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This is an easy hike for all ages. The path is wide and flat. Leashed dogs are allowed. There are sure to be good bird watching opportunities.

We will meet at 10:00 a.m. at the Little Confluence Trailhead parking lot, 677 W. Murray-Taylorsville Rd. (4800 S.). Bring walking sticks if needed and don’t forget water for you and your furry companion.

The hike should take 1.5 to 2 hours, so bring a snack if needed. Please RSVP to Will Warlick at willwarlick@gmail.com if you plan to attend. We’d love to have you join in for this fun hike!

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First Reading (Isaiah 25:6-9, NRSVUE)
Gospel Reading (Mark 16:1-8, NRSVUE)

It’s one of the oldest jokes in all of sports:

What are the last two words of the Star Spangled Banner?

“Play Ball!”

They’re not, of course — hence the joke — but I can see where someone might think that.

If you haven’t figured it out by this point, I’ll just tell you now: today is Easter, but it’s also the first weekend of baseball season; and while the former is a far bigger deal than the latter, they’ve both been on my mind over the past few days.

The National Anthem was played sporadically at baseball games as early as the 1860s, and became a staple before the start of every game during the second World War. Since that time, at the end of the song, the performer has often engaged in a kind of ritual call and response with the home plate umpire (often accompanied by a chorus from the stands), the result of which goes like this:

“And the home of the brave… Play ball!”

And so, if a baseball game just so happened to be only place you’d ever heard the Star Spangled Banner, it would be logical to conclude that this is how the ending actually goes. But it’s not.

The same is true for today’s Gospel reading, which is Mark’s account of what happened on that very first Easter morning. This is not generally the gospel text that’s read in church on this most glorious of days — that honor typcially goes to John, which makes sense, because John tells a really great story — but I thought it might be interesting to try something different.

In the more common Easter reading from John, which you’ve probably heard many times before, Mary Magdalene comes to Jesus’s tomb and notices that the stone has been rolled away from the entrance. Thinking this is odd, she runs to fetch Peter and other disciple whom Jesus loved in order to show them what’s happened.

When the three return, they enter the tomb and find it to be empty — well, except for some linen wrappings lying there where Jesus is supposed to be. As the male disciples run back home (we don’t really know why), Mary Magdalene stands outside the empty tomb weeping. Two angels appear and ask her why she’s crying. Then Jesus himself shows up and asks her the same question, but Mary Magdalene doesn’t recognize him for who he is. But when Jesus speaks her name, she suddenly realizes it’s him. Jesus tells her to go tell the other disciples what she’s seen. When she arrives, she joyfully declares to them, “I have seen the Lord!” The End.

Like I said, it’s a great story. In fairness, though, Mark’s is too — but it’s a very different story.

Mark’s Easter narrative is only about half as long, so it’s understandably a bit thinner on details. In this one, Mary Magdalene, Mary the Mother of Jesus, and another woman named Salome bring spices to the tomb on the morning after the sabbath in order to annoit Jesus’s body (Salome is first mentioned in the preceding chapter, but we don’t ever learn anything about who she is). The three women notice that the stone has been rolled away from the entrance and, instead of running, decide to go in.

When they do, they discover a young man, dressed in white, sitting inside, and unsuprisingly, they’re alarmed. This young man tells them not to be alarmed (though I don’t think that helped them to not be alarmed), and informs them that Jesus isn’t there because he has been raised from the dead (which also probably didn’t help them not be alarmed).

Then he instructs them to go and tell the other disciples that the newly-risen Jesus will meet them in Galilee, just like he said he would. At this point, they’re no less alarmed that they were before, and I say this because Mark says this; just listen again to the last line of the story: “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” That’s it. The End. A real bibilical cliffhanger. Except, not so much.

Look, while I might think that Mark’s version of the Easter story is great in its own way — and while you might think so too — somebody else didn’t seem to think so.

If you take a look at the text (in your bulletin, on the screens, or in your pew Bible) you’ll notice something interesting: There’s some extra verses tacked on to the story. They describe the three terrified women going and telling Peter and the other disciples about what happened back at the tomb, they speak of Jesus himself sending out the discples to proclaim eternal salvation throughout the world, from east to west. Now, The End? Once again, not so much.

You see, there’s an even longer set of verses that appears after that (which you can see in your pew Bible because it’s way too long to read aloud, let alone to print in the bulletin or display on the screen). They talk about Mary Magdalene’s encounter with Jesus at the tomb (you know, the one we hear about in John’s Gospel); they describe subsequent appearances that the resurrected Jesus makes to his disciples; they tell of Jesus’s call to those disciples to, “Go into the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation;” and they inform us about Jesus’s eventual ascension into heaven.”

And so if you just kept on reading after Mary Magdalene and Mary the Mother of James and Salome had fled from the tomb without paying really close attention, you might think that this was the way Mark’s Gospel actually ended. But it isn’t.

As you can see, these additional verses appear in brackets, and they appear in brackets to indicate that they’re later additions to the text. In other words, whoever wrote all the rest of Mark’s Gospel, didn’t actually write them. Bible scholars believe that the shorter ending appended to this book until the at least the fourth century, and the longer one until late in the second century — literally hundreds of years after Jesus walked the earth.

What I’m saying is that someone (or, in this case, multiple someones) really didn’t like the way that Mark chose to end his Gospel — so much so, in fact, that they figured they’d just take a crack at it themselves, which is a pretty bold thing to do. But why would they do this?

Maybe they felt that a story about Easter in which the newly-resurrected Jesus doesn’t actually make an appearance was a tad… unsatisfying.

Perhaps they believed a story about Easter in which Jesus doesn’t come back to tell his disciples what they’re supposed to do next was… incomplete.

