Texts used – Psalm 36:5-11; Mark 14:1-16

• Okay, so you may be saying to yourself this morning, “What is she doing? Doesn’t she realize she picked the wrong passage? Today is Palm Sunday. We’ve got our palm branches. Our bulletin cover is all about palms. We’ve sung our palm hymns. … So where is the Palm Sunday story – the adoring crowds, the preordained donkey colt, the shouted ‘Hosanna’s, the cloaks tossed on the road? What gives?” Well, friends, you would be right … in part. Yes, today is Palm Sunday. Today is the beginning of Holy Week – the beginning of our intentional march toward the cross with Jesus with the light of resurrection at the end of the tunnel.
  • Confession: Holy Week is my favorite time of the church year
    • Busiest time of the church year? For sure.
    • Also a time of deep contemplation
    • Time of wide variety of tactile, sensory-related experiences inextricably linked to our faith
      • Feel of the palm branches in your hands this morning
      • Smell and taste of the meal and the bread and juice on Maundy Thurs.
      • Visual impact of the progressive darkness as well as stark sounds during Good Fri. Tenebrae service
      • Sights and sounds of Easter morning – white paraments, color and brightness of the memorial garden, hymns of joy and praise
  • And yes, this is in part a shameless plug to try to get you to come to these various services this week. I know it’s a lot of church in one week … but each service, each story, each experience is so different. They all make up a piece of the Holy Week puzzle … which is exactly why we read the story that we did instead of the typical “Palm Sunday story” this morning – it’s a piece of the Holy Week puzzle.
    • Jesus had lots of different experiences between entering Jerusalem on a donkey that morning and being arrested by Pilate later in the week – very often, these other experiences get pushed aside to make way for the Holy Week stories we already know → But each of these different experiences sheds a different light on the week that Jesus was having – how he got to the cross, what he may have been thinking or feeling or praying in those days and hours leading up to that most horrible inevitable moment of death. So today, as we enter into this Holy Week journey together – the last leg of our Lenten journey – we’re going to take a look at a different piece of that Holy Week puzzle: the story most commonly known as “The Woman with the Alabaster Jar.”
• Scripture sets the scene pretty well for us
  • First, gives us the climate in Jerusalem – text: It was two days before Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and legal experts through cunning tricks were searching for a way to arrest Jesus and kill him. But they agreed that it shouldn’t happen during the festival; otherwise, there would be an uproar among the people.[1]
    • Sets the timeline – 2 days before Passover = 2 days before Jesus celebrates the Last Supper in the upper room with his disciples (Maundy Thurs. for us)
    • Gives us some insight into the tone of the city
      • Joy and celebration of the Passover and the festival
      • Dark, ominous undertone of the chief priests and legal experts discussing and plotting how to best get rid of this Jesus rabble rouser once and for all → I imagine that, if this were a movie scene, the camera would be panning the crowd with light, fast-paced, happy music playing in the background, but when the camera focused in on the faces of the chief priests, that music would suddenly switch to a minor key, discordant and menacing – the kind that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.
  • Briefly sets scene in terms of Jesus’ particular experience, too – text: Jesus was at Bethany visiting the house of Simon, who had a skin disease.[2]  → Now, this may be one quick sentence in the midst of this long story, but it tells us quite a lot.
    • Tells us that Jesus is once again eating with those whom he isn’t supposed to – namely, those who are unclean → Remember that at the time, many (if not all) diseases were considered some sort of punishment from God, either for something that you yourself had done or even some sin that you parents had committed. Those with diseases like Simon’s (other translations call him “Simon the Leper”) were considered unclean by the chief priests. The disease was outer evidence of their own inner sin, so they must remain apart from “good, honest, healthy folk.” And yet here Jesus is, not just having a simple conversation with this unclean man but sitting down and sharing his table – food, drink, ritual footwashing and other signs of peace. In the eyes of the Jewish leaders, this would have made Jesus unclean. He knew it. Simon knew it. The disciples knew it. But here he was anyway.
• Story ramps up
  • Enter the woman with the alabaster jar → Now, this is one of those interesting times when, if we compare Mark’s version to the other versions of this story in both Matthew and Luke, their stories are quite different. Mark actually treats this woman much better than Matthew, Luke, or John in his retelling.
    • Other gospels – woman is cast in a sinful light (“woman of the city” → traditionally has been translated as a prostitute)
    • Other gospels – woman is obviously sinful because she is weeping as she anoints Jesus → washes his feet with her tears and dries them with her hair (truly scandalous actions in that time and that religious tradition)
    • But Mark tells us none of those things. Mark simply tells us that she came in, broke open the jar, and began anointing Jesus. Perhaps Mark, in all his quick storytelling and immediacy, is just trying to save words and time. Perhaps the details of exactly who she was weren’t as important to him. Or perhaps Mark was just a little less judgmental than his later gospel counterparts. We don’t know. But it’s an interesting element to the story.
