Category Archives for Sermons

Lost and Found

Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
February 18, 2018

Scripture: Mark 8:31-38

Jesus, it is clear to Peter, needs a new marketing pitch. Exactly how many followers does Jesus expect to win with all that talk about suffering and death? It sounds like he is throwing in the towel, giving in to the dominant Roman Empire before he’s even begun – and expecting others to do the same. “The Human One must suffer and die…” and Peter, ever devoted, ever anxious, pulls him aside.  “Teacher, stop!  (as in) You’re scaring the children!” “The children, and the other disciples, and me.”

Only moments ago, Peter has identified Jesus as the Messiah, the first to do so in Mark’s gospel. And it seems, for that moment, that Peter has lept to the front of his class – gold star for seeing what so many have missed: That Jesus is no ordinary rabbi. That he is the One for whom they have waited. That Jesus will surely change everything!

Jesus doesn’t deny it. So it’s all the more confusing when, moments later, Jesus chastises Peter for failing to understand.  “Go to the back of the class, Peter. You’ve still got a lot to learn.”

I find it easy to sympathize with earnest, fearful Peter.  He has been swept up in the movement; captivated by this charismatic man who has the courage to speak truth to power; who heals and casts out demons in the name of God and seems to spit in the eye of the Empire even as he is announcing the advent of a brand new kingdom, a better kingdom:  the Kingdom of God.  Isn’t that exactly what the Messiah should do? Topple the empire? The word ‘Messiah’ means ‘anointed one.’ The Messiah is supposed to be the next great king, the one who follows in the footsteps of King David, unifying the Jewish people and restoring the temple to its former glory… right?

Only, Jesus seems to have a different working definition of Messiah, one for which there is no precedent, so who can blame Peter for being confused? Jesus has just thrown a wicked curveball:

“Then he began to teach them that the Human One must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.”

What kind of Messiah is that?

Perhaps some of you have read the novel, (or seen the movie) Life of Pi. Author Yann Martel weaves a fascinating tale about a boy and a Bengal tiger who share a lifeboat after a shipwreck. It’s the bit about the tiger and the boat that we all remember. But before Pi ever sets foot on that fated ship, the author spends 100 pages describing the “16-year-old son of a zookeeper, who … practices not only his native Hinduism but also Christianity and Islam” [from the back cover].  The first time Pi ventures into a Catholic Church, he ends up having a conversation with Father Martin, in which he peppers the priest with questions about this Christian God, whom Pi judges to be weak and ineffectual.

Pi admires Hindu gods, like Vishnu and Rama, gods “with shine and power and might.  Such as can rescue and save and put down evil.”  The scene continues with this reflection by Pi:

“This Son, on the other hand, who goes hungry, who suffers from thirst, who gets tired, who is sad, who is anxious, who is heckled and harassed, who has to put up with followers who don’t get it and opponents who don’t respect Him – what kind of a god is that? It’s a god on too human a scale, that’s what. There are miracles, yes, mostly of a medical nature, a few to satisfy hungry stomachs; at best a storm is tempered, water is briefly walked upon. If that is magic, it is minor magic, on the order of card tricks. Any Hindu god can do a hundred times better. This Son is a god who spent most of His time telling stories, talking. This Son is a god who walked, a pedestrian god – and in a hot place, at that – with a stride like a human stride, the sandal reaching just above the rocks along the way; and when he splurged for transportation, it was a regular donkey. This Son is a god who died in three hours, with moans, gasps and laments. What kind of a god is that? What is there to inspire in this Son?”

(Life of Pie, p. 55-56)

Pi found himself both bothered and captivated by this Son, this Jesus, “I couldn’t get Him out of my head.  I still can’t. I spent three solid days thinking about Him. The more He bothered me, the less I could forget Him. And the more I learned about Him, the less I wanted to leave Him.”  (Life of Pi, p. 57)

Peter was as bothered by Jesus as Pi was – and just as captivated. What kind of messiah is this? The kind that embodies a scandalous contradiction, the mother of all paradox: he will be known not by his power but by his weakness; he will suffer at the hands of the very powers he challenged; and he’ll tell – no he will show – his followers that the only way to save your life is to lose it.

I agree with Peter:  it seems an odd strategy for a Messiah. And yet, like Peter, like Pi, countless people in those crowds found something irresistible about Jesus.  They flocked to him – and we still do. Why?

