Day 839 - In Memory of an Unnamed Woman

A Palm Sunday reflection on the deed of an unnamed woman

Gospel Reading Mark 14: 3-9

Though Palm Sunday sermons usually review one of the gospels’ description of Jesus entering Jerusalem, I decided to fast forward three days into Holy Week at Bethany two days before Passover began to consider Mark 14: 3-9. This event occurs at a meal eaten just before Jesus reenters Jerusalem for the last time. 

I said earlier that the gospel of Mark is the gospel of mercy to the abused.  Mark reflects that sense in surprising ways that promote the outcast, the outsider and the abused to a place of prominence.

This passage is about a woman anointing Jesus with expensive oil. It presages and proclaims the purpose of Jesus of Nazareth immediately before his final arrest in Jerusalem. Its irony establishes a mood and setting for the insider/outsider characters and role reversals in a uniquely built scene of suspended time in the march towards the cross and resurrection. It anticipates the Passion and resurrection, and reveals to the reader the nature and challenge of piety and discipleship and gives hope to the abused, the outsiders, that often suffer at the hands of official society.

The passage only identifies two persons, Jesus and Simon the leper. Everyone else (thus far) is anonymous, so Mark is inviting us into the action.

I offer my own translation and amplification of the Greek New Testament (Nestle-Alan 27^th edition, 1993):

 ^14:3While he was in Bethany dining in the house of Simon the leper, a woman carrying an alabaster jar of expensive, genuine ointment of nard entered and completely shattered the alabaster jar using the nard to anoint him. ^14:4But some of those present became indignant almost to the point of riot and railed harshly among themselves, “Why has this waste occurred? ^14:5This ointment could have been sold for more than 300 denarii and been given to the poor.” They kept on sternly rebuking her. ^14:6But Jesus said, “Leave her alone! Why do you trouble her? She has done an honorable thing to me as the Father has done for you. ^14:7“For you will always have the poor among you and whenever you desire you can do good by them yourself, but me, you will not always have.  ^14:8“She did what she could; she has already anointed my body ahead of time for my proper burial. ^14:9 Truly I say to you, wherever the Good News is proclaimed to the whole world, also what she has done will be told in memory of her.”

In its Greek language form Mark has given us an intensely dramatic scene among the disciples, Jesus and this woman. A woman is an outsider unexpected in such a gathering of men two days before his crucifixion. While it is shocking that a woman is present,  it is even more so that she had the audacity to touch Jesus in the presence of these other men.

Yet the several social faux pas of this carefully constructed, sharp, multi-level irony leaves us bleeding from the wound to our righteousness. 

First it is a message on piety brought by an outsider. Second, from the early days of Samuel, the anointing served a celebratory, royal purpose to identify the future King. Third, it also has a funereal purpose.

Her anointing Jesus is an act of piety that signifies his kingship(Lordship) but in a dramatically ironic and subtle way reveals the impending death of Jesus by preparing his body for the grave.

We must focus not only on her actions and the behavior of the disciples but those of  our anonymous viewers. The story prompts a number of questions. Why are the disciples so riotously upset?  Are they angry the woman wasted a costly material?  Are they angry it was wasted on Jesus? Do they really have such compassion for  the poor? Why do we abuse this passage today to justify the presence of the poor and our reluctance to help them directly? Or are all these “privileged” insiders simply reacting in confusion over what impends in two days because their eyes see and ears hear but mind does not understand what Jesus has told them?

Is the defense of this woman by Jesus reminiscent of his defense of children in Mark 10:14?  Is Mark telling us piety is found in this fundamental child-like action she has done oblivious to the propriety of the insiders?

These are all interesting questions I leave with you as we turn to the central message about who teaches us piety. Jesus says this woman has done an honorable thing.

The Jewish listeners would key onto the words “honorable thing” as signifying a ritual action. Any Greek listeners would understand the word “honorable thing” signifies the ethical preeminence of honor in Hellenist thought.

We modern Christians ought to latch on to “honorable thing” as the good work of honoring Christ’s commands to love God (“has done an honorable thing to me”) and neighbor (“you can do good by them any time”). In other words, it pointed us to true righteousness or piety.

This is an uncomfortable thing Jesus says. “You are critical of this woman who seeks to do well by me who only be with you a short time because it is a lost opportunity to help the poor; yet you have opportunity and time continuously to do right by the poor and will not.”

The strong sarcasm in his statement is obvious. He says in spite of our high concern that the waste of this ointment symbolizes lost money that could be used for the poor, you will have continuous opportunity to do right by the poor because you will not take care of the them with your own wealth and they will remain with you. Jesus has reversed  "who are the poor"  - now those who do not take care of the poor any time they can are the spiritually impoverished, i.e., the poor.

So, you can see that this woman has turned an intimate quiet pre-Passover dinner among the disciples and Jesus into a riotous upset over ethics and piety. The marginalized woman, the outsider, has become the model of piety, not the disciples.  Jesus says, “Wherever the Good News is proclaimed to the whole world, also what she has done will be told in memory of her.”

In this story, the woman enters this supper as a marginalized, unwelcome person and leaves as the epitome of piety. Her faith in Jesus without regard for her social and materials cost causes quite the social disruption by challenging the sense of righteousness of the “insiders.” She finds herself in a moment that will never be repeated and discerns the right thing to do, use this burial oil for Jesus.  Jesus interprets her act as a three paradigms for righteous living: (1) honoring God; (2)telling of her story as part of the gospel that reminds us of two obligations, to honor the Lord and (3) to share one’s spiritual and material wealth indiscriminately at every opportunity. 

The Christian life of piety is lived promiscuously. Obviously I do not mean by being sexually promiscuous, but by doing right by the Lord and the poor with all our resources indiscriminately that strengthens us all.  At this dinner Jesus points every eye toward the extravagant gift of the empty tomb of Jesus of Nazareth and upsets the meaning of extravagance for us all.

It is a shame for us all that we don’t carry as much of that piety with us as we should. We talk big but often act small. And for most people, piety being modeled as righteous action sustained by faith through the acts of the socially marginalized is unexpected, if not undesired. Who want to be taught piety by an outcast (the poor, a woman, an African-American or Hispanic, or someone with a different sexual orientation? Certainly not a Roman who measures honor by degree of power.

But here we are, as Jesus told us, every time we repeat this story we are learning the true meaning of piety from an outsider.  In our text, we learn it from a woman extravagantly “wasting” an entire jar of extremely valuable spice on Jesus to the chagrin of all the guests at this dinner (except Jesus and perhaps Simon).  We surely recall the story of the poor widow’s donation of her only two coins in the temple (Mark 12:41-44).

 Jesus praises this marginalized woman for her promiscuous extravagance in faithful service. This indiscriminate extravagance is what Jesus praises and calls us to do, indiscriminately share the extravagance of our wealth. 

We may ask what is our wealth? Our primary wealth is not only our money or possessions, it is our piety; that is, our empowerment to honor the Lord and to act towards others indiscriminately according to our faith as God has acted faithfully towards us.

When we actively engage the least of God’s people, the abused, the poor and the outsiders and share our piety and wealth with them, they are teaching us a lesson in piety and causing a reversal – promiscuous sharing of our wealth both material and spiritual enriches everyone.

We learn much from this story about what promiscuous sharing of our piety entails and why it is so important that we do it.  We can expect questions and rebuke for righteous behavior, not just a mild “no, no” but likely a strongly voiced outrage of “How dare you!” from the spiritually blind.

We may ask: why are people so offended by the piety of helping an outsider, a marginalized person? Is it because it is easier to challenge another’s use of wealth than our own?  Is it because down deep we don’t like a Christian spiritual value system that transcends and challenges a cultural value systems built on material wealth? Is it because it turns promiscuity from a word used to describe unhealthy sexual behavior into one accurately describing the pious and indiscriminate use of our good gifts. (All good gifts come from God, you know.)

