IT HAS TO MEAN SOMETHING

March 8, 2015

Lent 3

1st Corinthians 1:18-25

John 2:13-22

STORYTELLING

I used to love watching the TV sitcom, Cheers.

The subterranean Boston pub was owned and operated by the former Red Sox relief pitcher, the lady chasing, recovering alcoholic, Sam Malone. 

Although the central thrust of the series was the romantic tension between Sam and the fish-out-of-water waitress Diane (and in later seasons, the upwardly mobile bar manager, Rebecca), my favorite scenes almost always involved Sam's assistant bartenders. 

For the first three seasons, drinks were poured by Ernie Pantusso, Sam's old pitching coach.  Coach's claim to fame, as a player, was his ability to get automatic walks, by being hit by pitches.

There is a great scene where Diane is asked to throw a pitch down the hallway (toward Coach who is off camera) so Coach can demonstrate his skill. 

Diane: (to those at the bar) I'm not going to throw this anywhere near him.

**bonk**

Coach: (triumphantly emerging from down the hall) I'm on my way to first!

To regular viewers of the show, all those pitches to the head explained Coach's simple demeanor.

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The actor who played Coach passed away while Cheers was still a top rated show, so in season four, a new bartender was hired: Woody Boyd - a lovable, yet naive, farm raised young man from Hanover, Indiana.  The story was that he was Coach’s pen pal.  They never wrote letters to each other - they just mailed each other pens.

Woody didn’t hold any records for being hit-by-pitch, but he shared Coach's unsophisticated, happy-go-lucky nature and a plain and simple approach to life.

In the final season, there was an episode that involved a bar bet on the sorry state of modern politics.  
The bet: Frasier proposes that he could sign Woody up to run for city council: and simply put his pretty face on some posters with a meaningless slogan and still garner 10% of the vote.

The slogan (15 years before Barack Obama's presidential run) had to do with "Change".

Woody: (practicing a speech) I am running for city council to make change.

Fraiser: No, Woody, it’s 'a’ change.  (Woody looks confused)  You see, in the bar you make change, but but there you want to make a change.  So, change change to a change.  (Woody still confused).  Just
change it!!

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Sometimes, things aren't easy to explain.  It's not always a lack of information or a need to study harder. 

I am sure we all have had the experience when we just had trouble 'getting it'. 

We are curious creatures. 

We seem to be hardwired to want to expand our knowledge.

We seek to understand.

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When events happen in our lives, we often will look for a deeper meaning - that can help us experience a learning, a deeper meaning or a sense of peace or closure.

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We live in a world that wants quick and easy answers.

But that is not always possible.

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We all will do well to be a bit counter-cultural and let ourselves wrestle with mystery for a
while. 

Not every question of faith, has an easy answer.

The promise is that it is in the searching that we can sometimes be found.

#605VU  "Jesus Teacher, Brave and Bold"

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MESSAGE

(prayer:  Let the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in you sight, O God, our strength and redeemer, Amen. - Psalm 19:14 pluralized)

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The Apostle Paul seems to have intentionally chose a confusing argument to make his point in the part of the letter to the Corinthians we read this morning.

I have noted many times before that the church in Corinth experienced quite a bit of division and internal debate.  The main context of the letter we call '1st Corinthians' is Paul offering his authoritative opinion on several issues - including the realities of the cultural and religious diversity among the people drawn to the gospel of Jesus.

We see that right in the first chapter.

The events of Jesus life, particularly were still being absorbed by the early church of the mid-first century. 

What does it all mean?

Paul explains that there is not always a clear path to meaning.  Some in Corinth longed for sudden, indisputable experiences that would make faith easy: signs.  Others looked to intense study as the means to find meaning: wisdom.

Paul, instead, invites all of the Corinthians to trust in the power of God.  Paul proclaims to them that God's most foolish moment is still greater that the highest wisdom any human can attain.  That God's deepest weakness is still stronger that any human might.

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I think that another way of saying what Paul is saying is to say: let go into the unknowing.  There will be aspects of following Jesus that will not be easy to understand.

Faithful living often includes moving forward without all of the questions answered.

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The story of Jesus Turning the Tables at the Temple was remembered and told throughout several early Christian communities.  In a rare bit of consistency, this event is recorded in all four of the Biblical Gospels (even the book of John - the last of the gospels to be written - which seems (for the most part) to have
deliberately attempted to not simply repeat the narratives of the other texts being shared among the early churches.  John doesn't even record a communion story.).  John's author does change the timing of this confrontation at the temple. 
Matthew, Mark and Luke all tell it as a story early during Jesus's final week.  It is presented as possibly a reason why the authorities began to pay attention to Jesus that week, which eventually led to his arrest and crucifixion.