It could be that they thought a story that ended with “terror and amazement” rather than hope and joy wouldn’t be sufficiently… inspirational for future generations of disciples. It’s really tough to say.

But Mark’s seems inclined to tell a very different kind of story — one that’s incredibly relevant for disciples like us today.

When Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome run in fear from the empty tomb after they learn that Jesus has been raised from the dead, it’s kind of hard to blame them. After all, stuff like that doesn’t happen every day. But what next? Well, the writers who added all of those verses to Mark felt that they needed to spell it out for us, but was this really necessary?

Mark himself tells us only that the three women fled and said nothing to anyone, but they clearly must have told someone about what happened at some point. I mean, if they hadn’t, we wouldn’t be sitting here this morning talking about it more than two thousand years later, would we?

And maybe Mark doesn’t feel the need to depict Jesus telling the disciples to “Go into the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation,” because he’s already spent fifteen and a half chapters showing Jesus doing exactly that. “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.” For crying out loud, how many times do we need to hear it before we actually decide to do it?

And maybe it’s no accident that Mark doesn’t have Jesus appear here. The information that the three women receive about his resurrection is all second hand.

And yet, depsite their uncertaintly and fear, despite the fact that they don’t actually hear it from the Risen Christ himself, they run off and eventually do what Jesus has been calling them to do all along: they go share the gospel with the world because that news is way too good to keep secret.

And maybe, at the end of the day, that’s what faith is all about: believing in Jesus and following Jesus without necessarily encountering him in person.

Sure, Mark’s Easter story, as it was originally written, is arguably incomplete; but, then again, maybe that’s the whole point.

And so, instead of relying upon someone else to provide the next part of the story for us, perhaps we should be ready to write it ourselves.

Christ is risen! Alleluia! Amen.

The post Sunday, March 31, 2024 appeared first on Holladay United Church of Christ.

“The Sacrament of Baptism”
– Rev. Brent Gundlah

First Reading (Philippians 2:5-11/NRSVUE)
Gospel Reading (Mark 11:1-11/NRSVUE)

When I made the leap from middle school to high school, I was looking for an extracurricular activity in which to participate (it looks good on those college applications, you know), so I settled on marching band, which was a curious choice because I didn’t actually play an instrument.

But I always wanted to play an instrument, I thought I could learn how to play an instrument, and I thought that this would provide me with the opportunity and the motivation to do so. And all of my friends (most of whom who did play instruments) had signed up for marching band, so I figured I would too. Besides, it’s good to feel like you’re a part of something bigger than yourself.

Over that summer, I set about learning to play the euphonium, which, for those of you who don’t know, is basically a trombone with valves (like a trumpet) instead of a slide. But I definitely didn’t have the chops to secure a spot in one of the best marching bands in the Mid-Atlantic states (which ours happened to be). So they had to find something for me to do during that first year, and let’s just say what they found for me to do wasn’t terribly glamourous.

Our drum major that year was only about five feet tall, which made her difficult for the musicians to see. To mitigate this situation, someone came up with idea of building a giant wooden box for her to stand on; problem solved — well, sort of. You see, they also needed a way of getting this contraption where it needed to be when it it needed to be there, which was where yours truly came in.

They attached sets of handles on each side of the box and conscripted another aspiring musician to be my coworker. Our job was bascially to carry this thing on and off the field. Oh, but that’s not all; during performances we had to kneel on one knee — one of us on each side of the box, in full band uniform, facing the stands, looking like some kind of security detail assigned to ensure the safety and well-being of our drum major.

I guess what I’m saying is that I spent my freshman year as a volunteer roadie for a high school marching band. Now, this would have been kind of a cool gig had it been for Springsteen or Led Zeppelin, but for a high school marching band? Dressed in an itchy wool uniform with a tall matching hat that made me look like a giant blue Q-Tip? Not so much. Let’s just say it wasn’t exactly the job I’d signed up for. But somebody had to do it.

I wonder if those two unnamed disicples were feeling much the same way on that very first Palm Sunday.

As our story gets underway, Jesus and the twelve are nearing Jerusalem when they decide to stop near the Mount of Olives (from which one could see Jerusalem and the Temple in the distance). This is where Jesus will begin his “triumphal” entry into the capital city, but it doesn’t exactly end up being a parade fit for a king (well, a worldy king anyway). It is, however, all exactly as Jesus intends for it to be. And because Jesus doesn’t ever really do anything without thinking about it, neither the place from which he starts his journey nor the mode of transportation he chooses to take to his destination are matters of happenstance.

The Mount of Olives is mentioned by name two times in the Hebrew Scriptures. The first is in the second book of Samuel when King David flees there during the revolt led by his son, Absalom — an insurrection that is quickly put down, leading to David’s restoration to the throne.

The second is in Zechariah where the prophet foretells the destruction of Jerusalem that is to come, followed by God’s return atop the Mount of Olives. The point is that this is a place where humiliation and defeat has historically been followed by triumph — forshadowing what’s in store for Jesus in the days to come.

And the ride Jesus opts for is definitely worth considering too. A typical king — the kind of Messiah the people are expecting and hoping for — would probably arrive seated upon a stallion, clad in armor, with an army in tow. Jesus, however, arrives upon a colt, covered in humble cloaks, with a small band of followers comprised of fishermen and tax collectors.

In the Gospels of Matthew and John, this colt is described a “donkey” or a “donkey colt,” which sounds even less fit for a king than a “colt” does. In John’s Gospel, Jesus finds this animal on his own, while in the others Jesus sends out two disciples to fetch it. How did this all actually go down? I don’t know, I wasn’t there. But Mark’s way of putting this all together is really interesting; and it tells us a lot not only about Jesus and his priorities, but also about ourselves and ours.