A Christian grows wealthy in spiritual riches through extravagantly giving them up to others. It sustains oneself and one’s fellow.  It magnifies and assuages our own spiritual poverty. At this dinner Jesus and this woman point every eye toward the extravagant gift of the empty tomb of Jesus of Nazareth and upsets the meaning of extravagance for us all.

Amen.

Day 833 - Knockin' On Heaven's Door

A reflection given on March 16, 2015 to the Urban Outreach Ministry, Chattanooga, TN 

Gospel Reading: Mark 10:17-52

We continue our reading of Mark’s teachings on discipleship as we near the royal entry into Jerusalem. I acknowledge the title of this reflection was stimulated by Bob Dylan's song of the same words, and that a beautifully poignant blues song "Hangin' On the Cross Between Heaven and the Blues"  by Bruce Katz about our thin faith and the Lord's grace lingered in my mind, influencing my words.

There were two men knocking on heaven’s door.  One was young and well-to-do who though he lived a righteous life and sought eternal life. The other was disabled, blind, and destitute; a beggar whose disability barred him from the Temple according to the same law the rich man lived his life. The beggar sought only mercy. The lesson lies between them.

The young, rich man sought the dream of eternal life that this strange man from Galilee proclaimed. He must have harbored some idea of the credibility of this man that seemed constantly to goad the priests, scribes, Romans and even his own disciples over their hypocrisy. He called him “good teacher.” The young man posed a question to this Galilean, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Perhaps the young man wanted to add eternal life to his repertoire of righteousness, and go on with his daily life? Yet Jesus must have glimpsed a flash of true sincerity because Mark tells us “he loved the young man,” but also saw the error in his ways to think the road and gate to eternal life is so wide and easy to enter.

“Why do you call me good, no one is good but God alone.” Is he playing with a bit of irony here? Is he asking if the young man really knows who Jesus is? Or is he reminding the young man that every person's righteousness under the law is imperfect? No one is truly good except God.

He certainly challenged imperfect righteousness. “If you want eternal life go and sell everything and give the proceeds to the poor. Them come and follow me to the Kingdom of God.” Did the young man see the light and do as bidden? Mark toys with us, we only learn that he went away saddened and do not get a direct resolution to his dilemma.

The disciples see this interchange and hear the words about how wealth is a barrier to Heaven’s door (remember this passage is about discipleship) and probably somewhat proudly remark, "Teacher we (are not like that rich young man, we) have given up everything to follow you. We are your lieutenants, let’s get on to the royal party in Jerusalem.” The poor disciples. We know they will soon run away saddened just like the rich, young man and frightened for their lives.

Again Jesus has to remind his faithful disciples that their pride is their barrier, those who are first must be last. For the third time he tells them what awaits in Jerusalem, “I will be condemned to death, handed over to the Romans(Gentiles) and the priests and scribes who will mock me, spit on me, flog me and kill me; but in three days I shall arise again.”

[Unless you are poor and destitute, you probably do not know exactly what Jesus means about money. I will surmise that most of us cling to our possessions more than to our faith.

Ruby Payne (see Day 792) said people who are economically impoverished actually come closest to Jesus’ command to give up everything to follow him. For a person living in poverty, money serves a single purpose, to be spent preferably on the needs of family and friends in the anticipation of reciprocity. As an example, I have been helping a very poor family with housing. Last Friday she gave me $75 towards the $190 I spent on the weekly hotel rent, saying she was paying me back because she knew she might need my help again. The faith in future help far outweighs the desire to cling to the money. In a sense she is living the rule Jesus gave us, treating her neighbor (me) the way she would have me treat her.]

Did the message of service sink in to the disciples’ consciousness? Or were they simply consternated, “Why is he talking this way?” They fall behind Jesus on the road to Jerusalem via Jericho, uncertain for the moment and in fear.

That fear that is never far away soon subsides (You would think these guys are really simpletons, but Mark’s point is they are just like us). Almost immediately James and John come to him and as the rich, young man did, and pose a request that is almost in the form of an imperative, “We want you to do something for us. When we get to the seat of power, let us sit at your left and right hand.”

Even though Jesus tells them kindly that it is not his choice to decide who sits where but the Father’s, and they do not know the danger they invite on themselves by such a request, their request still incited discord among the other disciples.

The others react with jealousy. I can imagine them saying, “What gall James and John have! We are as deserving of that honor as James and John, maybe even more qualified.”

How can Jesus be so patient with his stumbling disciples when they react with an outburst so utterly contradictory to everything he has taught them? It can only be because of his love for them and humanity. If Jesus had been a modern day blues man, what great songs he would have written as teaching tools!

He does reveal a powerful and perplexing message to them, one they will not get until Jesus has left, and even then perhaps only imperfectly.

 (It is worth reminding the reader how seditious to the Romans this next message by Jesus is. Romans valued the virtue of power. It was the highest, most noble virtue. The Romans set humility as the most abominable virtue for them but the greatest virtue for a slave. The Romans brutally punished every slave and conquered people who were not humbly subservient. The ultimate punishment for the lack of subservient humility was crucifixion.)

Jesus can only tell them again, face-to-face, they cannot be like the gentile (Roman) rulers and lord their power over everyone. If there is greatness among them, it will be revealed not in a servant but in one who is a slave to all. To seal this radical teaching, he reveals exactly that this is his purpose, “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.”

And then our poor blind beggar Bartimaeus appears.

Bartimaeus had never seen Jesus (he is blind), but must have heard of him. Not only that he seems to know who Jesus is. The beggar calls him mistakenly the “Son of David.” Jesus is is not the “Son of David” but the “Son of Man” or the “Son of God.” Perhaps we should give some accommodation to the beggar’s misconception, he is blind. But maybe this is the point of the event.

Imagine Bartimaeus, calling loudly, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” and the crowd and disciples trying their best to shut him up - so much for the teaching about children of God.

A blind beggar. Do you see the contrast to the rich young man? Bartimaeus has nothing but the desire to call for mercy and Jesus asks him,” What do you want me to do for you.”

What mercy does Bartimaeus seek? Power? A seat at the throne? He only seeks to see. He has no thought of a beggar’s request for coins just, “Let me see again.”

His faith in the mercy of Jesus healed Bartimaeus. Perhaps Mark intends that regaining sight means Bartimaeus’ faith has allowed him to understand who Jesus is, not the Son of David, but the Son of Man, because the first thing he does is fall in behind and follow Jesus. For the first time, almost at Jerusalem’s gate, Jesus allows (calls?) an outsider barred from the Temple who has been healed to follow him.

I hope the message is not lost on us. Bartimaeus made no request for power, to sit at the left or right. He did not expect to become wealthy for having faith in Jesus unlike the famous pastor today who asks his followers to donate funds to buy the big jet aircraft for his use. He did not try to hoard what little he had. If he was called, it reads like following Jesus for him was a natural as taking the next breath.

Bartimaeus acted on nothing but pure, humble faith. Truly he was knocking on heaven’s door backed up by the faith the rich young man did not muster, and perhaps possessed the sight (faith) that the disciples and us need to gain.

(We will come back to the puzzling power of faith again in one week when the women go to the Tomb where Jesus had been buried in order to apply balm to the body. Remember this call for unsubstantiated faith.)

These verses are a powerful final lesson in discipleship before Jesus entered Jerusalem for the last time. There should be no question that power and money are vicious, spirit-killing drugs that separate both the rich and poor from grace and discipleship.

