A Grain of Wheat

Voices from heaven are rare even in the gospels.  We are used to hearing them at two moments in Matthew, Mark, and Luke: at the baptism of Jesus and at the moment of the transfiguration.  “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased,” says God when Jesus is baptized. “This is my beloved Son, listen to him,” God says at the transfiguration.  But John’s gospel gives us neither moment directly. The only time a voice comes from heaven in John’s gospel is in the passage we hear this morning.  Jesus is contemplating his crucifixion, and he prays the words “Father, glorify your name.”  And then—only then—a voice comes from heaven saying “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”  

Everything in John’s gospel is a little bit strange, isn’t it?  It feels familiar after Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but at key moments like the baptism of Jesus we realize that something different is happening, something we know we ought to pay attention to.  This is the Jesus we’ve seen before, but we are seeing him again in John’s gospel, with a twist.

In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, when Jesus contemplates his crucifixion he struggles in prayer to accept the will of God.  “Let this cup pass from me,” he asks, but then he concludes “Let thy will be done.”  We see this act of self-surrender and we know that it is not what Jesus wants, except insofar as he is able to unite himself with the will of the one he calls his father.

John’s gospel is strikingly different, as we hear this morning: “Now my soul is troubled,” he says. “And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” It’s as though John’s Jesus had read the other gospels and was letting us know that we would not be getting that moment in this one.  He is not going to ask that the cup pass from him.  His soul is troubled, but there is something larger happening here for him. He makes a point of letting us know that he knows that we expect him not to want the crucifixion, and then he tells us that his whole sense of mission, his whole reason for being if we can speak of it that way, is for “this hour,” for the death, resurrection, and ascension that will draw all people to him and drive out the ruler of this world.  

For many of us this is a more cosmic Jesus and he’s difficult to warm up to.  Who contemplates crucifixion without asking to be spared?  He doesn’t sound like a human being.  He sounds like The Logos, the Word of God who has been present with God from the beginning and who might scare us a little or a lot.  But listen, if that’s all we find in the gospel of John we are missing out on a lot.  This is the Jesus who weeps for Lazarus before raising him from the dead.  This is our good shepherd.  If we hear only the lofty cosmic Jesus here we are missing the full flesh-and-blood significance of this moment for him.

Jesus knows that this hour is his fulfillment, and he desires fulfillment.  He wants to be lifted up and to draw us to him.  He longs to glorify the name of God.  This is his passion in every sense of the word.  He is not declaring some inhuman strength here, or denying human pain. His soul is troubled but it’s good trouble, the original good trouble if we can borrow the words of John Lewis.  This Jesus knows that he is with God in the beginning, that through him all things are made, and that his life is for us and with us, in living and dying and in bringing us with him to an eternal life that includes right now.   If we see Jesus as “cosmic” here, but “cosmic” doesn’t mean “drenched in love, drowning in oneness with God and all of humanity,” if this Word of God isn’t a word of passion, if he is just an example of bloodless superhuman strength, then all the events of Holy Week that we are about to experience are abstract exercises, dusty symbols that don’t connect to us.

We need to understand that Jesus is re-routing the whole stream of desire here, away from self-gratification in the most basic sense, and toward the jubilant, triumphant, excessive love of God.  His whole sense of purpose is for this hour.  He is not losing his life at this moment.  He is finding his life.  And he’s finding ours too.  Jesus lives, dies, rises, and ascends to turn our hearts inside out, to teach us that our real life is in God.  Jesus lives, dies, rises, and ascends to tell us that our joy will be complete when we know what any grain of wheat knows, that it is better not to withhold ourselves.  It is better to be part of a rich harvest.  Not to crucify desire but to desire the will of God, even in crucifixion.  Not for the sake of suffering but for the sake of living.  Honestly, it’s better to be human and to let God lift us up as we fall.  Not to shun our humanity by denying suffering and death and love.

