BASE HEADER LEVEL: 2
MARKED STYLE: Upstanding Citizen
Texts: 1 Kings 17:17–24, Psalm 30, Galatians 1:11–24, Luke 7:11–17
Theme: In his letter to the Galatians, Paul goes ‘back to the basics’ to refocus a church that needs to be renewed in the call of the Gospel — which is not of human origin but of God.

Our assigned texts, which we don’t have to follow by the way, but which we do follow [..] starting actually last week began a series in which we follow Paul’s letter to the Galatians. This is a fantastic letter because it really is a chance to hear a passionate but serious Paul put it all on the line for something that he would stake his whole life on.

The church in Galatia had drifted from what Paul considered the essential Gospel that he shared with them. Paul is not worried here, that they’ve missed some nuance of his brilliant thinking. Paul seems to think that the entire hope of the Gospel is at risk of being lost. This is as important and life-and-death situation as Paul could imagine.

So what did they do wrong? I’m glad you asked.

There could be no better talking partner than Paul for a congregation seeking spiritual renewal. Paul would be quick to remind us that the stakes are high. The life-giving Gospel is always at risk of being missed in this world, because it is so unlike most things in this world. We’re going to walk with Paul here a bit because Paul is challenge us to get back to basics. To get back to the heart of the matter. For the church in Galatia, Paul refocuses a church that needs to be renewed in the calling of the Gospel. I believe that if we look, we will find ourselves in this ongoing story of the Gospel. In these words to the church in Galatia, I think we will best begin our own series on spiritual renewal. So, after a few brief words of general introduction, Paul begins the renewal like this:

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are confusing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.” (Galatians 1.6–7 NRSV)

Uh oh. Paul is angry at what he sees as a rejection of the Gospel. This is not just about the right delivery, or an academic debate on the finer points of theology. He says, I don’t care if an angel proclaimed it to you, what has been taught as the Gospel in Galatia since I left is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ; it is death.

So what are they doing that is so wrong? Did they really miss the main point? Oh, right, you already asked that question…

And it’s a good question. Spiritual Renewal is about asking the basic questions. What are we really doing here? This is not a criticism of any particular church activity, but in our society, churches organize coffee shops, athletic leagues, prayer teams, mission trips, water gun fights, early childhood education, K-12 education, colleges and universities, investment funds. None of these things are wrong or bad or inherently evil. But it can tempting to get swept up in something that we mistake for the Gospel, when in fact, it’s not the Gospel.

That’s what I love about the 10 practices of faithfulness that Pastor Weitzel has encouraged us to focus on. I know it can look like 10 more things to feel guilty for not doing, but actually, it’s permission to stop worrying about the 990 other things that aren’t on this list. For just a moment, to look for God in a practice where we know God can be found. So that that we don’t turn to another gospel — not that there is another Gospel, as Paul says.

Since you gave up asking, I’ll tell you what the folks in Galatia did to get Paul so angry. Paul tips his hand in the greeting at the very beginning of Galatians:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to set us free from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

This is Paul’s whole message in a sentence. The Gospel as he experienced it, not by teaching, and not by studying, but from Jesus Christ himself…that Gospel sets us free. For Paul, this is not just nice sounding words. God’s principal action in our lives, the ‘God experience’ that we have sets us free. You and I are free to live in Christ and for Christ to live in us, no strings attached. No ifs, ands, or buts. That’s why our mission statement talks about God’s unconditional love, because there are no conditions. As soon as you put a condition on it, it’s not the Gospel. Even if you say, God loves us, but we have to follow his commandments…WRONG. God loves us if we just believe in him…WRONG. You’ve probably heard a lot of conditions. You’ve probably heard me put a condition on God’s love, and I was wrong. But you hear it all the time, because it is so hard to believe.

Apparently, in Galatia, some probably well-meaning folks got a hold of the Gospel that Paul proclaimed to them and made it a little more reasonable sounding. They said, of course God loves us. And of course God sets us free. But once you hear the Good News, you have to follow the rules. You have to be circumcised as the scriptures say, and you have to eat the right foods that the scriptures say and so on. After all, that is our identity as God’s people.

And Paul says, They have deserted the Gospel.

It’s easy to be confused in our identity. It’s easy to get confused in our purpose. It’s easy to get wrapped up in our ministries and activities and tasks and outcomes and projects and everything else when we turn from God’s saving words to us, the Gospel, our call: to be free in Christ. To be fed and forgiven children of God — no strings attached.

