Watch the sermon video here:

https://youtu.be/ZX8C8ZGSmQk

Hespeler, 14 March 2021 © Scott McAndless – Lent 4
Numbers 21:4-9, Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22, Ephesians 2:1-10, John 3:14-21

This morning, we read perhaps one of the most beloved Bible verses of all times: John 3:16. “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.” And I certainly understand why people love this verse so much. It is an almost perfect expression of the gospel and of the grace and love of God. But I’m going to be honest here, there is another verse in that reading that I would say I love even more than verse 16, and that is the verse that comes right after it. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

Being saved

The thing I love about that verse is that it describes just how limitless God’s love really is, that it is able to extend even to the whole world. It also brings us to the term that I want to focus on this morning and that is the word “saved.” This verse makes it quite clear that Christ’s purpose in coming had to do with saving people, indeed with saving the whole world. But I find that that past participle, saved, and the connected noun which is salvation have become a bit problematic for the church today. You see, they are words that have taken on special meaning in the life of the church where they mean something very different than they would to people outside the church.

When we talk about salvation in the church, we are usually talking about saving people from their sins or their guilt and we often mean getting people to heaven after they die. Do you realize that, outside the church, when somebody uses the words, “You saved me,” they are almost never talking about sin or heaven? But when we use those same words speaking to God in church, that is almost all we ever mean. It’s a little bit funny.

What did John mean by “saved”?

But what does being saved mean in the passage we read from the Gospel of John. Is it the churchy definition, or the one that people actually use in the world? Well, to answer that, I think we should look closer at the verse before the more famous one. Just before the verse about how God so loved the world, we have a verse that goes like this: “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” So, whatever sort of salvation is being spoken of in this passage, it must be something like what was there when Moses lifted up a serpent in the wilderness.

Snakes in the Camp

And that brings us to the odd passage that we read from the Book of Numbers this morning. It is, in many ways, one of the typical stories of the wandering of the people of Israel in the wilderness. The people get upset and mad at Moses and they start to complain. And then, following the pattern of many other stories, God sends some sort of punishment.

But this punishment is really kind of special. “Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died.”That is how the story is usually translated and, it is a pretty horrific story, kind of like the stuff of nightmares. Can you imagine being stuck in a situation where your whole camp is overrun with poisonous snakes? It makes my skin crawl just to think about it!

It is actually “Seraphim Serpents”

But that translation is not quite as simple as that. Because the word for poisonous is not in the original Hebrew text. What it actually says in Hebrew is that God sent seraphim serpents among the people. Hmm, seraphim, where have I heard that word before? Oh yes, I remember. It is a word that is used a number of times in the Bible to describe various supernatural beings. There seem to be two kinds of angels in the Bible, cherubim and seraphim. We even often still use the singular form of those words in English when we speak of cherubs and seraphs. So what it literally says in the original Hebrew is that heavenly beings in the form of serpents invaded the camp. Now what are we supposed to do with that?

If our experience with the pandemic has taught us anything, it is that anytime you have a large group of people living in a communal setting, like nomads camping together, there is a very real danger of various kinds of sickness spreading quickly with devastating effect. I suspect that is the kind of thing that is being described in this passage. Again, as we all know, such a situation can be extremely bewildering and frightening and that is the kind of terror that we see in this passage as the people despair.

Some Kind of Spiritual Attack

Because they couldn’t really understand what was terrifying them, they naturally described it in supernatural terms. The use of the word seraph, a word for a supernatural being, is basically their way of saying that they are under attack in many ways. It’s not just a physical sickness, it’s also a terror of the heart. A camp infested with seraphim is a camp that is in the midst of a spiritual battle where they feel under attack in their minds, their bodies and their spirits.

That is the horror that is being described in this passage. And that is what prompts them to seek for salvation. “The people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.’” And, in response, God tells Moses to make a representative of these seraphim creatures out of bronze and put it on a pole.

The Problem with Moses’ Response

Now, I have so many questions about this. Is this not the same Moses who gave the commandment about how you shall not have any “graven images” of heavenly creatures who is making this graven image of a seraphim, which is a heavenly creature? It is indeed a bit of a problem and becomes a very real problem later on in Israel’s history. But, on a certain level, what Moses does makes a lot of sense. The people are scared of what seems like a supernatural enemy that is beyond their understanding, and Moses takes their abstract fears and makes them something concrete, something that they can look at. And it is that that saves them.

mRNA Vaccines

In a way, it is kind of what researchers like Moderna and Pfizer have done by creating messenger RNA vaccines to save our population from Covid-19. This is an amazing new approach to making vaccines where the vaccine doesn’t actually contain any of the virus. What it does rather is teach your cells how to make a protein that is part of the virus. It is like you are actually creating an image of the thing that is attacking you. That image teaches your body that there is a way to defeat it. That is how an mRNA vaccine works. And that is basically what Moses did when be made a bronze image of the thing that was attacking them and that image taught them that it could be defeated.

You see, salvation in the Bible actually means what we generally mean by salvation in the real world. It is not limited to spiritual things like forgiving sins or getting people into the afterlife, salvation is actually about God meeting us wherever we are. If you are sick, salvation comes in the form of healing. If you’re drowning in the water, salvation is someone reaching out a hand or a life preserver. If you’re terrified of something, salvation may come in the form of giving you a way to manage that fear. And that’s kind of what Moses did for the children of Israel.

How is Jesus on the Cross like that?

And the Gospel of John tells us that when Jesus was nailed up on the cross, it was just like what Moses did with that bronze seraphim serpent. That means many things. It means, first and most important of all, that you don’t just need to look for one kind of salvation from Jesus. No matter what anyone might have told you, Jesus didn’t just come here on earth to offer you a way to heaven. Jesus didn’t just come to save you from your sins. I mean, yes, if those are the very things that you need at this particular moment, then Jesus did come to offer you that kind of salvation, but please do not limit yourself to seeking that from Jesus.

We All Need Saving

We all need saving at various points in our life. In fact, I might even go so far as to suggest that there is always something that we need saving from. The fact of the matter is that if you are struggling at this moment in your life from anything, then you can know that Jesus actually came to meet you in that struggle. Are you struggling with loneliness and isolation? Lord knows that many are in these days! Jesus came to save you in that.

I know that there are a number of people everywhere who have struggled in these difficult times and have developed certain ways of coping – maybe through drinking a bit more or self-medicating in some other ways, others have developed compulsive behaviors or patterns of relating with people that are not all that healthy.

These coping methods have helped you to get through this time and that is okay, but maybe you are starting to realize that some of the habits you developed are not going to serve you well going forward and you’re beginning to see the need for a change and realize that that change may not be easy. Well, that is also a way in which you need to be saved. And I’m here to tell you that Jesus came to save you from that.

Getting that Salvation Going

Indeed, any sickness you may be struggling with whether in mind or body or spirit is something that Jesus has come to save you from. But, of course, the question is how do we get that saving process going? The Gospel of John tells us that it works like it worked for the people in the wilderness when Moses made the bronze serpent. They needed to look at this thing that represented their deep-seated fears, and that triggered the healing that they needed. John is saying that looking at Jesus when he is lifted up on the cross (that must be what it refers to) triggers the same mechanism of salvation.

What I think he means by that is this: that picture of Jesus upon the cross is a perfect depiction of everything that we struggle with, whether it be pain, rejection, addiction, depression or frailty. If you see Jesus upon that cross, there is no denying that he entered into the very worst of what it means to be human. And the very idea that Jesus could do that while being, at the same time, both entirely human and entirely divine, means that he experienced all of the physical and spiritual and mental challenges we face.

Like the bronze serpent, the sight of Jesus upon the cross puts all of that into a concrete image that we can relate to and that helps to calm our fears and understand that we can handle this because we are not facing it alone. That is the salvation that Jesus offers to you and he offers it to you today.

A Salvation Exercise

So let us engage in a salvation exercise. Many of you have made a serpent to bring today. We are going to use that in our focus exercise. I want you to look at your serpent. Or, of course, you can imagine a serpent on a stick in your mind. If it makes you feel more comfortable, you can imagine Jesus on the cross. As we shall see, it is all the same thing. But whatever it is you are looking at, focus your mind on that image. Leave aside all other thoughts as best as you can.

Now I am going to ask you to think of something that is keeping you, right now, from being all that you believe you are supposed to be. It might be something in the world around you, it might be something in your body, in your mind or brain, or it might be in your spirit. Can you find one thing? Think on that one thing for a moment.

Now, would you join me in a silent prayer? Pray this: Lord Jesus, save me from… and insert that thing. Pray it again and a third time. Jesus does save. Now look at your image. Let that be your reminder right now and in the week to come that Jesus does save you. When you doubt that he does, look at that image. Let it remind you that the things you struggle with – the things that seem so big to you – are but little things to Jesus.

Lord Jesus, thank you that you save your people. Amen.

Watch the video here:

https://youtu.be/C0WWa9vcHA4

Hespeler, 7 March 2021 © Scott McAndless – Lent 3
Exodus 20:1-17, Psalm 19, 1 Corinthians 1:18-25, John 2:13-22 (click to read)

A lot of people really struggle with the story that we read this morning from the Gospel of John – basically the same story that is told in all of the Gospels – of how Jesus went into the temple in Jerusalem, and he got really mad. In what almost seems like a tantrum, he was overturning tables, and shouting and screaming at all the people. He was whipping the animals and ordering people around. It just seems to go against so much of the image of Jesus that we have in our minds. Is this “gentle Jesus meek and mild”? Is this the same man who taught his followers to turn the other cheek and to love their enemies? How could the one who came to save humanity show so much anger?