I don’t think it has ever felt more urgent to me to be with Jesus in his hour of self-giving, and to know that he gives himself in joy, with desire.  Eight people were killed in Atlanta this week, and though it’s preposterous to imagine that we can explain the confessed killer’s actions, we have heard a narrative about what he did that is all too familiar.  We have heard about Asian women whose economic opportunities are narrowed down to exploitation and danger.  We have heard about a form of desire that traffics in racial difference and racial dominance.  We have heard that this was a Christian desire: furtive, impure, disgraced, stigmatizing, exploitive, compulsive, and ultimately violent in its drive to purify the self from longing and need.  This seems plausible to us, somehow, as a story about contemporary Christian life.  We can all denounce that story—the confessed killer’s church has denounced that story—but we know it in a thousand versions and it is stone cold real all around us.  And it bears the unmistakable stamp of the contemporary church.

This is a desire that sacrifices another in order to raise up the self.  We will recreate it until we know what any grain of wheat knows, that it is better to fall.  We will dominate until we learn why we are here.  Not to exalt ourselves our pull our lives together into something we can glorify. Not to struggle to make ourselves feel pure. Not to sacrifice others in the name of making ourselves acceptable to ourselves.  We are not here to imitate a bloodless superhero we call Jesus, who is miles above humanity and wants us to be, too.  

No, we are here to learn how to desire what God has actually made us to be.  Like Jesus.  In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the voice from heaven speaks when we see who Jesus really is, at the moments of his baptism and his transfiguration.  In John’s gospel the great revelation is that Jesus desires to be what God has made him to be.  He desires a love that grasps at nothing and thus knows no frustration or limitation.  He desires us.

This Lent, it may be true that nothing is more important that the desire Jesus has to be one with us and one with the Father.  In suffering and death he is lifted up and he draws us in.  Where he goes we must also go.   

Preached by Mother Nora Johnson
March 21, 2021
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

On Gus's Terms

Gus the cat comes to lie on my lap and purr.

What, to him, are my thoughts, my actions, my decisions, and my priorities?

Why must I get up and thereby disturb his rest and reverie?

What possible reasons can I have for doing things that make no sense to him?

Why all my comings and goings, that do him no good, and advance his interests not one bit?

Why do I wait until his food bowl is empty, so that he must stand in the foyer and yelp at me to remind me of my duty?

Why does my attention to his litter box follow no pattern that is discernible to him; and why is it so disconnected from any plan that makes obvious sense to him?

Why do I merely dispose the bodies of the dead mice he places so carefully and so proudly in deliberately chosen locations for me to find?  Do his triumphs mean nothing to me?

Why do I begrudge him his little flights of freedom out the front door and into the garden?  Have I not noticed that he never actually exits the garden?  Why am I jealous of his freedom, and work so hard to prevent it?

Why is the door closed and firmly locked behind him on those rare occasions that he evades detection while dashing outside?  Why have I not anticipated his need to return when he wishes to?  And why have I provided him no means to open the door himself, a feat which is otherwise beyond his ken?

Why have I organized my life around priorities that differ so from his?  He is the center of his own universe; why is he not the center of mine?

Why do I trouble myself with that dog, who is funny enough, but perhaps not worth the trouble?

Why do I not permit him to walk on the kitchen counter when there is delicious food set out upon it?  Do I not realize that he wants what he wants?  Who am I to deny him these things?  

Why is the tuna in the can never meant for him?  What kind of cruelty rules my mind and my actions?

Why do I fold up paper grocery bags, and remove empty cardboard boxes which are a delight for him to play in?  Have I no thought for his enjoyment?

Why do I not notice when he is feeling down?  Why am I not ready to rejoice when he rejoices?  Why do I think that he should be playful when I want him to play?

Why is the window that looks out onto the street not left open for him to sit by always?  Why is the screen there to prevent his elopement?

Why is the heat turned off for large parts of the year, denying him some of the warm places where he likes to stretch out and soak up the  heat?