See, it begins with the call. It begins with God, not with us.

Remember Paul? He confesses to the Galatians:

“You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors. But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any human being, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus.” (Galatians 1.13–17 NRSV)

Paul had practiced his identity to perfection. He was a zealous protector of his beloved faith. He fit the Jewish model perfectly. He was so confident in his own identity and purpose that he violently persecuted these folks who were doing all this Jesus talking. Paul had everything on his side — except for God’s call.

Paul — or Saul as he was known then — was the perfect example of someone who had gotten so wrapped up in what he thought was his identity, what he thought was his purpose, that he needed to be renewed. He had trusted so much in his own sense of identity, purpose, and ministry that he ended up 180 degrees from where he should have been.

But then he heard God’s call for Jesus Christ to be revealed in him and through him. Not because he had a good track record. Not because of any if’s and’s or but’s but because God called him.

No doubt Paul recognizes in the church of Galatia exactly far off course well meaning folks can get without hearing the call of God.

Since most of us won’t be stricken blind to hear the booming and clear voice of Jesus himself (like Paul was) we will discern God’s call in a different way.

We have, not as a law but as a gift, God’s call to faithfulness, God’s call to relationship with Jesus, God’s call to freedom. For the next 10 weeks, we’re going to walk in this path of faithfulness, examining each of these ways in which God invites us into Christ. These aren’t prerequisites for the Gospel: remember Paul’s warning.

God doesn’t love us and set us free because we do these things. This is our invitation to set down all the distractions, all the present evils of this age (as Paul describes them) and to be renewed in the Gospel that God has set us free. The freedom is this: each of these steps begins with God’s action in our lives. Our faith practices begin with the work of a faithful God.

What a sight to see, huh?

It’s pretty clear which festival we are celebrating today. The visuals alone of these beautiful flowers — really a garden — tell their own stories about new life and Easter blessings.

It’s been a week of images. I’m a visual person, so I can tell you that I’ve taken a whole visual trip before getting to Easter Sunday.

It began last Sunday with the palms. [p1] The cries of Hosana, both of joy and fear. It continued with the image of a servant’s towel on Maundy Thursday. [p2] The kind of love that Jesus calls us to is at the same time menial and miraculous. And then the cross of Good Friday. [p3] That symbol of struggle, pain, and fear. And the final symbol, the tomb. [p4] Death. A bare altar. A stone. The end.

These images serve to tell part of a story that comes to a conclusion in this last chapter of the Gospel story as told by Mark — the Gospel we’ve been focusing on this year. To all appearances it would look to be the end of Jesus. Certainly the Roman and Jewish authorities considered the tomb to be the end of the story. You can almost hear their sighs of relief that this uncomfortable conflict stirred up by a weird son of a carpenter has come to end: might is still right, and every who was in charge is still in charge.

[CLOSELY] But we know that this is not quite the end. We know that there’s more to this story. The Gospel changes everything. After the palms were laid down, the towel removed, the cross lifted up, and the tomb sealed, now hear the Easter Good News this morning from the Gospel of Mark:

(Mark 16.1–8 NRSV modified)

“When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint Jesus. And very early, on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples even Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

How’s that for an ending? Although most Bibles include a longer ending to the Gospel of Mark, the really smart Bible people, and the earliest manuscripts of Mark end the Gospel right here.

And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

This is how it ends? After everything that has happened? After all the miracles? After all the healings? And teachings? After all the people Jesus sent away saying “Tell no one” who then went out proclaiming the Good News themselves we come to this end, the final vindication of Jesus, raised by God. And we end with terror. Saying nothing. To anyone.

What an unsettling ending. It’s like a piece of music that ends without resolution…

Isn’t it annoying? We want that ending. That resolution. Have you ever left a movie theater totally uncomfortable…because the film refused to give you a resolution? I have. Recently.

Not too long ago I went to see a movie called “The Hunger Games.” Has anyone heard of it?

[Hunger Games]

Besides being one of the biggest blockbuster premieres of all time, it’s also a pretty good movie. How often does that happen? This thing is, it brings up all these important issues about

• violence and society
• the treatment of children
• entertainment and politics

but does not resolve them by any stretch of the imagination. I won’t spoil the story for you if you plan to see it soon, but a brief synopsis might be a story set in a world similar to ours where children aged 12-18 are selected to literally fight each other to the death in a tournament held as a kind of ritual each year. And this tournament is produced and manipulated and televised by the government and watched by millions of people who cheer on their local child warrior — at least while they are still alive.