Just a half chapter earlier, Jesus tells the disciples — for the third time, in fact — that he is headed to Jerusalem to be killed in a most undignified way by the powers-that-be, and that three days later he will rise again. And how do these disciples respond to this ominous revelation? They really don’t.

Instead, James and John approach Jesus with a semmingly unrelated request, which goes something like this: “Ok Jesus, we need you to do us a favor. When we finally enter Jerusalem, we want to ride into the city by your side (because we’re obviously your favorites), one of us on your right, the other on the left (we don’t care which one of us is which), so the people will understand that we’re kind of a big deal — not as big of deal as you are, mind you, but a big deal nonetheless.”

Jesus tells them, “You do not know what you are asking,” because, well, they don’t. Next we learn that the other ten disciples are none too happy about the blatant attempt at one-ups-manship on the part of James and John (probably because they wish they’d thought of it first). Then Jesus gets the twelve together to give them all a talking-to. Among other things, he tells them this: “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve…” In other words, Jesus expects his disciples to act the way he acts, to do what he does.

And so, in light of all this, just imagine how the subsequent conversation between Jesus and the two disciples at the beginning of today’s reading might have gone. 

“James and John, thanks for coming by. I need you to do something for me.” I’m making an assumption here that these two disciples are, in fact, James and John because the text doesn’t ever say who they are. But it would be kind of fitting in light of their earlier behavior, wouldn’t it?

“Of course!”

“Well, as you know, we’re about to head into Jerusalem, so I need your help getting things together for the processional.”

“I know! Let’s get matching saddles and armor for our matching stallions, and matching outfits for us too. We’ll look so dignified and imposing riding in side by side by side as we discussed earlier.”

“That’s not exactly what I had in mind.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I actually just need you two to go get me a donkey.”

“A what?”

“You heard me.”

“A donkey? That’s not appropriate transportation for a king, for the Messiah! And what are we going to ride?”

“Well, maybe it’s not appropriate for the kind of Messiah you’re envisioning, but it’ll be fine for me. Oh, and you can just walk.”

It’s hard to appreciate how absurd this all is from our twenty first-century vantage point, but a king riding into town on a donkey back then would be kind of like a ruler today telling his entourage to exit the royal motorcade and walk alongside him as he rode along on a tricycle.

And interestingly enough, these two disciples somehow manage to get past all of that and do what they need to do. They go into the village and borrow someone’s donkey just like Jesus asked them to do, and they accompany Jesus on his way into Jerusalem (presumably on foot) as he rode upon that donkey just like he’s asked them to do because that’s the kind of stuff that disciples do. Maybe they’re finally starting to get it — Jesus isn’t the kind of Messiah they were counting on, and so being one of his followers isn’t quite what they thought it would be.

But the crowds? Well, maybe they’re starting to get it too — and not in a good way. You see, they’re expecting the same kind of Messiah that the disciples were — a mighty and vanquishing king who would ride into Jersulalem with his army and liberate them by beating the powers-that-be at their own game — hence their desperate cries of “Hosanna!” which means “Save us!” Imagine what they must have been thinking when Jesus rode into town on the back of a donkey colt that day. He was clearly not going to provide them with the deliverance they wanted and hoped for, and so is it really that big of surprise that they’d do to him what they’re going to do to him in less than a week’s time?

But those disciples are on the verge of making a much different choice. Sure, they’re going to hem and haw; yeah, they’re going to mess it up as least as often as they get it right; of course, they’re going to weigh what’s good for themselves against what’s good for all. Eventually, they’re going to do what they’ve been called by Jesus to do — called by God to do — even when it’s difficult, even when it’s tedious, even when it’s not glamorous, even when it’s risky.

Let’s just say discipleship wasn’t exactly the job they’d signed up for, but somebody had to do it. The question is will we?

The post Sunday, March 24, 2024 appeared first on Holladay United Church of Christ.

“For Your Sake”
– Rev. Brent Gundlah

First Reading (Jeremiah 31:31-34, CEB)
Gospel Reading (John 12:20-33, NRSVUE)

I went to my first major league baseball game in June of 1976 with my father, right about the time I turned eight. It was the Yankees versus Cleveland at the old Yankee Stadium and while I, as a Boston fan, am not terribly proud to admit that now, it was a really big deal to me at the time.

We parked the car and strolled through the streets of the South Bronx towards the stadium. After handing over our tickets, my father and I made our way through the dark recesses of the concourse that encircled the field. We turned and walked underneath the archway leading toward our seats and, when we finally emerged into the stifling heat and humidity of that New York summer night, I stopped in my tracks with my mouth agape at the splendor of it all.

Because I’d only ever seen professional baseball on what passed for a color TV back in the 1970s, my young senses were completely overwhelmed: Vendors screaming at the tops of their lungs trying to get people to buy peanuts or beer or hot dogs or whatever else they happened to be selling; the smell of all of those things wafting through the stale and heavy New York air; the sight of the bright stadium lights which made all of the colors seem impossibly vivid — the contrasting white and black of Yankee pinstripes, the lush green grass, the reddish brown dirt and the deep blue of the outfield walls. It took my eyes a few minutes to adjust to all of this but, once they did, I saw him.

Standing there a little ways in front of me, near the on-deck circle on the first base side, was Graig Nettles, the Yankees third baseman, who was a hero of mine before I came to my senses and starting rooting for the Red Sox (you know, you grow). He was leaning on his elbow on the low wall between the backstop and the home dugout, talking with a man and two young children near the first row of seats.

“This is my chance,” I thought to myself as I began my sprint down the long aisle of stairs leading towards the field, with my glove and black magic marker in-hand hoping to score an autograph.

I made it about halfway to the field before I ran into what seemed like a wall, but was actually a security guard. I was so focused on getting down there that I didn’t even see him step into the aisle to thwart my forward progress.