  • In Mk’s version, it’s not the woman’s presence that is so problematic to the disciples but her actions – her wastefulness! – text: During dinner, a woman came in with a vase made of alabaster and containing very expensive perfume of pure nard. She broke open the vase and poured the perfume on [Jesus’] head. Some grew angry. They said to each other, “Why waste the perfume? This perfume could have been sold for almost a year’s pay and the money given to the poor.” And they scolded her.[3]  → This is hard, because we cannot truly fault the disciples in this reaction. After all, they’ve spent the past 3 years traveling around with Jesus helping those who could not help themselves – healing people, casting out demons, spending time with those who had been cast out of “decent society” for one reason or another. They had heard Jesus’ teachings about how those who are poor and meek and humble will be blessed while those in power and wealth are in for a rough go of it. And yet here comes this woman with her insanely expensive jar filled with insanely expensive perfume, and she just dumps the whole darn thing over Jesus’ head! Truth, y’all, I might have been grumbling, too.
  • Jesus calls them out … not for their complaining and grumbling (like we might expect), but for their attitude … for their misinterpretation – text: Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why do you make trouble for her? She has done a good thing for me. You always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do something good for them. But you won’t always have me. She has done what she could. She has anointed my body ahead of time for burial. I tell you the truth that, wherever in the whole world the good news is announced, what she’s done will also be told in memory of her.”[4]  → Once again, as throughout most of Mark’s gospel, the disciples have utterly and completely missed the point.
    • Not the first time that Jesus mentions his death in this gospel → Jesus makes three separate announcements of his death earlier one (chs. 8-10) but the disciples failed to hear and understand
  • Goes on to set up the rest of the Holy Week story
    • Dissatisfaction with this interaction = last straw for Judas → goes to the chief priests to “give Jesus up to them” for money
    • Takes us to the day of Passover → Jesus’ instructions to the disciples for finding the upper room: “Go into the city. A man carrying a water jar will meet you. Follow him. Wherever he enters, say to the owner of the house, ‘The teacher asks, Where is my guest room where I can eat the Passover meal with my disciples?’ He will show you a large room upstairs already furnished. Prepare for us there.”[5]
    • Final line that will get us into Maundy Thurs.: The disciples left, came into the city, found everything just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover meal.[6]
• But let’s back up a minute. In our story for today, Jesus is once again trying to drive the point home that he has very little time left with this group of followers. He’s trying to point out to them that they have placed the highest value on the wrong thing, on the material objects – the jar and the expensive perfume – as opposed to on the One in their presence, the Son of God, the Savior.
  • Scholar: The temptation [Jesus] cautions against is not the moralistic one of “neglecting the poor,” so much as it is the theological one of considering ourselves so rich as not to think we are in great need. Only the very rich can be so full of themselves as to afford the luxury of worrying about the stewardship of “costly ointment” when the abundance of God’s love is placed right before them.[7]  → The disciples are so concerned with the extravagance of the oil that they completely miss the extravagance of the love of God sitting right across the table from them. They have misplaced their treasure – putting stock in the physical, in the here-and-now, instead of in the holy.
    • Ps this morning reiterated for us just how truly precious the love of God is – text: But your loyal love, LORD, extends to the skies; your faithfulness reaches the clouds. Your righteousness is like the strongest mountains; your justice is like the deepest sea. LORD, you save both humans and animals. Your faithful love is priceless, God! Humanity finds refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the bounty of your house; you let them drink from your river of pure joy. Within you is the spring of life. In your light, we see light.[8]  → “Your faithful love is priceless, God!” That is what this coming week – this Holy Week – is all about: God’s faithful love poured out for us through Jesus Christ: through the Last Supper, through his arrest and torture and death, through the power of his resurrection.
      • Heb. for “faithful love” = powerful word in the Hebrew language, rich with meaning[9]
        • Love that always involves interpersonal relationships – must involve more than one person (cannot have “faithful love” for your new car, for example)
        • Love that always entails practical action on behalf of another → dynamic love that moves and does
        • Love that endures → another translation “steadfast love” – love of covenant and lasting relationships, love that does not tarnish or fade away
        • This is the kind of love that Jesus is encouraging the disciples to recognize and treasure. This is the kind of love that Jesus is preparing himself to literally pour out for them … for you … for me … for all as he walks through his own Holy Week trials. This is the kind of love that God has for each and every one of us.
• So as we approach this Holy Week this year, let us do so thinking about the treasures in our lives. What do they say about us? What do they reveal about our intentions, our priorities, our triumphs and our hidden sins? What “treasures” have we placed above God in our lives? What is Jesus calling us to examine or re-examine during our Holy Week journeys this year? [PAUSE] Amen.

[1] Mk 14:1-2.

[2] Mk 14:3a.