It’s a brutal story that left me pretty uncomfortable, but it’s not too hard to see what the author might be trying to show us about our own world. And what violence can do to us. After all, it’s not just in the world of Hunger Games where kids are neglected, abused, and even killed. This is our world, too. This is the same as the world that Jesus came into: a world that turned against the one that came to save it. A world in which mothers still lose their sons and daughters. (If anyone wants to keep talking about the story of the Hunger Games, let me know and we can continue that later.

For now, it’s enough to say that the movie shows us the forces of evil at work in the world — even if it takes place in different reality. The movie brings up real issues for me. And I want resolution to these issues. But the movie does not provide them all.

Now, I know the answer for Hunger Games is that I’m supposed to wait for the sequels or read the rest of the series to get my resolution. But what about the Gospel story? There are real issues there, too. About life and death, hope and violence, love and sin. Where do we find resolution to a story that ends with silence, amazement, and fear?

Well, I imagine we have two options: we can go back into what has already happened and look for clues there. Or we go forward. Actually, I think the Resurrection calls us to do both.

First, the Resurrection of Jesus, and the abrupt end at the empty tomb sends us back into the Gospel to look for our resolution. What does this all mean, now that Jesus has been raised? When Jesus taught the people not to fear death — maybe he was right? When Jesus said that all who lose their lives for the Gospel will save them — maybe he was serious? When he said pick up your cross, he meant it. When he said that all things are possible for God, that was true.

The Resurrection means that light and life and love can show up anywhere — even in death — for all things are possible for God. And here is my hope, found in the second to last verse of the Gospel of Mark:

But go, tell his disciples, even Peter, that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.

Even Peter.

Most translations say Go tell his disciples and Peter, but it’s equally valid to translate this as even Peter. And it makes more sense. Peter, our star disciple. Who confessed Jesus as the Messiah. Who pledged never to abandon his Teacher and Lord. Who could not even stay awake in Jesus’ greatest struggle, as he prayed in Gethsemane. And — when it came down to it — who denied even knowing Jesus. Three times before the rooster crowed.

Go tell his disciples. Even Peter. I don’t know about you, but these words give me hope. Even Peter. Even me. Even you.

Even those of us who profess our faith, but struggle with doubt. Even those of us that love the commandments, but find them hard to keep. Even those of us who claim to be leaders, but stumble along the way. Even those of us who hear this story but are left in silence. And fear.

But for us, even us, the resolution is not found in the final words written in ink on a piece of paper. The resolution is your encounter and my encounter with this same Jesus.

The same Jesus who has been resurrected in our lives. Where forgiveness has been given even when we don’t deserve it. Where love has been shared despite our flaws. Where God’s will has been done even as we thought we failed.

The ending to the Gospel of Mark is unresolved by Christ is still being resurrected in our lives. God still walks with us. Christ still invites us together, and feeds us with his own body and blood. Not once, at the end of the story, but every time we gather.

How’s that for an ending?

The final image, then? In a week that began with palms, moved to towels, to the cross, to the tomb…This is the final image of the story: I’m looking at it. It is a group of people — yes even you and even me — who have heard the Good News. Who have found life in Jesus. Who have found hope in the story. Who have strength in love. You look like the next part of the story. Even you.

Amen and Alleluia.

• “This is the night.”
  • No, not a Kenny G song.
  • the ancient chant that began Easter Vigil services
  • as the Ancients marked time, sundown began the next day
  • as they saw it, we have come to the first day - the day of the Resurrection
  • this is Easter, friends! Just like usual Saturday night service.
  • But as we hear in the Gospel, it is still dark as Mary Magdalene finds the empty tomb; this is still the night, and with it comes mystery. Unexplained events.
• we never see the resurrection of Jesus; we don’t hear about how it happened; we don’t know exactly when it happened, or how long it happened
• equal parts curiosity and anxiety, I want to explain it
• but I can’t. And I shouldn’t.
• “In all things mysterious - Never explain.” Stanley Kubrick
• It’s God after all. How could we?
• But it’s not a God shrouded in mystery who lives light years away. Our God shows up in the most human place possible. In the one place that defines us mortals more than anything else: a grave.
• Not only was God content to create us, not only was God content to walk the earth with us, to eat, work, and cry with us. God chose to die with us.

