Gospel text for Sunday 21 November 2022

 John 18:33-37        Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

Reflection       Pilate works as a procurate (advocate or mouth-piece) for King Herod. If Jesus claims to be a king this poses a threat to the sovereignty of Herod which is intolerable. But there is a peculiar twist, it is not the King’s Roman subjects who bring Jesus to Pilate. It is the punctilious religious Jews who are convicting Jesus. Surely Pilate is scratching his head and wondering, “Am I facing a volatile political situation, or not?” Can you feel his frustration, “Just tell me, are you or are are you not a King?” 

Meanwhile Jesus must be thinking, “This issue about being a king is of no interest to me. What I care about is truth. People who are interested in truth listen to my voice, believe what I say. It has nothing to do with being a king.” And so, as do all wisdom teachers operating from an entirely different level of consciousness than Pilate, Jesus offers a confounding response, “My kingdom is not of this world” which of course crosses Pilate’s eyes and flies right above his head.

Here is the thing. When people truly listen to Jesus they recognize something deeply true within themselves, something that eludes their intellect as well as their social and political posturing for security, safety, esteem, power and control. When people listen to the words of Jesus they recognize something true, something that resonates deep inside them.

No doubt you have had this experience. That time you knew that you knew that you knew something was true even though you could not say why or make a rational argument for it. You knew you were in love? You knew it was time to change jobs or careers? You knew you  had to call a friend? You knew something was going on? You read a sentence in a book or scripture and knew that it was true? This is knowing that exceeds our intellect. It is the kind of knowing experienced when we put our heads in our hearts. 

We hear Jesus’ voice when we plant our intellect in our hearts because rather than issuing kingly policies and employing procurates like Pilate to insure their edicts are followed,  Jesus speaks the mysterious language of wisdom rendered from the heart. Jesus’ humble presence and peaceful actions do not demand attention nor wield threats to any who fail to follow. Jesus lives truth, reveals truth and is available to any who are attracted to truth. 

Which brings us to what is arguably the most famous of Pilate’s questions, “So, what is truth?” (18.38)  I believe truth is Divine Presence dwelling as our core, available in every breath when we put our heads in or hearts. 

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Hebrew Testament Text for Sunday, 10 June 2018

Prophet or king, to whom shall we listen?

1 Samuel 8:4-20        All the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, “You are old and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations.” But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to govern us.” Samuel prayed to the Lord, and the Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. Just as they have done to me, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so also they are doing to you. Now then, listen to their voice; only—you shall solemnly warn them, and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.”

So Samuel reported all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots; [and he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers. He will take one-tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers.] He will take your male and female slaves, and the best of your cattle and donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel; they said, “No! but we are determined to have a king over us, so that we also may be like other nations, and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles.”

Reflection     Events have an interesting way of recurring and we humans have a way of forgetting what we learn. Nearing the end of his life it turns out Samuel’s sons are not unlike his teacher Eli’s sons had been, corrupt. “When (Samuel) made (his sons) judges over Israel… they did not follow in his ways, they took bribes and perverted justice.” (ISam 8.1,3) And the people come to Samuel demanding he anoint for them a king.

Theologians suggest two possible reasons the people want Samuel to  anoint a king for them. One train of thought suggests Samuel’s sons could not be trusted to govern them hence the people want a king “like other nations.” In this case it seems the mass of people want to transfer their alliance from the God of Israel as spoken through the prophet Samuel to an earthly king. This is emblematic of the human inclination to conformity, believing, “If other people do it, it must be right.”

A second school of thought  suggests it is an elite group of elders who come to Samuel asking him to anoint a king because having a king would contribute to their personal gain in wealth and power. Remember, “the best of the peoples’ fields, olive orchards and vineyards would be given to the king’s courtiers.” Power and wealth have an uncanny way of consolidating and self-sustaining.

In either case, Samuel is frustrated but, ever reliant on the Presence of God with him, he listens for the Word God to guide him and hears, “Listen to the voice of the people for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me (the Lord God) from being king over them.”

Faithful to what he “hears” from the Lord, Samuel warns the people about what it will be like to have a king. “He will take your sons and daughters and make them fight his battles and work his fields. He will take your best fields  and tax your businesses to fatten the purses of his rich friends. He will make you slaves, serving his ambition.” But the people refuse to listen. Twenty-six hundred years later, what have we learned?

Why are we humans so tempted to put our faith and pledge allegiance to earthly kings (read caesar, magnate, tycoons)?  Why do we turn our backs to God in favor of the flashing lights and prestidigitation of social, political and religious drama? Why do we still succumb to targeted sound bytes and seditious news pics designed to ignite fear and mistrust of one another? To what voice shall we pledge our allegiance? The voice of the prophet speaking on behalf of God or the voice of the self-serving king?

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Gospel text for Sunday 1 March 2015

Mark 8:31-38        Then Jesus began to teach his disciples that the Son of Man 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. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 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."

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. 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. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Reflection        In spite of Peter’s (and our) great hope to the contrary, Jesus did not come to put an end to suffering in the world. Jesus came to assure us that God is with each and every one of us as we navigate the inevitable suffering of our human condition. In fact, Jesus came and revealed to us the foolish wisdom that there is blessing to be found in suffering, which of course flies in the face of conventional wisdom that blessing is found in power, control and accumulated success (in the shiny purple robes of a warrior king messiah). Which brings us back to Peter whose conventional idea of a messiah put him cross-ways with Jesus. 

Do you remember Jesus’ sermon on the mountain in Matthew’s gospel? “Blessed are…  the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger for righteousness, those who are persecuted…(Matt 5.3-6, 10). These words are nonsense to the conventional wisdom of the world. And, they are the wisdom of the foolish in God’s upside down kingdom.

It is not God’s will that we suffer, nor do I believe it was God’s will that Jesus be tortured and hung on a cross. I believe, it is God’s will that we know God’s presence with us in the midst of the suffering that is inevitable to our mortal human condition. The death-dealing blow of the ruthless words from our Ash Wednesday liturgy leap to mind, “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Frankly, the process of returning to dust is not for the faint of heart. Whether it comes by disease, accident or the brutality of others who will stop at nothing to extinguish unvarnished truth, there is no escaping the fatal consequence of life. Returning to dust entails suffering. As Christians this does not give us cause to be angry, afraid or despair. As Christians we understand that suffering opens the way for us to encounter God and experience blessedness. This is the way of setting our minds on divine things rather than on human things.

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