“You can’t go down there,” he said from what seemed like way up there in a big booming voice.

“But they did,” I replied, pointing to the aformentioned family standing right where I wanted to be.

“Yeah, but you can’t,” he responded tersely, cutting off all conversation and refusing to address the irrefutable logic of what I’d just said. And eight year-old me was heartbroken. Then again, maybe my age wasn’t all that relevant because it’s never great to feel unwelcome.

We headed off to our seats to watch the game, which, don’t get me wrong, I was still glad to be at; but that encounter with the security guard definitely left a bad taste in my mouth. The Yankees lost 3 to 2 that night (what a bummer). At least I’m not still bitter about the whole thing almost a half century later, though.

This unfortunate experience was what came to mind for me when I was looking at today’s reading from John’s Gospel. As the story goes, some Greeks come to Jerusalem during the Passover festival to see what was up becuase that event was a big deal, and because the Temple was quite a sight to see (sure, they didn’t have lights or a scoreboard or peanuts but, from what I‘ve heard, it was still cool). Oh, and as it turns out, these Greeks also want to see Jesus.

Jesus has recently raised Lazarus from the dead, and word of this miracle has spread throughout the land. The people are pretty fired up when they hear about this and are hoping that Jesus will make an appearance in Jersualem for Passover so they can get look at him. Right before our story begins, Jesus makes their wish come true when he rides into town on a donkey amidst the palm-waving crowd (which, admittedly, makes today’s reading an off one, since the events of which it speaks actually follow those of Palm Sunday, which we’ll celebrate next week).

The chief priests and Pharisees are also pretty fired up about Jesus’s arrival, but for a whole different reason; they want Jesus to come to Jerusalem so they can arrest him (and, let’s be honest, kill him) because his growing popularity among the people is causing a bit of a ruckus.

And when there’s ruckus in these parts, the Roman army tends to show up and put a stop to it. The religious authorites are afraid that the Empire will destroy this pretty good thing they’ve got going for themselves if they can’t manage to get Jesus to be quiet and stop causing trouble once and for all.

But these Greeks are apparently undeterred by all of this imperial drama, so they arrive at the Temple and express their desire to see Jesus. In their attempt to make this happen, they approach the apostle Philip, which seems like a good idea because, while Philip may be from the Galilean town of Bethsaida, his name is Greek and so the pilgrims probably think that they stand a chance of getting what they want. But they don’t.

“Sir, we wish to see Jesus,” the Greeks say to Philip, who then tells Andrew. Philip and Andrew head off together to inform Jesus about this request, and, oddly enough, Jesus doesn’t seem to respond to it. Instead, he starts talking about the Son of Man begin glorified, and grains of wheat falling on the ground and dying and bearing more fruit, and a bunch of other cryptic stuff. And the Greeks’ wish to see Jesus, it seems, goes unfulfilled that day; but, strangely enough, this makes sense.

I say this because these Greeks were most likely Gentiles and, as Gentiles, as non-Jews, they wouldn’t have been allowed into the Temple — well, at least beyond that certain part of the Temple known as the “Court of the Gentiles” anyway. This was the Temple’s outermost courtyard and the only place in the Temple where foreigners and Gentiles could be. It was also the place where the money-changers and merchants, whose tables Jesus flipped over a few weeks ago, were permitted to do their thing.

The punishment for those who violated this boundary was death — which certainly isn’t very welcoming — and this was made very clear on the signs posted near the entrances leading from the Court of the Gentiles to the Temple’s inner precincts.

“Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

“You can’t go in there.”

“But they did.”

“Yeah, but you can’t.”

I imagine that stung a little. Like I said earlier, it’s never great to feel like your not welcome.

It’s probably not a coincidence that this particular episode happens to mark the end of Jesus’s public ministry. When he informs Philip and Andrew that, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified,” Jesus is saying that he’s done preaching and teaching and healing, and will soon die at the hands of the powers-that-be upon the cross. And this is a really big moment in the gospel story as John chooses to tell it. And now that Jesus has everyone’s attention, what does he go on to say next? “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

At some level, of course, Jesus is speaking about himself here. As we all know, he will soon die; but the story of his life, death and resurrection will subsequently take root and grow, spreading far and wide over the next two thousand years, impacting the lives of countless people, and changing the entire course of history. And that’s a whole lot of fruit. But there might still be a little more to be found here.

At the very end of Mark’s Gospel (to which we’ll turn our attention next week), the newly-resurrected Jesus tells his disciples to, “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.” The point is that the gospel is meant for everyone. Indeed, Jesus articulates this idea throughout the Gospels, and will do so a few chapters later in John’s version when he expresses his wish for the people of the world, “that they may all be one” (which is, of course, a big deal here in the UCC — which is why it’s written on the cover of your hymnal).

So, when Philip and Andrew carry the message to Jesus that there’s some Greeks who want to see him, but who aren’t allowed to come into the Temple, and Jesus suddenly starts talking about the need for certain things to die so that life can thrive, maybe he’s referring not only to himself but also to the Temple in which he’s standing — and the entire Temple system itself.

I mean, isn’t the questioning of the places in our lives in which distinctions such as insider and outsider, chosen few and everybody else, persist kind of the whole point of the gospel? And yet I wonder whether most of those people inside the Temple rally gave a second thought to those Greeks standing outside. After all, it’s pretty easy to ignore what you don’t see.

Every week, at the beginning of worship, we take the time to articulate a belief shared by many UCC churches, which is this: “Whoever you are and wherever you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.” And I know, deep down inside, that we truly mean it when we say it.

May we never not believe it;

may we never stop saying it loudly;

may we continue understand the importance of living it;

may we always to seek out those people beyond these four walls who, for whatever reason, feel like outsiders;

because it’s never great to feel like you’re not welcome.

