Reflections on the Lectionary for April 2006 “It’s Not Over Yet”– Preaching Lent and Easter By Rev. Dr. Stephen C. Farris

In a number of older churches there is carved on the pulpit, where only the preacher may see them, the words of the Greeks in the gospel reading for the first Sunday of April, “Sir, we would see Jesus.” (There is a sexist assumption here but the point of the carving remains sound.) As Lent draws to its conclusion in Good Friday and as the Easter season dawns, the church year is even more Christ-centered than usual. It seeks to enable us to “see Jesus.” We shall therefore concentrate in this study on the gospel texts for the month with an occasional mention of the epistle readings.

Fifth Sunday in Lent: April 2, 2006
Jer 31:31–34; Ps 51:1–12; Heb 5:5–10; Jn 12:20–33

On the first Sunday of the month, John’s Gospel tells of certain Greeks who come seeking Jesus. These “seekers” represent in their persons the Gentile church. It may be, however, that we may profitably see ourselves in this story not just as the inquiring Greeks but also as Philip. Though this text is often applied to the preacher alone, as in the carvings on the pulpits mentioned above, it is surely the task of any Christian to be ready to introduce inquirers to Jesus. Churches should be “seeker sensitive” whatever their style of worship. It is interesting to note that the Greeks reach out to Philip, who has a Greek name meaning “lover of horses.” Philip, in turn, approaches Andrew, another disciple with a Greek name, this one meaning “manly.” It is probably still the case that Christian outreach takes place through those who share some of the culture of the seekers.

Throughout the Gospel of John it is made clear that Jesus’ “hour has not yet come” (Jn 2:4, 7:30, 8:20). But now, either because the crucifixion is at hand or because even the Greeks are seeking him, or possibly because of both realities, “the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” Everything now said is spoken in light of the imminence of the cross. John’s account of the crucifixion does not focus primarily on suffering, real and troubling though that suffering is. Paradoxically, it focuses on ultimate glory. Though very real, the death and burial of Jesus is like the planting of a seed which can bear fruit only in that way. In the Synoptic Gospels the seed is the word. In John, it is Jesus himself.

The attention then shifts from Jesus to his followers: “Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” (Jn 12:25) Versions of this saying appear in all four Gospels. It is clearly a concept of immense importance in the early church. Some contemporary listeners will have trouble hearing this word, however. They may hear it as denigrating this life in favor of the fabled “pie in the sky by and by.” For John, however, eternal life is very much a present possibility. The phrase “eternal life” could be literally translated as “life of the age” or with more clarity “life of the age to come.” There is a quality of life that marks this present age—cruelty, darkness, every form of sin, and, in the end, death. There is also a quality of life that marks the age to come—love, light, holiness, and, in the end, life. In the cross and resurrection this present age and its ruler are already judged. But all those who can see the cross not as the triumph of evil but as a sign of the glory of God are drawn to the cross and lifted beyond that judgment. As Jesus has already said, whoever believes has eternal life. (Jn 6:40) Those who believe can already have the life of the age to come and even now will display its qualities.

Sixth Sunday in Lent: April 9, 2006
Liturgy of the Passion
Isa 50:4–9a; Ps 31:9–16; Mk 14:1–15:47

Liturgy of the Palms
Mk 11:1–11; Ps 118:1–2, 19–29

On the Sunday before Easter Day we are faced with a pleasant choice between the “Liturgy of the Passion” and the “Liturgy of the Palms.” The former choice offers us the opportunity to read aloud two entire chapters of the Gospel of Mark. We generally read aloud only pericopes with a maximum of ten to fifteen verses. This number of verses is manageable in the typical sermon or homily and will surely continue to serve as the standard fare in most lectionary churches. There is, however, a danger of missing the gospel forest for the lectionary trees. There is a cumulative power that comes only from a sustained reading of Scripture. The reading for the Liturgy of the Passion covers, after all, the same ground as Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. Whether we liked the film or not, its financial success is a bottom line testimony to the immense power of the story.

