not always believing.  Hebrews 11:1 reminds us, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”  

Saul came to believe in Jesus, by letting go the things he could see written on stone, and trusting in things he could not see, things written on the heart, things like grace, mercy, and love.  And soon after his experience, he began using his Greek name Paul.  Things had changed.  Saul means “to ask or pray for,” Saul was the name of the first King of Israel, the king that the people had “asked for,” “prayed for;” Paul means “small and humble.”  A different name for a different way of life.  Paul would become a servant, boldly proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus, - that we are justified not by works but solely by the love and the grace of God.

May we all be set free by the truth of this Gospel, may we be reminded to live from the inside-out, trusting in the new covenant written by Christ on our hearts, trusting that which we know deep down with our eyes closed, trusting and believing that we are nothing less than the beloved of God.  Set free by love, to love God, to love ourselves, and to love our neighbor.  Amen.