Here’s a mystery. God entered human existence to feel hunger like we do, the feel thirst like we do, to feel weariness and pain like we do. To be lonely, angry, and disappointed by his friends. To die like we do. But at the same time, Jesus gave bread to the hungry. Healed those suffered. Connected those who were outcast. Gave life to the dead.

Our mystery is that at the same time we praise a God that lives with us and dies with us.

The Resurrection is a mystery. But it’s right in front of us.

Even Mary Magdalene, who devoted herself to Jesus, didn’t recognize the Resurrection. Jesus stood right before her, but the grip of death was so strong that she couldn’t believe - until he called her by name.

The grip of death is strong in our lives, too. We’re afraid of getting older, so we are tempted to buy sports cars for our midlife crises, put aging creams on our faces, and lie about our age. (I realize it’s not fair for you to hear this from someone who barely qualifies for a quarter-life crisis…but life isn’t fair is it?) We can get wrapped up in so many anxieties about losing the stuff of our lives that we can forget the promise of life itself.

But the Resurrection is for us, and it’s right in front of us.

And God calls us by name. Did you hear your name? In Mary weeping over the loss of a friend, did you hear your name? In Mary startled by unexpected things, did you hear your name? In the disciples running back to the tomb, out of breath, hoping against hope that maybe…just maybe…Mary was right?

Ayden Grant Steenrod was surrounded today by people who love him, by some water, and by God’s own promise to know his name. To claim him as a son.

God knows you by name, and God enters into your lives, too. God enters into your struggles to bring peace. At work, at home, in doctor’s offices. God enters into your hurting relationships and brings forgiveness.

Every day. Every day that you wake up and live again into the baptismal promises that we remembered tonight.

Easter is for you. For all of us. For every part of our lives.

There is no better way to say so than an Easter Sermon preached over 1500 years ago by John Chrysostom. This sermon is still read today in many Orthodox churches on Easter morning.

I’ve paraphrased it, and I want to close with it. See if you hear your name.

2012 Paraphrase of John Chrysostom’s Easter Sermon

Does anyone here whole-heartedly love God? Enjoy this beautiful and bright celebration.

Is anyone here a grateful and hard worker? Rejoice in God.

Is anyone here weary from waiting for Easter? Now you can relax.

Those of us who have worked faithfully from the very first hour can receive our reward.

Those of us who came after the third hour, can gratefully join this feast.

Those of us who came after the sixth hour, can worship without fear.

And those of us who just made it in for the eleventh hour, we should not worry, either.

God is merciful, and loves the last as much as the first. Whatever your last few weeks have been like: anxious, wonderful, boring, a blur…God is for you.

God gives gifts to each and every one of us — whether we think we’re important or not. Whether we think we’ve done well or poorly. God says we are worthy.

So, we can be joyful.

All of us — Easter is for us. Rich and poor, we rejoice together.

The successful among us, the down-and-out among us, we can all celebrate tonight. If you had and kept a Lenten devotion, or if you utterly failed on Day One. (Like I did.) Easter is for us. The feast is ready.

Tonight’s celebration is the real thing. Enjoy it, because this is God’s gift to us.

God dries our tears today, because in the Kingdom of God, there are no more losers.

It doesn’t matter how many times we fail because forgiveness has risen from the grave.

None of us need fear even death, because the death of Jesus has set us free.

God has destroyed death by enduring it. God destroyed hell by going through it.

We find this foretold in the book of Isaiah which says that, “Hell was stirred up by meeting you.”

Death got eclipsed.

Death got mocked.

Death got destroyed.

Death got abolished.

Death got made captive.

Death grasped a corpse, and met God.

Death seized a mortal, and found the immortal.

Death took the finite, and was overcome by the infinite.

Death where is your sting?

Hell, where is your victory?

Christ is risen and death is over.

Christ is risen and evil has lost.

Christ is risen and the angels rejoice.

Christ is risen and life is set free.

Christ is risen and the tomb is emptied of its dead.

Rejoice because Christ — risen from the dead — is the first of the Resurrection promise we all share in him.

To Christ be glory and power forever and ever. Amen. Alleluia. Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia.

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love on another.”