I can personally testify to this power. The first time I read these chapters aloud in church, I was taken completely by surprise by the story and began to cry in the pulpit. It was not the violence of the story that caused this. Unlike Mel Gibson’s movie, the Gospel does not dwell on the gore. The beating of Jesus, a scene all but interminable in the movie, is covered in a few words. Rather, the detail that got to me was the mention of the women who had cared for Jesus huddling in the distance, watching his suffering from afar. Suddenly in the spare words of the Gospel I could picture the faces of the women I know and love. Their sorrow became for the moment almost unbearable. When we hear a story read or spoken aloud, we create for ourselves images that are more personal and more powerful than even those on a movie screen. Preachers may trust the power of that story.

A few practical observations: first, it is important that the story be read by the best reader or readers available. It is probably best to keep the reading simple, with no props and no alternating readers. It will take about twenty minutes, depending on the pace of the reading. A lengthy homily following the reading is not necessary. Finally, take a tissue with you, just in case. Good Friday offers a similar opportunity for an extended reading; in that case the reading is from John.

The Liturgy of the Palms also presents a wonderful, albeit shorter, story. An odd thing about this story is what is not there. It is hard to find a hymn that does not picture children welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem. In our churches today we have come to expect the Sunday School processions of children dressed in fathers’ bathrobes, tea towels on heads, waving perhaps cardboard palm branches or even green helium-filled balloons. It’s as if the day were a kiddies’ party. But the kiddies are not in the Gospel. In fact, they are in none of the Gospels. The only mention of children is in Matthew, in the temple, two pericopes after the triumphal entry. The absence of children is not accidental. The story is about serious, adult business.

The reading begins with instructions on how to obtain a donkey. When read aloud, the whole business sounds less like miraculous foreknowledge and more like an arrangement or even a political conspiracy. “The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately” sounds like a password to local supporters. Whether that is or is not the case, the cry of welcome as Jesus rides along and the actions of the crowd are overtly political. The First Testament background in Mark includes many familiar phrases from Psalm 118, a liturgy of welcome for a king. Jesus is, as even a blind beggar could see in the previous story, a “son of David,” and in this story he receives, at least for the moment, a welcome fit for a king. This event as related by Mark is next thing to a demonstration or even a riot. That is no place for a child. After all, the Romans crucify upstart kings. The story is about adults making serious decisions that could cost them their lives.

Like the crowd, we welcome Jesus as savior and king. We lay not only palm branches or cloaks but also our lives before him, at least in theory. Of course, we know what the crowd will shout later in the week. Their welcome is incomplete and temporary as, perhaps, is ours. It is a somber thought. When we think of the week to come, we may not wish to shout, “Hurray!” But then, “Hosanna” does not mean hurray. It is good Hebrew taken from Psalm 118. It is, in fact, a prayer—“Save us, we pray.” Save us, Jesus. Save us from ourselves, and this year may our welcome be more complete.

Easter Sunday: April 16, 2006
Isa 25:6–9; Ps 118:1–2, 14–24; 1 Cor 15:1–11; Mk 16:1–8

Since we have been speaking about the power of stories, I am reminded of a favorite story during this transition from Palm Sunday to Easter. I once visited a former student in a church in a small Ontario town of 2,000 people and ten churches. In that congregation there was a man—Pete, we’ll call him—with a genius for reaching out to kids. In that little church he ran a program attracting 75 or more kids a week. From the arithmetic you will gather that not all of them came from that church, or, indeed, any church. One kid—call him Marty—knew absolutely nothing about Christianity. When he first entered the sanctuary he looked at the ornate chairs in the chancel and asked, “What chair does God sit in?”

At some point Pete decided to tell the gospel story. The group created an artificial campfire in the darkened church basement around which the young people sat in a circle. Pete entered the circle dressed as a shepherd and told the story. As he drew the kids with him into an upper room and out into a garden where Jesus was betrayed with a kiss, as he told of the betrayal by friends and the beatings by enemies, Marty grew more and more visibly distressed. Finally, when Jesus was hanged from a cross and when he actually died, Marty could take it no longer. “Oh mannnn!” he cried. A child from the church sitting next to him laid his hand on Marty’s arm and said, “It’s all right, Marty. It’s not over yet.”

That is the church’s Easter message: “It’s all right. It’s not over yet.” In different ways all the various gospel and epistle readings for the day say just that. There are several alternative lectionary readings for the day, but the pairing that I selected and find the most interesting is 1 Corinthians 15:1–11 with Mark 16:1–8. The confidence of the epistle makes the incompleteness and ambiguity of the gospel reading all the more striking.

Indeed, the ending of Mark is so peculiar and seems so incomplete that many have supposed that an original ending has been lost. The long ending of Mark, found in the King James Version and in the notes of most other versions of the English Bible, was probably an attempt to craft a more satisfying conclusion. It remains very likely, however, that what we possess is the actual ending and that even if it is not, a hypothetical longer ending will never be discovered. It is probably best to treat the present short ending as if it was what the gospel writer intended all along.

In Mark the story focuses on the women who observed from a distance both Jesus’ crucifixion and his entombment. When they arrive at the tomb, the stone has been rolled away. In the empty tomb they are confronted with, presumably, an angelic being, who declares to them with the heart of the Easter Gospel: “Do not be afraid. (How often those words are heard in Scripture!) He has been raised; he is not here.” It may be that the women are shaken by the news itself. A resurrection surely throws the natural world of custom and certainty completely topsy-turvy. Or it may be that the command to go and tell the disciples is what they find most terrifying. Who would want to share this news? In any case, unlike in the other Gospels, the women do not tell, “for they were afraid.” The last word of Mark’s Gospel is fear. The Greek is even more peculiar than the English translations. It ends with the word “for.”

In the end the Gospel of Mark has no heroes: not the disciples who throughout Mark have failed to understand, and sadly, not even the women. So who will tell the story? Who else can tell the story but the reader of the Gospel—or, to be more precise, the church? The church must carry the news the women are too afraid to speak. The Gospel ends where the preaching of the early church begins. The early believers did take up that task, whether with fear or with confidence. (The substance of their preaching lies in the epistle reading, by the way.) The question remains, however: who will tell the story now? The answer also remains the same—the church, perhaps even a child from the church who already knows, “It’s not over yet.”

Second Sunday of Easter: April 23, 2006
Acts 4:32–35; Ps 133; 1 Jn 1:1–2:2; Jn 20:19–31

On the fourth Sunday of the month we return to the Gospel of John to a story set for the most part on the original second Sunday of Easter. The story begins on Easter itself, however, with the disciples huddling in the Upper Room because they were afraid of “the Jews.” The Jews in the Gospel of John are the religious authorities. They stand for religious folk who resist the Gospel and its light, preferring to hide in the old ways of holy habit. We Christians may well be Jews, in this sense. This little story may be a picture of some churches; we have heard the good news of the resurrection, but we prefer to huddle in safety where outsiders cannot reach us. But Jesus comes to the disciples, to the church, even in the church’s failure and lack of faith. His first word is not, however, rebuke. It is a word of peace, spoken twice. Then the disciples are sent, and it is at this point that they become apostles. (The Greek verb apostello, to send, appears in the passage.) They are also equipped with the presence of the Holy Spirit to pronounce forgiveness.

But Thomas was not there … and neither were we. Thomas refuses to believe “unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands.” He wants to see the marks … and so do we. This strikes us as reasonable, and certainly no preacher ought to run down Thomas for lack of faith. After all, the other disciples believed only when they saw the marks. Thomas just wants the same. “Show me the marks.” At the climax of the story, arguably the climax of the entire Gospel of John, he does see. In the same room, with the same group, surprisingly enough in church, of all places, Jesus comes to Thomas and shows him the marks. And Thomas believes: “My Lord and my God!” This, it should be noted, is the later church’s confession. The story is not about Thomas, but about the church. This is made clear by Jesus’ blessing on those who have not seen and yet believe—embracing the later church.

There is a problem here. Our society has many Thomases and, quite reasonably, they too want evidence before they will believe. “Show me the marks!” They cannot see the marks on the body of Jesus, but they can see the marks on the body of Christ, namely, the church. These contemporary Thomases still will not believe unless they see those marks. What are those marks? An early observer said of the Christians, “See how they love one another!” That was a mark. Many in the Roman Empire saw that mark and believed. There are other marks, of course. But whatever those marks might be, “they,” whoever they may be, still will not believe unless they see them on the body of Christ. That certainly presents a problem since, sadly, they do not always see the marks. Mahatma Ghandi said, “I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” The 18th century skeptic Voltaire reportedly said, “If Christians want us to believe in a Redeemer, let them act redeemed.” Or consider the bumper sticker sentiment: “It’s not God I have a problem with; it’s his fan club I can’t stand.” To use the language of our text, “Unless I see the marks, I will not believe.”

This suggests some fascinating preaching possibilities. If I had the powers of the ghosts in A Christmas Carol, I might wish to take, say, Voltaire on a journey through time and space to show him the marks. I might take him to stand beside a preacher facing the fire hoses and police dogs of Selma, Alabama, or perhaps to kneel with a frail woman easing the passing of a dying man on the streets of Calcutta. Voltaire would say, “These are heroes. Every movement has its heroes. What about ordinary people?” So I would take him on a homiletical journey to some special people I have known. He would probably respond, “These folk are indeed special and handpicked. What about a whole church where you can’t pick out the special people?” He wants to see the marks … in a church, an ordinary church. “May I … may I bring him to this church?”

Third Sunday of Easter: April 30, 2006
Acts 3:12–19; Ps 4; 1 Jn 3:1–7; Lk 24:36b–48

Let us continue for the fifth Sunday of the month the pattern of concentrating on the gospel passage for the day. In our case, the reading is actually a continuation of the Emmaus story. The lectionary recognizes this by naming Luke 24:13–49 as the reading for Easter evening. In a church without an Easter evening service, or for those who have not attended such a service, the preacher will probably have to recapitulate that fascinating story. In that tale a certain Cleopas and an unnamed disciple encounter but do not recognize the risen Christ. (Is the second disciple unnamed because he or she is actually “your name here”?) Their hearts are strangely warmed within them when the Scriptures are unfolded and interpreted to them. Then Jesus is made known to them “in the breaking of the bread.” It may be that the story is actually about how disciples experience the Risen One now, in the worship of the church and particularly in the exposition of the Word and in the Eucharist.

If that were all there was to the story, one might think that Luke is an early Rudolf Bultmann: Jesus is raised into the proclamation of the church and into its liturgy. Not so. He is disturbingly solid. The accent may be first on the word disturbingly. We have heard in Luke’s Gospel of the witness of the women, of the travelers to Emmaus, and of an off-screen appearance to Simon mentioned in verse 34. Nevertheless, the disciples are frightened and do not recognize Jesus for who and what he is. It’s one thing to hear somebody talk about the risen Lord. It’s quite another when it all happens to you! Both the fear and the lack of recognition are constant motifs of the resurrection stories, by the way.

Jesus is also solid. He can be seen, touched, and even fed. Luke makes clear that Jesus is neither a ghost nor (and this would more likely be our error) a metaphor for new life and new possibilities. Nor is he simply a resuscitated corpse, just the same old Jesus come back. He has a new and startling capacity to appear suddenly when he wishes to do so. The resurrection stories constantly subvert our attempts to make the Risen One slot into a category we already understand. He is, quite simply, beyond.

He does, however, have a task for the disciples: the proclamation of the Gospel. The content of the proclamation is Jesus himself and the message that all that has been said about him in what we would call the Old Testament has been fulfilled. (The fulfillment of the Scriptures is a major theme for Luke going back into the infancy narratives and into Jesus’ first sermon at Nazareth.) The word of the risen Christ to the disciples is a capsule summary of the preaching of the early church as it is contained in the sermons in Acts and in 1 Corinthians 15:1–11, the epistle reading for Easter Day. The consequence of the preaching of the Gospel is repentance and the forgiveness of sins. The Gospel of Luke is full of stories of repentance, and the theme of forgiveness of sins goes back to Zechariah’s hymn in Luke 1:77. Of all this, the disciples are witnesses. And so the story ends … or does it? Luke does not seem to think so, for he writes an entire book, the Acts of the Apostles, to describe the witness of those very disciples. These verses are a transition to that second volume of Luke’s work. Nor is it over yet for us! Somebody still has to tell the story, to be the witness. Now it’s up to us.

As I have had the pleasure of reflecting on the lectionary readings for the five Sundays of January, I have been reminded of the opportunity that is ours as we make a deliberately slow and thoughtful journey through our reflection on the reign of God. It is indeed one of those topics that Heschel would have called “the ineffable,” and surely our words, no matter how considered or thoughtful, are that with which we must at times part company. Still, it seems to me that it is only when we are willing to set aside time for such deliberation that we become better prepared to live as children of God in the reign of God.