The post Sunday, March 17, 2024 appeared first on Holladay United Church of Christ.

“Snakes Everywhere”
– Rev. Brent Gundlah

First Reading (Numbers 21:4-9, CEB)
Gospel Reading (John 3:14-21, NRSVUE)

In today’s first reading, from the book of Numbers, the Israelites are understandably pretty fed up with wandering around aimlessly in the desert, eating nothing but manna, and being attacked by their enemies. So they do what people in such situations often do — they complain.

The problem is that they decide to let loose not only on Moses (which they’ve already done five times in this book alone), but also on God (which they haven’t done before — and, after this, probably won’t ever do again).

Let’s just say that whining about God doesn’t work out too great for the Isrealites at first. In response to the people’s lack of trust and faith, God sends a bunch of snakes to bite and kill them (which makes perfect sense). And so the people ask Moses to intervene with God on their behalf, to pray so that God will take the snakes away.

Now, God doesn’t get rid of the snakes, but God does tell Moses to make a snake out of bronze and put it up on a pole. The people who are bitten by the actual snakes that God sent are supposed to look up at the sculpture of a snake that Moses made at God’s request, and, if they do this, they will live (which also makes perfect sense).

In our second reading, from John’s Gospel, Jesus invokes the imagery from this story in Numbers to explain who he is to a Pharisee named Nicodemus. John depicts Jesus comparing himself on the cross to that aforementioned bronze snake on a pole (incidentally, John is the only gospel writer who shares this story). And John does this in order to show that Jesus is the life-giver par excellence. In other words, while looking at that metal snake restored bite victims to life, believing in Jesus (who will soon give his life up on the cross) will enable people to live forever — and that’s even better.

John sums all of this up with one of the Bible’s best-known verses: “For 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” (which, when you stop and think about it, is perfectly logical too).

Okay, so now that I’ve sketched out the basic contours of these two related stories, it’ll only take me a few more minutes to explain fully the meaning behind them. I should have you out of here shortly so that you can go down to Bistro and enjoy some coffee and snacks before you head out to begin your Sunday afternoon.

I’m kidding, of course; I couldn’t explain these stories to you if you gave me all the time in the world, becuase they don’t make sense. And, to be clear, I’m not just talking about the weird one with the snakes (real and fake) from Numbers; I’m talking about the one from John’s Gospel too.

We’ve heard the verse of John 3:16 so many times that it’s familiarity has probably dulled us to the incredible strangeness of what it actually says: God loves us so much that God decides to join us here on Earth (as God’s own Son), to live as one of us, to die a violent and scandalous death, in order to give us eternal life. What? Think how crazy this sounds when you say it out loud.

It may seem like an obvious question to ask, but I’ll ask it anyway: If God is all-knowing and all-powerful, why does God need to do any of this in order to ensure that human life endures and thrives? I mean, couldn’t God simply snap God’s fingers (assuming, of course, that God actually has fingers) and make that happen? And, in both of these stories, death — the opposite of life — seems to be a kind of precondition to life, but why? I have no idea.

In the case of the Numbers story at least, one could say that God is angry — in this case, at the people for their lack of faith — and maybe, the reaction of God to the ungrateful Israelites, after all that God has done for them, makes some sense, even though God admittedly seems harsh and vengeful, which isn’t so great.

In fairness, though, it may not be too far-fetched because we already know that God is jealous. And, to be perfectly clear, I’m not saying that about God, I’m just quoting what God said about God in last week’s reading from Exodus (you know, the one with the Ten Commandments). And I quote: “You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that it is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them, or worship them; for I the Lord, your God, am a jealous God.” Okay, but this makes God’s command to Moses to make a metal snake and put it on a stick and have the people gaze up at it in order to be healed seem even more weird. I mean, doesn’t that kind of sound like idol worship?

And, while we don’t learn this in today’s story, here’s a fun fact for you: the Israelites end up hanging on to this bronze reptile for like five hundred years; heck, they actually gave it a name (Nehushtan) put it in the Jerusalem Templeand made offerings to it. In the second book of Kings, the reformer Hezekiah will have it destroyed because, you guessed it, the people were idolizing it. Color me shocked.

The parallels between this story from Numbers and the one from John’s Gospel are pretty obivous, and they’re obvious becuase John actually puts the words of comparison in Jesus’s own mouth: “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,” is what he says. Okay, but the metal snake, unlike Jesus, isn’t actually a living being; and the snake is, in no sense, sacrified for the people’s transgressions.

And so how do we make all of this make sense? Maybe we don’t; maybe we can’t; maybe we should embrace the fact that God often acts in mysterious ways; maybe we should accept that God is God, and we are not. Why do we always want to be in control of everything? What are we afraid of?

Well, I’ll tell you this: if there’s two things that a whole lot of people tend to fear, it’s death and snakes, and there’s no shortage of either in today’s two stories. So even if we can’t necessarily figure out the meaning behind every single detail in these stories, maybe spending a few moments with those two that we typically try to steer clear of might point us towards some greater truth.

Way back in the days of Numbers, when the Israelites were trudging around the desert, there were no hospital emergency rooms stocked with antivenom to stave off the effects of a snakebite. If a poisonous snake managed to sink its teeth into you, you died; so people were rightfully scared of snakes, and this made them a very powerful image for the readers and listeners of that time. Their presence here definitely would have gotten people’s attention.

As the story goes, the people’s lack of trust and faith in God is what leads God to dispatch the snakes to wreak havoc among them (again, I don’t know why God would choose to do this). The people confess the error of their ways to Moses, who follows God’s orders and makes a metal snake upon which the people are told to focus their attention (because that’s just what you do, apparently) — and that which they feared suddenly becomes the means by which they are saved. How did this happen? Again, I have no idea. Was it some kind of magic? Yeah, maybe. Or was it simply another manifestation of the idea that all things are possible with God?

As the saying goes, there’s no athiests in foxholes; and it’s seems like there’s none out there in the snake-infested first-century desert either. And I have to tell you, if I were hiking up in Millcreek Canyon alone and found myself on the wrong end of a rattlesnake with no help in sight, I’d sure be looking up to see if there might just be a bronze snake imbued with God’s healing power sitting on top of a pole. Would it work? I hope so. Then again, what else could I do at that point but trust in God? There is, it seems, often a fine line between desparation and faith. I don’t know why that is either.

But two thousand years later, we still find ourselves looking up at that cross amidst this complete mess of a world, hoping and believing that death just might not have the final word,

because of God’s abiding faithfulness to the covenant between God and God’s people;

because of this wild story of a poor Jewish laborer born to unwed parents on the wrong side of town named Jesus the Christ, who also happened to be Emmanuel, God-with-us;

because of those completely unbelievable, totally unfathomable words that Jesus shared with Nicodemus: Whoever believes in [me[ may have eternal life;

because of the God who always somehow manages to bring life out of death.

Improbable? Sure. Impossible? Do you really want to bet against God?

God so loved the world that ________.  Fill in the blank. Because apparently there’s nothing that God won’t do, there’s nothing that God can’t do, because of that love. And maybe that’s all we really need to know.

The post Sunday, March 10, 2024 appeared first on Holladay United Church of Christ.

“Flipping Tables”
– Rev. Brent Gundlah

First Reading (Exodus 20:1-17, NRSVUE)
Gospel Reading (John 2:13-22, NRSVUE)

When he was in college, my friend Brian scored a summer internship with a minor league baseball team. Since Brian is at least as big of a baseball fan as I am, it was pretty much a dream come true — or so he thought, anyway.

He arrived at the stadium for his first day of work along with all of the other interns and, at the very beginning of their orientation, they had to listen to a speech from the franchise’s President. It was probably intended to be a pep talk but, at the end of it, Brian wasn’t feeling particularly… peppy.

The eager interns listened intently from their seats along the first base side in the bright morning sun, as groundskeepers mowed the resplendently green grass; the scene was absolutely idyllic inside this catherdral of America’s Pastime. The boss climbed atop the dugout and, after greeting his new employees with the customary pleasantries, got right down to business.

“Regardless of what you might think, in spite of what may have brought you here, this isn’t about baseball,” is how he opted to lead off. The interns looked rather bewildered because this seemed like an odd thing for the leader of a baseball team to say to a group of people sitting in a baseball stadium.

Now that he had their attention, he elaborated on his prior statement: “When you get right down to it, our job here is pretty simple,” he said, “It’s to put as many rear-ends in these seats as possible.” Now, when Brian told me this story he used a slightly more colorful word than “rear-ends” but, since we’re in church and not in a ballpark, I chose to exercise some editorial discretion; I hope you don’t mind.

When the speech was over, Brian was absolutely crestfallen. He had sought this job because of his love for baseball. But what he learned that day, much to his disappointment, was that the powers-that-be were playing a different game.

At some level, though, the boss was right. Sure, what he said that day may have been unnecessarily crass and a bit too direct, but he also spoke some semblance of the truth. The simple fact of the matter is that, without “rear-ends” in those seats, the team would have ceased to exist. What the boss ignored, however, was the other side of that equation, the very reason those “rear-ends” were in those seats in the first place — namely, a love for baseball; and so what he said just felt wrong. I mean, lets face it: When the tail wags the dog, when the cart pulls the horse, when the man bites the dog, things just seem out-of-whack.

I can’t help but wonder whether the source of much of Brian’s frustration with the boss’s words that day came not from his declaration of the importance of dollars and cents, but rather from the priority he placed on making money over absolutely everything else. I mean, he could have said that they needed to put “rear-ends” in the seats so they could afford to field a team with the best possible players, or so they could afford to give their fans a great and memorable day at the ballpark; that would have made more sense. In the boss’s mind, however, money wasn’t the means to some other end, it was the end in and of itself; and that’s why what he said was so… icky.

And this kind of seems to be the source of the drama in today’s reading from John’s Gospel too — the reason behind all the yelling and the flipping over of tables, the inspiration for angry Jesus wielding a whip and letting those people in the Temple really have it.

In Matthew, Mark and Luke, this episode takes place near the end of Jesus’s ministry; in John’s Gospel, however, it happens at the beginning. Simple logic would tell you that either the former or the latter — or both the former and the latter — had to be wrong about when in Jesus’s life this event occured.

Now, it’s not too often that all four Gospel writers agree on anything, so the discrepancy on the order of events here isn’t very suprising (and back then writers didn’t place a priority on laying out events in a linear fashion like we tend to do today). But the fact that all four of them incude this story indicates that there’s a better than average chance it actually happened at some point. But why does John situate it differently than all the others do?

Well, one of the essential premises of John’s Gospel is that Jesus himself is the new temple, so it makes sense that John would use this story to make that point both early and dramatically. When Jesus gets into an argument with the Jews (by which John means not all of the Jews but, rather, the Temple authorities) about how their practices are detroying his Father’s house, Jesus says to them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” — a clear allusion to his impending Resurrection.

And if there were any ambiguity regarding what Jesus meant, John seeks to clear it up by telling us that “he was speaking of the temple of his body.” Okay. But one important implication of Jesus coming here to be the “new” temple is that there’s something wrong with the “old” temple, and this is where things start to get complicated.