[3] Mk 14:3b-5.

[4] Mk 14: 6-9.

[5] Mk 14:13-15.

[6] Mk 14:16.

[7] Thomas W. Currie. “Mark 14:3-9 – Theological Perspective” in Feasting on the Gospel: Mark. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014), 444.

[8] Ps 36:5-9.

[9] Will Kynes. “God’s Grace in the Old Testament: Considering the Hesed of the Lord” from Knowing & Doing: The C.S. Lewis Institute, summer 2010 edition. Accessed via http://www.cslewisinstitute.org/webfm_send/430 on Mar. 25, 2018.

Texts used – Isaiah 58:1-12; Matthew 5:1-12

• Peter and I were watching a movie this past week. We’re a bit behind the times, so it’s one many of you have probably seen already: “Hidden Figures.”[1]
  • Basic premise – follows the true story of three incredibly intelligent black women (Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, Dorothy Vaughn) who worked for NASA during one of the most critical times of the Space Race back in the in early 1960s
    • Without giving too much away for those who haven’t seen it, this movie makes it clear just how crucial the actions and accomplishments of these women were to NASA’s function and successes at the time. But it also highlights the rampant racial tensions of the Civil Rights era.
  • Opening scene of the movie: 3 women all carpool into Langley together, their car is broken down on the side of the road on their way to work, one woman is working on fixing the car with the help of the other 2 when a state trooper shows up à Now for any of us in this room, if we were broken down on the side of the road and a state trooper showed up, we’d be thrilled. It would mean that help had arrived and that we were safe. But this was Virginia in the 1960s. These women were black. The trooper was white and male. Their first reaction wasn’t relief but intimidation and fear.
    • Reminder of the pervasiveness of the Jim Crow laws that made things so difficult and dangerous and unjust for African Americans living and working in the southern U.S. throughout the Civil Rights movement → Jim Crow laws starkly segregated black people and while people in the south from 1877-1967
• Now, I bring up Jim Crow laws this morning because the final confessional document that we’re tackling during our Lenten sermon series – the Confession of Belhar – was written in a similar context.
  • Written as an outcry against apartheid in South Africa (1948-1991)
    • Apartheid laws = very similar to Jim Crow laws of the south → segregationist in the extreme, enforced by the state in ways that were often brutal and terroristic
  • Written by leaders of the Dutch Reformed Mission Church in South African in 1982 as an outcry against the way in which the Dutch Reformed Church had upheld and sanctioned the segregation and disunity of the races
    • The DRMC was specifically founded by DRC in the late 1800s to serve the “colored population” but the DRC reserved right to veto all decisions made by the DRMC, held title to all DRMC properties, and refused to allow black people and white people to share communion at the same table
  • Final draft of Belhar came out in 1986 → officially became part of the Book of Confessions in 2016
• Now, there are a couple of unique things about the Confession of Belhar that are important.
  • 1) It’s the only confessional document that we have that comes from the global south – from a mission field → Friends, it’s no secret that the Church is on the decline in much of the northern hemisphere – here in the U.S., Canada, Europe, etc. But in the global south, the Church is growing in leaps and bounds. It is both powerful and vital that our Book of Confessions finally includes the voice of our brothers and sisters in this part of the world.
  • 2) Every single one of the “We believe” statements or paragraphs (down to the individual bullet points) come specifically from Scripture → I couldn’t figure out a way to easily fit this onto your bulletin insert today, but if you look at the text of the document in the Book of Confessions, you’ll see that there’s a specific Scriptural reference listed next to every statement except the “We reject” statements.
    • All confessional documents have Scripture woven into them in some way or another but none are based quite as heavily in Scripture as this one
  • 3) (and maybe most important) It’s the only confessional document that focuses the church’s confession solely on its own life → Not the ways in which the culture around us has influenced us but the ways in which we have sinned as the body of Christ. – from the letter written by the committee that worked on getting Belhar adopted by the PC(USA): It is far too easy for the church to look outside of its walls and find fault, all the while ignoring the sin in its own life. Belhar focuses the church’s attention on the way its own life and witness has fallen short of the gospel.[2]
• Friends, this is where the rubber meets the road this morning. This is where our wrestling with this confessional document begins. This is where our Scripture readings for this morning fit in.
  • OT reading = God calling out for justice through the prophet Isaiah
    • Begins by calling the people out for their mistakes: Shout loudly; don’t hold back; raise your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their crime, to the house of Jacob their sins. They seek me day after day, desiring knowledge of my ways like a nation that acted righteously, that didn’t abandon their God. They ask me for righteous judgments, wanting to be close to God. “Why do we fast and you don’t see; why afflict ourselves and you don’t notice?” Yet on your fast day you do whatever you want, and oppress all your workers. You quarrel and brawl, and then you fast; you hit each other violently with your fists. You shouldn’t fast as you are doing today if you want to make your voice heard on high.[3]  → God is not mincing words here (not that God ever really does). Basically, it comes down to matching words and actions. Are our actions speaking a different message – proclaiming a different gospel, revealing a different God – than all of the flowery words and phrases that come out of our mouths? Do we speak too often of thoughts and prayers without following those good intentions up with solid actions? Do our actions outright contradict the faith that we supposedly claim as central to our way of life?