---

It is fitting that we should begin this three day journey to Easter together with a story about a meal. Tonight’s theme comes from an important meal: the Last Supper. It’s fitting because this journey we make to Easter is really one big meal. A feast that remembers the death and celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. It’s a feast of music and scripture and silence (maybe too much for some of you!) and the main course is Jesus. Everything about these three days (R, F, and Easter) centers around Jesus — both Crucified and Resurrected Jesus. (betrayed, humiliated, and killed) (who was raised by God, who is God)

On the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus shared a meal with his disciples. We have windows into the Upper Room event as told from the various Gospels and from the writings of Paul, and from early church tradition. But as we will read tonight in the Gospel of John, the focus in not what they ate, or drank, or how much, or how little. The focus is this: during the meal, Jesus stoops down like a servant and washes the feet of the disciples.

Washing feet is uncomfortable for our society because it invades our personal space. Washing feet was uncomfortable in the society of Jesus, because it put you lower on the social ladder. It was offensive to have to touch another person’s feet.

Jesus stoops down like a servant and washes the feet of the disciples. Jesus — knowing full well that all things had been given to him. That he was with God and that he was God. That all things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. And still, he stoops down like a servant and washes the feet of the disciples.

And the crazy thing is that because Jesus was with God, and was God, and that all things came into being through him, Jesus knew the hearts of his disciples and knew that one of them would betray him. Not only does Jesus stoop down from the level of God to the level of humanity to wash the feet of disciples who loved him…he washes the feet of the disciple that sells him out to his death.

Jesus sets an example of crazy love and then commends it to his disciples. This is the new commandment. The mandate from which get Maundy Thursday: “Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love on another.”

[PAUSE] Did you know this was the kind of meal you signed up for? Where we are called to love and serve (actually serve!) every kind of person? Those who annoy us. Those who are different from us. Those who haven’t worked as hard as we have. Those who don’t like us. Even those who would betray us? This is a struggle. Did you realize that Christ has called us to this kind of love?

This kind of love is the only reason that anyone of us can sit down to this meal. This kind of love welcomes us less-than-perfect people to share a meal with God. This kind of love helps us to forgive others as we have been forgiven.

It’s not that we reenact the Last Supper tonight. We can’t replicate what happened between Jesus and his disciples in the Upper Room. But we will embody this kind of love and service here and now. Tonight we worship together in a pattern that will live out in our own lives. Welcoming each other to the table, and serving our neighbors with Jesus’ own kind of love. Welcome to the feast of this kind of love.

In those days, a ruling went out from the emperor named Caesar Augustus, that all people should have their names recorded for a census. This was the first time it happened while a man named Quirinius was the Governor of Syria. And each person had to go to his own hometown. So Joseph went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David — a little village called Bethlehem, because those were his people in the family of David. And he went to be recorded with Mary, who he was arranged to be married to, and who was expecting to have a baby. While they were there, it became time for her to have her baby. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloth and she laid him in the manger — the area for the animals — because there was no space in the room.

Around that place, there were poor shepherds living in the fields, who had to watch over the sheep at night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were scared. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for look — I am bringing you good news of great joy for all people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in swaddling cloth and lying in a manger.” And suddenly, with the angel, there was a giant crowd of heavenly servants who were praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those whom he favors.”

And so it was that as the angels had gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem, to see this thing that has happened, which God has told us about.”

So they hurried and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger. And when they had seen with their own eyes this thing they had been told about, they told others about the baby Jesus. And everyone who heard what the shepherds told them were amazed. But Mary, treasured all these things and wondered about them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God, for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told to them.

Everything is so beautiful tonight, that it’s hard to imagine Christmas any other way. I can hardly imagine Christmas without the poinsettias, the trees, the lights. And I can hardly imagine Christmas without the proclamation about Bethlehem. About finding a child, wrapped in swaddling cloth, and laid in a manger. It almost begins to feel like a manger in Bethlehem is the ideal place for the Messiah to enter into humanity. But it’s not. {smile}

Think of a place that’s important to you. Think of some physical place that is so special that it’s burned into your memory. You could easily see it when you close your eyes. What makes that place special? Maybe some of us thought of beautiful vistas, overlooking waterfalls. Places that just naturally attract wide-eyed visitors. Maybe some of us thought of different kinds of places. Like a dirty park bench where someone asked you to marry them. Or a little patch of grass where you scored your first goal. Or one particular head stone among many in a large cemetery.

Some of these kinds of places in our lives are not special because of what you can see. And they may not be special to anyone else.