Why we made whips today

Those are all really good questions, and I think there are ways of working through them. And I’d like to do that today by focusing in on an object, an object that is only explicitly mentioned in John’s Gospel but that is kind of taken for granted in the others. The object I’m talking about, of course, is a whip. I was kind of struck by John’s note that Jesus made a whip of cords. I was so struck by it, in fact, that I had you folks make a whip for today.

Now, I didn’t do that without some second guessing. I had a little bit of trouble with the idea of asking kids to make what is essentially a weapon. And I, like any experienced father, immediately imagined scenes of kids using them to whip each other. And then I imagined parents getting very angry with me. But, of course, it says right there in the Bible that Jesus made one, so how could I be blamed for having people follow the example of Jesus?

Why did Jesus make a whip?

But let’s ask the question for a moment, why did Jesus make a whip? The fact that he made it on the spot indicates that he had not really planned this. That is actually a bit of a surprising note in the Gospel of John which often insists that every single step of what Jesus did while he was in Jerusalem was all preordained and that Jesus knew everything that would happen and actually made sure that it happened that way.

But, in this passage, John seems to indicate that Jesus hadn’t planned what happened in the temple. Instead, he just picked up some of the pieces of rope and cord that are always lying around in any busy marketplace, and he braided them together to make a whip on the spot. It was not pre-planned; it was rather that Jesus got rather swept up in a moment.

The temple in Jerusalem

So the big question in this story is what was it that made Jesus so upset. It is not as easy a question to answer as you might think. The temple in Jerusalem was, in Jesus’ day, a massive complex. It might have encompassed two football fields. There were places for everyone there with courts for women, for Gentiles and for Jewish men as well as places reserved only to the priests.

The temple was also, quite likely, the largest marketplace in the city. It had to be. The temple was the only place where Jews were allowed to sacrifice which meant, for the great majority of people, it was the only place that they could go to actually supplement their diets with meat because, of course, the sacrifices were eaten by the worshipers. But, since the temple was a monopoly and people could sacrifice no place else, many of them came from great distances. They could not bring their sacrificial animals all that way, and so they would have to buy one when they arrived.

There were also money changing booths, but those too were also absolutely necessary. The money changing wasn’t the fault of the Jews, but actually of the Romans. The Romans circulated coins that had images of emperors on them – images of people who the coins themselves proclaimed to be gods. And the law of Moses was very clear on that point, there were to be no graven images of any gods, especially not in the temple. And so the people had to exchange their coins for special currency that could be used in the temple.

All of these things were necessary in order for the temple to continue to exist, for the people to worship and to eat. These things were what made it possible for the temple to function as a house of prayer for all nations, and that is what it was. But apparently, when Jesus walked into the temple on that day, he saw something going on that was so disturbing that he suddenly felt that he had to do something. He grabbed the only thing that was available at hand, some bits of rope and chord, and he made himself a whip, a symbol of his anger at what was going on.

Was Jesus trying to shut the place down?

But what was it? When you read about it in the Gospel of John, which we read this morning, you get the impression that the issue was that there was a marketplace. “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!” is all that Jesus says. But, like I said, it’s a bit puzzling for Jesus to be angry at that. The temple had always been a marketplace and it needed to be a marketplace to fulfill its proper function.

So, if Jesus was trying to shut down the market, he was essentially shutting down the whole institution. And I think that is a part of what is going on here. You see it in what Jesus goes on to say: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Yes, I know that John reassures us that, when Jesus said that, he wasn’t talking about the actual temple but about his own body, but by the time this gospel was written, the temple in Jerusalem had already been destroyed. The readers could not help but make the connection between what Jesus had done and the ultimate destruction that he obviously anticipated. At the very least, Jesus was definitely pointing out the fragility of the temple as an ongoing institution for that society and anticipating the need to find new ways to think about what the temple accomplished for the people.

What Jesus says in the other gospels

There are other accounts in the other gospels of what Jesus said about the temple that I think we need to take into account. According to the Gospel of Mark, Jesus caused a disturbance in the temple saying, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’ But you have made it a den of robbers.” Rather than being concerned about the marketplace, Jesus there talks about the need for the temple to be a house of prayer for all people. And indeed it was such a place. As I said, there was an entire court of the temple that was set aside for the people of all the nations to come and pray. But the problem, according to Mark, is that it has become a robber’s den.

I think a lot of people have misunderstood that. People have heard that accusation and assumed that there must have been some shady things going on in the temple. I remember, when I was younger, hearing sermons about how the entire temple system in Jerusalem must have been dedicated to ripping the people off – that people were being overcharged for the sacrificial animals and swindled in the money changing, you know that kind of thing. And those would indeed be serious problems worthy enough to make Jesus angry, but the fact of the matter is that there is no evidence that that kind of thing was going on in Jerusalem in the first century.

What is a robber’s den for?

And, in any case, that is not what Jesus is saying is happening. Jesus doesn’t call the temple a crime scene, he calls it a robber’s den. The den is not where robbers rob people, it is the place they come back to after they have finished their crimes. It is the place where robbers feel safe and maybe where they keep their ill-gotten gains. That is the accusation that Jesus makes against the temple, and it points to a much more insidious danger.

The real danger he is pointing to, and I do not believe that it was a particular danger to that temple or within Jewish religion, is actually a danger that is common to all religion. The danger is that people use their religious practices, their prayers, their sacrifices and their religious observances to give themselves a sense of security and a sense that they are all right.

Just like robbers feel comfortable in their robber’s den, they use their outward shows of religiosity and righteousness to allow themselves not to worry about things like systemic injustice, economic exploitation or hidden oppression, especially when they can benefit from it themselves. I cannot help but believe that it was that, more than anything else, that animated Jesus on that day.

Our discomfort with anger

And he was angry. He was in a spontaneous rage. And I know people feel uncomfortable with that. We get very nervous around anger and the expression of anger. Some might suggest it’s an emotion that we should always suppress. But the emotion itself is not a bad thing. Yes, of course, there are bad ways to express or deal with your anger, but the emotion itself should not be feared if we can find ways of dealing with it that help instead of hurt. Indeed, suppressing anger can sometimes lead to very damaging effects including mental health problems and the erosion of important relationships in our lives. So, I believe we can actually look to Jesus in this story as a model for dealing with legitimate anger in helpful ways.

Jesus takes his anger and uses it to try to make people think differently about what they are really doing. He chooses to use it, not to lash out and certainly not to attack or seek to hurt people, but to attack the very thing that he is concerned about, the comfort that people find in religion that makes it, for them, a safe den where robbers can shelter. That is what his whip represents.

A spiritual exercise with whips

So, many of you have brought a whip to our service today. I asked you to make one just like Jesus made one in the temple. Jesus’ whip is a disturbing symbol. It is meant to be. I’d like to ask you to pick up your whip if you have one or to imagine one if you don’t.

As you contemplate your whip, I’m going to ask you a question. What makes you angry in the world around you today. Now, I’m not talking about the kind of anger that we usually experience when somebody hurts us or disrespects us or mistreats us personally. That is a legitimate anger, and we need to find productive ways to express that anger when it arises, but that is not the kind of anger that I want to focus on today.

I want you to think of something that is going on in our society, some systemic problem that maybe disadvantages certain people or groups. I want you to focus on some tendency that is eroding something important. You will not all be thinking of the same thing, and that is as it should be. But you should be able to think of something because I do believe that God lays these kinds of issues on our hearts. Sometimes we suppress that anger or hide from it because we’re afraid of it. But if we allow ourselves to be open to it, I suspect that God will show us things that we should be angry about.

Now, as you hold onto your whip, I want you to think about how you can make things just a little less comfortable for those people who perpetuate that injustice. What can you do to disrupt their easy assumption that they are superior, more righteous or more worthy, perhaps because of their race, religion or mission. That is what Jesus was doing with his whip, stopping the temple from being a place where people could escape their complicity. Will you take up your whip, will you wield it with care. This, too, is to follow the example of Christ.

Final prayer

Lord Jesus, thank you that you did get angry in the temple. You did it to show us that anger, in itself, is not a bad thing. What matters is how we express it and that we do so in constructive ways. Thank you for the anger that you send us at the injustice of this world, help us to find constructive ways to use that anger to build towards a better world, as Jesus did. Amen.

Rev. Scott McAndless

How do you report on a year like 2020? So many of the conventional approaches to annual reports simply do not work this year. If you were, for example, to compare 2020 to any previous year, like say 2019, in order to see how well you did, it would be like comparing apples to oranges but if you were comparing apples from the finest orchard in all the world to oranges that had been going bad in the bottom of the fridge for several months! We’ve never quite experienced a year like 2020 so we don’t have much to compare it to.

If we want to see how we have done in this past year, I think we are best to stick to one simple measure: how have we grown? 2 Peter 3:18 suggests that our most basic job as Christians is to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” And growth in these things is always possible. So, here is how I have seen myself grow in the past year.

I have grown by being and becoming a…

• Pastoral care supporter. During this past year, I tried to work at connecting with the people of the congregation and give them whatever support I was able to with God’s help. In many ways, I would say that I put more effort into that, more creativity and certainly more time than in many previous years. But, given the limitations that we were working under, I often felt most dissatisfied with the connection and support I was able to give. It is odd, in some ways we are so able to connect in these times, but in others we feel so very far apart. I pray that, whatever challenges come ahead, God give us the strength and wisdom to face them together.
• Content creator. Now, ministers have always been in the content creation business. Content is just a general term for any sort of media that is made available either in print or online. So sermons are content, as are things like Bible studies. But in 2020, I certainly learned a lot about producing content that is more widely available and that connected with people in new ways. During the year, I produced up to seven weekly videos that were posted on YouTube, I produced and posted extensive written content as well as audio content in the form of podcasts. In many ways, I can say that I connected with more people using these media during the year then I likely have during any other year of my ministry. Now, that doesn’t mean that I made better contact or more meaningful contact, but it does mean that we can grow in some pretty interesting ways in terms of the impact of what we do even in times like these.
• Internet analytics interpreter. How do I know about any of the things that I mentioned above? It is because I’ve learned a great deal, in this past year, about interpreting the analytical information that is available on audio and video platforms and in web page design tools. I never really wanted to learn about any of these things but has become a necessary part of ministry these days, it seems.
• Social media influencer. In order to get that kind of attention in the modern world, I’ve had to learn a lot about how to disseminate and promote information through social media. Who would have ever thought that that would be a necessary part of ministry? But it has become so in 2020 and will likely only be more so in the years to come.
• Online worship leader. I have many years of experience leading worship in many different kinds of facilities, but, until a year ago, I had never even experienced worship in a virtual community. Our zoom worship services have been a huge learning experience for all of us. There have been some difficult lessons, like learning the necessity of keeping a handle on who is in attendance and making sure that there are enough co-hosts to handle that. There is so much how about our worship in the past year that has not measured up to what we would like. We have missed music and certain forms of connection. But I think there have also been positive effects as we have been able to connect in new ways. It has been wonderful to be able to be creative about some of that. I have also really appreciated the ways in which we can share our prayer requests in that format much more interactively than we ever achieved before.
• Public health official. One thing I have not relished in the past year is having to be in the position, with the support of some others, to make difficult decisions about access to the building and the health and safety of everyone involved. I have tried to do my best to balance the need for safety with the good that we can do through ministry in the building, but I never found it to be easy.

So those are some of the areas of growth that I have noticed in the past year. I am sure, if you look back and take stock, you will discover a great deal of growth has taken place for you too. That is one of the wonders that comes with living as a disciple of Christ, who brings us growth both in the easy seasons of life and in the difficult ones.

May God richly bless you in 2021 and may you continue to see growth, even as many things get much better.

Respectfully submitted, Scott McAndless

Watch the sermon video here:

https://youtu.be/2iqOGPEPPn8

Hespeler, 28 February 2021 © Scott McAndless – Lent 2
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16, Psalm 22:23-31, Romans 4:13-25, Mark 8:31-38 (click to read)

If you were a Galilean living in the first part of the first century, what did a cross mean to you? Remember that this was before the most famous (or infamous) crucifixion in human history. What did the cross mean before Jesus was nailed to one?

Oh, they would have had some sense of the meaning. Crucifixions were a part of their life and history. The Romans did not invent crucifixion. It was a particularly brutal form of execution that had been used by a number of other empires before them. But the Romans seemed to have lifted the crucifixion to an import symbolic status.

How the Romans Used Crucifixion

It was a form of death that was so painful and shameful that it would not be used against people who had any sort of status. Roman citizens, for example, could not be crucified no matter what they did. No, it was a form of death that was reserved for what the Romans saw as the very worst sorts. Rebellious slaves, for example, were routinely crucified. The most famous example being in the great slave revolt led by Spartacus.

When Spartacus and his slave army were finally defeated, the victorious general, Crasus, celebrated by crucifying thousands of slaves on crosses that lined the Appian Way, the most important highway in ancient Italy, for miles and miles and miles. This was not just the celebration of a victor, however, but a very graphic warning to the huge numbers of slaves in Italy who might ever be tempted to follow their example and revolt.

Insurrectionists and those who threatened the order of the empire, if they belonged to the lower classes of course, were also often crucified. There was a huge revolt in Galilee around the time when Jesus was born which, the historian Josephus tells us, resulted in a huge number of crucifixions. It is hard to know exactly how common crucifixions were in Jesus’ day, but they were common enough that everyone would have known about them and would have understood what they meant at a very basic level.

How Christians Have Come to See the Cross

But what didn’t exist in the early first century was any of the Christian symbolism that we have come to associate with the cross. There would have been no association with the figure of Jesus himself or the idea of salvation or life after death. Certainly no one would have dreamed of using a cross as a piece of jewellery or a decoration. They likely would have been horrified at the very idea.

The Reaction that Jesus Provoked

So how then do you suppose did people react when Jesus, seemingly out of the blue, started saying, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me”? They certainly didn’t hear it the way that some Christians might hear it today. They didn’t imagine, for example, somebody wearing a cross in public as a way of advertising their belonging to the Christian faith. And they certainly wouldn’t have imagined the trite phrase that some Christians might use when they are dealing with some minor irritation or burden in their life and they say, “Oh well, that is my cross to bear.”

No, the only thing they could have possibly imagined was the image that they had seen or heard of, the image of condemned insurrectionists or rebellious slaves or bandits being forced at the end of a whip to pick up large wooden crosses and carry them to a place where they would suffer an unimaginably painful death. The only thing that they could imagine was the people hurling abuse and probably rotten fruit at those people who were so condemned – not, mind you, because they actually detested those people. They may have even had some sympathy for them. But they would have joined in abusing them anyways because they were afraid that any show of sympathy would have condemned them to the very same fate. There was absolutely nothing positive about taking up a cross that these people would have been able to think of.

Why did Jesus Say it?

So why did Jesus say that? Wasn’t he aware that saying such a thing would have shocked and stunned them? The answer is, of course, that he was aware. He knew exactly what he was doing and the shock that he gave them was entirely intentional. Jesus did that often – spoke in ways that were designed to shock people into changing how they looked at things. He knew that the message that he was presenting broke many of the assumptions that people had about God and about how we should live out our relationship with God and one another. But people really struggle to accept new information that does not jive with their preconceived notions. So Jesus knew that he would have to shock people into seeing things from a very different point of view.

So, I guess the question is, what assumptions were Jesus trying to shock people out of by telling them that they would need to take up their crosses if they were going to follow him? I would say that what he was trying to do was trying to shock people out of the ways that human beings have long thought about religion.

Why did he Try to Shock them?

I probably don’t need to tell you that religion, in general, does not have a stellar history. As people have related to their gods, they have often exploited religion to build the foundations of their own power. We have seen them use it to demonize outsiders and to control people on the inside. There is absolutely no question that our human impulse when we encounter something divine, is to try and see what we can get out of it for our own ends.

Why, in the passage just before the one we read this morning, Peter comes up with a remarkable realization about who Jesus is. Peter confesses that Jesus is the messiah. And, as he does that, you can almost read Peter’s thoughts. The very fact that he is the first to realize this puts him on the ground floor of this whole messianic situation. Peter can just imagine all of the prestige, influence and even power that will come to him because he is a close friend of God’s messiah. How do we know that that was what Peter was thinking? Because as soon as Jesus goes on to talk about things like suffering, rejection and death, Peter immediately goes, “Hang on a minute here! That’s not a part of the deal I was thinking of in my head!” And he started to rebuke Jesus just for bringing it up.

Shock Therapy Needed

So, yes, Jesus recognized that a little bit of shock therapy was going to be necessary. But I sometimes fear that some of the radical statements of Jesus, like this one, have largely lost their power to shock us today which may mean that they have lost all of their power. As I said before, centuries of Christian tradition have turned the image of the cross into something that is familiar and comfortable to us. They have turned it into a piece of jewelry, a decoration and a symbol of salvation. And even the idea of having a cross to bear has often become trivialized. So how can we reclaim the power of this saying of Jesus? We can only reclaim it by letting it shock us again.

Though we recognize that Jesus came to serve and ultimately to lay down his own life for the sake of ourselves and others, we also know that there is divine power in what we have experienced in Jesus. And so we do face this tendency within ourselves to turn that encounter into a base of power and influence.

An Example

The church has been doing that, to various degrees, throughout the centuries. One particularly strong illustration of this is something that we’ve seen happening in the United States over the last several decades as a kind of alliance between conservative Christianity and right-wing politics was formed. That alliance, I think there is no question, has led to the election of quite a number of conservative politicians from presidents to senators and representatives to many local officials.

So the politicians got a lot out of the alliance. But don’t think for a moment that the Christians didn’t get anything out of it. They saw the agendas that they were interested in being promoted. They saw judges that they believed would rule in their favour on various issues put into place. And I’m not trying to say anything about those particular issues. I may not agree with all of them, of course, but I can accept that Christians were promoting these issues because they believed that it was the right thing to do.

But, whatever the motivations, make no mistake that this was an alliance of power. This was about using religion and it’s influence in the way that religion has always been used by people seeking to accomplish their own goals. That was the kind of thing that Peter was dreaming about and it was the kind of thing that Jesus was trying to shock him out of.

And I realize that Christians in Canada do not operate in the same way and don’t seem to have the same kind of influence, but that doesn’t mean that we are completely immune to the lure of that kind of power alliance. We too have a certain tendency to think of our Christian faith in terms of what earthly gains we can get out of it for ourselves, whether it be a good reputation or connections or even a feeling of self-righteousness. So, yes, I do think that Jesus has a desire to shock us into thinking about all of that in very different ways.

