Mark 14.10 - 26 March 11, 2018 Sermon

Mark 14.10 - 26 Common English Bible (CEB)
Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the chief priests to give Jesus up to them. When they heard it, they were delighted and promised to give him money. So he started looking for an opportunity to turn him in.
On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb was sacrificed, the disciples said to Jesus, “Where do you want us to prepare for you to eat the Passover meal?”
He sent two of his disciples and said to them, “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.” The disciples left, came into the city, found everything just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover meal.
That evening, Jesus arrived with the Twelve. During the meal, Jesus said, “I assure you that one of you will betray me—someone eating with me.”
Deeply saddened, they asked him, one by one, “It’s not me, is it?”
Jesus answered, “It’s one of the Twelve, one who is dipping bread with me into this bowl.
The Human One goes to his death just as it is written about him. But how terrible it is for that person who betrays the Human One! It would have been better for him if he had never been born.”
While they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” He took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it. He said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. I assure you that I won’t drink wine again until that day when I drink it in a new way in God’s kingdom.” After singing songs of praise, they went out to the Mount of Olives.


SERMON
I once cheated on a geometry test in high-school, and I think had my professor handled it differently, or not even noticed, I would have remembered it guiltily still, but there was something in the she did and I didn’t that didn’t seem to allow either justice or redemption to happen, and I carry that guilt with me still today. That episode in my life mirrors this text, and in it I am Judas.

I, Judas had never been good at math, and his Freshman year I switched from being a normal kid at a public middle school, to a poor and dumb kid at a college prep school. My mom was the librarian, for which he was teased and was also the reason he got in, as the cost of tuition was docked for the children of teachers and everyone knew it. My mom would know my test scores good or bad before I did and students would ask me to check out their books. On top of that, Freshman year, I had to take 8th grade math, since at public school they hadn’t started real math in the 8th grade. So Sophomore year, I was finally in geometry with a bunch of Freshman who had been at the school together since Montessori and knew the system in an insider way I never had.

It was the first time I, Judas, had been good at math, the spacial part of it just made sense. I could spin the objects around in my head and come up with formulas to go with it. My shining moment was when Professor Shurgot called Peyton Wallace and I up to the board to work out a problem, and despite hating being in front of the class, it was probably the first time math didn’t scare me. I was good at it. But then we would take tests and this thing would happen.

In the public schools, test time was just that, a test, you didn’t go up to the teacher, and the only thing you were allowed to ask about was the directions, you were utterly silent but for your pencil scratching your paper, and you remained silent until you were done. You either failed or passed and the grade you made was what you got. But I would watch the students go stand beside Professor Shurgot and say, they didn’t understand a question. Then, with the test and it’s answers out in plain sight on the her desk, she would work through the problem with them until they were done. All this, while I was trying to take my test with their talking and getting up to line up and ask questions in front at her desk. It made me mad, and I frankly didn’t understand what they were doing. So, I tried it. On a ten question test there was one I had no clue about, the top on the page, I decided not to ask about that one because I really had no clue - as it was a vastly different question than all the rest. So I went up and asked about one I thought I had right. I did but I looked at the answer at the top of her page. I repeated it over in my head, went back down to my seat and wrote it on my paper but could not figure out how on earth the problem worked.

The next day at the end of class, Professor. Shurgot announced to the class that someone had cheated on their test. That they came up and looked at her paper and wrote down the answer without showing any work. We had an Honor Code at the school which means I could have been kicked out, but perhaps because his mom was the librarian, Professor. Shurgot chose this alternative method. I remember the fear, and shame, wondering if my face showed it, when the other students, to what my ears sounded like a mocking sing-song, began asking, “You don’t think it was me, do you?” “You don’t think it was me, do you?” One by one they asked, like little disciples who had followed their teacher, even up to her desk during test time. Finally, so they would not all ask I said, “I bet whomever it was knows it was them.” Soon after we were dismissed, and I don’t think I ever looked up in the class again. I still feel so ashamed and guilty.

I don’t know if Judas felt like that. I bet he did. Feeling outcast, seeing injustice, trying out the corrupt system, wanting to be good at something, and then getting caught by the one he betrayed. I know he must have felt such deep shame. I wonder if sitting head low at my desk for the remainder of the year was like Judas sitting at that table for the remainder of the meal, as Jesus blessed the bread, broke it and gave it to them. Judas having been told it would have been better for him not to have been born. Judas wishing he wasn’t there, just as I wished I had never come to that school, another assurance I didn’t belong. I wonder if that is what it was like for Judas when they all drank from that same cup, feeling like his lips contaminated the wine and the covenant it represented. I wonder about the sorrow he felt when he heard Jesus say, “I assure you that I won’t drink wine again until that day I drink it in a new way in God’s kingdom.” Judas knowing that Jesus would not drink again because Judas had given away Jesus to die.
And I wonder if Judas sang. In the final verse, it says, “After singing songs of praise they went out to the Mount of Olives.” and I wonder if Judas sang. I doubt it. I bet Judas walked behind head held low, not making a sound.