You could argue that they didn’t know what they were getting into (and that neither do we). Mark depicts the disciples as missing the point again and again. You could argue that most of us are only lukewarm disciples, content to read the words of comfort and encouragement, sing the songs and do a few good deeds while dodging the real demands of discipleship. We humans have a tremendous capacity for self-deception and avoidance, for insisting that we are good people, well-intentioned, defending our actions (or inactions) even as they cause immeasurable harm – to the land or to the oceans, to our neighbors here or in faraway places.

You could make the case that many, maybe even most of us who claim to follow Jesus actually want nothing to do with that bit about losing our lives.

Then again, maybe we DO know what we’re getting into.  Maybe there really is something so compelling about Jesus’ invitation that we can’t resist it. Though it may be uncomfortable to name, maybe we resonate with Jesus’ words, can feel the truth of them deep in our gut: that there’s got to be a death before new life can take root; that there’s no being found unless you lose yourself first.

Sometimes death is thrust upon us: when a marriage unravels or you lose your job; when you realize that you’re gay, or that the body you inhabit doesn’t match your spirit’s gender [Molly Baskett, Still Speaking 2/25/18].  When an unexpected twist in your life strips you of the things you thought you knew about yourself… and your sense of identity begins to erode…when you are left wondering who you are and which way to turn…then those words about losing your life to save it may actually sound like a promise, a road map out of the wilderness.

Then there are the other moments, when we know that something in us needs to die… a way of life, a habit, an addiction, a privilege. When the impulse to drink is destroying lives – including our own; when our reliance on technology diminishes our ability to connect with each other in an embodied way; when our overconsumption depletes communities in faraway places or our way of living does damage to the earth; when our financial or professional success is achieved only at the expense of others who are denied the same access or education … then something’s gotta give; something’s gotta die. We know it: the question is, where do we find the capacity, the courage, to do it?

The more I think about it, the more obvious it seems:  We can’t go around.  Not around grief.  Not around recovery. We can’t declare ourselves a culture free of racism or commit to caring for the earth and avoid the work it will take to get us there. There IS no way around.  Only through. Through the valley of the shadow of death. Through the pain of confession that comes before forgiveness.  Through the wilderness that leads to the promised land.  Through.

Once we realize that, then why wouldn’t we be drawn to a Messiah who’s already done it: faced into the suffering, leaned into the struggle, turned his face to Jerusalem and never looked back.  What could be more compelling than a Messiah who knows how to lead us all the way through because he’s been there – and come out the other side?

Yes, losing a life can be a terrifying prospect – unless the life we are living already feels – incomplete, less than authentic, soul-depleting, destructive to ourselves or to others. In which case, Jesus’ words become the best news ever. “You who lose your life for my sake, or for the sake of the gospel, shall save it.”

All of a sudden, it seems Jesus might actually have a brilliant marketing strategy:  Here is the one person who gets it, the one person with enough courage to forge ahead, into the storm, knowing that there is no way around death to get to new life.  Knowing, too, that there IS life on the other side.  And he has offered to lead us there.

Why wouldn’t you want to follow that kind of Messiah?

Amen.

Scripture

Mark 8:31-38 – New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), adapted

31 Then he began to teach them that the Human One must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

34 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. 36 For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37 Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38 Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Human One  will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Time is Short

Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Linda Bruce
January 21, 2018

The Greatest Show

Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
December 24, 2017

It is an unorthodox cast of characters, not nearly what you’d expect if you were writing such an important story from scratch. There are no stars among the performers (except for the one in the sky); no famous people (except the Roman emperor, mentioned only in passing). The role of God-bearer is played by an inexperienced teen named Mary, from a hick town called Nazareth. Mary’s husband, the baby’s adoptive father, is Joseph, an unassuming carpenter with calloused hands, a furrowed brow and remarkably little to say.

Then there are the shepherds – laborers who likely smelled of sheep dung and stale beer. These are the bottom-dwellers, lowest rung on the 1st-century social ladder. One wonders whose idea it was to make them the messengers of God’s Good News, given how few people were likely to let them indoors…  

Even the angels give one pause: Neither Gabriel nor that ‘heavenly host’ are described as what you’d called angelic: light and glowy and feathered, with beatific smiles.  On the contrary, these angels seem to terrify everyone they meet.  “Don’t be afraid!” they have to say, again and again.