A Spiritual Exercise

So, once again, I am going to invite us to enter into a little bit of a spiritual exercise. Many of you have made crosses to bring to the service this morning. If you don’t have one, however, I’m going to ask you to conjure one with your imagination. And I want you to put that cross on the table or lap or keyboard in front of you. Look at that cross for a minute.

Try and forget every comforting association you have ever had with a cross. It is no longer the image of an established religion. It is no longer the symbol of a comforting story of a Christ who died for you – I know it will always be that, but put that association to the side for one moment. Especially, forget every golden or jeweled cross you’ve ever seen. I want you to see that cross as the people listening to Jesus would have seen it: a symbol of horror, pain and rejection that you would not wish on your worst enemy.

Because here is the truth, for you to be an authentic follower of Jesus in this moment of time, you’re going to have to freely, of your own choice pick up, that cross, that deeply disruptive cross. What might it mean to carry such a cross in our modern world? It might mean that you choose to prioritize service to others over taking care of yourself. It might mean, for example, that in the world where we might all find ourselves soon – a world where everyone is clamoring to get a vaccination for themselves or for the person they care for – you may have to make the choice to do something that serves the health of the whole community rather than just yourself.

Carrying such a cross might mean bearing the name of Christian, not just when it’s convenient or when somebody might think well of you, but when it is extremely inconvenient, and your confession of belief might make them think less of you. That kind of thing was once quite unlikely in a society that was largely Christian, but it’s actually quite likely these days, especially if you deal with people of younger generations. But we should not be angry at that, we should actually embrace it as an opportunity to live out the Christian faith as Jesus taught us, by bearing a cross.

So look at your cross for a moment. See it for what it truly is, a very disturbing symbol. But Jesus wants you to pick it up. Jesus has many blessings available to you if you will bear such a cross. And so now, if you are willing, pick up that cross.

Final Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank you for sending Jesus to us to show us the way that we are to follow. We recognize that following that way is not meant to be easy or to automatically increase our standing in society. We pray that you would make us followers who would indeed carry the cross, no matter what the cost, because that is what it means to follow Christ. Amen.

https://youtu.be/UiRCEkxm24k

Laying Down our Bows

Hespeler, 21 February 2021 © Scott McAndless – First Sunday in Lent
Genesis 8:20-22, 9:8-17, Psalm 25:1-10, 1 Peter 3:18-22, Mark 1:9-15 (Click to read)

Can God make a mistake? Can God be sorry for that mistake? Many people would suggest that it is blasphemous to even ask a question like that. Surely God is God and God cannot ever be wrong! But then how do you explain the whole story of the flood in the Book of Genesis?

The story begins like this: “The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, ‘I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.’”

In any simple and straightforward reading of that text you cannot see anything but an admission of a mistake. God regrets creating humankind. God seems to regret it in particular because of the inherent violence of the human race. Ever since Cain and Abel, it seems that the people cannot stop attacking and killing each other. And so, God comes up with a plan. God decides that the only way to counter murder and violence is with, well, murder and violence. God decides to wipe out the whole lot of them.

And then, in our reading this morning, we meet the same God on the other side of the whole flood narrative. And here, the sense of regret seems even deeper as the Lord speaks to God’s own heart and says, “I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.” Now listen closely to that. Not only is God regretting the act of destruction that God has committed, God also seems to be admitting that it didn’t even accomplish anything. The human heart is just as evil as it ever was. The flood accomplished nothing.

Did God make a mistake?

That is the plain meaning of the text – God made a mistake and regretted it and so vowed to behave differently from now on. And, of course, ever since that story was first told, people have struggled with it and tried to explain away God’s apparent mistake. People have rightly pointed out that our minds can hardly comprehend the mind and the motivations of God. Who are we, after all, to accuse God of making a mistake when we barely even understand why we behave like we do sometimes?

So yes, we should approach God with all humility and not pretend to understand all that is in God’s mind. But, at the same time, there is no question that God shows some real remorse over what has happened and is so convinced of the need to take a new course of action that God sets a permanent reminder in the form of a rainbow in the heavens so that neither God nor anyone else can ever forget.

What if the Story Is About Us?

So, what do we do with this story? I have a thought. What if this story is not really about whether or not God can make mistakes? What if it is actually about something else – what if is it actually about us. Yes, we may never understand the thoughts of God’s heart, but we know the thoughts of our own. And I can’t help but notice that there is something familiar about how God behaves in this story – something very human. And I think it may be intentional.

God sees a problem and that problem is mounting violence. And God concludes that only one thing can fix such a problem. The only way to counter violence is with more violence. That is what we usually think too, isn’t it? The only way to stop a bad person with a gun is a good person with a gun. Ever heard that one? The only remedy to violent crime, some would say, is the death penalty. And, of course, the only way to solve a problem in a violent Hollywood movie is for Keanu Reeves or Tom Cruise to run in with guns blazing. Fixing violence with more violence seems to be our go-to strategy no matter what happens.

Well, that is the approach that God takes as well in the flood story. God chooses to simply wipe out all the violent offenders at once. But, as we see in our reading this morning, when it is all over with and everything is finally dried up, God realizes that his approach did not work. All kinds of people have died, but the basic problem still remains as God recognizes that “the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth.”

But what do we do in that kind of situation? When we recognize that the solution we have tried to follow to solve our problems hasn’t worked, what do we do? Often all we do is double down. We conclude that the problem is not that we tried to counter violence with more violence, but that maybe we just weren’t violent enough. We humans, generally speaking, are just not very good at recognizing that our strategies for dealing with problems are bad.

God Shows Us A Better Way

But God, in this story, shows us a different way. And he shows it to us with a very concrete symbol. God says this to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.”

The reference here is pretty obviously to the appearance of a rainbow that can often appear in the sky in the aftermath of a large storm. But do take note that the word that is used actually refers to a literal bow, that is to say the kind of bow that is used to fire arrows. The image here is of a warrior, God, who decides to lay down a weapon of war and not use it anymore. The rainbow is a visual symbol that that is what God has decided to do. Every time it appears it is meant to remind both God and humanity of this rejected method of dealing with problems.

And I honestly do not know what that is meant to tell us about whether or not God can make mistakes, but I suspect that it is meant to teach us something about how we ought to respond to the mistakes that we make.

As I said, we have a tendency, when the strategies we have used to solve problems do not work, to double down and just try to do them harder. This is a particular human folly, but we all do it. And I’m wondering if maybe this whole story of God and the flood is there to teach us to give up on that very folly. Every time we see the rainbow, we should remember that God gave up on a failed strategy and, if God can do that, we should think, maybe we can do it too.

Various Ways of Dealing with Problems

We all have ways of dealing with our problems. There are some people, of course, who always do try to solve their problems with violence. But that is not everybody.

Let me give you an example from my own experience. When I find myself in a situation where there is some conflict, my immediate instinct is not, like that of some people, to want to fight. I personally have a deep dislike for conflict, and so what I tend to do is I try to avoid it at all costs. If I’m in a disagreement with someone, I often want to do just about anything to resolve it quickly and that includes giving up and saying that I’m wrong, even if I actually believe I’m right. Other times, I will just do whatever I can to just simply escape the situation.

This is just how I have always tended to deal with conflict. Now, does this strategy always work? Not really. Yes, it might sometimes make things feel more peaceful in the short term, but it is not really a very good strategy for dealing with conflict over the long term and can often make it worse over time. But this is the way that I, because of my background, because of the psychological tendencies that I have, would naturally deal with any conflict or problem.

I believe that, if I want to take the example given in the story of the flood seriously, what I ought to do is that I ought to put down my bow. I need to learn to stop relying on this natural method I have for dealing with conflict because it doesn’t really work.  Indeed, I have already done a lot of this work in my life and developed other ways of responding.

But I recognize that we are not all alike. There are indeed some people who try to solve all of their problems with violence and brute strength. There are some, like me, who have developed passive aggressive strategies for avoiding conflict. There are others, and I have known a few, who’s automatic response whenever they face a difficult situation, is for them to take all of the burdens of everybody else in the situation on to their own backs, often neglecting their own needs in the process. There are others who just give up or run away. We are all different.

But the problem is that once we develop these kinds of responses to stress and trouble, we tend to lock ourselves in. And a lot of the time, these strategies just do not work and that is where we run into a lot of trouble.

The amazing thing about God in the story of the flood is that, when God discovers that the strategy doesn’t work, God lays down the bow. God vows not to use that strategy anymore. And what I’m wondering today is whether that might not be there, not to teach us something about God and God’s failures, but rather to teach us to be willing to do the same kind of thing when our strategies fail.

We Lay Down Our Bows

And so, we are going to end today’s sermon with a bit of a spiritual exercise. I know that many of you have made or drawn a rainbow for this morning’s service. I want you to take that rainbow now or, if you don’t have one (which is fine), I want you to imagine that you’re holding a bow in your hand. This bow represents your weapon. It represents how you respond in the face of a stressful, conflicted or dangerous situation.

So, close your eyes, and just imagine yourself in that kind of situation. Say that you’re in the middle of a room and people are yelling at each other because everyone’s upset and maybe they’re especially upset at you. Just imagine yourself in that situation for a moment. Are you there? Now, ask yourself, what is your instinctual response to that situation.