    • In lieu of these hypocritical fasts – these empty displays of faith – God goes on to describe exactly how we are to embody God’s message and mission in this world: Isn’t this the fast I choose: releasing wicked restraints, untying the ropes of a yoke, setting free the mistreated, and breaking every yoke? Isn’t it sharing your bread with the hungry and bringing the homeless poor into your house, covering the naked when you see them, and not hiding from your own family? … If you remove the yoke from among you, the finger-pointing, the wicked speech; if you open your heart to the hungry, and provide abundantly for those who are afflicted, your light will shine in the darkness, and your gloom will be like the noon.[4]  → Caring for those in need, sharing from our own abundance, bringing together the body of Christ throughout the world instead of highlighting the things that separate us. These are the actions pleasing to God, plain and simple.
  • Importance of this also highlighted by Jesus’ words from the Sermon on the Mount in our NT passage (most commonly referred to as The Beatitudes, or the Blessings): Happy are people who are hopeless, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs. Happy are people who grieve, because they will be made glad. Happy are people who are humble, because they will inherit the earth. Happy are people who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness, because they will be fed until they are full. Happy are people who show mercy, because they will receive mercy. Happy are people who have pure hearts, because they will see God. Happy are people who make peace, because they will be called God’s children. Happy are people whose lives are harassed because they are righteous, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs. Happy are you when people insult you and harass you and speak all kinds of bad and false things about you, all because of me. Be full of joy and be glad, because you have a great reward in heaven. In the same way, people harassed the prophets who came before you.[5]  → Many of the blessings that Jesus lists in this passage are the opposite of what we desire for ourselves. We don’t seek to be hopeless. We don’t seek to be grieving. We don’t usually seek to be humbled (although we are often quick to claim humility as one of our many virtues). We don’t seek to be harassed or insulted. And yet Jesus lifts up these challenging, troublesome things as ways that we will indeed be blessed, not because God wants us to be beaten down and suffering, but because so many of God’s beloved children live their lives like this day in and day out, and God wants us to understand just how precious each and every person and their experience is to God. But to do so, like it said in Isaiah, we have to open our hearts to something or someone that may be wholly different from ourselves.
    • Nadia Bolz-Weber’s modern beatitudes [READ]
• Paul in Rom: Who will separate us from Christ’s love? Will we be separated by trouble, or distress, or harassment, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? … I’m convinced that nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord: not death or life, not angels or rulers, not present things or future things, not powers or height or depth, or any other thing that is created.[6]  → “Any other thing that is created” … including all the ways that we separate ourselves from each other. And let’s face it, we’re living incredibly separated right now, aren’t we?
  • Colleague during spiritual direction training → one of many assessments – “anger” score was high, high enough to alarm her → response of the instructor when they went over her results: “You’re just living in America in 2018. Everyone’s angry.” → Are Isaiah’s words echoing for anyone else? “‘Why do we fast and you don’t see; why afflict ourselves and you don’t notice?’ Yet on your fast day you do whatever you want, and oppress all your workers. You quarrel and brawl, and then you fast; you hit each other violently with your fists. You shouldn’t fast as you are doing today if you want to make your voice heard on high.” We are so good at pointing out ways in which others have wronged us … ways in which others have fallen away … ways in which others have screwed up and are beyond saving … ways in which others need to “get their act together.” But both our Scriptures and the Confession of Belhar remind us this morning of that old playground turn-around: When you point one finger at someone else, there are always three other fingers pointing back at you.
    • From Belhar: We believe in one holy, universal Christian church, the communion of saints called from the entire human family. … Therefore, we reject any doctrine which professes that this spiritual unity is truly being manifested in the bond of peace while believers of the same confession are in effect alienated from one another for the sake of diversity and in despair of reconciliation.[7] … “If you open your heart … your light will shine in the darkness.” Amen.

[1] “Hidden Figures.” Directed by Theodore Melfi. Based on Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly. Distributed by 20^th Century Fox, released Dec. 25, 2016.

[2] “Why Belhar, Why Now: Belhar and the US Context – A Letter from the Special Committee on the Confession of Belhar” from The Book of Confessions: Study Edition (revised). (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017), 402.

[3] Is 58:1-4.

[4] Is 58:6-7, 9b-10.

[5] Mt 5:3-12.

[6] Rom 8:35, 38-39.

[7] The Confession of Belhar from The Book of Confessions: Study Edition (revised). (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017), 10.2, 10.4.