This passage from John is another one that’s been misread and used throughout  the centuries as justification for all sorts of bad behavior — in this case, antisemitism. Sadly, this is the case with other parts of John’s Gospel as well. It’s really easy to read this and interpret John’s reference to the “Jews” who stood in oposition to Jesus as a disparagement of all the Jews and of Judiasm itself, but that’s not the point of any of this. As I noted earlier, Jesus’s beef is with the Jewish leaders in that place and time who have enabled the institution of the Temple to get completely out of hand due to their own self-interest.

Sure, Jesus takes his frustration out on the sellers of animals and money changers here, but his quarrel isn’t predominantly with them. In the Temple system as it existed then, they actually provided some essential functions — enabling pilgrims to buy the unblemished animals they needed to sacrifice (the fact that God had previously made God’s feelings known about such sacrifices being another issue altogether), and to exchange their native currencies for the one they needed to pay the tax in order to gain entry to the Temple.

The problem, in a nutshell, is that the powers-that-be have turned the Temple into a money-making venture for their own enrichment. Sure, they needed funds to run the Temple (somebody had to clean up after all those pilgrims and their sacrificial animals, and point people where they needed to go, and make sure all those burnt offerings didn’t cause a five-alarm fire); but for the authorities to levy a tax (much of which was going into their own pockets) — and to profiteer off the exchange of currency necessary to pay that tax (like one of those places at the airport that charges an exorbitant fee to convert your Dollars into Euros becuase you forgot to go the bank before you went to Italy on vacation) was, for Jesus, an abomination.

And the reason for this is pretty simple: The Temple had ceased to be about God (you know, the whole reason for its existence in the first place) and had become something far different. People had set their minds on human things and not divine things (as it turns out, people have always been pretty good at doing that, and God has never been too happy about it either).

The wealth that the Temple system created was no longer a means to a more righteous end (that being the worship of God); it had become the end in and of itself. In the end, the whole Temple system and the actual Temple itself were destroyed, and they were in ruins long before John ever put pen to paper. And so part of John’s aim here is to point fingers as to why that happened.

But what does all of this mean for the church today? I mean, we find ourselves in a different situation than Jesus did. In the Gospels, Jesus is starting a grass roots movement based in the seemingly simple of idea of loving God and neighbor. At that point, Jesus wasn’t founding a church — an institution; people like Peter and Paul would end up doing that. And they do that because, like it or not, movements benefit from institutions that carry their work and principles into the future; without institutions, movements tend to end up existing at the margins and eventually fizzling-out.

But the relationship between movements and institutions has always been tenous and frought with peril (today’s story from John reminds us of this timeless truth), because people are involved and people’s motivations for doing things can be, well, kind of complicated — especially when they get together in groups. And don’t think for a minute that Jesus didn’t understand and appreciate what his later disciples were in for as the church took root and grew; after all, he is the one who told them they needed to be “as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.”

Paul Tillich, one of the twentieth century’s greatest theologians, supposedly  once said that “all institutions, including the church, are demonic,” which seems a little harsh. And Reinhold Niebuhr, another theoligical heavyweight (who also happened to be a pastor in one of the churches that became the UCC), once posited that institutions, when faced with their own demise, will quickly betray the principles that define them in order to survive; I don’t know about that, but the temptation to do so clearly exists.

It should be pretty obvious by now that the church ain’t exactly what it used to be. We’re not the dominant force in American society that we were just a few decades ago, money is increasingly tight, there’s less people in the pews these days, and many of the things our church did in the recent past don’t necessarily distinguish us the way they used to (a rising tide raises all boats but now we find ourselves navigating a croweded sea amongst a whole bunch of other boats). There’s increasing pressure upon us to put “rear ends” in these seats in order to ensure our survival. So, what are we going to do?

Before we answer that question, though, there’s a more essential one to consider, which is this:

Are we remaning true to the beliefs and principles that brought us together here in the first place? Because without those beliefs and principles what are we surviving for?

The post Sunday, March 3, 2024 appeared first on Holladay United Church of Christ.

“Taking Up The Cross”
– Rev. Brent Gundlah

First Reading (Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16, NRSVUE)
Gospel Reading (Mark 8:27-38, NRSVUE)

“If any want to become my followers, let them take up their cross and follow me,” Jesus says to the crowd with his disciples.

The cross is perhaps the single most recognizable symbol of the Christian faith. We look at it up there every week, but how often do we think about what it really means to do as Jesus says — to take up the cross and follow him?

On the morning of October 2, 2006, Carl Charles Roberts IV, a 33-year-old milkman from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, left his two eldest children at their school bus stop and headed off to the local hardware store. A short time later, Roberts walked into a tiny Amish schoolhouse in the small town of Nickel Mines and then, after inexplicably ordering most of the building’s youngest occupants to leave, he shot ten schoolgirls, killing five of them before turning his gun on himself and taking his own life.

In a post-Columbine, post-Virginia Tech, post-Newtown, post-Parkland, post-Uvalde society in which such incidents have, tragically, become fairly frequent occurrences (as evidenced by the fact that I could stand up here for an hour and probably not be able read the names of all the schools in which shootings have taken place since the turn of the millenium).

But the Nickel Mines school incident stands out as being particularly horrific. Not only was it directed at children, but it was also inflicted upon a community that had chosen to live outside of mainstream American society and all its perceived ills — including gun violence.

And yet what seemed to disorient people most of all was the unexpected reaction of the families directly affected by it and of the Amish community as a whole: They actually forgave Roberts — both in word and in deed.

On the evening right after the massacre took place, a stream of Amish visitors visited Roberts’ widow and children at their home to express condolences for their loss. They reminded them they were still part of — and welcome in — the community. About half of the seventy or so attendees at Roberts’ funeral were Amish. The Amish community’s committee overseeing the distribution of charitable donations set-up and funded a trust for Roberts’ family. That Christmas, a group of Amish went to the Roberts house to sing carols. The following spring, Roberts’ family members planted a tree in the yard of the new Amish schoolhouse constructed on the site of the massacre.