I’m not asking what you may have learned to do. I’m just asking what is your gut level response. Are you tempted to strike back? Do you want to play the victim? Do you want to withdraw? Do you want to fix everybody else? Do you want to play the peacemaker at the expense of yourself?

That instinctual response is your bow, your weapon. That is how you have learned to respond in that kind of situation. Has it always worked for you? Maybe sometimes, but I’ll bet that often enough it causes some serious problems.

So here’s your what I want you to do. I want you to lay down your bow. I want you to consciously decide to set aside that instinctual response to stress and ask God to empower you to make different and better responses. If you’ve been literally holding a bow, lay it down. If you’ve just been imagining one, make that motion. That’s what God did at the end of the flood, and I suspect that God did it to teach you and me that there is another way.

And, of course, the wonderful thing about the rainbow in the flood story is that it’s a continual reminder. Every time the dark clouds gather, and the winds blow and all does not seem right in the world, the rainbow appears in the clouds as a reminder that there might just be a better way to deal with our problems.

And so, if you have laid down your bow, I invite you to place that bow in a place where you are going to see it this week and throughout this season of Lent. Let it be that reminder to you of your decision to trust in God that there are better ways of dealing with your problems and with the stresses of life than the dysfunctional ones that we have developed out of our personal fears. Let it be a continual reminder of God’s promise to do the same and help to renew you during this season of Lent.

A Final Prayer

Heavenly Father, we are just a bunch of people who sometimes get things wrong. And when people are upset or they’re stressed or the world seems upside down, we don’t always respond in the best ways. Some of the weapons that we carry around with us are dysfunctional and can even make things much worse. But here we follow the example left by us in the scriptures, and we lay down our bows. We dedicate ourselves to find other ways, better ways, to deal with the difficult moments of life because we are committed to be loving and giving people. Amen.

Watch the YouTube video here:

https://youtu.be/sHkwsl7Gw44

Hespeler, 14 February 2021 © Scott McAndless – Transfiguration
2 Kings 2:1-12, Psalm 50:1-6, 2 Corinthians 4:3-6, Mark 9:2-9

I love all of the stories of the Prophet Elijah and of his disciple Elisha. But, by far, the best part of the story of these two extraordinary individuals has got to be the part that we read this morning, the story about how Elijah was taken up into heaven in a whirlwind and there was a chariot of fire. I almost can’t read this story without hearing the Vangelis song ringing through my head. “It’s chariots of fire, it’s chariots of fire, it’s chariots of fire, r r r r r.” (That is how the lyrics go, right?)

Strange Repetitions

But it’s not just about all of the special effects, there is also the question of how the story is told. It’s got this strange form to it. It goes like this. The two men are in one place, and Elijah says to Elisha, “Hey I’m going down to this other place.” And then Elisha responds, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” And that, right there, is a pretty clear indication of somebody who has huge separation issues. He is clearly anxious and worried about being separated from Elijah and has some good reason, as we shall see.

But then the story continues from there. The two men move on and arrive at a new place, where they are met by the members of something called, “the company of the prophets,” which is presumably something like a guild of prophets that has been led, up until this point, by the great Elijah. The members of this company come up to Elisha and let him know that Elijah is leaving him and all of them. (Which may, of course, help to explain Elisha’s separation anxiety.) And then Elisha says, “Yes, I know; be silent.”

And then, and this is the really interesting part to me, the whole thing repeats all over again. Elijah says he’s leaving, Elisha responds with his separation anxiety, they go and the members of the company of the prophets come out with the same words and Elisha repeats his “Yes, I know; be silent.”

I think that I have said this before in a sermon – we need to pay attention to the Bible when it repeats itself. This kind of repetition is never there just by accident. There is always some reason behind it – something that the author is trying to draw our attention to – and this story has repetition in spades. Three times in three locations, word for word, the exchange between Elijah and Elisha is repeated that ends with “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” And the exchange between Elisha and the company of the prophets that ends with “Yes, I know; be silent,” is repeated twice.

What the Repetitions Mean

So the question is what is the author trying to tell us with this strange repetition? It is, to a certain extent, just good story telling. To this very day, writers and storytellers talk about what is called the “rule of threes.” It is a writing principle that suggests that a trio of events or characters is more humorous, satisfying and effective than other numbers. In so many stories you have this same pattern. It’s why Goldilocks encounters three bears, why Scrooge is visited by three ghosts and why there are three daughters in Fiddler on the Roof.

So storytelling patterns that are as old as storytelling itself are a part of what is going on here, but there is also more to it than that. Obviously the author is building up towards something. And that something he is building towards is the ultimate removal of Elijah himself. His being “taken up,” this thing that causes Elisha so much apprehension, is the great climax of this story. But what, exactly, is there to be afraid of in that?

Fear of the Whirlwind

Well, first of all, we are told, Elijah is to be taken up in a whirlwind. Now whirlwinds are fairly common in many parts of the world, particularly in places with very dry climates. A whirlwind is like a tornado, but dry and filled with dust that sweeps across the desert. They can be very big and very frightening, and they have traditionally been seen as a sign of the presence of a god. And indeed, still today we speak of them in semidivine terms by calling them “dust devils.”

God actually appears a number of times in the Bible in the form of a whirlwind. But when God does so, it is always something that is disturbing and upsetting. The strong wind blowing chaotically in every direction is obviously a sign that God is stirring things up in a way that is going to be rather unpleasant.

God Shakes up Elisha’s World

So there, already, is something for Elisha to be apprehensive of, but there is more to it than that. For the thing that God is going to do to shake up Elisha’s world is that he is going to take away Elijah from him. Elijah has been Elisha’s master, his mentor and his guide. He has been the person who has given meaning, purpose and direction to every person in this company of the prophets. If Elijah is going away, that means that all of that is going to change. Elisha’s whole world is about to fall apart, and it is that that he fears most of all. The whirlwind is about the shake up Elisha’s whole life.

That is why Elisha clings so closely to Elijah and that is why he doesn’t want to hear what the others say about him leaving. And let’s just look at that repeated encounter with the company of the prophets. Why does Elisha react to them the way that he does? He clearly already knows what they are trying to say to him. Telling them to be silent is not going to keep him from knowing the truth about what is going to happen. He is just basically saying that he doesn’t want to talk about it.

And I totally understand that, don’t you? Who among us hasn’t been in that place where you know that something is coming, you completely understand that whatever it is is going to change everything in ways that you do not like, but you really do not want to have to think about what it all means? Much less do you want to talk about it with anybody. And so, when anybody brings it up, you say with Elisha, “Yes, I know; be silent.” Or if you really want to not talk about it, you stick your fingers in your ears and say, “la, la, la, I can’t hear you!”

What We Don’t Want to Think About

I think there is a lot of that going on in these times and perhaps not surprisingly. As our society is put through the whirlwind of a pandemic and social unrest and political upheaval, I think that a lot of us realize on some level that the things that are happening right now will lead to change and loss that is very disconcerting. What will the economy, the environment, the church, the job market and many other things look like once this whirlwind is over? And will there be a place in it all for us or for the people that we care about? These are some very disturbing questions that I think we all know, at some level, might have some very uncomfortable answers. But we’re not really talking about them. They are too uncomfortable and if somebody brings them up,  we’re just as likely to say, “Yes, I know; be silent.”

So, I think that we are right there with Elisha in his reluctance to talk about it. And that is why I believe that this story has some very important things to teach us at this particular moment. Yes, Elijah is leaving and, no, Elisha doesn’t want to talk about it. But the big scary transition comes upon him whether he wants it or not. And we finally find Elijah and Elisha on the far side of the Jordan River.

When We Can No Longer Ignore it

The moment has come, and Elisha is given one last chance to actually deal with this difficult transition. Of course, this time it is Elijah who brings it up in a way that forces Elisha to talk about it. “Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you,” the old prophet says. And it is then that Elisha is finally able to put into words his deep fear. “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit,” he says.

And this is not, like some people might assume, a case of Elisha trying to jockey for his leadership position in the company of the prophets. This is not about him trying to advance his own career. This is rather an expression of his deep fear at this moment that the entire movement is going to go up in the whirlwind. He knows there’s no one like Elijah to lead it, not even himself. But here he’s grasping for the hope that, if maybe he were to get a double portion of Elijah’s spirit, they might just find some way forward.

And that is exactly what is needed at moments like this. We need people who step forward in all humility, knowing very well that they have shortcomings, and yet who are willing to do what they can to find a way forward with the help of God’s Spirit. That is what Elisha does. And Elijah acknowledges just how difficult it is for someone to be in that position, but he affirms that it is possible. But there is one requirement. “You have asked a hard thing;” he says, “yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it will be granted you; if not, it will not.”

Dealing with What We’re Afraid to Face

So, what does that mean? That means that, in order for what Elisha knows needs to happen, he needs to do the one thing that he’s been avoiding all this time. He needs to stand there and actually watch this thing that he has been dreading happen. In other words, he needs to deal with what he has been refusing to deal with.

And I think that that is about where we are at in this moment. Because I have absolutely no doubt that God has some tremendous plans for the future of his church in this place. I have no doubts that God wants to bring about a great deal of good within this troubled society and within this country no matter what differences we may have. God will equip us, through his Spirit, to prepare for all of those things.

But there is one thing that we need to do. We need to stop saying, “Yes, I know; be silent.” We need to look at what we are losing and talk about what it means to us. Maybe we especially need to stop wasting all of our energy on trying to take things back to the way they used to be when the way they used to be just doesn’t work anymore.