 I see it almost every day working with poor, destitute and homeless people. Well-to-do Christians, including ruling elders and pastors, who have a great largesse allow diabetic and broken men be kicked out of church shelters because the shelter manager lords his power over those entrusted to him. He does not like the presence of people from his past who used to drug on the street with him, or someone broke a rule in a one-strike-and-you-are-out circumstance. 
       Congregations often pay a pastor a six figure income expecting the pastor to focus on preaching, yet struggle with its mission and per capita giving.  
       I have seen police in Chattanooga ticket a person falsely and take his identification card knowing the man has a felony history and if stopped without his identification card by another policeman is subject to immediate arrest and imprisonment. No one seems to care.

I’ve gotten angry myself at some of the folks I work with in our ministry who have taken money I loaned them and wasted it. I'll never see it repaid, even if i'm in need.

No one of us is truly good except God. We all harbor that imperfection in righteousness. Lord, I ask where have we all fallen as disciples? I wonder how many of us all are sick with the illness of thin faith, who have a sin-sick soul as the hymn goes? We have heard and read these teachings, don’t love your possessions but love the Lord. Don’t lord your status over people but slavishly serve them instead.

Yet there are diamonds among us (better than me) whose faith glimmers. They seem to have an intrinsic nature and calling to do this practice of being a servant not a lord quietly, unseen and better than the rest of us. God bless them.  

They travel to Haiti or Africa to work with people in need. They risk contracting Ebola to help those suffering from it. They work in the inner cities among those who have lost hope, not as a modern day Charon boating only the rich to the gates of Hades where they may find that final resting place for dead souls and pushing the poor without their silver obolus out of the boat into the river Styx. They make the point that there is faith and hope in the grace of discipleship for the inner city of the world for us all. They spend their money, time and talents on those in need, not in harping about polity. They bring a meal to a shut-in, or fix an elderly woman's porch steps. God bless them.

Jesus is really asking the rest of us disciples, “Why don’t you take my teachings seriously, even now as I step towards my act of ultimate faith when I am ‘hanging on the cross between Heaven and the blues?’ Why do you hang on to this old world so tightly, why do you run away from discipleship in fear? Will your faith heal your blindness?” 

God bless us all with grace and the power of humility. We need it.

Amen.

Day 824 - A Hero Sandwich

A sermon based on devotional readings of the Urban Outreach Ministry, March 9, 2015,
Chattanooga, TN

Gospel Reading: Mark 9:30-10:16

In our Urban Outreach Ministry worship rather than listen to sermons in these two weeks preceding Palm Sunday, we are reading Jesus' approach to Jerusalem and his teachings on discipleship as accounted in the Gospel of Mark. This sermon is a reflection on our first text composed after letting it simmer on the stove for a few days. Next week we will read Mark 10:17-52. In this sermon I want to thank Paul Rader for reminding me of Mark's literary device called a "sandwich."

I think back on the years of my childhood with some nostalgia when I read these passages in Mark. They were a ubiquitous presence in our little Baptist Church in Rome, Georgia. We always sang, “Jesus loves me,” and there was an illustration on the wall of our Sunday school classroom with Jesus holding little children in his lap with the phrase placed below it, “Let the little children come unto me.” Of course as I grew up I continued to want to make this story in Mark about children.

In seminary we studied "Old" and New Testament history and read many commentaries on the Gospel. That, and my work in urban ministry has given me a different perspective on the message than I had from my childhood experience.

Mark has presented his Gospel in a very deliberate way. The entire segment we are passing through the last couple of weeks is a full lesson on discipleship aimed more at his disciples than the crowds that beset Jesus. At every step in this series from the end of chapter 8 to chapter 11 when Jesus enters Jerusalem, Jesus challenges the ordinary thinking of the disciples and us about what discipleship requires. He has told them about the cross in his future and following him risks comparable dangers.

Now, Jesus has returned home to Galilee, the place those in Jerusalem see as a backwater province full of rubes and uneducated people who talk in a distinctive colloquial voice. He has brought only his disciples and has intentionally avoided the crowds in the preceding verses in order to engage them in a teaching lesson.

When they reach the house where they are spending the night Jesus questions them about the argument they are having over who among them was the greatest, but they were afraid to tell Jesus. They still have sugarplums in their dreams after the transfiguration though Jesus warned them the Son of Man would go through many sufferings and be treated with contempt. They just don’t get it.