The world was absolutely stunnedby the Amish response to what had happened. And when the capacity to forgive is any where near as difficult for us to comprehend as is an unconscionable act of violence, may God help us all.

I think that part of what made the Amish way of dealing with the Nickel Mines tragedy incomprehensible to many people was that it seemed so contrary to human nature. When we’re attacked, in any way, our first impulse is, all too often, to strike back. When someone injures our loved one we hope to stop them but we often also wish to hurt them: You hit me or mine and I hit you back even harder. Turning the other cheek is generally neither our intuitive nor our instinctual response, but it is definitely Jesus’ response. And it’s a difficult one to come to terms with — both for Peter and for us.

At the beginning of our reading for today, Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter, as usual, is quick with a response that is accurate but also one that shows he doesn’t really understand the implications of what he’s saying: “You are the Messiah,” he tells Jesus. This, of course, is true, but Peter and Jesus have very different ideas about what being the Messiah actually means.

When Jesus proceeds to tell his disciples about what is going to happen to him next — when he declares that he “must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed,” they simply cannot process it. To their way of thinking, the Messiah is supposed to be the one who arrives in a cloud of fire and fury to beat the Imperial Roman oppressors and their co-conspirators into submission; he’s supposed to be the one who punishes them for all their transgressions. The Messiah is not the one who is supposed to suffer and be killed; he is supposed to make them suffer for what they’ve done to us! This is why Peter rebukes Jesus here.

Jesus, of course, is having none of it. He instantly yells back at Peter saying, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” He is clearly angry at Peter and at Satan — the latter, of course, being the Biblical tempter extraordinaire. But might Jesus also be a little frustrated with himself for being tempted?

If the gospels are to be believed, Jesus clearly has the power to do all sorts of things that the rest of us cannot; he can cure illnesses and exorcize demons, he can walk on water, he can feed four thousand people with seven loaves of bread. So it would have been well within his power to bring all sorts of calamity upon the powers that be, were he inclined to do so.

And, in some sense, it would have been so much easier for him had he done this — had he simply brought the thunder and the lightning, and then walked away unscathed. It had to be so tempting for him to do this. But it also wouldn’t have changed a thing. And, at the end of the day, Jesus understands this; I wish we did too.

Because there is nothing — and I mean nothing — redemptive about violence. And violence — even in response to violence — simply begets a culture whose entire foundation is violence. This is the world that Jesus found himself living in two thousand years ago and, sadly, it’s the one we still find ourselves living in today.

This is truly tragic because, while revenge and retribution may be vaguely satisfying for a brief moment, in the long run, they only serve to perpetuate a vicious cycle of human suffering. The idea of an “eye for an eye” might sound applealing in theory to some, but in practice you always just end up with a whole bunch of people who can’t see.

And so Jesus — though he certainly could do otherwise — chooses instead to say “no more.” He changes the rules of the game to highlight how stupid and useless and dangerous the game actually is. He offers up himself as the violent sacrifice to end all violent sacrifice. He grits his teeth, overcomes the temptation to do the easy thing, and resumes his march toward the impending horror of the cross hoping to save us from ourselves by showing us that there is another way.

The urge for Jesus to just walk away from it all doesn’t go away — because dealing with that urge is part of being human; and, as we all know, being human isn’t easy. At Gethsemane, Jesus will beg God, “remove this cup from me.” But he will soon change his mind, going on to say, “not what I want, but what you want.”

Think for a moment about how difficult that pivot must have been for Jesus. But his love for us was greater than his concern for himself unto the very end — “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do,” says Jesus from the cross in Luke’s version of the story. In spite of all we put him through, in spite of all we did to him, in spite of all we put each other through, in spite of all we do to each other, Jesus chooses to repay us with forgiveness.

While this particular passage of the Mark’s Gospel is essential to defining what it really means to be a follower of Christ, it is also one of the Bible’s most dangerous texts. Throughout the centuries, it has been used to condone and perpetuate all kinds of flawed systems and bad behavior; it has been a prooftext utilized to justify everything from slavery to domestic violence. The twisted interpretation of it being: “Suck it up and deal with it.” So let me be clear: taking up the cross does not mean tolerating abuse. Not now, not ever. Because violence — in whatever form it takes — is never, ever, ever redemptive. That’s the whole point!

Christ endured what he did in the hope that we might never again have to endure it. He did it to overthrow the existing order of violence and retribution, not to perpetuate it.

Christ suffered and then forgave to show us that there was, in fact, another way. And following that way is what taking up the cross really means. It is not about suffering for its own sake, for there is no virtue in that. Nor is it about being a doormat; we are called by Christ to stand up to injustice and to violence of all kinds whenever and wherever we experience these things.

We can’t simply forget all the evil that we do to each other; indeed, we shouldn’t ever forget it, because if we forget it we can’t learn from it and then move beyond it. But forgiveness is not necessarily a pardon. Wrongs should be punished; there should be consequences to our actions. If Carl Charles Roberts IV had not taken his own life, the Amish community would probably have been fine with him spending the rest of his days on this earth in jail. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t forgive him.

In the end, forgiveness, might be best thought of as the capacity to live into the promise of our common humanity in spite of all we do to separate ourselves from one another (and from God).

May the cross serve not merely as decoration, but rather as a reminder of what we are capable of on our worst possible days and of what we are capable of on our best possible days, a call to look into the eyes of the one who has wronged us and say I forgive you as God has forgiven me. 

Every single week we pray to God, “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Do we really mean it? Because that’s what it means to pick up our cross and follow Christ. The question for us is whether we are actually willing to do so.

The post Sunday, February 25, 2024 appeared first on Holladay United Church of Christ.