Texts used – Genesis 11:1-9; 1 Corinthians 12:12-26

• In both his full-length picture books and a number of his short stories, Dr. Seuss was a master at tackling complex social issues through his immediately recognizable lens of silliness and wild imagination.
  • E.g. – Horton Hears a Who[1]
    • Basic story breakdown: Horton the elephant finds a clover one day → on the clover: speck of dust → on the speck: town full of teeny, tiny people – the Whos → Horton tries to convince others of the presence of the Whos but no one can see them and only he, with his giant elephant ears, can hear them → some of the other animals are outraged that Horton is talking to people who “aren’t there” → try to destroy the clover out of malice and spite → at the last minute, someone else finally hears the Whos and saves them and the clover from destruction
    • Seuss’ moral of the story: “A person’s a person, no matter how small.” → can certainly substitute just about any qualifying factor for the word ‘small,’ any of those qualifiers that we use to separate ourselves from one another
      • Age
      • Race
      • Gender
      • Economic status
      • Education level
      • The list could go on and on.
    • Horton Hears a Who originally published in 1954 just as the Civil Rights Movement was beginning à time that both highlighted the ways that we have become divided and the beauty and incredible things that can be achieved when we come together
• Plenty of times in the history of the church – even and especially the recent history – when we have been keenly aware both of the ways that we have become divided and the beauty of coming together again → This type of scenario provides the historical backdrop for the confessional document that we’re talking about today: A Brief Statement of Faith.
  • History
    • For 100+ yrs., the 2 main streams of Presbyterianism in the United states had been divided – the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (“northern church”) and the Presbyterian Church in the United States (“southern church”)
    • Reunification occurred in 1983 after 14 yrs. of negotiation → part of reunification process was creation of an intentionally diverse committee (because Presbyterians, no matter the stripe, love a good committee!) whose mission was to write a new creedal document for the church that spoke not to division but unity
    • Result: A Brief Statement of Faith
      • Took 4 yrs. to write
      • Another 2 yrs. of feedback and revisions
      • Officially added to the Book of Confessions in 1991
  • Purpose: to celebrate diversity while also articulating Presbyterians’ common identity
    • From preface to A Brief Statement of Faith: It celebrates our rediscovery that for all our undoubted diversity, we are bound together by a common faith and a common task.[2]
  • Specifically designed to be read aloud in worship as a community affirmation of faith
  • Lots of firsts for this confessional document
    • First to address Jesus’ ministry, not just his death and resurrection → recognizes the importance of Jesus’ humanity as well as his divinity
    • First to address care of creation as an important facet of faith
    • First to use inclusive language and both recognize and affirm both male and female in God’s covenant with the people, in the person and work of God, and in ordination
    • First to recognize and affirm the importance and contribution of racial and ethnically diverse people to the story of our faith
  • Did all of this by maintaining the basic tenets of the Reformed tradition → uplifting and celebrating our diversity as a denomination through our unifying beliefs
• Celebrating diversity and coming together = theme for both of our Scripture readings this morning
  • Obvious one = NT text – Paul’s encouragement to the Christians in Corinth that their various gifts were all given by the same Spirit and crucial to the functioning of the Church as a whole body of Christ
    • Text: We were all baptized by one Spirit into one body, whether Jew or Greek, or slave or free, and we all were given one Spirit to drink. Certainly the body isn’t one part but many. … If all were one and the same body part, what would happen to the body? But as it is, there are many parts but one body. … If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part gets the glory, all the parts celebrate with it.[3]  → Paul is speaking all about celebrating diversity by coming together in unity
      • Not about whitewashing over the things that make us different but about highlighting the ways that those differences help us function together
      • Not about being envious of someone else’s gifts/abilities/characteristics over our own but about finding value in contributions that all make