So what kind of pageant is this? Smellier than we typically imagine – with all those bodies crammed in around the feeding trough, and a young woman somewhere in the middle, just having given birth.  Smellier, and earthier, more real somehow – not at all like the whitewashed tableau depicted on certain Hallmark cards.  

Imagine Mary without any midwife, no parent or cousin to coach her through those first anxious hours as a new mother. Imagine how she must have struggled to figure out breastfeeding, with Joseph shuffling his feet and averting his gaze.  Imagine a goat butting at her elbow until Mary’s frustration melts into giggles and she pats it on the head. (Goats generally make everything better, when they’re not eating the furniture, that is).

…It’s true, the gospel of Luke doesn’t actually mention any animals.  Still, who can resist adding a goat or two, Joseph’s donkey and a few tag-along sheep.  

All in all, it sounds a bit like a circus, all these oddball characters – not a first-class performance at all.  There are no cameos by local officials; no special appearances by decision-makers of note.  Not one person (or beast) in that barn with the least bit of power, or two nickels to rub together – at least not as recorded in the gospel of Luke.  

Yes: Matthew introduces a few traveling magi  (wise men) who have the means to bring rather extravagant-sounding, if utterly inappropriate, baby gifts, but those guys are just as quirky as the rest: dreamers and stargazers with their heads in the clouds.

So what are we to think? Did the casting director get it wrong? Or is there something about this motley crew that is worthy of note? What if, we are compelled to ask, what if God chose these particular players on purpose? This may not sound so outrageous, at first. If you are used to hearing the story, then teenage mothers and sheep herders and celestial beings may not seem out of place at all.  

But imagine how the scene might be cast if these same events unfolded today. Imagine a brown-skinned immigrant named Jose and his young wife Maria. They have no health insurance and they are afraid to go to the ER (their Visas expired last month), so she gives birth in the tiny apartment they share with another family of eight… plus a dog, a two stray cats and cockatoo.  The entertainer who lives upstairs returns after a late show at one of the seedier nightclubs and hears the woman’s laboring cries, so she comes downstairs with coffee and towels. She also sends a text to the other kitchen staff at the restaurant where Jose works, so they come over bringing cigarettes for him, a homemade rattle for the baby (dried beans in a can), and beer for themselves. They speak an odd mix of Spanish, Mandarin, and English, so they don’t always understand each other.  Still, they all notice the extra-bright star through the cracked window pane and agree that Maria has an extraordinary child… The entertainer, who is wearing too much makeup and has a hole in her stockings, croons a torch song until the baby falls asleep…

And that’s just one possibility. It turns out, there are any number of ways one could cast Luke’s pageant, so long as the roles of honor go to people regarded by society as without power or status: sideliners and outcasts. They are the stars of the show, by design. They are the ones whom God and angels choose – to announce those glad tidings of great joy.

It reminds me of a moment in the film The Greatest Showman, about PT Barnum. Barnum has a vision for an extraordinary show.  He recruits an odd assortment of characters to perform: the bearded lady, the midget, the tattooed man; the pink-haired acrobat. He gives every one of them a place to shine. When things go badly and a broken-hearted Barnum gets ready to throw in the towel, one of those performers looks him in the eye and says,  “The world was ashamed of us, but you put us in the spotlight…We were hidden in the shadows and you gave us our humanity.”

I can think of no more appropriate headline to grace the marquee on Christmas Eve, no greater Good News than this, that God in Christ honors the humanity of those on the very margins.  I can hear the shepherds and their kin proclaim it:   “Christ is born to us this day.  We went to welcome him, and he stretched his little arms wide and welcomed us instead.”  

At the end of the night, when the curtain falls, this is the truth we are left to ponder:  That all those years ago, God chose to be revealed, not through the powerful and the privileged, but through the lives and witness of those seen as powerless (Feasting, Bi, Homiletic, p. 119): the misfits, the outcasts and the odd ones out.  And God speaks through them, still.  

So be on the lookout tonight – for improbable messengers with extraordinary news.  They may just belong to the Greatest Show on Earth: the one that features a flashy star and a huge angel chorus; beasts and a baby and all manner of guests. Listen closely to the stories they have to tell – about Hope-Come-Down, Love-in-the-Flesh, and Peace on Earth; follow their lead, and they may well show you the Way to the Christ Child himself, the very one who welcomes everyone, God’s entire cast of colorful characters – even you, even me – and gives us all a song to sing, a role to play, God’s love to live.

Amen.