Why is string not scattered throughout the rectory to play with?  When there is string to play with, why is it removed long before its delightfulness has expired?

Why are there days when his tummy hurts?  And why do I not notice them?  Why have I not prevented this occurrence altogether?

Why is water not allowed to stream in a slow, clear, thin line from all the faucets at all hours of the day and night?  In heaven the faucets must surely be thus allowed to gently stream.

Why are the pigeons kept outside, where they coo and coo, and make their constant presence known?  A window left open just a few inches would allow such easy congress, so much excitement, and such good sport!

What governs the workings of my mind to order things the way they are, if, indeed, you want to call it ordered?

Why must the rug under the dining room table be vacuumed?  Why must anything be vacuumed?

Why is that door closed when it was opened before?  Why may he not go where he pleases, when he pleases?  

Why was the Christmas tree removed?  He was not done with it.

Why do I not scratch the back of his head more often?  Why do I insist on scratching the back of his head?

Who do I think I am?  Do I not realize who he is?

Why is that silly dog so slavish and so faithful? Has he no will of his own?  Has he no mind of his own?  Has he no dignity?  No self respect?  Who does he think I am?  God?

Why are my deeds and actions so inscrutable to Gus?  I claim to love him, do I not?  So why, oh why, do I do the things I do?  And why do I fail to do so much that he would like for me to do?

Why do I not speak his language, nor have I found a way to let him speak mine?

My ways are not his ways, nor my thoughts his thoughts.

My life is impenetrable to him in so many ways, and yet, he wants me in his life (except when he doesn’t).

Am I not in near total control?  Does his fate not rest almost entirely in my hands?

True, sometimes the wing chair in my office is pushed back far enough so that he can leap from the back of it, up onto the mantelpiece, where he can thread his steps through the brick-a-brack there; and this, he knows, will cause me to pick him up in my own two hands and remove him unceremoniously.

We both know that this only proves that, in the end, I have more power than he does.  

Still, it seems important to him to remind me that he is capable, under the circumstances, that he is dexterous and acrobatic, strong and precise, with impressive finesse.

If he could speak, would he not ask me all these questions?  Would he come to me in the dark of night to earnestly express his confusion about my rules and regulations?

If he could listen - not just hear me, but really listen - could he comprehend the universe from my perspective?  Would it make any sense to him?

How could I explain my love and care to him in ways that mean something to him, in language that begins to approximate the truth to him?

Maybe it is enough that he will come to lie on my lap and purr.

Oh, Nicodemus!  The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.  So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?

I want you to know of my love, dear child, dear friend.  

I want you to know that I am love, sent for love’s sake; that I am life, sent for life’s sake; that I am light, sent to pierce darkness.

I tell you all this, and I see how it confuses you.  I have put it in the simplest possible terms: love, and life, and light.  I have used language that you should be able to comprehend.

I have power about which you know nothing, for which you have no language.  But I have spoken to you in the simplest possible terms about my love for you, about my desire for you, and about what you must undergo to love me back. You must be born again.  

But even this simple metaphor is too much for you.  It requires you to stretch your imagination in ways that you are not willing to stretch; not now, anyway.

My ways are not your ways, nor my thoughts your thoughts; but that is why I have come here to be with you: to embody my love, since I cannot ever explain it to you.  Love is inexplicable: often, highly tangible, but largely unyielding to inquiry.

How like a kitten you are, sometimes bemused by me, sometimes highly annoyed; sometimes seeking my embrace, often running away to do things your own way.

But if your ways are so inscrutable to a cat, dear friend, how inscrutable must God’s ways be to you?

Of course you struggle to comprehend.

Of course you are free.  This was always how it had to be, otherwise you would never have believed that I love you.

Of course you may come and go.  You were always free to leave the garden.  I could never keep you there by force.  Such is the essence of my love.

Of course I knew you might choose to go.

But I have always tried to let you know that there is always a way back.  No matter how far you strayed.

In distant lands and dire circumstances, I visited you, sometimes in your dreams, to remind you of my love.