    • One of the reasons that I love this passage is because Paul gets almost whimsical – as close to whimsical as Paul ever gets, really – when he addresses this issue by personifying various body parts. It’s almost Seussian in the farcicality of it. – text: If the foot says, “I’m not part of the body because I’m not a hand,” does that mean it’s not part of the body? If the ear says, “I’m not part of the body because I’m not an eye,” does that mean it’s not part of the body? If the whole body were an eye, what would happen to the hearting? And if the whole body were an ear, what would happen to the sense of smell? … But as it is, there are many parts but one body. So the eye can’t say to the hand, “I don’t need you,” or in turn, the head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you.”[4]  → I mean, really, it’s ludicrous to imagine a body that is made up only of an eye or an ear! It sounds like something out of a bad Nickelodeon cartoon! And yet by evoking such a nonsensical image, Paul makes his point in a way that is both entertaining and highly effective. We cannot function as the church – as the body of Christ – if we are all the same. Our strength comes not in our sameness but in our unity in diversity. We are a vastly varied people united in one common identity with one common call – to share the good news of Jesus Christ with the world.
      • In terms of our call, diversity just makes sense: all people are created differently, so how could the exact same message delivered the exact same way reach such a wide variety of humanity → the answer: it can’t!
  • OT text = a little more challenging this morning, mostly because of the way it’s historically been interpreted → This is the story of the Tower of Babel, and throughout much of the lifespan of Biblical interpretation, we have been told that this is a story of God punishing the people for their arrogance. But after looking again at the original Hebrew and various translation options, many more recent Biblical scholars are pushing back on that interpretation and seeing the story of the Tower of Babel as God’s blessing of diversity among the people.
    • First part of the story = people’s part
      • See that all are one (one people, one common language)
      • See that all are perfectly happy with the status quo (don’t want things to change) – text: They said, “Come, let’s build for ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky, and let’s make a name for ourselves so that we won’t be dispersed over all the earth.”[5]  → For some reason, throughout the centuries, we’ve come to believe that the building of this tower has something to do with pride and with the people wanting to be like God. But that isn’t actually mentioned anywhere. It’s not actually part of this story! What we hear instead in the people’s ambition is a desire to remain the same. What we hear is a fear of diversity. “Let’s make a name for ourselves so that we won’t be dispersed over all the earth.”
        • “Let’s make a name for ourselves” = where scholars have traditionally inferred the pride that brought down God’s punishment BUT more recent scholar points out that “making a name for ourselves” is not a point of pride but of establishment à if you “made a name for yourself,” you are attempting to endure – e.g., Israelites finally establishing their home in the promised land[6]
    • Second part of the story = God’s part – text: Then the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the humans had built. And the Lord said, “There is now one people and they all have one language. This is what they have begun to do, and now all that they plan to do will be possible for them. Come, let’s go down and mix up their language there so they won’t understand each other’s language.” Then the Lord dispersed them from there over all the earth, and the stopped building the city. Therefore, it is named Babel, because there the Lord mixed up the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord dispersed them over all the earth.[7]
      • Scholar: The story of Babel in face deals with the origins of cultural difference, not with pride and punishment. … The author describes a primeval time when everyone spoke the same language and used the same vocabulary. The goal of the building project was to keep the community in one place, lest they be scattered over the surface of all the earth. … Building a tower was only a means to this end.[8]
  • So rather than this being a story about humanity’s excessive pride and a punishment doled out by a fickle God with a frail ego, it’s a story about the value of differences … of getting to know “the other” … of the blessing that diversity truly can be.
    • Scholar highlights the juxtaposition that we find in diversity – the blessing and the challenge: Babel is not all bad. From our Babel component we get cultural diversity. We get to push ourselves outside of our own understandings. We get humor and most things that are fun in this world. But Babel is also what makes injustice thrive. Babel is what makes a distinction between rich and poor. Babel is what makes people think they can own other people. Babel is what makes enemies. Babel is what makes wars to happen. Babel is often lived out in individual and corporate sin, because we tend not to look to God, but to ourselves for the ultimate answers. And what we end up with is confusion. None of us speak the same language anymore. We all have a Babel component.[9]  → “None of us speak the same language anymore. We all have a Babel component.” Friends, in this day and age, we seem to have lost our appreciation for diversity. We have allowed – sometimes even encouraged! – the things that divide us to grow to the size of mountains while the things that unite us in all of our crazy, messy, beautiful diversity have shrunk to mole hills. That is why the words of A Brief Statement of Faith are so important – words that celebrate all of those things that make us different and highlight just how in that difference, we find the Oneness of God. So let us recite those words together this morning.