Doing Lent Differently

Next week we are going to begin the season of Lent. And I know that Lent can be a bit of a downer season in the life of the church. It is traditionally a season when we focus on what we’ve done wrong, when we repent and when we may even go without some things that we really like. But I’m going to suggest this year that we approach the season from a bit of a different angle. It is my intention in our worship services together to take us through some exercises that help us to look at the things that we normally don’t want to look at – to talk about things we don’t want to talk about. Because of that, there might be a few times during this season when you want to say to me, “Yes, I know; be silent.”

But I honestly feel as if it is a tremendous gift to be able to engage in such exercises at a time like this. The world is changing. The church has changed and is changing. When this present whirlwind comes to an end, things will not just go back to the way they used to be. But if we see what we are losing in this whirlwind, if we really take stock of it and aren’t afraid to talk about the impacts, I do believe that we have God’s promise of a double portion of spirit to face the challenges that are before us and to face them with strength and confidence and faith that will prevail and guide us into a future that is very exciting and important and meaningful. That is what Elisha discovered and that is what we can discover too.

Today's message

Watch the sermon video here (Note, the sermon was initially removed from YouTube for violations. I appealed and it has now been restored!):

https://youtu.be/pY4gYM4u2BA

Hespeler, 31 January 2021 © Scott McAndless
Deuteronomy 18:15-20, Psalm 111, 1 Corinthians 8:1-13, Mark 1:21-28 (click to read)

I imagine that, by this point, we have all seen far too many viral videos that go something like this. Somebody walks into a store and he (let’s just say that it’s a he) is not wearing a mask while everyone else around is. One of the employees, a minimum wage clerk, comes up to him and politely and respectfully asks him to put on a mask – even offers to give him one free of charge.

And it is this that sets the person off. We’ve all heard the speech in some form or other by this point, so we all know how it goes. “You’re not going to get me to put on one of your stupid masks,” he shouts, “because I know the truth. I know that this whole virus thing is nothing but a hoax. It was cooked up by Bill Gates and George Soros in a laboratory in Wuhan China for the sole purpose of making sure that everyone is implanted with a microchip by making them get a vaccination. I know that the numbers of cases have been artificially inflated and that the deaths are not real. I know that the virus is actually caused by the erection of 5G towers.

“I know that you just want me to put on a mask so that it cuts off the oxygen to my brain and keeps me from seeing the truth. You’re not going to get me to put on a mask and you’re not going to force me to take one of your vaccinations because I know my rights.

“I also know that the vaccination is the mark of the Beast and that if I get it, I will never get into heaven. I know I don’t need a mask and I don’t need a shot because I know that Jesus is enough to protect me and I know you cannot deny me my religious freedom.”

Like I say, we have all heard people talk like that or seen videos or heard reports of it. And how do we react? There is, I know, a lot of anger and frustration at such people and with good reason. These are people who, with their attitudes and actions, are making this whole pandemic situation worse. We’re also aware that if too many people listen to these kinds of weird ideas, we might not get enough people vaccinated to achieve the herd immunity that we need to get out of this thing.

We may also feel a certain level of embarrassment when such people bring up their Christian affiliation and Christian beliefs. How embarrassing to know that there are Christians who believe such things and use their faith to justify such irresponsible behavior. Why would anyone want to be associated with people who do things like that?

But apart from our emotional reaction, we also need to think practically about people who talk this way. There is just too much that is too problematic in such ideas going around. But what can we do about it? What kind of response is really going to make a positive difference?

It's all about what they "know"

Take a moment to listen to one of these diatribes because there is something going on there that is really important. The people who say these kinds of things are talking about what they know. They know things about the pandemic. They know things about the vaccine and about certain political agendas. Most importantly, they know things that you don’t know.

And, I know, you are thinking yeah, but the things that they know aren’t true, they’re based on half truths, distortions and fantasies. But, you see, on a certain level, that doesn’t matter, because they know them. They have access to what they perceive to be secret knowledge. And this leads to an inevitable result as they become puffed up on knowledge. Knowledge, especially secret knowledge, is quite a drug. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from, it doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, well educated or a school dropout, if you have secret knowledge you can see yourself as better than everybody else.

And so, people who have secret knowledge can feel completely justified doing socially or even morally unacceptable things because they know what other people don’t know. That doesn’t just apply to conspiracy theories about the pandemic but, as we’ve seen, conspiracy theories about elections and Q Anon and many other things. In fact, in many ways, the very idea of having secret knowledge is one of the main problems we seem to be facing in our society at this particular moment. So it would be really helpful to have some way to counter this dangerous trend.

The Problem in Corinth

It is actually the same kind of problem that they had in the church in Corinth. They weren’t arguing about masks, of course, but they were arguing about meat. You see, in ancient times, they didn’t have grocery stores or butcher shops like we do. There was really just one place to get meat. All of the animals that were slaughtered in the city were slaughtered as sacrifices in the temples dedicated to various gods.

But, fortunately, the gods didn’t really require very much of this meat to eat. In fact, generally only the parts that people couldn’t eat – bones, fat and various organs – were actually burnt up on the altars. The rest of the meat was available for people to eat. Most of it was eaten by the worshipers themselves, of course. And a generous portion went to the priests who so expertly butchered the animals. And what the priests and their families couldn’t eat, they generally sold out of the back door of the temple.

But that meant that the only meat you could buy in a city like Corinth came from the temples of pagan gods. And there were some Christians there who knew something. They knew that, since they had decided to follow Jesus, they were not supposed to have anything to do with any other gods. So they vowed that they would never eat meat anymore. What’s more, they sharply denounced and argued with other Christians who did eat meat because they knew that they were honouring these other gods by doing so.

But here was where the problem got a little complicated. The other Christians – the ones who were eating meat also had knowledge. They knew that all of these pagan gods like Zeus and Apollo and Dionysus weren’t real gods. And if they weren’t real gods, if they were nothing more than idols, then what did it matter if the hamburger I want to eat for supper was originally dedicated to such a false god before it was butchered? And so, these Christians, based on what they knew, went ahead and ate their burgers with a clear conscience.

So, what we had in this church in Corinth was two groups of Christians, both of whom were sure that they knew better than the others, and they were arguing on the basis of that. And, quite obviously, this continual claim heard from both sides that, “We know the truth,” was not making anything better but only making things worse.

Paul's Advice

And the Apostle Paul heard about what was going on and, in his letter, attempted to guide them out of what had become a dead-end argument. And it is in that context that Paul offers this wonderfully profound but simple piece of advice: “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” You see, Paul understands that knowledge is a good thing. Knowledge that is based on good evidence and sound reasoning can indeed lead us towards all truth. But he also understood that knowledge had this effect of puffing people up.

Paul knew that when people argue over who knows best, all they really accomplish is puffing themselves up while they seek to deflate others by proving that their knowledge is unsound. But the problem is that that is an argument that nobody wins, and that people can only lose.

You see, if you are convinced that you know something that somebody else doesn’t know, whether your knowledge is sound or not, that has the effect of making you feel puffed up, better than others. But the other person who also feels that they know best also feels puffed up.

Now, in the argument that follows, we may think that we are arguing over facts and evidence, but that is not usually what goes on. People generally only argue in order to feel good about themselves, in order to continue to feel puffed up or to feel even more puffed up. And when that is all that it’s about, well, it really ends up being all about so much hot air. Because knowledge puffs up, knowledge alone is rarely able to resolve these kinds of disputes.

And so it is that Paul counsels the Corinthians to take another course – the way of love. He’s basically telling them that, while they will not win people over with facts, they may with love. Now, what he is asking of them is hardly easy. It is way harder to love someone that you disagree with than it is to argue with them. He even suggests that, out of love, they may even need to compromise and bend. But, he argues, it is really the only way that anything might change in the toxic circumstances in which they find themselves.

What can we do?

Now, I don’t want to go into the specific advice that Paul gives to resolve the situation in Corinth, but I would like to take his basic principles and try to apply them to the toxicity that we see in our society in these extremely divisive times. If you have people in your life that you care for who have fallen into dangerous or destructive conspiracy theories, you have probably already figured out that there is little to no point in arguing with them over the facts. When they are puffed up with knowledge, Paul is right, that never works.

As a result, what people tend to do is not engage. When you see a social media post based on some conspiracy theory, you just quickly scroll on by, not daring to question them, or maybe we even block them out of our social networks entirely. Sometimes, sadly, we feel like we have to block people that we love right out of our lives.

Now, there is some rationality to that response. It is true that there is little to no point in engaging such people on the level of knowledge. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that there is nothing that we can do. Here are some things that we can do.

First of all, there can be a time and place to challenge the false knowledge you encounter. When you see a blatantly false social media post, for example, there can be a place for you to respectfully offer up a different point of view and to back it up with some facts. But understand that there is really only one reason to do that.

You are quite unlikely to change somebody’s mind if they are all puffed up with knowledge. But, by not allowing the falsehood to stand unchallenged, you may prevent it from spreading further by making sure that somebody else, who hasn’t yet bought in to the secret knowledge, doesn’t see it without it being challenged. So, you can post the facts, but then you are probably best not to try and engage further.

But where you can engage and actually possibly make a difference for those who have fallen into false knowledge, is only when you can engage in love. And that is not easy. It can be an awful lot of work. It may mean putting in the effort to try and understand some of the things that are going on in somebody’s life that are making them seek for meaning or purpose in what they see as secret knowledge. It may mean engaging their fears or even their hatreds from a loving point of view. It’s not an easy thing for anyone to do. But, Paul would tell us, it is the only path to real change.