I led you with a pillar of cloud by day and with a pillar of fire by night.

I sent you the prophets to remind you of my love.

I have come to you, so that I can sit with you, so that you can see, not so much that I am like you, but that you are like me, in some ways, since you were made in my image (which is to say that you were made in the image of love).

I have come to remind you what that image looks like (it looks like love).

Are you a teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?

Let me put it plainly:  God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

Enough talk, now.  Come sit with me; lie down in my lap, and purr.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
13 March 2021
Saint Mark’s, Locust Street, Philadelphia

Moneychangers

I once heard a great teacher of biblical literature say that it’s hard to teach the Gospels because they are so familiar.  In fact, what he said was, “It’s hard to teach the Gospels because everyone already knows what Jesus said, just as we all know what Jesus looked like.”  And it’s true.  Most of us, I think, when we think about Jesus, get a visual image, and even if it’s not exactly the blond Jesus of popular American Christianity, even if the eyes aren’t blue, it’s some version of that well-known look that we conjure up.  If we want to approach what Jesus says and who Jesus is we have to make our way through a vast network of assumptions and impressions and seemingly indelible images.  

Now I don’t know whether this scene we hear about today, in which Jesus drives the moneychangers from the temple, is quite as indelible as the blue-eyed Jesus, but it’s hard for me to picture this incident without remembering what seems like a hundred cartoonish images from childhood.  Jesus brandishing a whip, overturning tables, scattering coins.  It’s an instant image of the defeat of religious corruption.  It’s an instant, unthinking, image of the triumph of Christianity over sin.  But speaking as a Christian, I think it’s a shame that I have a cartoonish image in my head of what it means for religion to be done wrong, and what it looks like for Jesus to set it right.  I think there is a danger in having a cartoonish image of sin and righteous zeal.  Because if there is a sure way to end up failing at religion it’s probably just that: the sense that we know exactly what it looks like to fail at religion and exactly what the answer to that failure would be.  

I’d like to say up front that I don’t perceive this story in John—or in the other Gospels—as cartoonish in and of itself.  If you look around at the commentary on this story you’ll see that it’s not actually that clear.  It seems that scholarly readers are unsure of almost everything about this story.  Is it really wrong for moneychangers and vendors to be on the temple grounds, or are they serving a necessary function?  Travelers from all over the Jewish world come to the temple to offer a required sacrifice, and the vendors make it possible for them to present the correct animals.  The moneychangers make it possible for them to pay a required tax in the required currency.

Are they maybe charging an exorbitant price?  Are the merchants not supposed to be in the Court of the Gentiles because that’s meant to be reserved for Gentiles? The Court of the Gentiles is an area outside the temple proper but still on temple grounds.  Should they be outside the temple altogether? If Jesus is specifically upset that they are occupying the court of the Gentiles, that may mean that Jesus is restoring the function of the Temple as a house of prayer for all.  In that reading, Jesus is kicking the merchants out of the court of the Gentiles so that there will be room for God-fearing gentiles to pray in the area reserved for them.  I like that reading.  None of this is absolutely clear in the story as John tells it, though.

John does give us the detail that Jesus made a whip out of some cords, and used it.  In our childish illustrated Bible vision of this story we may see Jesus driving the moneychangers themselves out of the Temple.  But John’s Gospel says no such thing: “Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle.”  He drives the animals out.  He pours the coins on the ground and turns the tables over.  He tells those who are selling doves to take the doves away. But it’s worth noting that he does not use a whip against a human being, just in case those cartoonish images have embellished our collective memory a little. This story does get used to justify religious violence, and John’s gospel is difficult enough on the subject of those he calls “the Jews” that we need to work hard to keep from slipping into violent imaginings here.  As far as the words of this story go, Jesus just uses the cords to drive the animals out.  