Six days earlier Peter rebuked Jesus for saying the same outrageous thing. Jesus had described the hardships that being a disciple will entail, but they could not perceive and understand the words they heard. Perhaps they were blinded by pride, status and jealousy of their “high connection” with the Messiah and heard only what they wanted Jesus to say.

Jesus does not force them to reveal the reason for arguing (he obviously knows), he simply lapses into a discussion about discipleship and children. First he takes an obvious slap at their argument about who is the greatest. 
       He says,  “If you want to be first (or the greatest) then you must be last as a servant to all.” Isn’t it obvious that Jesus is speaking with his own future in mind, and, as we readers know, his status as Lord of all as we sing in one of our earliest hymns?

But he doesn’t stop with this comment. He takes a child, perhaps picking a little one up in his arms or putting his hand on the shoulder or head of a child, and says, “Who ever welcomes a child like this welcomes me, and not only that, the person welcomes the one who sent me,”  -The Lord.

Why do you think he uses a child as his teaching tool? Is he just telling us to be nice to children because God loves them?

To answer these two questions, I want to diverge to talk about one of Mark's literary teaching devices. Mark uses a literary technique to make his points that seminarians often called a “sandwich.” Mark uses two events or teaching to introduce and conclude an intervening message that is intimately related to or illumines the faces of the sandwich. Though sometimes parabolically, the front and back and the intervening text magnify each other.

This "sandwich" describes the quality of a hero. Analogous to God's response to Job as a "mighty man." (The NRSV link translates the Hebrew word as "man" but the real meaning is "mighty man," "hero" or "warrior." You may enjoy reading the full chapter 40.), Jesus is describing the quality of the hero who aspires to the Kingdom of God. 

One face of this hero “sandwich” is the discussion about children and the first being last. The intervening verses, the innards of the sandwich, drive home the meaning of his use of the children. 
        In this case, the “guts “of the sandwich are layered. Jesus talks about the ways disciples may lead others (children?) astray. They place stumbling blocks in the path of the faithful. As a result they have millstones tied around their neck and will be thrown into the sea for it.

Jesus adds another layer to the heart of the sandwich after he left home and entered Judah on the way to Jerusalem. It isn't a comfortable teaching for many of us. A close pastor friend once remarked this as a "hard" teaching. Pharisees challenging Jesus about why divorce is permitted in the Law confront him. Jesus tells them the Lord gave them the option of divorce because of the hardness of heart of the people. 
        But Jesus turns it into another teaching lesson for the disciples (and us) about the sanctity, power and consequence of the union of male and female. One cannot escape the obvious fact that the consequence of most marriages is children. Jesus is placing high value on that marital relationship. (Remember the Lord also refers to his relationship with Israel as bride and groom. Jesus may also be taking a slap at the religious establishment that has turned away from the obligation of holiness, “You shall be holy for I am holy." Bear in mind the verses in this link to the Leviticus Holy Code are not wooden commands but natural characteristics of a holy person.)

And then having added the filling of this massive sandwich that puts Dagwood's sandwiches to shame, he adds the other face to complete it with his response to the disciples who still are trying to prevent the children on the street from coming to him. He tells them, " ‘It is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.  Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.’ And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.”

Most observant Jews then and now know their heritage as the children of Israel (aka Jacob). Jesus uses these two examples with children not only to take the disciples to task for trying to keep children away but also the temple establishment that puts stumbling blocks in the path of the children of Israel.

Jesus is reinterpreting his earlier teaching to the crowd and his disciples by saying following him requires approaching the world with the trust and innocence of children, not as power mongers. Jesus regularly prodded the temple leadership, and Rome as being stumbling blocks or worse to God’s children. Jesus is talking about children, but the way I see it, he is not just talking about Jewish children but everyone who thirsts for grace - and the stumbling blocks who confound them.