So, what is it that makes something special?

What’s the difference between Bethlehem and the next little town down the road. Well, wait…surely there is something special about Bethlehem. We’ve praised it in songs for centuries. Even it’s name sounds poetic: Bethlehem.

Well, actually, there is nothing too special about Bethlehem. It was basically a suburb of Jerusalem. Sure it was known as the city of David, but it was not the only city that claimed David. Jerusalem was the city of David. And yes, Bethlehem was foretold in Micah, but it’s not like it was the only town, or even the best town mentioned in Micah’s prophecies. And you have to twist the Hebrew words around a few times before it actually works. And by the way, in Hebrew, Bethlehem means ‘house of bread’.

And I have to break it to you, the manger is not a romantic place to be born (I mean, think about a stable with animals.) But it wasn’t a miraculous place to be born, either. In fact, it was a common place for poor folks to give birth. Jesus was probably not the only child born that night in a manger. In other words, there is nothing outstanding about the events that we celebrate tonight — nothing special about the nature of Christ’s birth — except this: God chose it. God chose Mary — a poor, second-class citizen — and not even an experienced mother. God chose Bethlehem — a town that was so small then, that it’s a stretch to even call it a town. God chose a time and place for Jesus, so unprepared — so unwilling to hear God’s message of Love — that the people literally killed the messenger. This is who was entrusted with the only Son of God.

Likewise, I imagine that there is nothing truly outstanding about most or any of our homes this year. Unless there’s something I don’t know, our houses won’t be filmed for Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Our families will not be celebrated in tabloids. Our graduations, weddings, and funerals won’t be televised on live TV. Our various and blended families may be just two people, we may be four or five, we may be one. And we all try to be good people, more or less. But none of us have earned a heavenly host to do our PR. None of us claim any kind of privileged fast-track relationship with the Almighty. No one here has a corner on the God market. There is nothing particularly outstanding for most of our lives except this: God chooses us.

God chooses us to be entrusted with a precious, defenseless, baby — the Savior who is Christ the Lord. God chooses all of us: shepherds, out-of-towners, strangers, sick people, addicted people, boring people, tired people. God chooses us to receive the savior of the nations. Us! Think about this decision: God placed the fate of the world into the hands of a teenage girl living in the brutal Ancient world. We get the body of Christ placed in our hands as a broken piece of bread. We have the words of life — the Word of God — read to us by our parents. Our children. Our neighbors. By strangers. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is proclaimed to us with lips that are also used to gossip about neighbors. To argue with loved ones. These are the mouths that God uses to spread the Word.

God has designed a gift so strong that it bends the universe toward justice; God has a message so important, that it suffers pain and humiliation to get through to us; God has a vision for creation that will end every war and dry every tear.

And to bear that vision into the world — to put flesh and blood, sweat and tears, hands and feet on love — though God has heavenly hosts available, though God could force the will of every government on earth, though God spins every planet on its axis and sees to the ends of the universe, God does the crazy thing. The Christmas thing.

God chooses us.

The unamazing birth of a King. The simplicity of God’s gift. The insignificance of small town called Bethlehem. The story of Christmas is the story of our lives. It’s the story of God showing up in unexpected places. In ordinary places. And blessing every ordinary part of our lives — the crying of a newborn baby, hitting the snooze button on Monday morning, getting a bad grade, losing a job, taking our last breath — that’s where God chooses to be.

God chooses each of us to bear Christ into the world. To literally be the body of Christ. To be trusted with the most important message there is — spoken with your mouth, carried with your hands, lived in your life.

In this place. In this time.

Ps 116:16 O GOD, I am your servant; I am your servant, the child of a servant mother. You have freed me from my bonds.

Today we gather around one of oldest traditions in human history, the sharing of a meal. We will confess our sins to each other. We will hear the story of Passover in our religious heritage. We will hear both Paul and the Gospel of John narrate the Last Supper—where Jesus washes his disciples feet, shares a meal with them, and gives them a new commandment. Some of you today may choose to participate in a footwashing rite. We will share a meal together. And I hope we all hear this new commandment with fresh ears.

The new commandment sounds quite simple, almost naive: “As I have loved you, you should love another.” This Jesus tells to his disciples upon gathering them in Jerusalem. The simpler the commandment, I think, the harder to follow…It is this which gives Maundy Thursday its name—Maundy coming from the Latin word for commandment. But in this text we remember today, describing Jesus and his disciples sharing their final meal together, we find not only the commandment, but the pattern for its radical effect on our lives, and all whom we have contact with. The pattern is a servant.