I wonder if that is all Judas did, I wonder could he hear the part that was about drinking in a New Way in God’s kingdom? Because maybe in that kingdom, there is a way to overcome our gilt and our shame and come together as equals. Where Judas didn’t need a bribe of ten silver coins, and I didn’t a bribe of 100% to know I was good at something. Maybe there was a new way, a different way, a new kingdom. Maybe it has to do with Jesus lifting the bread and the cup. You can’t keep your head low in this new kingdom. You have to look up to see it broken, to watch it poured, and know in the look of Jesus’ eyes and know you are forgiven. Maybe all we have to do is look up, and know we all can walk forward to be forgiven, we all can take the bread, we all can share the cup. We can to raise our heads to see redemption and reconciliation offered before our eyes. We have to look up to take the bread and dip it in the bowl. The words can not be barred from our ears because our sin. The blessing is still there,

Bread of Life,
The body of Christ broken for you.
The body of Christ, the bread of heaven, broken/given for you.
Christ's body given for you.
The body of the Lamb given for you.
The cup of Christ poured out for you.
The blood of the new covenant.
The cup of the new covenant given/poured for you.

This is not just poured out for Judas, the bread not broken just for me, but shared for you too and whatever might be those hidden stories we carry with us. Jesus has come offering us this grace. It is here. It is a new world, not a world of tests, or of betrayal, but a world where we can all come with our questions, a place where the teacher is accessible and offers us a new way. This is what Jesus has given for us, that we might all leave in songs of praise.

John 13.1-17, March 4, 2018, Sermon

FIRST SCRIPTURE READING (LITURGIST) 

Mark 14.1 - 9  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. 

Jesus was at Bethany, visiting the house of Simon, who had a skin disease. 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 his 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. 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.”

SECOND SCRIPTURE READING (PASTOR)

John 13.1-17 Common English Bible (CEB)

Before the Festival of Passover, Jesus knew that his time had come to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them fully.

Jesus and his disciples were sharing the evening meal. The devil had already provoked Judas, Simon Iscariot’s son, to betray Jesus.

 Jesus knew the Father had given everything into his hands and that he had come from God and was returning to God. 

So Jesus got up from the table and took off his robes. Picking up a linen towel, he tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a washbasin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he was wearing.

When Jesus came to Simon Peter, Peter said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus replied, “You don’t understand what I’m doing now, but you will understand later.”“No!” Peter said. “You will never wash my feet!” Jesus replied, “Unless I wash you, you won’t have a place with me.” 

Simon Peter said, “Lord, not only my feet but also my hands and my head!” 

Jesus responded, “Those who have bathed need only to have their feet washed, because they are completely clean. You disciples are clean, but not every one of you.” 

Jesus knew who would betray him. That’s why he said, “Not every one of you is clean.” 

After  Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, he put on his robes and returned to his place at the table. He said to them, “Do you know what I’ve done for you? You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and you speak correctly, because I am. If I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you too must wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example: Just as I have done, you also must do. I assure you, servants aren’t greater than their master, nor are those who are sent greater than the one who sent them. Since you know these things, you will be happy if you do them.

SERMON (PASTOR) 

What would it look like for you to hold everything in your hands? Would you hold bricks of gold, vistas of grandeur, lands of plenty? Would you hold healing, immortality, endless peace? Would you hold justice, reconciliation, and love? What would it look like to hold everything in your hands.

In todays scripture, Jesus sits at table with his disciples and he knows that God has given everything into Jesus’ hands. Jesus knows that he came from God and is returning to God, and therefore all he holds is from God and returning to God. I imagine, this holding, a little like the children’s song, “He’s got the whole world in his hands, he’s whole world in his hands, he’s whole world in his hands, he’s got whole world in his hands.” The verses go on, “he’s wind and the rain, he’s got the itty bitty baby, he’s got you and me brother, sister, sibling, in his hands, he’s whole world in his hands.” And I imagine Jesus, like as a kid, I imagined God, Jesus with everything in his hands. 

And so, holding everything, Jesus gets down to nothing. He stands up from the table, breaking the ritual of a long evening meal, and in that disrupted space, with the disciples eyes upon him, he takes off the both the cumbersomeness and the formality of his robes. There, bare in his undergarments, he ties a linen towel around his waist, and pours water into a washbasin. He pours the water in the same way the woman has anointed him with perfume, in the same way he was baptized, in the same way he will pour the wine at the last supper, and for the same reasons, because when you hold everything in your hands, you pour out everything on that which is most precious before you. 

And so with everything, in his hands, Jesus kneels down and begins to wash their feet. With everything in his hands, he takes their feet, the cracked skin of their heels, the dirt under their nails, the pain in their arches, the hidden intimacy of between their toes, the tickle of a gentle touch, and the miles and miles they have walked, ran, crawled, stumbled, and raced. Everything, with his everything, he takes the bottom of their sole and the depths of their soul with it. 

Reaching out, he takes their fear and massages in comfort, he takes their shame and holds embrace, he takes their grief and sits with them in presence, he takes their weight and lifts it to rest, he takes their loneliness and looks up into their eyes, he takes their emptiness and rubs in a balm, he takes their chill and imbues them with warmth, he takes their messy-brokenness and pats them dry and clean, he takes their infirmary and helps them into their sandals. He held everything, everything, in those hands. It was the place where his abundance meet their need. Where his everything, met their everything. And today is no different. 

Jesus is present when our feet are washed and when we wash each other’s feet. Everything is here, everything is ready, everything is in our hands. His everything in his hands, is placed in our own, to meet the everything our and in each other’s feet. Precious ones, bring everything you are, everything, to be met with everything he holds in his hands.