There has been a lot of talk in recent weeks of people finally giving up a certain conspiracy theories. Those who believed in Q Anon or other related election conspiracy theories had been so certain, after all, that Joe Biden would never become the president. The mere fact that that now has happened did lead, for some of them, to some real soul-searching and to asking themselves whether or not they might have been duped.

That is a somewhat promising development, though it is hard to know where it will lead. But I do know one thing, if all people who begin to question the false knowledge that they were so certain was true are only met with derision and a massive chorus of “we told you so,” chances are that they will only retreat back into their old certainties or that they will find some new conspiracy theory to hold onto.

But if they are met with some compassion and understanding, if they are met with love, as costly and difficult as that may be, what possibilities might there be then? Because knowledge may puff up, but love really does build up.

Watch the sermon video here:

https://youtu.be/qdatd8WbdJc

Hespeler, 24 January, 2021 © Scott McAndless
Jonah 3-4, Psalm 62:5-12, 1 Corinthians 7:29-31, Mark 1:14-20

The one thing that everybody knows about Jonah is the big fish incident. Everybody knows that he got swallowed by a fish (or maybe it was a whale because it’s not like the ancient people of Israel knew the difference between fish and marine mammals) and that he survived and came out three days later. Many people think that that is the most unbelievable part of Jonah’s story, but they’re actually wrong. There is something that would have been far more fantastic for ancient Israelite readers than the whole whale of a tale. But in order to understand that, you need to understand more about Jonas’ story.

Jonah stood just outside the massive gates of the city of Nineveh. He looked through them and out over what seemed to be an endless sea of houses and industries, streets and a constantly churning crowd of people and beasts of burden. There were more people than Jonah had ever seen together in his life before.

His nose was assailed by terrible odours – the smell of tanneries and latrines, manure and burning pitch. But actually, the smell wasn’t what bothered him the most. To tell the truth, it was a bit of a relief to smell something that wasn’t the stench of rotting fish that he had been totally unable to get out of his clothes and skin and hair. No, he didn’t hate them because of the smell, had hated them because they were Assyrians.

These were not people, they were bloodthirsty animals, all of them. Just looking at them he could tell that they all loved nothing more than raping, pillaging, looting and killing. And, what’s more, he knew in his heart of hearts that they would never change. They had spread like a cancer over the face of the earth.

They had destroyed the Kingdom of Israel and taken its people away into exile. They had come this close to doing the same to the Kingdom of Judah. And those were just two examples. How many other tribes and nations and peoples had suffered under the genocidal Assyrians? And yet Yahweh, the God of Israel, had sent Jonah to preach to them. “Go at once to Nineveh, that great city,” God had said, “and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.”

It was all the same to Jonah, of course, if his God wanted to destroy the Assyrians. He had been praying for that for years. But he worried about the reason why God would want him to warn them. He knew that Yahweh was “a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.” The thought that his God might just squander that kind of grace and mercy on the bloody Assyrians – well that just made him feel sick! He wanted nothing to do with it.

So Jonah had gone in exactly the opposite direction – had found a ship heading for Tarshish and got onboard. As he watched the shores of the Promised Land recede, he had been so sure that he was free, that he had escaped the presence of Yahweh.

He had been so wrong. He knew that what had happened to him next would haunt his nightmares, likely for the rest of his life. When he closed his eyes sometimes, he could still feel the movement of the unceasing waves in the storm. And the beast that had swallowed him, the sight of it would remain etched in his memory for the rest of his life just like the stench of it, he suspected, would never leave him.

And so when, by some miracle that he would never understand, he actually survived and saw the light of day again, he knew that active disobedience was no longer an option. But surely there was another way for him to make his feelings clear. Oh, he would go and he would do as he had been ordered, but God hadn’t said anything about how the job was to be done.

So here Jonah stood outside the gates of the great city. The message he had been given was clear and succinct. And, as a prophet who had often preached the word of the Lord to the people of Israel, Jonah knew a thing or two about how to speak persuasively and convincingly. He determined to forget everything he had ever learned about that.

So Jonah took a deep breath, straightened his tunic and took one step into the steady stream of foot traffic passing through the gate and... immediately stumbled into a burly trader. “Hey, watch it buddy. I’m trying to walk here!”

Jonah sprang back embarrassed and confused. He just felt so disoriented in the midst of such a mob of people. He mumbled a few words of apology which, of course, only seem to offend the trader even more. “Speak up, you Israelite hick. Don’t you know how to speak to your betters?”

Now that got Jonah mad and there really is nothing quite like an angry Jewish prophet. “Oh yeah? Oh yeah?” he yelled, “Well, you know what? Um, uh, forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”

The man just laughed, but Jonah, it seemed, had his message. He realized, with a prophet’s certainty that those were the words that Yahweh had sent him to deliver. But, there was nothing in his contract that specified how those words were to be delivered. So this is what Jonah did. He continued to walk into the bustling city and, as the day went on, he had various encounters with the locals and just sort of slipped the line into his conversation.

He purchased a little bit of street food at a small counter – it was nasty Assyrian stuff to his Israelite palate, but he was hungry so it would have to do. He haggled for a price and was sure that the savvy vendor was cheating him, and so, as he walked away he just casually said it over his shoulder. “Oh, and by the way, forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”

By the end of the afternoon, he had given the message to about 20 people. He was feeling tired and parched and so he found a nice little ale house on a corner. He went inside to discover that it was filled with some locals who were taking a break. Jonah figured that he had been working pretty hard too, so he pulled up a stool and joined them.

About an hour and several rounds later, Jonah was feeling as if he was surrounded by a bunch of new friends. But, Jonah intended to be outside the city gates before nightfall so he swallowed the drags of his ale pot and sadly bid them adieu. “Hey, friends, it was nice to meet you. It almost makes me sad to know that...” And with that the entire room joined in the chorus, “forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” The laughter echoed as he went back out into the streets.

And that was it. The city of Nineveh was so huge that it took three days for anyone to cross it. Jonah had barely made it into the business district and had come nowhere near the royal palace and the heart of the government. He didn’t care. The orders that he had been given had been carried out to the letter and only to the letter. He had gone into the city and he had spoken the warning of the Lord. And now Jonah was determined to do one thing. He would wait and he would see it all happen. He would watch Nineveh burn and he would enjoy it.

But, inside the gates of the great city, something was happening that Jonah would never believe. Somehow all of the people who had met with Jonah during that strange day remembered what he had said. And they told a few friends and their friends told a few friends. Before long the words that Jonah had said so casually, “forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” seemed to take on a truly menacing tone, as people overheard it being passed around on the streets and marketplaces. A few people started to become alarmed. Maybe there was something to this crazy warning?

Word began to spread to the upper classes and, before long, it was brought even into the palace of the great king. By this point it had also become mixed up with various rumors, that always seemed to swirl about the city, of the attack of this or that enemy. People began to openly speculate about whether the Assyrian Empire had finally gone too far in inflicting pain and suffering upon the nations of the world. And so, by the time it came into the king’s court, the king felt that he had no choice but to do something that would stave off the panic that was beginning to form. He could not afford another time of unrest.

So the king put on sackcloth and sat in ashes and made a show of repenting of many of the destructive policies of the empire. A fast was proclaimed throughout the city and people began to talk about a new beginning for the people of Assyria.

Jonah was ignorant of all this however. His message proclaimed, his assignment accomplished, he could have left and returned to his own country. But Jonah was not about to do that. Did I mention how much he hated the Assyrians? He had vowed to himself that he was not going anywhere until he had seen the complete and utter destruction that he had foretold. He found a nice spot on a hill overlooking the great city and built himself a small shelter. He settled in to wait to see it all come to pass.

Now, forty days is a very long time to wait for anything, but Jonah didn’t care. The sight of Nineveh in flames would be recompense enough for everything that he had put up with throughout this whole miserable affair. Oh yes, Jonah would wait.

But then, when forty days had come and gone, and the city was still standing, Jonah kind of lost it. “O Yahweh! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. And now, O Yahweh, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

He sat and he sulked. And while he sat there feeling oh so miserable, a castor bean plant grew up and sent its vines to climb on the shelter that Jonah had built. And, when it spread its broad leaves, they sheltered Jonah from the sun and made his day almost feel pleasant. But then, the very next day, the castor bean plant turned brown and shriveled and died away. And on that day Jonah felt the heat of the sun all the more keenly. And that’s when Jonah got really angry and he cried out to God in frustration, “If you are going to treat me like this, then kill me now!”

Yes, Jonah was that angry. But even as his anger burned, a question began to bother him. Why was he so angry? He was angry about a plant – a plant that didn’t even exist a couple of days ago and he was angry that it was dead. It didn’t make any sense, but he really did care. He cared about that castor bean plant that had made one day of his life just a little bit less miserable.

And he began to wonder, if he could care that much about a bean plant, enough to want to die because it was dead, then was it really so ridiculous that the God of Israel might care about the people of a city, maybe especially the common people and even the animals who really had nothing to do with the policies of the Assyrian king and his armies – was it really so ridiculous that God might be willing to spare their lives?

I think it is perfectly clear that the ancient people of Israel for whom the Book of Jonah was written understood that the story was a fantasy. What would have convinced them of that? Not the part about the big fish. There was something far more ridiculous than that in the story. The most unbelievable part of the story was the mere idea that the Assyrians might have repented of all their evil.

They were almost universally despised, hated and feared. And they never showed any sign of having any regret for what they had done. They never repented and, in the end, they suffered destruction by the Babylonians in their turn. So the people who first read this story knew very well that it hadn’t happened and that it couldn’t have happened.

So what is the point of the story? I suspect the author is asking his readers to ask themselves a difficult question, “How great is the grace and mercy of our God and could it possibly even extend to people as evil as the Assyrians, if they were to repent? And Jonah, in all his passive aggressive anger, is the representative of the readers of this story who are scandalized at the very idea of God’s grace and mercy.

This book is meant to make us think long and hard about the hatred we hold for those who have hurt us or who have hurt the people we love. It is meant to teach us about how the grudges we hold eat away at us and keep us from being our best selves – how they trap us underneath a miserable shelter as we put our lives on hold waiting for the kind of punishment of our enemies that really serves no good purpose and only takes a little bit of the pleasant shade out of our world. This story is there to make you think again about the hatreds that you hold close to your heart and how very useless they are.

https://youtu.be/Tfhq1dMdPdQ

Hespeler, 17 January, 2021 © Scott McAndless
1 Samuel 3:1-20, Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18, 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, John 1:43-51

I really just have one question as I read our passage this morning from the Gospel of John. What on earth was Nathaniel doing underneath that fig tree? Because, whatever it was, it seems to have been really important. The simple fact that Jesus saw Nathaniel under there and was apparently able to deduce something essential about Nathaniel’s character from what he saw simply blew Nathaniel away. It led him to make one of the most extraordinary confessions about who Jesus was that you will find in all the gospels as he declared that Jesus was both the Son of God and the King of Israel!

But even more than Nathaniel’s response, I’m very curious about what it was that Jesus saw in what Nathaniel was doing because, whatever it was, it revealed to him that Nathaniel was, “truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” The word that is translated as deceit there, also has a sense of cunningness and wiliness. It doesn’t merely mean a tendency to lie, but also a tendency to manipulate the truth in a self-serving way. The old King James Version translated this verse as, “an Israelite in whom there is no guile,” and that was also a pretty good translation, or at least it would be if people still used words like guile.

Now let me tell you something, I am getting a little bit tired of guile and deceit. I’m getting tired of those who use guile in order to hold onto their power or their wealth. I’m getting tired of leaders who seem to have decided that the people’s perception of the truth is far more important than what the actual truth is. I’m getting tired of political leaders who are like Eli in our Old Testament reading this morning, who knows very well that the people underneath them are breaking the rules – are taking the trips that no one else is allowed to take or are profiting from their positions – and yet are content to put forward a convenient fiction that they were simply not aware. I’m tired of promises that people make and have no intention whatsoever to fulfill. We seem to be living in a world where guile and deceit have been elevated to a science and I am getting very tired of that.

So wouldn’t it be really helpful if we could just have a way of looking at someone while they sat underneath a fig tree and be able to know just from that that here is a person in whom there is absolutely no guile or deceit? Why, instead of carrying out job interviews or political debates, we could just make people sit under the tree for a little bit and we could all just know that here was somebody who had integrity and complete honesty. Just think of the incredible benefit of such a straightforward test!

Now, some people might say that that could not work for ordinary people. I mean, sure, Jesus might have been able to discern something about the character of Nathaniel by seeing him under a fig tree, but that’s Jesus. Jesus, as Nathaniel himself confesses, is the very Son of God! Surely Jesus can see things that other mere human beings cannot. But Jesus himself says that it is not extraordinary that he saw this, which suggests that it really was something that was visible to anybody.

So what was Nathaniel doing under that tree? We have one possibility that comes to us from the traditions of rabbinic Judaism which developed strong traditions around the study of the Torah, that is to say of the law in what we would call the Old Testament. In rabbinic Judaism, there is a strong tradition of people (traditionally men) gathering to discuss the Torah. They will read the scriptures and then get into these extended discussions and arguments about the meaning and the application of various passages.

These sorts of discussions are famously contentious, so much so that it became a proverb that when you have two Jews you will have three opinions. But this is not seen as a negative thing, it is seen as a way of people engaging with the text and wrestling with that variety of opinions. And it is believed that deeper truth is always found by engaging in that kind of contentious discussion. What’s more, it is seen as a great blessing to be able to engage in such an activity, as Tevye sings in Fiddler on the Roof:

“If I were rich, I’d have the time that I lack To sit in the synagogue and pray. And maybe have a seat by the Eastern wall.

“And I’d discuss the holy books with the learned men, several hours every day. That would be the sweetest thing of all.”

So this way of studying the Torah is a longstanding beloved Jewish tradition and apparently, back in the Middle Ages, this activity was sometimes referred to using an odd phrase. It was called sitting underneath the fig tree. And so it has been suggested by some that that is what Nathaniel was doing, studying the Torah, when Jesus saw him. And there is something to be said for such an interpretation. That would be the kind of activity that might just indicate something about Nathaniel’s character.

But there is just one problem. There are no indications that this kind of activity was a part of common Jewish life in the time of Jesus. The study of the Torah became much more popularly and widely practiced only after the temple was destroyed in 70 AD. While the temple still existed, the focus of Jewish life was on that instead of on the scriptures which few could read (as literacy was very low) and even fewer could possibly obtain a copy. So it’s unlikely that Nathaniel was engaging in that specific activity, at least not as it later came to be practiced.

But I still think there might be a connection to that. Where, after all, did that figure of speech – speaking of studying the Torah as sitting under a fig tree – come from? It must come from the Scriptures themselves, specifically from a promise that is repeated a few times in the Old Testament. The promise goes like this: “They shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid.” (Micah 4:4) In many ways, that is one of the key promises of the Old Testament. It envisions a nation where every family has its own little piece of land with the iconic fruit trees that are common in that part of the world. It envisions an agricultural society where everybody has the basics of survival.

I know that might not quite sound like a utopia to us – we would probably look for a bit more than just the basics, but I guess that just shows you how tough life could be back then if their big dream was just to be able to have their own vine and fig tree. You know how we sometimes talk about the American dream, well that was kind of the Israelite dream. And apparently, as a part of that, their big dream for a bit of leisure time was to be able to sit down underneath their own fig trees for a while.

And that’s why it later became an expression for discussing the Torah. When, in later ages, Jewish men became prosperous enough to have a little bit of leisure time they, like Tevye, decided that the very best way to use that time was to spend it discussing the Torah. But, like I say, that was all in the future. What might it have looked like in Jesus’ day when literacy was rare and Torah scrolls even rarer?

I would suggest that, before people had to argue over the written words of the Torah, they just struggled with living it. In Nathaniel’s day that most basic Israelite dream of every Israelite family having a fig tree and a vine to live under had become way out of reach for huge numbers of people. People had lost their family farms and vines and fig trees. Huge numbers in the population were consigned to living as slaves or just getting by working as day labourers. But maybe what Jesus had seen in Nathaniel was that he was trying to keep that ancient Israelite dream alive.

It’s kind of interesting that Jesus refers to Nathaniel as an Israelite. Do you realize that that word is rarely used in the New Testament? It had become out of date, kind of like the dream of everyone having their own vine and fig tree had gone out of date, in Jesus’ day and the normal word that would have been used was Judean or Galilean – which is to say that they had begun to call themselves what the Romans called them. But Jesus sees Nathaniel as an Israelite sitting underneath a fig tree.

Nathaniel, I suspect, has been doing what he can to keep that dream alive. He has been reminding people of God’s promise – that “They shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid.” And clearly Nathaniel has not just been looking out for himself and his own fig tree, he has been shouting to all who will listen that it is God’s intention and plan that every family should be able to have that. He has been demanding what God has been demanding and he has been demanding it for everyone.

Nathaniel was clearly someone who didn’t hesitate to say what was on his mind. When Philip told him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathanael came right back with, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Those are not the words of somebody who lets the worry that they might offend somebody get in the way of speaking his mind! So when he saw all of the ways in which the nation no longer functioned as God had intended, you can bet that Nathaniel didn’t stop to calculate how dangerous it might be for him to speak up about that.

That is what Jesus saw – that is what he was referring to when he said that he saw Nathaniel underneath the fig tree. But, if we understand that, are we any closer to finding the secret method to discover the individuals among us – maybe especially the leaders and potential leaders – who are without guile and deceit?

Well, it likely never is going to be easy to discern. The human heart has ever been creative at finding new ways to deceive, but I believe that one thing we can do is be on the lookout for people who remind us of this character of Nathaniel in this passage. We need, first of all, someone who is believes in the promises of God – that is to say, someone who has not given into the cynicism of this world, who has not stopped believing that, even if it seems unlikely right now, there will be vines and fig trees for all, that God can make it happen. We need that kind of faith.

And we also need Nathaniels who are not in it just for themselves – not just for their own fig tree but who are willing to hold out for the whole community to have what they need to survive. Oh, how much we are in need of that these days!

And, yes, we need Nathaniels who are not afraid to speak up and share the truth as they see it – even if it is the truth about Nazareth that no one wants to hear – no matter what it might cost.

We need Nathaniels and the truth of the matter is that we can’t really wait for one to show up. We need to be looking for them underneath the fig trees of this world, which means we need to start spending time under those fig trees ourselves. That is why Jesus found a kindred spirit in Nathaniel, he was doing the same thing. To find Nathaniel, we need to be Nathaniel.