John's gospel - instead - places the story right at the start of Jesus' ministry: effectively telling his readers that all of Jesus' ministry is an upsetting of the ways of the world.  Jesus is an agent of change in the world.

Personally, I'm not bothered by this difference in timing.
I suppose, if one had to take every word literally, you could make the case that Jesus 'cleansed' the temple twice, three years or so apart.  Or you could embrace the conflict and allow the author of John a little poetic license in how the story of Jesus is told.

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Why did Jesus do this?

·        Concern over commerce in general (John); you have made this temple a market place.

·        Concern over unethical business (Synoptics).  You have made it a den of thieves.

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In John, the story focuses on the crowd's reaction to Jesus' actions.  What gives you the right to do this?  If you have that kind of authority, do something else.  Show us more!

John then (as he does often in the fourth gospel) foreshadows the end of the story.  Destroy this temple and I will raise it up in three days.  That was enough to lose those who wanted a miraculous sign.  Even with a great number of highly skilled workers - it would take years, not days, to build a structure like the temple.

Just in case the readers of the gospel were confused, the author makes it clear that this statement is really about Jesus' death and resurrection, not a house of worship.

Even in year 90AD or so, people wanted to know what it all means.

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As I said earlier, we live in a world that wants quick and easy answers.  But that is not always possible.

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Easy answers are attractive. 

Certainty (real or not) sells.

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Sometimes, people are more satisfied with a quick, incomplete (even wrong) answer than being told, "I don't know".

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I appreciate that churches are seen by some as a place to have life's questions answered.  And many of us do discover purpose and meaning within the context of communities of faith.

But... wouldn't you agree that honest uncertainty is less foolish than unequivocal answers that can't be sustained.

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The early church really struggled with the utter violence of Jesus' death.  It made no sense to Jesus' closest followers.  It turned their world upside down.  Even the meaning of amazing experiences with a resurrected Jesus was up for debate. 

One of the most shocking verses in the Bible is Matthew 28:16-17.  Keep in mind that this is a post-Easter passage.  Jesus was raised by the dead and seen by several disciples in Judea.

"The eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee to mountain where Jesus had told them to go.  When the saw [Jesus], they worshiped him; but some doubted."

Jesus was crucified and risen, and still there was doubt, seemingly among his remaining eleven disciples (only eleven because Judas was dead at this point).

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There are volumes of books called ‘commentaries’ that seek to explain the context and meaning of the various books of the Bible.
Some commentaries are very scholarly and technical, others come from a particular theological perspective.  I find reviewing a number of commentaries a good way to prepare for preaching or teaching in the church.

It is an interesting activity to read various Biblical commentaries on this verse trying to understand its meaning.

Here are some of the explanations I found: 

·        One commentary dealt with this odd passage by just ignoring those words about doubt entirely and jumping right to the meaning of the next verse.

·        In another, the "some who doubted" must have not included the eleven disciples - they had to believe the commentator asserted, they’d already seen Jesus raised.  So, these words about some doubting must be referring to people standing off at a distance, without a clear view.

·        Still another suggested that the doubt referred to past doubt, for people like [doubting] Thomas the twin.  What the passage means is that even those who used to doubt, now worshiped Jesus.

·        Then there was the idea that doubt was only among the locals - they didn't believe that this Jesus being bowed down to had ever been dead.

·        The strangest one to me said that “the doubt: was not that Jesus had been raised from the dead, but that he had come to Galilee.  That commentary assumed the doubts felt that this person being worshiped must be someone else, not Jesus - not necessarily an impostor, but certainly a case of mistaken identity.

·        One commentary noted that doubt or uncertainty is also found in other resurrection appearances: Thomas (John 20); the disciples on the road to Emmaus who don’t recognize Jesus at first (Luke 24); the women leaving the tomb in such fear that they said nothing to anyone (Mark 16).

·        The same commentary noted that (like with the Thomas story), seeing is not always believing.  Faith comes by means other than evidence.

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Faith comes by means other than evidence.

That may not meet everyone’s need for quick, easy and certain answers - but faith can be like that.

If it was always quick, easy and certain, we probably wouldn’t call it faith - which implies some trust (or at least hope) in what is unknown.

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Therein lies the greatest promise - we don’t need certainty to walk with our Christ.  
We don’t need all the answers to follow Jesus.

We may get confused.  We may get it wrong and have to re-adjust our thinking, but the promise is (as we heard last week and in the Creed we said together again today - we are God’s people, no matter what. 

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We are not alone. 

Thanks be to God.

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Let us pray:

As we explore our life and actions in this season of lent, let us be open to your guidance.  Amen.

#142VU  "Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross"