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From Terror to Awe

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Text: Luke 1:26-38, Isaiah 11:1-10

This morning, we find ourselves in the second Sunday of Advent… this season of waiting for the coming of Christ. 

This Christmas story is so familiar and comfortable, we could curl up in it like a blanket.

 We are ready for the heavenly choirs of angels mingling with the smelly shepherds in the field, for the time when wise men led by celestial signs witness the fragility of an infant of a manger.

It is a season of holy anticipation – not for experiences beyond this world – but ones that are embodied in things that we can touch and feel, live and breathe.

We are ready for God to come and be with us!

This morning, we hear again the story of the annunciation – the announcement! – from Luke’s gospel.

The angel Gabriel appears to Mary.

The angel proclaims that Mary is favored in God’s eyes – blessed among all women – for she will bear a child who will be called the Son of God.

Mary asks but one question: How will this happen?

After a brief and yet wholly inadequate explanation, she responds:

“Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

I first heard this story as a child and so the image seared in my mind of Mary is of a wise and beautiful woman, full of the grace of God, who was ready for whatever came her way.

She always seemed so much older than me, but truth be told, she was probably only sixteen or seventeen years old at the beginning of this story.

This young woman was living in a world of prearranged marriages and had likely been promised to her husband-to-be, Joseph, for many years.

It was a world where a woman’s only education would have been in the home.

It was a world of Jewish faithful living under a Roman occupation, a time of darkness and poverty, disappointment and despair.

And yet, she found the courage to say yes.

Because of the nature of the season, often we hear the annunciation on Sunday, and just a few days or weeks later we have a beautiful, bouncing, baby boy in a manger.

There are so many details we skip over… in part because we don’t know what happened.

The scriptures leave us to fill in the blanks.

Or as AJ Levine reminds us in her book, Light of the World, “Matthew and Luke are not writing for children… nor are they writing newspaper reports striving for historical accuracy. [They] are designed less to ‘record what happened’ than to set the scene: to explain to readers removed from that time and place what the birth of Jesus signifies.” (p. 11-12)

There are truths in this story that are more important than the details.

Truths we have handed down from generation to generation.

Last week, we heard the record of ancestry of Jesus Christ from Matthew’s perspective.

Matthew traces a Jewish history of Jesus from Abraham, to David, through Exile and to the father of Mary.

He shows the arc of the promises of the Jewish story and how Jesus is fulfilling them.

Luke is telling a different sort of story. 

In the first verse of our reading for this morning, he notes that an angel appears to a virgin, engaged to Joseph, who was a descendent of David’s house.  Her name was Mary.

Her name means Bitter Tears, but it also calls us to remember the “Mary’s” who would have been in her spiritual ancestry… like Miriam, the sister of Moses.

Miriam who rescued her brother from certain death, helped to lead the people out of Egypt, and was later known as a poet and a prophet. 

The focus here is not just on the lineage from the house of David.

It is on the woman.

One woman.

And the decision that is before her. 

But there is more to this one verse.

We often read it out of context, but this angel, Gabriel, is the same who showed up to announce the birth of John to Zechariah and Elizabeth… we heard a piece of that story earlier in November. 

He offers a warm and joyful greeting, but you have to remember, this is not just a friendly neighbor stopping over.

This is an angel of the Lord. 

When a messenger of God shows up in scripture, there is always a catch, as Levine describes it.

You are expected to give a response.  

Our minds are taken to Abraham leaving behind everything he knows and moving to Canaan, or Moses leaving his quiet shepherd life to confront Pharoah. 

When an angel of the Lord shows up, your life changes.

Mary’s response to these words is understandable.

She is filled with confusion and terror. 

Everything that she has known in her quiet life in the small, quiet village of Nazareth is about to change. 

Who will she become? 

Where will she be asked to go?

What will she be asked to leave behind?

We all carry with us fears of the unknown, fears of standing out, fear of loss, fear of failure…

And… she doesn’t even know about the baby yet!

Gabriel sees the fear flicker in her eyes and reassures her even while sharing the news.

“Do not be afraid.”

These words come to us in the scriptures 365 times.

One for every day of the year.

“Do not be afraid.”

Dr. Christine J. Hong writes about how these words don’t actually make us less afraid. 

“Every day, people are faced with untold grief and pain, and the gospel, or the good news, is not enough to take that pain and fear away.  Hope sounds hollow to those who are enduring the wretched parts of life… courage rises despite our fear, not in its absence.” (A Sanctified Art Sermon Planning Guide)

And I think courage rises out of our fear when we know that we are not alone.

When we can trust that we will be given what we need to move forward.

As the angel Gabriel speaks, “Do not be afraid,” Mary is also given a glimpse of the future that awaits her.

She will have a child.

Not just any child, but the Son of God, who will inherit David’s throne, and reign over an eternal kingdom.

In other words… everything that they have been waiting for will come to pass. 

And that can be scary.

And it will take acts of courage in order to bring it into being.

So Mary has a very important question to ask.

“How?”

She isn’t focused on the whole eternal reign of David’s kingdom piece… but wants to know what is going to happen to her own body. 

As Wil Gafney notes, “Before Mary said, ‘yes,’ she said, ‘wait a minute, explain this to me.’”

“In a world which did not necessarily recognize her sole ownership of her body… this very young woman had the dignity, courage, and temerity to question a messenger of the Living God about what would happen to her body before giving her consent.”

Gabriel’s answer is less about biology or the mechanics, and more about a spiritual reality.

It is about the presence of God with us.

It is about the action of the Holy Spirit – a core theme in the gospel of Luke.

It is about impossibilities becoming real – evidenced by the pregnancy of her very old cousin, Elizabeth.

It is about a kingdom of oppression being taken over by a kingdom of love. 

When we find the word “fear” in our modern translations of scripture, it can come from two very different root words. 

Here, in Luke, we find the Greek word, phobos, from which we get the idea of phobias today.

Fear stops us in our tracks, holds us back, and can be destructive.

But we are also told to fear God in other places in scripture.

In Isaiah 11, we are reminded of this shoot growing from the stump of Jesse… a symbol of the heir of David’s Kingdom.

The Spirit of God will rest on him… a spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord and he will delight in fearing the Lord. 

The Hebrew word here is, yirah, and it implies a sense of reverence or awe. 

I think part of what happens in this moment, and in the angel’s answer to her question is that Mary moves from terror to awe. 

She moves from a fear of the unknown to a sense of awe about the impossible becoming possible. 

In her memoir, This Here Flesh, Cole Arthur Riley writes, “I believe fear has the holy potential to draw out awe in us.  To lead us into deeper patterns of protection and trust.  To mold us into people engaged in the unknown, capable of making mystery of it instead of terror.” (p. 86)

As Isaiah tells it, and the hymn “O Come O Come Emmanuel” reminds us, God will come to be with us. 

Christine Hong writes – “God’s spirit will intervene, leading to a world of righteousness and peace.  Prey will no longer fear their predators.  The vulnerable will be protected.  All of creation will be filled with the wisdom of God.” 

You see, God enters our fears.

God enters our struggle.

God enters our grief and pain.

It doesn’t always go away… but God is with us in the midst of it.

And in that presence, our fear is transformed. 

We find the courage to say, “yes.”

We find the ability to say, “Here I am.” 

We are given what we need in order to move past our apprehension and accept God’s invitation. 

Two thousand some years ago, a young woman, a girl really, said “yes” to God’s invitation – and just look at how the world has changed.

It is how God has always worked.

From the very beginning, ordinary nobodies who hesitantly said “yes” to God were transformed by the spirit of God.

From the nomad Abram, to the murderer Moses, and shepherd boy David.

Each of them, in their own way, said “let it be with me according to your word.”

They opened themselves up to God’s will in their lives, despite their fears.

They answered the call and tried to live obediently. 

And God accomplished amazing things through them.

Does that mean it was easy?

Did they suddenly face straight paths with no obstacles?

Of course not.

Mary could not know the course her life would take.

She would have to struggle to protect her child by fleeing to Egypt.

She would live to see her son crucified by the Romans.

Still fearing the unknown, she said, “let it be with me according to your word.”

The Word came and lived among us.

God took on flesh – God worked through human lives, and God’s will was embodied in the small “yeses” of many insignificant people.

And the world was changed.

Each of us have fears in our own hearts.

But God shows up in the midst of those fears and invites us to be transformed. 

We find the ability to say yes, because we know the stories of these faithful ancestors who said yes.

But we also find the ability to say yes, because we hold onto beautiful impossibilities and the promises of what God’s love means in our lives.

In the midst of our grief and struggle and of all that is unknown, we know who holds the end of our story.

We stand in awe and reverence of what we know we are working towards:

A world where righteousness and equity reign.

A world where the wolf and the lamb sleep in peace.

A world in which we are led by a little child. 

The fears of my heart cannot be quieted by anything I have at my disposal in this world.

But even in those fears, I need the Holy Spirit to do something new in our lives.

To do something new in our community and our world.

It is terrifying to think about what that might mean. 

Because God doesn’t want to change the world without us.

And that means letting the Spirit of God dwell in my heart.

Not just on Sunday mornings, but every day, every moment. 

Because if I… if you… if we really said yes, then everything would change. 

That’s the point, isn’t it? 

We don’t say yes because we are afraid of the risks.

We are afraid the path will be hard.

We are afraid to leave behind what we know.

And it will be.

And that is all hard. 

But we don’t do it alone. 

The angel Gabriel whispered to Mary, “Do not be afraid.” 

If we say yes, God will be with us.

If we say yes, God will give us everything we need.

If we say yes, and face our fears, we might just see them transformed into the impossible.

May it be so. 

RESET Purpose

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Text: Mark 1:32-39

A few weeks ago, I was leading a meeting with other clergy in our circuit about our shared ministry. 

We got to the end and before we closed, I asked the question… is there anything we’d like to do differently for our next meeting.

One of my colleagues timidly raised their hand.

“Do you think we could, I dunno, maybe spend a bit of time in prayer before we start?”

In my last-minute rush to put together the details for the meeting, I had completely left prayer off the agenda. 

And since it wasn’t written on the page in front of me, we hadn’t done it. 

Before he died in 2021, my friend Junius Dotson wrote a book called, Soul Reset. 

He talks about how, when you play baseball, you have to touch first base.

You could have a fantastic hit and make your way around the diamond, but if you miss the bag at first base, the run doesn’t count. 

And the same is true in the Christian faith.

Our first base, the most important base to touch, is to touch base with Jesus.

We can do everything else, have the best meetings in the world, launch the best projects… but if we have missed spending time with Jesus… we haven’t gotten anywhere.

We’ve missed the very point and purpose of what we are there to do.

On Monday evening, about 20 of us gathered for a workshop with Rev. Dr. Jaye Johnson to talk about some possibilities for a new leadership structure.

As he talked about how meetings are designed with a single board or one board model, he shared that one third of the meeting needs to be spent focused on our spiritual lives.

We need to spend time with God and one another.

We need to ground ourselves in the love of God and love of one another.

If we leave that out…

If we miss it…

Then we have skipped over the very core of what we are there to do. 

We can get so caught up in the agenda and the to-do list.

We can get distracted by the details.

We can feel pulled in lots of directions.

We have to make sure that we touch first base.

We need to center ourselves in God before we do anything else.

Even Jesus takes time to do this.

Our scripture for this morning comes from the gospel of Mark and one of the things about the way Mark writes is that it feels like our modern lives.

Everything happens so fast.

It’s all condensed and you jump from one place to another.

Jesus is here and then immediately goes there.

It is easy to get whiplash!

Yet, even in the midst of that constant movement and urgency, Jesus shows us how important it is to pause and spend time with God and rediscover what we are supposed to be doing.

In fact, maybe it is because everything is moving so fast that this is so important.

In verses 14-34, Jesus begins his ministry, calls disciples, teaches in the synagogue, casts out a spirit, heals people with diseases and drives out demons.

We are told that the whole town gathers at the door! 

He has been up late into the evening caring for all of these people around him and it is very easy to imagine that he could just set up shop in the town of Capernaum doing what he does best.

I mean, he is hitting it out of the ballpark!

But the next morning before the sun comes up, he spends some time in prayer.

To go back to that baseball metaphor, he touches first base.

He grounds himself in God’s will and purpose for his life. 

And I can imagine Jesus asking questions like…

“Is this where you want me, God?”

“How can I make the most difference?”

“What is the best use of my time and energy today?”

You get a sense that there is still work and healing and ministry to be done in Capernaum, because the disciples come looking for him. 

If you look at different translations of this one phrase you find things like:

“[they] searched everywhere, looking anxiously for Him” (AMP)

“[they] tracked him down” (CEB)

“[they] hunted for him” (NRSVue)

You get a sense that they followed him, like stalkers, impatient for him to get back to work.

Any parents in the room feel that way when your kids wake you up early in the morning?

There is always more to do.

There is always something that demands our time.

There is always another meeting, another project, another mess to clean up.

There are things all around us that feel necessary, right?

But because Jesus has taken this time away to center himself, he is able not to react to all of the demands upon him, but to respond out of what God wants him to do. 

He is able to set some boundaries.

He is about to be clear about his purpose.

He can live with intention. 

So his response to the anxiety-filled requests of the disciples is, “I can’t stay here any longer.  I am needed elsewhere.” 

He says, “no” to the people of Capernaum, so that he can say “yes” to God’s bigger picture and his greater purpose. 

Or, as the writers with Breakthrough Worship remind us, he is able to trust that God will handle the rest.

I remember a story told by Bishop Sally Dyck, who is now retired, about a small church in a bedroom community.

They noticed that young couples would start to attend worship, and pretty soon they were having babies, and they had a lot of toddlers in their church.

But when the children got a bit older, those families would move to a larger church in the nearby city.

The church was distressed by this and felt like they were failing.

They didn’t have the resources to expand their ministry and compete with the children’s program at those bigger churches.   

This church community began to pray and seek God’s will and what they discovered when they really listened is that they had a purpose.

Their church was an incubator for families. 

Their job was to help these families get off to a good start and then bless them as they launched into other places. 

There is always more that we could do.

Another ministry to start.  

Another project to undertake.

But we don’t have the energy and the resources to do it all by ourselves.

And we don’t NEED to do it all. 

To take that baseball analogy one step further… you can’t play all of the positions at once. 

Someone among us has the skills to be the pitcher, but they need someone else to play catch with. 

Our task is to figure out our piece… our purpose… and to trust that God will take care of the rest.    

Whether that is equipping another congregation or another person… we can trust that there are others on the team, working for the Kingdom, and that we just need to play our part. 

As a congregation, we have spent time with God over the years and have figured out our core vision and purpose.

We will live lives of love, service, and prayer so that all who are hungry are fed by God’s grace. 

We feed people in worship through music, prayer, and sacraments.

We feed people who are hungry for connection through elder buddies and coffee time.

We feed people who are hungry to go deeper in their knowledge and love of God through small groups and classes. 

And, we feed people who have empty bellies with our little pantry, Joppa, and other local ministries. 

We can’t do it all, and we don’t need to do it all…

we just need to focus on doing our part and trusting that God is building up and equipping other churches and congregations and community organizations to do the rest. 

The same is true in our individual lives. 

There are things that are tugging at you from every corner. 

Projects that need done, people that need attention.

Everything is important, isn’t it? 

Have you ever been busy doing good and worthwhile things, but felt like something was missing? 

Maybe it is because we are simply reacting to what is in front of us, running to and fro.

What would it mean instead to set some priorities for this season?

What would it mean to figure out your role, your position?

What if you created space to spend time with God and to listen for your purpose? 

There are a lot of different ways that we can go about this.

Jesus had to get up before dawn to find a quiet space to be with God.

Maybe it is your morning commute.

Maybe it is a day a month you set aside to be in nature.

Maybe you create a spot in your house where you can sit and pray and listen. 

And I think you can simply ask a few questions like…

“Is this where you want me, God?”

“How can I make the most difference?”

“What is the best use of my time and gifts and energy in this season?”

When we know our purpose it makes it easier for us to say “yes” and “no”.

Because we know WHY we are saying yes and no.

We can be intentional about what we give our energies towards.

But… it also means that we can start to let go of the guilt we feel when say no in order to focus on a greater good. 

We can spend that time in prayer placing it in God’s hands… trusting that God will make a way and is already at work helping that need or situation to be cared for.    

Friends, each and every single one of us is beloved by God, just as we are. 

And we all have been called and equipped for a purpose. 

So, let’s step up to bat.

Let’s ready ourselves to do God’s work.

And let’s not forget to touch first base… to touch base with God… as we set out into the world.

If we do… whatever we do… will be a home run. 

Soul Reset

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Text: Luke 3:21-23

This July, I walked back into my gym for the first time in more than two years.

When everything shut down in March of 2020, I tried to do the online workouts for a bit.

When the gym reopened, I wasn’t ready to go back and sweat and breathe with large groups of people in a small space. 

I tried to make my own plan and we bought a weight bench and put it in the basement.

But I never really got back into the swing of doing things on my own.

I definitely wasn’t paying attention to other areas of physical health like what I was eating.

And you know what… my body felt it.

I started going to the chiropractor and physical therapist because of aches in my shoulders and back.

I had less energy and I was drinking a whole lot more coffee to get through the day.    

And I realized that I was treating symptoms instead of going back and looking at the cause.

I had stopped taking care of my body and I no longer had a group to be accountable to.  

So, in July of this year, I signed back up for classes and I’ve gone at least four times a week for the last two and a half months.

My family has been more conscientious about eating healthier food. 

I pushed the reset button.

And I’m starting to feel better. 

How many of you can relate to some part of that story?

To falling away from a practice that was working for you?

To trying to solve the problem by focusing on symptoms instead of causes?

To finally pushing the rest button and starting again? 

You know, I just shared that experience about my physical health… but I could just as easily have told the exact same story about my spiritual health. 

The other day, I was sitting in my office,

juggling an email from someone who needed rental assistance,

preparing for a meeting about episcopal elections,

trying to figure out what prayer to add into the worship service,  

when my smart watch buzzed at me.

It said, “Your stress level seems high.  You should take a breathing break.” 

Oh. 

Thanks. 

I looked up from the keyboard and my star word from Epiphany is taped to the wall.

“Contemplation” it reads. 

Contemplation in the Christian faith is a form of prayer or meditation where we sit still in order to experience the divine. 

Next to my desk is a pack of these little 20 minute candles.

Each is designed to burn for just 20 minutes so that you can take a short break to unplug, pray, and renew. 

They were a gift from a dear friend and I wasn’t quite sure what to do with them. 

But here I was, sitting at my desk, swamped with important ministry tasks, with a thousand signs all screaming at me saying the same thing.

Maybe you need to stop and be still with God for a minute. 

Maybe you need to stop rushing around to fix all the problems and recenter yourself. 

Maybe you need to recharge your spiritual battery.

Maybe you need to remember who God made you to be. 

Maybe you need to push the reset button in your spiritual life.

Just as I could tell you about the symptoms I was trying to treat with my physical health, I can tell you about some of the symptoms of an unhealthy spiritual life:

  • Reacting out of our emotions – like lasting out in anger… or ignoring them all together.
  • Pretending like we don’t have flaws and we haven’t made mistakes. 
  • Dividing our lives into “secular” and “sacred” compartments
  • Getting busy doing FOR God instead of being WITH God. 

Do any of the items on that list resonate with you? 

Maybe we all need to push that reset button.

Maybe we all need to stop focusing on the symptoms like stress and busyness and instead start taking care of our spirit. 

And the good news we hear from the book of Lamentations that God’s mercy and grace are new every morning.

We may not have been consistent… but God is faithful.

God keeps showing up. 

So whenever we are ready to push that reset button… there God is waiting for us. 

Where do we start?   

You know, one of the things that I have heard from several people is that they stepped away from church for a time during the pandemic and realized that they weren’t missing a lot. 

It had simply become one more thing to do, in the long list of things that keep us busy.

If anything, the pandemic has been a time to refocus on what is really essential in our lives… and maybe Sunday morning worship just didn’t seem so essential anymore.

I think part of that is because of how we have gone about worship. 

We have treated it like another item on our to-do list rather than an opportunity to be in God’s presence. 

We have isolated our spiritual life to an hour or two on Sunday morning and then forgot about it the rest of the week. 

We showed up in our Sunday best and didn’t give ourselves… or others… space to be vulnerable and real about what is happening in our lives – the good and the bad. 

In some ways, we’ve been playing right into those symptoms of spiritual unhealth.

Peter Scazzero calls this “using God to run from God.” (Emotionally Healthy Spirituality)

But you know what… one of the things that we have remembered and tried to embrace during this pandemic is that God is not contained solely within the four walls of this building.

God goes with us wherever we are. 

United Methodist pastor and consultant, Rebekah Simon-Peter recently researched what happened to churches during the bubonic plague – which lasted for several centuries in Europe. 

One of the positive things she discovered was a growth in lay-led spiritual movements.

The church of the time had been consumed by power and wealth, influence and politics. 

But when the plague stopped everything in its tracks, she noted that people were hungry for a relationship with God, for relationships with each other, and found new ways to reach beyond the walls of the church. 

The Black Death forced a kind of reset.

Covid-19 has, too. 

I think that’s part of the reason that John the Baptist went out and set up camp at the Jordan River.

He knew that people were going through the motions of their faith.

They were focused on checking the boxes and doing what they were supposed to do… and not on focused on their relationship with God.

But once he started issuing that invitation… “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near!”… people started flocking from all over the place.

People really and truly were hungry for that experience of God.

They… we… are yearning for a chance to let go of our pasts…

To be made new…

To connect with something larger than ourselves…

John reminded them that this experience of baptism and washing yourself clean was only the beginning…

It couldn’t be compartmentalized but needed to become a part of their everyday experience. 

It needed to change the way they lived and interacted with others. 

He knew that all by ourselves we don’t have what it takes, but that with God’s help…

Well, with God anything is possible. 

One day, as all of those people stepped into the waters to be baptized, Jesus stepped into the water, too. 

The skies broke open.

The Holy Spirit descended.

And God spoke:  You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

But as Debie Thomas wrote, “In receiving baptism, Jesus doesn’t set himself apart from us; he aligns himself with us.”

What that means is that we are invited into an experience of God with Jesus. 

And, “to embrace Christ’s baptism story is to embrace the core truth that we are united, interdependent, connected, one.  It is to sit with the staggering reality that we are deeply, deeply loved.” 

I have been doing some soul searching these last few months about what it is that we do in worship. 

If we are just going through the motions, there really is no point. 

God doesn’t want or need our busyness.

And God doesn’t want to be relegated to just an hour of our lives. 

What if we pushed the reset button on what we do in worship?

How can we instead experience in this time that core truth that we are “united, interdependent, connected, one”? 

What would it mean for worship to help us “sit with the staggering reality that we are deeply, deeply loved”? 

I remember the day my youngest brother, Darren, was baptized.
Because they moved churches, he ended up as a junior in a confirmation class filled with sixth graders. 

He was a foot and a half taller than the other students, and while he looked slightly out of place, those young kids looked up to him and they grew to be great friends.

And as he knelt to be baptized on confirmation Sunday, the pastor invited friends and family to come up and lay on hands… just like we do here. 

Every single one of his classmates came and stood around us and reached out their hands, too. 

Darren’s baptism was not just something to check off or going through the motions.  

It was an experience of grace.

It was an experience of connection. 

It was an experience of the reality that we are deeply, deeply loved.      

I think part of pushing the reset button is coming into our time of worship EXPECTING to EXPERIENCE a connection with God and one another that affirms that we are loved.   

I think it is creating space for us to be still and simply be in God’s presence so that we might hear and know that we are beloved. 

And it is about being in a community of people who will not only affirm that love, but give us the opportunity to connect and share that love with others.

And my hope filled prayer is that what we experience here, with God’s help, will empower us live out that love in our everyday lives.

So we experience in worship a baptism…. And then in our daily life whenever you touch water… whether you are washing the dishes or stepping into the shower… let that water wash over you and remind you that YOU are a beloved child of God.

We experience in worship stillness and prayer… and we can find a quiet moment in each day to sit in God’s presence and simply be still. 

We pray and confess in worship, and it helps us remember as we work and study and care for our family that your worth in God’s eyes does not depend on what you have done… but you are loved simply because God has declared it so. 

We greet people with the love and peace of Christ… and as you go about your day and encounter other people, think of them first as a beloved child of God… see how it changes your interaction with them. 

You see, that’s what our acts of praise and words of confession and moments of fellowship in worship are all about.

They are moments to encounter the holy, yes.

But they also train us to see others… to see ourselves… through God’s eyes for the rest of the week as well. 

And YOU my friend… no matter what the world says or what kinds of labels it throws at you…

YOU are a beloved child of God. 

Mary the Tower?

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Text: Luke 8:1-3, 24:1-11, John 11

As summer draws to a close, we have spent time learning more about some bold characters from our Holy Bible. 

They weren’t perfect and in many cases there was nothing all that special about them.

And yet, they were called to stand up, to lead, and to act in ways that were only possible because God was with them. 

Today, we get to dive into the story of a woman that maybe we all think we know.

I’m curious… when you hear the name Mary Magdelene… what is the first thing that comes to your mind…

Go ahead and shout out your answers…

In my dictionary of women in scripture, Mary Magdelene is identified as “Mary #3” and the author of her entry, Carolyn Osiek describes her as: “the most famous of Jesus’ women disciples and the one who has been most misinterpreted in Christian history.”  (p. 120)

What does scripture actually say about her?

In the passages we heard from this morning, we find Mary Magdalene listed among the women who traveled with Jesus and the twelve disciples. 

She is specifically named as someone, “from whom seven demons had gone out,” (Luke 8:2), but also as someone who had her own wealth.

These women were not groupies or even paid to travel and support the men, but it mentions that they ministered out of their own resources.

We also heard from Luke that Mary Magdalene went to the tomb to care for the body of Jesus and was a first witness to the resurrection along with a couple of other women.

Her presence that morning is repeated by Matthew, Mark, and John.

John, however, has a slight adaptation.  He places those women standing at the cross, but only Mary goes to the tomb that morning. 

She has an encounter with Jesus where she mistakes him at first for the gardener and that lovely hymn, “In the Garden” recounts how much she wanted to tarry there in the presence of the resurrected Christ. 

Now… How many of you remember Mary Magdalene as the woman who washed Jesus feet?

All four gospels recount this incident and she is often depicted with a vessel of ointment… but is she in the actual bible as doing so?

In Matthew 26 and Mark 14, an unnamed woman comes to him at a man named Simon’s house in the town of Bethany and this anointing is connected to the transition to his trial and execution… preparing him for burial.

Luke places the story in a different context and place, near the beginning of his ministry in chapter 7.  He doesn’t name her either, although Luke adds the detail that she was a sinner.  What kind of sinner? It doesn’t say, but we tend to assume that she was a prostitute even though the text does not indicate that.

Only John’s gospel includes a name… Mary, the sister of Lazarus and Martha. Note, this IS in Bethany again, which seems to be in line with Matthew and Marks accounts, although it is Lazarus’ home (John 12). And, this encounter follows chapter 11, where Jesus comes to Bethany to raise Lazarus from the dead and interacts with Mary and her sister Martha.

And yet, over and over in art, this woman is connected with Mary Magdalene.

And part of that is because in medieval times, some religious leaders like Pope Gregory the Great conflated several women in scriptures all together… including the women caught in adultery, the sinner who anointed Jesus feet, and the Mary we know is from Bethany.

Scholars like Hugh Pope, however, actually agree with this identification of Mary in John 11 with Mary Magdalene because of the central role that she plays in the gospel of John and the praise that Jesus bestows upon her. 

What throws a wrench in all of this is when we assume that Mary Magdalene means Mary from a place named Magdalene… like we might think of Jospeh of Arimathea. 

However, Luke actually helps us here.

In the Greek passage of Luke, it makes clear that this Mary is called Magdalene. 

Not that she is from a place named Magdala or Migdal, but she is named and regarded in this way. 

Much like others in this day have nicknames… like Simon who is called Peter, the Rock.

Or Thomas, who is called Didymus, the Twin.

We aren’t actually sure where a village named Magdala or Migdal might even have existed in this time… but magdala in Aramaic means tower or great.

So is Mary of Bethany simply called, Mary Magdelene? Mary the Tower?

To throw a deeper wrench into the conversation, I want to share with you some recent scholarship on John’s gospel and this woman, Mary of Bethany. 

I am just learning about this myself, so I am drawing on an account that religious historian and author Diana Butler Bass shared at the end of July at the Wild Goose Festival. (https://dianabutlerbass.substack.com/p/mary-the-tower)

She tells the story of Elizabeth Schrader, who is a doctoral student of the New Testament at Duke University.

Schrader was an active person of faith, but didn’t set out to be a scholar.

However, “one day Libbie walked into a church garden in the city of New York seeking refuge from the city, and sat down to pray.  And as she prayed, she heard a voice and the voice said, ‘Follow Mary Magdalene.’”

She thought this was a bit strange, but she listened. 

She wrote a song about Mary Magdalene.

She decided to learn more.

And eventually she found her way to seminary and started a master’s program in New Testament studies.

Her final thesis was on John 11 and Mary Magdalene and her professor invited her to look at some of the earliest texts we have.

That is how Elizabeth Schrader found herself sitting with a digital copy of Papyrus 66.  Butler Bass describes it as “the oldest and most complete text we have of the gospel of John… dated around the year 200,” and that it “had been sitting in a library for a very, very, very, very long time.”

She uses her newfound knowledge of Greek and reads the first sentence.

Now… here is what my New Revised Standard Version says:

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. (11:1)

But that’s not what Schrader saw on this very, very, very, old page.

It read… translated to English:

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and his sister Mary.

What is more, Schrader could see on the manuscript markings of how someone had gone in and tried to change it.  His was changed to her. The second Mary in that line (Maria in the Greek) was changed to Martha… as one letter was written over.

At some point, someone had altered the oldest version we have of the gospel of John and split the character of Mary into two. 

As Schrader kept reading, in John 11 and 12, in other places where it reads Martha, it originally said Mary. 

Where it reads “sisters” it read “sister.” 

Pronouns are changed.

And it isn’t just in Papyrus 66.  She has discovered evidence of this in other ancient documents as well.  (https://today.duke.edu/2019/06/mary-or-martha-duke-scholars-research-finds-mary-magdalene-downplayed-new-testament-scribes)

The repetition of actions and statements might not indicate actions by two different sisters, but a textual reiteration or duplication.

Schrader’s research as a master’s student has proven that the version of John’s gospel we have in our Bible’s today is different from earlier translations which have been altered.  

Harvard Theological Review asked to publish her thesis as an article.

And what is more, the Nestle-Aland Translation Committee of the Greek New Testament asked her to come and present her findings to them.

Butler Bass describes this group as “a whole bunch of very old German men who have spent their entire lives making sure the Bibles that we have in English and all the other languages around the world are the closest and most precise Bibles that we can get to the original manuscripts.” 

And right now, they are deciding whether or not Schrader’s research should become a new footnote or if we need to actually change John 11 and John 12 and take Martha out. 

Now, Luke’s gospel has a Mary and Martha who are sisters.  This is the story where Martha is ministering and busy and her sister, Mary, sits at Jesus feet. No mention of a brother, nor being in Bethany. 

We aren’t talking about this family.

But in John’s gospel, we are discovering might never have been a Martha. 

Why does this matter?

It matter’s because there are only two people in the gospels who confess Jesus is the Messiah.

The first is from Peter… Simon Peter… the Rock.

In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Peter says: “You are the Messiah, the son of the Living God.”

And Jesus replies, “You are Peter, upon this rock I will build my church.”

In John’s gospel, this happens right before the resurrection of Lazarus.

And the person who says it in our Bible’s today is this sister, Martha. 

“Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, God’s Son, the one who is coming into the world.” (11:27, CEB).

However, manscripts by Tertullian – a Christian author from the second century, about the time Papyrus 66 is from… indicate this confession was by Mary.

In her paper, Schrader concludes with some important questions:

“Who exactly added Martha to this story, and why?  Is it possible that one very important figure in the Fourth Gospel has been deliberately split into three?” (p. 52, “Was Martha of Bethany Added to the Fourth Gospel in the Second Century?” https://dukespace.lib.duke.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/10161/18592/Schrader%2018.May.2016.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y)

Later traditions and writings around Mary Magdalene describe her as an important disciple, a leader, a spokeswoman. 

The kind of woman that we see in Luke 8 who is traveling as an important figure alongside the disciples. 

The research that is being done today is leading us to see her as more of a central figure within the gospel of John as well. 

I want to close with how Diana Butler Bass understands these implications: 

Is it really true that the other Christological confession of the New Testament comes from of the voice of Mary Magdalene? That the Gospel of John gives the most important statement in the entirety of the New Testament, not to a man, but to a woman, and to a really important woman who will show up later as the first witness to the resurrection.

You see how these two stories work together. In John 11, Lazarus is raised from the dead, and who is there but Mary Magdalene? And at that resurrection, she confesses that Jesus is indeed the son of God. And then you go just 10 chapters later and who is the person at the grave? She mistakes him, at first, thinks he’s the gardener. She turns around and he says, ‘Mary,’ and she goes, ‘Lord.’ It’s Mary Magdalene.

…Mary is indeed the tower of faith. That our faith is the faith of that woman who would become the first person to announce the resurrection. Mary the Witness, Mary the Tower, Mary the Great, and she has been obscured from us… This is not a Dan Brown novel. This is the Nestle-Aland Translation Committee of the Greek New Testament. This is the Harvard Theological Review. This is some of the best, most cutting edge historical research in the world. 

Who was Mary Magdalene?

At one time, she had been possessed by demons, but they were cast out.

She was wealthy enough to support herself and the ministry of others.

She was a disciple of Jesus.

She knew him to be her Lord.

She was the first witness to the resurrection. 

And more and more we are coming to understand that she might have been that sister of Lazarus, who sent word for Jesus to come and heal her brother, and who confessed that he was the Messiah.

The woman who in John 12 hosted a dinner and anointed his feet with nard. 

We are starting to discover that she might be a central figure in the Gospel of John and not merely one among many minor female characters.

And for anyone who struggles to see themselves among the followers of Jesus depicted there…

For anyone who doubts the role of women in the church, especially in leadership…

Well, this is a big deal.   

The Next Right Thing

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Text: Luke 23:50-54

For the last several weeks, we have been exploring some bold and untold stories from the Bible… mostly from the Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures.

These next two weeks, we’ll look at two lesser known figures from the gospels.

We start with a man who shows up in all four gospels. 

Matthew describes Joseph of Arimathea as a rich man and a disciple of Jesus. (27:57)

John describes him as a secret disciple, who was afraid of what his fellow Jews might think. (19:38)

Mark adds that he was a respected member of the Sanhedrin, or Jewish Council, who was looking for the Kingdom of God. (15:43)

And Luke adds a bit more detail to his life story.  He was good and righteous, and he did not agree to the decisions and actions of the Council. (23:50-51)

In all four of these gospels, Joseph is the man who shows up after death of Jesus and asks Pilate for the body of Jesus. 

He shows up to bring dignity to the body of Christ and places the body into his own tomb. 

As we think about what it means to be disciples in our own lives today, let’s dive deeper into the life of Joseph and his bold actions. 

First, let’s talk about his background. 

Biblical scholars aren’t exactly sure where ancient Arimathea might be, but usually identify it as Ramah… the town where the prophet Samuel was born and eventually buried.

His home would have been less than 10 miles from Jerusalem and so he would have lived near to this seat of power in the land.

What he did for a living… we are not sure… except that either his family or his work brought him wealth. 

And two of our gospels identify Joseph of Arimathea as a member of the Council… or the Sanhedrin. 

The Sanhedrin acted as a kind of tribunal for the Jewish people and the Great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem.  It was kind of like our Supreme Court and would take appeals from cases of lower regional courts. 

There would have been seventy-one elders who sat on the council… including, apparently, Joseph of Arimathea. 

Together, they were the ones to whom all questions of Jewish law ultimately were decided under the leadership of the High Priest.   

They would have declared fast days and regulated the Jewish calendar and represented the Jewish people to the Roman authorities.    

They would have released judgments or decrees about tithing and property and divorces and taxes. 

So when Jesus is accused of a number of violations of Jewish law… like healing on the Sabbath, threatening to destroy the Temple, and claiming to be the Messiah… those accusations would have been made known to the Sanhedrin where he would have been brought up on trial. 

The gospel accounts of this trial vary a lot.  In some cases, he was taken to the court… and in others to the home of the high priest, Caiaphas… and in others, to the home of the former high priest, Annas for a sort of “pre-trial conversation.”

Some accounts include false testimony given by witnesses.

But in all, Jesus tends to not directly answer the accusations – either remaining silent, or replying “You say that I am.” 

The end result of the trial in all cases is that the Council, the Sanhedrin, turns Jesus over to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor.  Rather than simply breaking Jewish law, they accuse him of treason towards the Roman empire itself, a crime resulting in execution.

So… where is Joseph of Arimathea in all of this? 

Like many other people of the Jewish faith in this time, he has heard the message of Jesus and believes in the good news he has to offer.

Under the rule of Roman oppression, the people were hungry for freedom. 

They were looking for the Messiah.

They wanted God’s reign to come. 

Well… most people. 

Some of our gospels describe how a few of these religious leaders had become comfortable in their arrangements with the Roman authorities.

They were free to practice their faith and were granted a lot of power even in the midst of the rule of the Empire. 

So for a man like Jospeh with considerable wealth and power… well, it wouldn’t have been surprising if he had decided to cling to his own power or if he were wary of an uprising among the people.

What the scriptures tell us is that he wasn’t comfortable with these accusations against Jesus.

He believed Jesus was the Messiah… even if he didn’t want his peers to know about it.

And Luke’s Gospel tells us that when the Council was trying Jesus and decided to hand him over to the Romans, Joseph was not in agreement. 

But, he was also out voted. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about the situation that Joseph found himself in. 

He was a good and righteous man who loved God, followed the law, and yearned for the Kingdom of Heaven to be known on earth. 

But he also existed with a system that had rules and authority. 

He wasn’t just a cog in the system… he had a seat at the tables of power.

He was a man of privilege, just as much as he was a man of faith. 

John’s gospel tells us that most of the time, that privilege probably took priority over his faith.

He followed Jesus secretly.

He didn’t let his convictions interfere with the other roles that he played in his life.

It was something that he kept to himself in his own private time. 

And you know what, I think that probably describes how a lot of us live out our faith.

We follow Jesus, but we do so in our own private time. 

We don’t make a big deal about it and maybe the people that we work with or go to school with or hang out with as friends don’t know that it is a part of our lives. 

We can be hesitant to be more outspoken, not wanting to upset anyone or to offend.

But also, let’s be honest… it is way more convenient to let Jesus be something we worry about on Sundays rather than an every day part of our lives. 

And then… there are those big moments that really test us. 

Someone does something that we find questionable or immoral. 

There is a large, public, national discussion about something controversial and you DO have a faith position on it. 

You encounter a situation where you are challenged to stand up, to speak out, to express out loud something that maybe you really haven’t figured out.

What do you do then?

Jospeh found himself in that situation as he took his seat among the Sanhedrin that day. 

And to be honest, we don’t know how he chose to respond.

Did he sit back, silently, watching it happen?

Was he afraid to speak up?

Or did he take a stand and argue on behalf of Jesus?

Did he whisper quietly to those around him, encouraging them to let Jesus go?

Was he complicit in the sentence… or did he try as hard as he could to change the outcome?

We don’t really know.

But what we do know is that we face those moments in our lives where we are invited to take a stand.

Where we are invited to take up our cross and follow Jesus.

And the truth is, we don’t always do it.

Sometimes we are complicit.

We cling to our power and our position. 

We get comfortable and complacent and pretend like its not our responsibility.

And there are other times that we try as hard as we can to do the right thing and it still goes the wrong way.

We get outvoted or ignored. 

Our actions don’t make the impact that we would like. 

We find ourselves in the minority, or without the power to affect real change. 

And holy cow, that can be discouraging. 

We don’t know what Joseph did in the Sanhedrin that night, but we know the outcome of that meeting.

Jesus is handed over, found guilty, and crucified.

And I can imagine that Joseph was devastated. 

He yearned for the Kingdom of God and the man he believed to be the Messiah had been executed.

I’m sure he wrestled in his own spirit that day… wondering what more he could have done, feeling shame that he didn’t act sooner, filled with grief and guilt and uncertainty. 

And I think when we find ourselves in that place… when everything feels like it has gone wrong and is off track and falling apart, it is easy to retreat.

It is easy to hide.

It is easy to wallow in our shame and guilt.

But I want us to think about Joseph of Arimathea in those moments. 

He was a good and righteous man.

He yearned for the Kingdom of Heaven.

And instead of letting all that had gone wrong, all the ways the system had failed, all the shame get to him…

He did the next right thing.

He kept his eyes on the Kingdom of Heaven.

He continued to act as a follower of Christ.

He took his power and his privilege and did what he could to bring love and life and mercy into a moment of terror and death.

As a member of the Sanhedrin, he had the authority to approach Pilate and he did.

He asked the Roman authorities for the body of Jesus.

Often, criminals who were executed would have been left on display after their death as an act of humiliation intended to deter other crimes.

Experts talk about how burial of these criminals was usually forbidden and corpses often were left to decompose or were eaten by animals.

But Joseph of Arimathea steps out into public and takes actions that will bring dignity to the body of his Lord. 

Joseph… and in some accounts, his fellow council member Nicodemus… went and took that lifeless body down off the cross.

They brought fresh linen and spices and carefully prepared his body for burial.

And Joseph carried Jesus to his own family tomb and placed him there, sealing it shut with a stone. 

He risked his reputation, his wealth, his status, his seat on the Council…

And yet, he knew it was the right thing to do.

It was something he could do. 

We all will face difficult moments in our lives where we are challenged to take up our cross, to risk our own reputation, status, or power, in order to follow Jesus.

And, friends, we won’t always get it right.

And even in moments when we do get it right, we won’t always change the outcome.

But every new moment gives us the opportunity to do the next right thing for the Kingdom of God.

May we find the courage and the strength to respond with the love of Christ. 

May we find the grace to move past our failures and to keep our eyes on Jesus.

And may we act to further the reign of God wherever we go. 

Amen. 

Under the Date Palm

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Text: Judges 4-5

One of the things that we discover in many of our Hebrew Scripture readings is a land filled with chaos. 

The boundaries and borders are constantly changing. 

City-states and nations were constantly battling one another for land, power, and dominance. 

Just two weeks ago, we followed the story of the Daughters of Zelophehad as they crossed the Jordan River with other second generation survivors of the great exodus from Egypt.

The land was being divided up according to the tribes… and yet, this was not undiscovered, uninhabited land.

It was filled with thriving cultures and peoples who all worshipped their own gods and had their own rules for living. 

Much of the Book of Joshua tells the story of how the people of Israel tried to take that land… often describing slaughter and warfare along the way.

And yet, by the time we get to Joshua’s death with the Book of Judges, we hear about how all the people of the land… the Jubusites, the Canaanites, the Amorites, and more… they were all still present.

And for generations, these cultures, these peoples, continued to struggle for power and land and dominance. 

City-states would rise and grow in power and overtake their neighbors and then fail… and the cycle would repeat.

Chaos.

The Book of Judges reminds us that while human warriors can’t defeat the forces that would destroy peace and create turmoil… God can.

The Israelites don’t need a professional army or a king… God reigns over them.

And God will fight for them.

They don’t need to be afraid of those things that might destroy them.

They just need to trust and obey.

And at times, they do.

But that trust in God doesn’t ever last for long.   

They are constantly turning to the other gods they discover in the land, adopting other customs, following their own path, forgetting about the laws that formed them into a people focused on abundant life for all. 

It was into this context of chaos that God called the judges. 

Israel at this time, you might remember, is not formally organized as a political power.

There is no king that holds all twelve tribes together. 

And the Book of Judges records how God lifted these unlikely leaders to help the people find stability and security during this ebb and flow of turmoil and chaos. 

As Wilda Gafney notes in her commentary, “judges were military leaders and civil administrators: they governed, settled disputes, interpreted and applied the Law, and when necessary, took up arms in defense of the nation.” (The CEB Women’s Bible, p. 285)

In most cases, one of these judges would rise up as Israel fought back against one of their neighbors.

They would often bring about victory in a way that was surprising… reminding the people that it was God who fought for them, rather than the success of any one person or army. 

And then this judge would help the people to focus on God, trust in God, and there would be a season of stability. 

What is interesting in the case of our Face of Faith for today, Deborah, is that she finds herself in this role… but she has not yet experienced any kind of battle that we know of.

We don’t know how or why she was called or appointed for this task, but as the story opens in Judges 4, she is sitting under the “palm of Deborah” settling disputes among the people. 

The Canaanites are in control of the land under the rule of their king, Jabin, and his general, Sisera. 

And just like the people of Israel cried out in Egypt under the oppression of Pharoah, the people cry out once again in the time of Deborah, and God hears their cries. 

We don’t know a lot of details about her, but there are some titles that give us a picture of what her ministry was about. 

Tikva Frymer-Kensky notes that she is identified as ’êšeṯ lappîḏōṯ (Judges 4:4) which could mean a number of things. 

  • A woman of the town of Lappidoth
  • The wife of someone named Lappidoth
  • Or, a woman of torches – which is a direct translation of the word… in other words, a fiery woman (ArtScroll’s The Prophets, Rubin Edition)

She is also identified not simply as someone who judges, but also as a prophetess.  Her role would have been to make known God’s will and call people to obedience.  But she also would have encouraged the people through song… something that Miriam did before her. 

In the next chapter of Judges, we find a song that summarizes her ministry and story and there she is also identified as a mother in Israel (5:7)… an actual mother? Perhaps… a spiritual mother of the people… for sure. 

When I put all of those pieces together, what I find is a portrait of a woman who maybe is actually not all that different from the women that you know in this world.

She’s got a spark in her, a fierceness and a passion for her work.

She cares about the well-being of her people. 

She exists in the middle of a world filled with chaos and upheaval. 

A world that is not in her control.  A world that she very much would love to change. 

Today, we are blessing our students and teachers and school workers as they prepare to head back to school.

Deborah makes me think of all of the parents and teachers who are dedicated and committed to their work, who give their all, and who also have to do their work in the midst of so much tension and division.

Everything is politicized.

We are still recovering from and discovering how we’ve changed from Covid-19.

There are issues of hunger and racism and violence that we still haven’t resolved.

We exist in a world that is not under our control and a world that we very much would like to change. 

So, what can we learn from a woman like Deborah? 

I think one of the first things I notice is that even in the midst of the turmoil all around her and the oppression of the Canaanites, she carves out both time and a place to be in the presence of God and to seek God’s will. 

Those who sought her wisdom and a word from the Lord would find her under the “Palm of Deborah” (4:5).

One of the things we learned in our “Taste and See” study earlier this summer is that whenever we find a palm tree in the Bible, we should remember that it is referring to a date palm tree.

And as Margaret Feinberg taught us, “the fruit of these trees symbolizes victory over death.” (Taste and See, p. 55)

She intentionally went to a place that symbolized victory over death in a season of chaos and oppression.

You see, she chose to start from a place of trusting and believing that God could bring hope and life out of the situation they found themselves in. 

Lauren Wright Pittman, “In Tune” , @Sanctified Art

Lauren Wright Pittman, the artist of this piece titled, In Tune, “In the chaos of war she finds stillness under a palm tree and tunes herself to God’s voice… [she] shows us that, in stillness, practicing attending to God with fierce trust, we can sift through the chaos of this world and align ourselves with the movement of God… The chariots of war loom in the distance, but the chariots are empty because… this prophetess can see God’s victory before it even takes place.” (Faces of Our Faith Study Journal, p. 16)

Pittman notes that we all face times of uncertainty and chaos in our lives. 

And often, we struggle to start from a place of trust in God’s ability to bring peace.

Instead, we worry.

We stress out.

We plan for worst case scenarios.

We get overwhelmed and give up.

We try to carry it all on our own shoulders.

What would it look like instead if we intentionally created spaces to get in tune with God?

Where is the Palm of Deborah in your life? 

Maybe it is time with a cup of coffee on your back porch.

Or right here in this sanctuary.

Or a path that you walk in the evening.

A pause in the car with your family before you leave the driveway for school drop off.

Or a bench that you can sit on for five minutes in the middle of your work day.

Where is a place that you can clear the chaos and the clutter from your life to listen for what God is doing? 

First, we create space.

Then we need to learn how to listen.

We need to practice “attending to God with fierce trust.” 

And that means paying attention to the nudges and tugs that God makes on your heart.

It means lifting up and letting go of the worries that fill our minds and looking for what God is already doing out there in the world.

And it can often mean leaving our comfort zones and sharing what we are hearing and experiencing with others. 

Deborah knew that God had heard the cries of the people and that it was time for God to bring them victory.

She called upon a man named Barak to lead to people into battle against Sisera and his army of chariots.

When he hesitated, she agreed to go with him… to place herself in harm’s way and to provide encouragement for the people… because she knew ultimately this wasn’t about Barak’s victory, or her victory, but God’s victory. 

As her song recounts in chapter 5, God was with them.

Ten thousand soldiers went into battle, vastly outnumbered and outarmed, but we hear no tales of their fights.

Instead, we hear about how:

“the stars fought from the sky;

From their orbits they fought against Sisera.

The Kishon River swept them away;

The advancing river, the Kishon River.” (Judges 5:20-21)

We get echoes of how God fought the Egyptian army, by allowing the safe passage of the Israelites and then releasing the waters to overtake Pharoah and his chariots.

Sisera’s army panics, is overwhelmed, defeated, and washed away.

Only Sisera escapes and when he believes he has found refuge in the tent of an ally, he instead discovers that he has been led to his death. 

He is greeted by a woman, Jael, who offers him a place of rest and warm milk and tucks him in to sleep… and then executes him with a tent peg.

Deborah could see God’s victory and a future of peace, even though she was swimming in chaos and oppression.

And she knew that the victory was not about her… and not about Barak… and not even about Jael… but about whether each of them would be willing to let go of their own comfort and control in order for God to work through them. 

Scripture tells us that with Sisera gone, the Canaanite King lost his grip of power and the years of oppression ended. 

For forty years, peace prevailed upon the land. 

You know, we often talk about the opposite of peace being war, but maybe it is better understood as chaos.

The question for us is… can we let go of our comfort and control? 

Can we find the space to listen for where God is moving in our lives?

Are we willing to our hearts get “in tune” with God? 

If we do, I think that we, too, will find peace.

The peace that comes from relationships restored.

The peace that comes from learning to trust in God more than our pocketbooks.

The peace that comes when our priorities are realigned and our family comes before our work.

The peace that comes when we remember that this moment of struggle might be difficult, but in the end, God is in control and these forces of chaos will not have the final say. 

May it be so.

Amen.

They Stood Up

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Text: Numbers 27:1-11

Friends, can we all admit that this is a very big book and that 99.9% of us don’t know its stories from cover to cover?

We understand the overall arc of scripture… from creation, through the time in Egypt, the exodus and claiming of the promised land. 

We know the big picture story of how the tribes of Israel became a nation with a king and then fell apart and were carted off into exile. 

And we know about how they returned and how Jesus came to continue the story of God’s redemption and form us into God’s people, sending the Holy Spirit as God’s message exploded across the world. 

But every story?  Every name?

We fail to dig deep into the nitty gritty of the text and skim over some of the most interesting… but maybe also most disturbing… parts of our past. 

What we miss when we do so are the bold and untold stories of ordinary folks who have great lessons to teach us. 

We can’t all preach like Peter or pray like Paul or lead like Solomon… but God can use our voices and our actions to make a difference in this world. 

Over the next five weeks as we wrap up summer, we will be diving into the details of scripture as these little known people come alive for us. 

We start today with the daughters of Zelophehad: Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah.

Their names are so unfamiliar to our tongues today that I find myself stumbling over pronunciation. 

And yet, as Wil Gafney notes in her book, Womanist Midrash: a Reintroduction to the women of the Torah and the Throne, “their story is so important that they are mentioned in five different places… Only the prophets Miriam and Moses are mentioned in more books in the Hebrew Bible.” (page 156)

“They Stood” | Lauren Wright Pittman | A Sanctified Art | sanctifiedart.org

The story of Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah is a story about land and inheritance and patriarchy. 

We are introduced to them in the middle of a census that is being taken amongst the Israelites to determine who is available to go to war with Midian as they seek to enter the promised land. 

They come from the line of Jospeh, through his son Manasseh, and their father Zelophehad had no sons.   (Numbers 26: 29-34)

As Gafney notes, Numbers chapter 26 connects the military census with the distribution of land to come.  We are told that the first generation of those who left Egypt will not make it out of the wilderness… only their children and grandchildren will.

But how will this new land that they will take be divided?

The census lists the names of those second-generation families… well, the second-generation families headed by men, who were eligible to go to war.

Gaffney writes: “only males were entitled to inherit the inhabited Canaanite land that God had promised the Israelites under this schema… only patriarchal households counted…” (p. 158)

It was an exclusionary practice that was uncommon among other surrounding cultures, but also meant that men who died during the war and left women as the head of their households would be left out of the allocation. 

As soon as this detailed census and explanation was read to the people, Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah step forward.

This is described as taking place right outside of the meeting tent – where the ark of the covenant was contained. 

In front of Moses, Eleazar the priest, all of the chiefs… the entire community… they challenge the distribution and demand to be given land as well. 

They had no rights.

They had no power.

They had no authority.

But they stand up and make their voices heard.

These five women are of the second generation. 

Their father, Zelophehad, was among those who left Egypt, but he has died along their journey.

No mention is made of their mother, but Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah have no brothers.

AND, as the narrative will tell us later, they are unmarried. 

As they heard the census and the names of all of their cousins and other second generation families that would inherit the promised land, they recognized that the lineage of their father was being excluded. 

As Lauren Wright Pittman writes, “The text says the women came forward; they stood, they spoke, they questioned, and they even demanded.  Any one of these actions alone is difficult for the unseen and the unheard.  All they wanted was the receive the inheritance of their father and to keep his name from fading.  I’m sure the pain of their father’s death was potent, but they needed to be recognized, valued, and seen as human beings in order to survive.” (Faces of our Faith Study Journal)

They demanded that their family be given a share, just as their father’s brothers would be given. 

Now, this is in direct contradiction to the instructions that God had just handed down to Moses in chapter 26.

They were not just challenging their leaders, but the very word of God. 

The entire community had just experienced a devastating plague that was blamed on the men of Israel disobeying God by marrying Moabite and Midianite women, which often led to idolatry and the worship of the gods of these other cultures. 

When an Israelite brought a Midianite wife into the camp, the son of the priest Eleazar, Phineas, killed them both and the plague stopped. 

But, you know, killing the daughter of a leader of neighboring people has consequences and the war with Midian was a direct result of the initial disobedience and then later death.

So… maybe this wasn’t exactly the time to challenge what God has said…

To his credit, Moses does not immediately dismiss their complaint out of hand.

It would have been completely understandable for him to say, “This is the word of the Lord.”

Or, “I’m sorry, but this is the law.”

Instead, he listened.

And instead of rendering judgment himself, Moses took their case to God. 

The Lord replies, “Zelophehad’s daughters are right in what they are saying.  By all means, give them property as an inheritance among their father’s brothers.”

And then, God goes on to change the law so that if a man dies without a son, his daughter would receive the inheritance. 

When we look deeper into the text and the language here, what we find is surprising.

Wil Gaffney notes that God doesn’t just say they were right.  He declares that they are righteous in “a powerful affirmation, without peer in the canon for women or men.” (159)

And if you look at the Hebrew, the words God speaks do not imply a passive response by which these women would now have land.   

It demands corrective action on the part of those who would have denied them their inheritance. 

As Pittman writes in her artist statement of her piece, “They Stood,”:

God heard the voices of these women. “They are right,” God said.  The old law was no longer suitable, so God made a way for change.  Though the laws were probably carved into stone, God shows us in this text that the law is living, breathing, adaptable, and changing.  This text invites us to come forward, to stand, to speak, to question, and to demand change when we experience injustice.

A couple of things to note here.

First, when we believe we are experiencing an injustice or are troubled by a law or a command that we find within scripture, the example of Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah tells us that it is a good thing to speak up.

Even if our voice trembles.

Even if we are unsure if anyone will listen.

Even if we have no authority or power. 

Second, this scripture is one of many places where God makes a way for change.

From the Lord’s declaration after the flood that there would never again be a complete destruction of the earth in Genesis…

to the new vision of the clean and the unclean that comes to Peter in Acts…

and this text…

we find examples of how the cries of people and changing circumstances in the world lead God to act and respond in new ways. 

Our God is not distant from us, handing down decrees that are unchanging.

God is with us, listens to us, walks with us, hears our cries, experiences our pain, and knows our hope.

God desires abundant life and chooses to act in new ways to demonstrate love and mercy and to create and recreate possibilities within our midst.

God is in relationship with us… and a relationship is a two-way street. 

But the third lesson here is that it is not our job to declare something is right or wrong, unjust or fair.   

We also learn from the example of Moses, who took it to the Lord. 

So part of our responsibility, either as someone who is experiencing injustice or as someone who is in a position to act, is to notice the places that trouble our souls.

Our job is to listen and to explore and understand the problem.

And part of our responsibility is to pray and search the scriptures and to listen for God.

If the ways of God, the laws of God, the commands of God can change in response to human need and action, then we need to be prepared.

As the Lord cries out in Isaiah 43:19: “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” 

Our job is to look, to listen, to pay attention and be ready to see where and how God is acting in this world.

And then… to figure out how to get on board.

I mentioned that the five daughters of Zelophehad show up not once or twice, but five times in the scriptures of the Hebrew Bible.

And part of this reason for their continued presence in the life of the people was that this new command of God was not immediately followed. 

God commands a new law for Moses to implement among the people – that women without brothers shall inherit the land of their father. 

Yet when we get to chapter 36 in Numbers, the war with Midian is over and they are preparing to enter Canaan and as the allocated land is being discussed, the daughters come up again.

Only this time, they are not the active participants in their own story.

Their cousins stand up and speak out and are concerned about the distribution of land to these unmarried women, because when they marry, the land will no longer be a part of the tribe of Manasseh.

Moses… without consulting the Lord… modifies what God says in chapter 27 to declare that they are only allowed an inheritance if they marry within their father’s tribe. 

Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah act according to these new conditions and marry kin within the tribe of Manasseh. 

More time goes on.

The people cross the Jordan River and enter the land of Canaan.

Moses, who we are told disobeyed the Lord but not about what specifically, dies before he is able to enter the promised land and the leadership falls to Joshua.

Here is where the rubber meets the road, as the people now are in possession of the land and parcels are being handed out for each tribe.

When we get to Joshua chapter 17, the land for the tribe of Manasseh is being determined and the text tells us that “an allotment took place for the rest of the clans of Manasseh – for the people of Abiezer, Helek, Asriel, Shechem, Hepher, and Shemida. These were the sons of Manasseh the son of Jospeh, the male descendants by their clans.” (17:2)

Did you hear it? 

There is no mention of the daughters of Zelophehad.

And once again, Mahlan, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah stand up and speak out.

Once again, they approach Eleazar the priest, Joshua the leader, and the other clan chiefs.

Once again, they fight for their inheritance.

“The Lord commanded Moses to give us a legacy along with our male relatives,” they declare. 

Gaffney notes, “They do not say, ‘Moshe failed to obey God and died.’ There is no need.  The implication is clear.” (p. 163).

Joshua acts where Moses did not.

The tribe of Manasseh is granted ten parcels of land, one of which would belong to the daughters of Zelophehad.

And these daughters are later accounted for in the listing of the family lines in the book of Chronicles. 

But that was only possible because of their courage.

Their persistence.

Their willingness to stand up and speak out. 

In our lives today, we might not always have power or authority.

But we do have a voice.

And when we see something that is unjust or wrong, we too can stand up, stand together, and speak out.

We can let the community know about what is going on so that we can seek God’s direction and act. 

And if we do have power and authority, we can choose to listen, to pray, and to respond. 

May the bold and too often untold legacy of Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah guide us for the future.  Amen.

Taste and See God’s Rescue

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Text: Psalm 50:7-15, Proverbs 27:23-27

When we get hamburger patties out of the freezer and throw them on the grill, we do so with very little appreciation for the cow or the farmer that feeds us.   

We have very little personal connection with the sources of our food when we go to the grocery store and purchase perfectly portioned packages of meat. 

Our relationship with the animal life of this world was intended to be very different.  We were made “in God’s own image,” so that we might “take charge of the fish of the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and all the crawling things on earth” (1:26). 

As the New Interpreter’s Bible notes, the command to take charge, to “have dominion… reveals that it must be understood in terms of care-giving, even nurturing, not exploitation… human beings should relate to the nonhuman as God relates to them.”[1]

And just as the fulfillment of our purpose was to love and obey God, so was it the fulfillment of the creatures to love and obey humanity. [2]

In the first chapter of Genesis, we find a paradisiacal vision with a vegan diet for all – only green plants for food; and no animal products are consumed by humans or creatures (Genesis 1:29-30).

By the time we get to the fourth chapter, however, humanity has been kicked out of the garden and the relationship between creatures, humanity, and God is forever changed.

And yet, God continues to provide and be in relationship with us.

We learn that the first children respond to God’s gift of life and provision is by presenting an offering from each of their resources… an offering of grain, and an offering from the flock. 

Each represented a sacrifice – food that would no longer be available for sustaining their family.  Yet the text tells us that Abel’s offering from the flock was more pleasing to God than Cain’s.

The text infers that it wasn’t the type of offering.  Rather, it was the spirit of the giver.

Yet Cain is jealous of his brother and this taking of the first animal life is followed by the taking of the first human one.

By the sixth chapter of Genesis, humanity has been devoured by sin and God wipes the slate clean with the Flood.

Both humanity and animal life is preserved through the ark Noah built.

Quick trivia question… how many of each type of animal did Noah and his family bring aboard the ark?  [PAUSE]

The answer is… it depends!

[slide:

“From all living things – from all creatures – you are to bring a pair, male and female, into the ark with you to keep them alive.” (6:19)

“From every clean animal, take seven pairs, a male and his mate…” (7:2)]

In some verses, it says two of each animal… but in other verses the text tells us that they brought seven pairs of the clean animals… the ones that could be eaten and sacrificed.

Which is pretty important, because as soon as Noah steps off the boat, he builds an altar and offers up some of these creatures to God.

This offering was not required. 

It was an expression of gratitude and a sacrifice, for these creatures were the only ones left on the planet which could provide for Noah and his family. 

God is pleased with this sacrifice and as God blesses Noah and his family, the meal plan given to humanity is adjusted.

Everything that lives and moves will be their food… with one caveat. 

All of creation is still a gift, and God still desires life, even amid our tendency towards destruction. 

So the blood is not to be consumed, and the spilling of blood among humanity is not permitted. 

Our responsibility remains to have power over… also known as responsibility for… all of creation.

We are still to practice dominion.

We continue to follow this thread to the book of Proverbs:

“Know your flock well;

Pay attention to your herds,

…Then the lambs will provide your clothes,

And the goats will be the price of your fields.

There will be enough goat’s milk for your food,

For the food of your house,

And to nourish your young women.” (Proverbs 27:23-27)

I think of my friend, Tim and his wife, Lori. 

They raise chickens on their farm out by Norwalk. 

Tim calls them “the girls” and he lets them out of the coop every morning, pampers them with great feed and treats from the garden, gathers their eggs, and safely tucks them in every night. 

Occasionally the chickens get territorial, and sometimes bigger ones would pick on the smaller ones, so multiple coops and a process for integrating new birds into the flock helped to manage that process.

Many of the cuisines of the world developed from what the land of the region supported holistically, rather than farmers trying to meet the demands of the market as we do today. 

Like the proverbs wisely suggest, these people understood their flocks well and understood that the well-being of their herds meant the well-being of their families. 

The scale of production was much smaller and many regional cuisines developed with more grains and vegetables than meat on their plates because the whole environment fed the people. 

They thought about how the grass and the lambs, the wool and the milk, the manure and the fig and olive trees were all intertwined with one another.

In his book, The Third Plate, Dan Barber is concerned about how we can care for flocks in a way that ensures this kind of dominion and stewardship. 

His restaurant, Blue Hill, is not only farm-to-table, but was actually built on his farm. 

It wasn’t too long, however, that he began to realize there was a problem with his efforts. 

They took wonderful care of their flocks and their pasture, moving the sheep to the freshest spots, letting chickens fertilize the land. 

It was the work of husbandry and shepherding and the spirit of the proverbs. 

Yet, when the first lambs were ready for the table, he observes that “we had sold out in the time it takes to eat a hot dog” (page 13).

The problem with how we eat today, especially in restaurants, is that we give the biggest chunk of our plate to the protein and it is not sustainable for the planet, farms, or our diets. 

We have taken the good gifts of God, gifts given to humanity even in the midst of our sin and rebellion, and we use our power over them to produce as much meat as fast as we can, often without regard for humane treatment or for the nutritional depth that comes from good husbandry.

It wasn’t always this way.

As Margaret Feinberg notes in her book, Taste and See, “Throughout the Torah, God instructs how to eat, when to eat, what to eat, and how much to eat… in an era before refrigeration and vaccines, these food laws kept the Israelites from becoming Ill.  They also distinguished God’s people…” 

She visits with the self-proclaimed “Meat Apostle, “ Matt Hamilton and he tells her that these ancient regulations still impact how we handle food today, because it keeps us safe. 

But these commands and teachings also speak of how we treat the flocks. 

God has always required that we do so mercifully and with care.

Butchering must be done in ways that avoid pain.

Modern science even tells us that calm and well-cared for livestock produce better tasting meat because a scared animal will cause adrenaline to rush through the body. 

In biblical times and many places around the world today, meat is not a staple, but a delicacy. 

It is expensive to raise meat… both in terms of time, land, and food. 

As Feinberg explains, “ancient Israelites knew the real value of the animal is found in the length of its life, not its brevity.” (p 149).  As the author of Proverbs tells us, these flocks provide milk and wool and offspring that will sustain the family over the years. 

So the offering of a year-old, unblemished lamb…

Or the butchering of the fattened calf when the prodigal son returns home…

These all represent sacrifices of not only food today, but of milk, wool, and income in the future.

And it was often only during these moments of holy worship and celebration that meat would have been consumed by ordinary folks. 

In a burnt offering, the whole animal would be consumed by fire – everything given to God.

For a guilt or a sin offering, the animal guts would be given to God and the meat would be reserved for the priests.

But in a fellowship or peace offering, the meat is divided between the priests and the one who made the offering. 

You see, these kinds of offerings or sacrifices represent our gratitude, our trust, and our obedience to the Lord. 

As Matt Hamilton says, “God wants a person’s best… and to trust him that when we sacrifice, he’ll provide the next animal for the offering” (p. 153). 

You see, it is not the taking of a life that is pleasing to God.

It is putting our lives in God’s hands. 

It is acknowledging our dependence upon the Lord. 

And that sacrificial act of letting go of your own power and property and placing your future in God’s hands… that is what is redemptive about our offerings. 

God gives the ancient Israelites the command to make these kinds of sacrifices, because the act itself formed them as people. 

Or as Feinberg puts it, “recognizing the high-cost world of livestock helps us understand the high-cost ask of God” (152).

God doesn’t want us to go through the motions.

God does not need our sacrifices.

After all, all of the creatures of this earth already belong to God.

As the Psalmist writes, the cattle on a thousand hills are the Lord’s. 

What God has always desired is that we walk gently upon this earth and bear God’s image to the world.

God wants us to practice dominion, responsibility, care towards all creatures.

God has given us the gift of creatures on land, air, or sea to be our companions and to provide essential resources for life. 

God desires for us to not take for granted what we have and to fulfill the promises we have made and to trust that God will provide and rescue us. 

God wants us to be reconciled to one another, to creation, and to the Lord.

And so, God ultimately made a sacrifice. 

The Lord, who is our shepherd, became the perfect, unblemished lamb. 

As Feinberg writes, “through the bloody mess of Jesus’s death… God experienced what we all experience living on this broken ball of dirt.” (p. 157)

Jesus entered into our pain and sin and became truly with us, Immanuel. 

He took away the barrier that sin places between us and true, abundant life. 

And Jesus calls us to do the same.

To stand beside and care for the vulnerable of this world.

To practice dominion and care and mercy.

To trust that God is with us in all that we do. 

And to act in ways that respect and honor the gift of life we have been given. 

May it be so. 

Amen.

[1] Terence E. Fretheim. NIB. Volume I. p. 346

[2] Ibid. I.5.

Copyright © 2024 Rev. Katie Z. Dawson. All rights reserved.