[1] Dr. Seuss. Horton Hears a Who. (New York, NY: Random House), 1954.

[2] A Brief Statement of Faith from The Book of Confessions: Study Edition (revised). (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017), 421.

[3] 1 Cor 12:13-14, 19-20, 26.

[4] 1 Cor 12: 15-17, 20-21.

[5] Gen 11:4.

[6] Ralph W. Klein. “Day of Pentecost – Genesis 11:1-9 – Exegetical Perspective” in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary – Year C, vol. 3. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 5.

[7] Gen 11:5-9.

[8] Klein, 3.

[9] Douglas M. Donley. “Day of Pentecost – Genesis 11:1-9 – Pastoral Perspective” in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary – Year C, vol. 3. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 4.

Texts used – Isaiah 61:1-9; 2 Corinthians 5:14-21

• There’s a DIY (“Do It Yourself”) craze that’s swept the country in recent years, and that craze is something called ‘upcycling.’
  • Upcycling = process of taking an old, worn out, broken item and refurbishing it → making it into something new and usable again
    • Could be making into a fresher version of what it was (e.g. – reupholstering and painting an old chair)
    • Very often it’s repurposing it into something entirely new (e.g. – turning an old door into a headboard)
  • Lots of energy dedicated to the idea of upcycling
    • Books
    • Magazines
    • HGTV shows
    • “How tos” on YouTube, Pinterest, and other online sources
  • I think we’re probably even more aware of the potentials (and maybe even pitfalls) of upcycling here in Oronoco because of Gold Rush Days!
    • Plenty of vendors sell items that have already been upcycled
    • Lots and lots of people come to Gold Rush Days looking for that perfect item to upcycle themselves
      • Junky set of chairs
      • Old window frame
      • Various types of signs
      • Rusty lighting fixture
  • The trick to upcycling is finding a way to both honor whatever the thing was before and make it look like something new.
    • Not trying to hide its past life/purpose
    • Trying to celebrate what it was while also making it useful and beautiful again
      • E.g. – window frame that I bought a few years ago and turned into a picture frame → All I did was clean it up, sand down the rough paint edges, and add some hanging hardware. I didn’t paint it to try to make it look uniform and new again. I didn’t remove the original window hardware. It still looks like a window … but it also looks like a picture frame. There’s no hiding what it was or what it’s become.
• Now, throughout Lent this year, we’ve been taking a look at some of the creeds and confessions of the Presbyterian Church and talking about how they still speak to our lives.
  • 1st week: Nicene Creed (oldest and most universal creed)
  • Last week: Theological Declaration of Barmen → document that came out of Nazi Germany and speaks to the authority of God above all else
  • This week – tackling the Confession of 1967
    • All about reconciling
    • All about rebuilding relationships → taking what was old, worn out, broken and making it new again … spiritual upcycling.
• The Confession of 1967 – historical background
  • Document born out of the turbulence and cultural uncertainty of the 1960 → contemporary of Vatican II in both the time it was generated and the way in which it tried to bring the church into a new era
  • Creation of the confession = long process
    • Originally, in 1956, a number of presbyteries requested to modernize the language of the Westminster Catechism (one of the older confessional documents that came out of the Reformation period) → morphed into a decision to write a new confessional document to speak to the current age
    • First draft took a special committee 7 yrs. to write
    • Reviewed and revised by a different special committee in 1965
    • Finally adopted by the General Assembly in 1967
  • Certainly the longest of the confessions that we’ve tackled so far → In fact, this is the only time throughout this sermon series that you do not and will not have the whole text of the confession in your bulletin insert. Frankly, it was just too long to print the whole thing. You have …
    • Preface: gives you a taste for the intent/purpose of the confession
    • The text of the confession itself [READ CONFESSION]
    • Heading titles for the 2 main parts of the confession (“God’s Work of Reconciliation” and “The Ministry of Reconciliation”) → This is the main body of the text which addresses a wide variety of theological topics from the grace of Jesus Christ to the love of God, the role and authority of Scripture, the mission of the church, and the Sacraments. If you’re interested in reading the body of this document, I’d be happy to either loan you a copy of the Book of Confessions or make a copy of the Confession of 1967 in its entirety for you.
    • Part III (the conclusion): “The Fulfillment of Reconciliation”
  • As you can probably tell from the titles of those parts, the central theme = reconciliation → built around a line from our NT passage for today: God was reconciling the world to himself through Christ[1]
    • Encompasses Reformed understanding of reconciliation – Presbyterian theologian and scholar Jack Rogers points out the two main movements of reconciliation under Reformed theology: God comes to humanity in forgiveness, and people are to be peacemakers with their fellow human beings.[2]
      • Addresses first and foremost the ways that we are brought back into right relationship with God
      • Also addresses the importance of being brought back into right relationship with one another as a facet of our spiritual well-being
• Now reconciliation – the restoration of right relationships – was certainly an issue that arose in the face of the massive cultural shifts of the 1960s: the explosion of rock and roll; the divisiveness of the Vietnam War; the Civil Rights movement; the assassination of key political figures like President Kennedy, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Senator Robert Kennedy; the waning of mainstream religion … I could go on and on. But I think that today, we find ourselves in a time that is at least as desperately in need of this message of reconciliation if not even more so: our political system, which was initially built on the ideas of compromise and working together, has become fractured and combative at best; social media and the invention of smartphones has caused us to be more insular and self-centered than possibly any other time in history; across the board, churches have been declining for decades, forcing some to make difficult decisions; our society has grown to relish things like unhealthy views of women and violence, leading to the birth movements like Me, Too and Time’s Up; gun violence has become such an acceptable part of our day-to-day news cycle that the massacre of 17 students in a high school only stays in the headlines for a week (at most!) before we move on to the next thing. Again … I could go on. If anything, all of this bespeaks a desperate cry for the restoration of right relationships with God and with each other.
• Need for reconciliation = spelled out in both Scripture passages today
  • NT passage = reconciling with God
    • Text: So then, if anyone is in Christ, that person is part of the new creation. The old things have gone away, and look, new things have arrived! All of these new things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and who gave us the ministry of reconciliation. In other words, God was reconciling the world to himself through Christ, by not counting people’s sins against them.[3]  → all about how we are called back into good and beautiful relationship with God
      • Makes it very clear that this is something that God does for us, not something that we achieve on our own → this is grace – totally one-sided in its generosity and freely given
      • Friends, this is what it’s all about when we come to the table. As we will in a few minutes, we participate in this sacred meal because we are coming to God asking for forgiveness … asking to be restored in our relationship with God through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, asking to rebuild that relationship one step … one prayer … one piece of bread … one cup at a time. That’s why, in our communion prayer, we acknowledge that there are times when we have indeed turned away, acknowledge the power of Christ’s death and resurrection, and ask God to pour out the Holy Spirit on us again to draw us together with God and one another in mission and in grace.
    • NT passage also speaks to our call to share that message of reconciliation with one another – text: [Christ] died for the sake of all so that those who are alive should live not for themselves but for the one who died for them and was raised. … He has trusted us with this message of reconciliation. ²⁰ So we are ambassadors who represent Christ. God is negotiating with you through us. We beg you as Christ’s representatives, “Be reconciled to God!”[4]
  • OT passage speaks to how we can enact that reconciliation in our relationships with one another
    • Text: He has sent me to bring good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim release for captives, and liberation for prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and a day of vindication for our God, to comfort all who mourn, to provide for Zion’s mourners, to give them a crown in place of ashes, oil of joy in place of mourning, a mantle of praise in place of discouragement.[5]  → Basically, it’s about treating people well – treating people like people, no matter the circumstances.
      • That is the call we hear from Isaiah
      • That is the call we hear from the Confession of 1967: God’s redeeming work in Jesus Christ embraces the whole of man’s life: social and cultural, economic and political, scientific and technological, individual and corporate.[6]
• But here’s the thing about reconciliation. It’s a lot like upcycling in that it’s not meant to simply smooth over what was and pretend it never existed. Reconciliation isn’t a “forgive and forget” sort of action. That sort of mentality, in fact, defeats the whole point of reconciliation. In order to restore those right relationships, we have to be able to acknowledge what broke them in the first place – to confess it and express our regret and desire for forgiveness, to bring ourselves in humility and ask for forgiveness. Reconciliation isn’t about restoring a relationship to what it was before it was broken but about making it stronger, better, fuller than it was before. There’s no hiding what it was or what it’s become.
  • Beautiful, powerful example in some of the work of the missionary family that we support – Rev. Shelvis Smith-Mather works with RECONCILE International, an organization dedicated to rebuilding relationships after the decades of violence and civil war that eventually split the nation of Sudan into Sudan and South Sudan → from RECONCILE’s website: RECONCILE International was established in 2003 as an affiliate church organization by the New Sudan Council of Churches (NSCC). The recent civil war killed an estimated 2 million people, and has had a dramatic affect upon the peoples of southern Sudan, resulting in an environment where it is difficult for communities to build trust, heal the wounds of trauma, transform conflict into peace, and promote reconciliation. We aim to contribute to Nation Building and realization of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement by equipping communities with knowledge and skills for peacebuilding through psychosocial rehabilitation, civic education, and advocacy. This will ultimately help to create an environment for a healthy, peaceful, democratic society.[7]
    • Story after story from this crucial organization about people who were traumatized engaging with those who caused the trauma in the first place in ways that both honor/acknowledge the past and build a bridge toward the future through discussion, prayer, mutual community building, education, etc. → powerful, powerful ministry
• Nothing in our readings today – in our Scripture or in our confession – says anything about reconciliation being easy. And frankly, I don’t think we’d want it to be. President Theodore Roosevelt said, “Nothing in this world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty. No kind of life is worth leading if it is always an easy life.” Just like the work and the sweat that has to go into successfully upcycling something, we have to be willing to put work and spiritual sweat into restoring our relationships, both with God and with others. But in the end, it all comes out beautiful. → words from Isaiah: They will be called Oaks of Righteousness, planted by the LORD to glorify himself. They will rebuild the ancient ruins; they will restore formerly deserted places; they will renew ruined cities, places deserted in generations past. … You will be called The Priests of the LORD; Ministers of Our God, they will say about you.[8] Thanks be to God. Amen.

[1] 2 Cor 5:19.

[2] Jack Rogers. Presbyterian Creeds: A Guide to the Book of Confessions. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1985), 220.

[3] 2 Cor 5:17-19.

[4] 2 Cor 5:15, 19b-20.

[5] Is 61:1b-3a.

[6] The Confession of 1967 from The Book of Confessions: Study Edition (revised). (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017), 9.53.

[7] http://www.reconcile-int.org/drupal/about.

[8] Is 61:3b-6a.