The servant theme is crucial to Maundy Thursday, and the way we encounter God…the way we encounter each other. But, to be sure, the servant is a complicated image for 21st century Americans. In the month that we remember the assassination of Martin Luther King; at a time when a First Lady can trace her recent ancestry to slaves, bought and sold like the ones who built the house she now lives in…we cannot hear “servant” without painful memories of the American institution of slavery. And rightly so.

But our language is not the language of the Gospel of John. For its original community, the idea of servanthood was assumed and absolute across society. In the biblical worldview, a person is always enslaved to something—the concept of a free individual was just not possible. In fact, the entire concept of an individual was very much different from our modern concept.

Identity in the Biblical world comes from others, never from a sense of individual self. In a collectivist society, like that of Jesus and the disciples, each person is embedded in the larger group. You are who your group is, and who others say you are. Servant identity, then, is established in the eyes of others, not as a sense of one’s self.

Servanthood for Jesus does not directly address a person’s worth as an individual. It addresses the interdependence of the group. The servant may be completely dependent on the master, yes, and but so is the master on the servant. The intimate interdependence is nowhere more visible than the rite of footwashing. We will hear from John’s Gospel that Jesus washes the feet of his disciples. As their teacher, this is an unusual scenario, but Jesus insists. Imagine Jesus, stooping to wash the feet of the disciple who will soon condemn him to death. Jesus, who came up out the water’s Jordan to God’s own voice declaring him beloved, now sits on the floor baptizing the callouses and dirty toenails of disciples who have followed him from town to town.

In Atlanta, at the Church of the Common Ground, the doors are opened each Monday afternoon to the city’s homeless. Chairs are set up. Church members and volunteers stand by with water and pumice stones. The footwashing begins. Footwashing for those who participate is not symbolic: it is necessary for the health of those who battle on their feet for survival. For all, it makes relationships real.

Footwashing and the entire servant theme is challenging to so many of our modern ideas that put the self first, and others second. The consequences of a society which holds dear the phrase “greed is good” are now becoming quite evident. “Every person for him or herself” is the opposite of the servant lesson of Jesus. The interdependence that Jesus commands to his disciples questions why there are homeless streaming into that Atlanta church at all. How do we rest as individuals when members of our own community struggle every night for survival?

Maybe this group-centered biblical worldview is a good way to describe reality after all. Aren’t our lives completely dependent upon one another’s? The race that each of us runs to become a complete autonomous individual can lead to isolation. When we put all the emphasis on the self, life’s problems become our problems.

Listen to the danger: Lost my job? I must not have been good enough. Relationship with a loved one dissolved? I must not have been lovable enough. Find it hard to pray? I must not be worthy enough to God.

It is tempting to fit our idea of servanthood into this same faulty logic: Missed the mark as a servant of God? I must be doing it wrong.

If our isolation is a cause of economic and spiritual crises, then it is also a result. For many, the prospect of losing a job, and the inaccessibility of the resources needed for survival mean further isolation. John tells us that Jesus is preparing for his own death. But in the very midst of betrayal and fear, Jesus gathers his disciples for a meal.

Maundy Thursday invites us to resist the idea that we are on our own in this life. God’s Word to us in this place, in this culture is this: servanthood is a GIFT. Servanthood means intimate connection with and dependence upon the community. That’s us. Of course, it’s not always easy to be so intimately interdependent with each other. It is uncomfortable to take another’s feet in our hands, for example. But our interdependence is what makes us strong.

Maybe you celebrate our interdependence in the rite of footwashing…In a few moments you will have the opportunity to participate in the same act that the disciples shared with each other.

Maybe you celebrate our interdependence in the shared meal at the table…

Maybe you’ve found this at the Welcome Center, here, where the lives of many are woven together. Interdependence is just as constant in our lives as servanthood was in the biblical world.

So, Welcome to the servant community! God’s love has connected us with each other. The love that Jesus commanded has brought us into intimate connection with the One who knows human suffering. In the midst of betrayal and fear, we are gathered at one table, not to reenact an old-fashioned ritual. But to be the church. To be shoulder to shoulder, or even hand-in-foot, with the neighbors we have in Jesus. In the face of crucifixion and death, we gather for a meal.