If we knew more about the plight of children in the time Mark was written it might add historical perspective to this passage. Unfortunately, the historical record is almost silent concerning non-elite children in the Roman era. Only the elite were subjects of documentation.

Roman society lived under the principle of paterfamilias. Children were property of the household, be they children of slaves, or the Roman wife and father. The father had the right to disown his children and to use the children of slaves or outcasts sexually. Upon birth, the baby would be placed on the ground for the father to view. If he picked the child up it was brought formally into the household. If not, it was “exposed” to the elements and died. We can also surmise that the plight of children was not at all good even in loving homes. The probability of a child living past 1.5 years was 25%, and 50% died before age 10.

We know in the early era of Judaic history infanticide was common. Several prophets condemn it. Who can forget Micah 6:7-8, “Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” He has told you, O mortal, what is good; what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

This hero sandwich suggests Jesus has in mind that we approach the world with childhood innocence, the beauty of a mind that has yet to learn to deceive, hurt and hate. As I said, it is a hard teaching.

You may recall the television commercials of Ally Bank that touted their claimed fair treatment of customers by capitalizing on how easy it is to deceive a trusting child. In one, two elementary school-aged girls sit at a table. The banker asked first one if she would like a pony. The girl smiles eagerly saying “yes,” and he pulls out a plastic pony and gives it to her. She smiles and happily begins playing with it. Then he turns to the second girl and asks if she would like a pony, naturally her reply is “Yes,” so he whistles and a real pony walks over to the excited girl. The first girl with a hurt look on her face says, “You didn’t tell me I could have a real pony.” The banker replies to the girl, “Well, you didn’t ask.” Disappointment and hurt paint the face of the girl.

There are worse examples such as the priest, pastor, elder, deacon or youth leader schooled in these texts who molest children.  Yet how many of us parents have cursed, argued or fought with our spouse in the presence of our children?

There is one other family inspired by Jesus that the years have tarnished. It is the family whose values were formed by these teachings within the early years of Christianity. We call it the congregation.

Hang onto that thought and wonder why is the average age of a Presbyterian over 60? Where have all the children (here, some many under 60) gone? Have we driven them out of our congregations with our thin, tarnished discipleship?

With this statistic in mind I began to worry about who are the stumbling blocks. I recalled the answers of college students at a student ministry house to my two questions, “Do you currently find comfort in a worshipping congregation? Whether "yes" or "no," can you share some reasons why?”

Here are a few of the answers:

“I have generally found that organized religion tends to be hypocritical, close-minded and unable to compromise with differing views, although I do not deny that open-minded groups could exist. Also I was not raised a Christian but in another religion.”

“I do not currently attend church or any place of worship. I used to when I was younger but no longer find myself gaining anything from attending, as I do not believe in organized religion.”

 “…I don’t attend a worship service because …(I) am struggling with my beliefs and faith. I don’t like hearing things about God (but) I like listening to Bible stories because there are a lot of life lessons that can be learned. I also feel people believe just because they were told to (and) don’t question anything or see the works of God themselves.”

“I hated going to church the few times I did growing up because I felt very judged. Anytime I went I felt unwelcomed. I feel that church is a place for people to go to make themselves feel better about being “Christian” yet when they leave they do not practice what they preach. I believe God is about love and acceptance and most places I’ve been do not give this vibe.”

 “I’ve been hopping around churches the past year now. I am looking for a church that moves in the Holy Spirit and us working and moving in the Full Gospel. I can’t really say why I haven’t been able to be consistent with a church yet, but I know the Lord will provide one in due time. I’m looking for a church that is very loving, welcoming and has a family feel.”

Perhaps each of us should seek with even more effort to lead by loving example by reaching more deeply into our heart and finding more grace and less authority of the paterfamilias? I challenge you to make, to seek out and invite into our temporary home, our congregation, to welcome the children of the world who are seeking and hoping for a path to the true home, because Jesus loves us all. I think that is the expectation Jesus has of us, his disciples.

AMEN.