Did Jesus drive the animals out of the temple and pour out the coins because he was concerned about the impurity of financial transactions in a place of prayer?  Yes.  He does accuse the vendors of making his Father’s house a marketplace. And yes, we all have that problem.  Every time I think the answer to my spiritual needs is another book instead of an hour of prayer, I’m probably making God’s home in my heart into a marketplace.  And of course we are tempted on all levels these days to monetize and publicize and count our “likes” on social media.  The church is complicit in turning God’s house into a marketplace, and the more anxious we get about our place in the modern world, the more we forfeit our authority by succumbing to the marketplace.  

But we haven’t begun to exhaust the possibilities here for interpreting the story of Jesus in the temple as John tells it.  Because John makes the action of driving the merchants out of the temple into a kind of setup for a larger issue about Jesus’s authority, and that’s where a story about reform of religion—already full of questions—becomes even more mysterious.

One way to think about the action of driving the animals from the temple is to say that Jesus is establishing himself as the one true sacrifice, and announcing the end of the practice of sacrificing animals altogether, at least for Christians.  Take those animals out, he would be saying, because I am the one who will die for your sins.  

Another key topic in this story: Jesus is establishing himself as the location of God for us.  He speaks of his own body as the temple that will be destroyed and rebuilt, when he is crucified, risen, and ascended into heaven.  In speaking of his own body as the new temple, he seems to announce that the temple in Jerusalem is not where God dwells.  We have to ask, though, if Jesus is proclaiming that the temple is no longer the house of his Father, why does he refer to it as “my Father’s house?”  And why is he full of zeal for it?  Why reform the practices of the temple if he considers himself to be rendering the temple obsolete?  Did he overturn the tables and drive out the animals just to show that he had the authority to do so?

I think maybe he did, or at least I think John’s overwhelming project here is to show that Jesus has authority over all things, including the temple.  For John, Jesus is not the product of a religious system, or a compelling part of some larger story about God.  Jesus is the story.  Jesus is the Word of God made flesh.

Hearing this story in Lent, we are not being asked to adjust our practices or reform our ways.  Yes, our ways need reform.  But the fundamental call John passes on to us is the call to know Jesus.  And Jesus isn’t making it that easy.  He is scary and mysterious here.  

I can scarcely tell you what it means for you to encounter Jesus in your own life, to let him overturn the tables and drive out the animals of sacrifice and establish himself as the heart of all things for you.  Or for me.  I can’t tell you in neat words what it means that his body, the temple, the very dwelling place of God, ends up in our hands this morning as bread that we eat.  I can remind all of us to be careful about our arrogance and the awful violence of our assumptions about who we are as Christians and what our claims about Jesus mean for Jews and for the rest of the world.  But when it comes to telling you about this Jesus who is the location of God, I have to trust him and pray for the grace to be faithful.  

He asked us to place our faith in him, in his own body, the incarnate word.  “Destroy this temple,” he says, “and in three days I will raise it up.”  Later the disciples remembered and understood.  His body was the temple.  

Jesus shows us how to practice religion and then shows us that all our practices fall away in his presence.  We see him doing things we don’t fully understand, and then gradually like the disciples we remember bits of what he has taught us and bits of what we’ve read in the scriptures, and we begin to approach the mystery of his presence in our lives.

What I take from this story, what I take now when we are scarcely able to pray in our own temple, when so many of us are unable to receive the body of Christ in our hands, when we are unsure how our practices might need to change from one day to the next, is that Jesus is unmistakably the Lord of everything we do, here or elsewhere, and that’s what he most wants us to remember.  Let me put it this way: there is no point being here, doing anything here, if Jesus is not the location of God for us.   Our childish images of triumph and righteousness are designed to lead us to change as he pictures it, not to quick victory.  I’m troubled by this story, a little bit scared of it, confused about the way it keeps changing as I ponder it.  And that’s what I think Jesus is offering us for the present moment.  Turbulence.  As a sign.  And it will take us time to understand.  And we get there by trusting him.

Preached by Mother Nora Johnson
March 7, 2021
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia