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February 6, 2008 - Ash Wednesday
The Rev. John Auer
Scripture: Joel 2:1-2, 12-17, 2 Corinthians 6:3-10,
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Ash Wednesday: “Following, Leading: What Would Jesus?
What Shall We?”
I call quick attention to the stole I am wearing. It’s older than my ministry
and was given to me by an “older brother” in ministry, Rev. Gerry Forshey – who
grew up in Reno – a Baptist! -- now dealing with cancer on three separate fronts
in his body and treasuring his five or six good hours everyday. I ask our
thoughts and prayers for him this season. Becky’s powerful solo, “I Wonder
as I Wander,” clarifies our seasonal task of trying to follow, keep up with one
always in motion!
“Do what I say, not what I do.” How many times did we hear that growing up?
Or say that to those growing up in our care? The gap between saying and doing
may become especially apparent this season -- as we try to follow Jesus, our Leader,
all the way to the cross – and beyond! Sometimes I think the “beyond” part
is harder for us – to believe anyway -- than the “cross” part! Jesus is always
taking us far beyond saying to doing.
With respect to these words to us about practicing piety, Jesus not only gives alms
but also confronts economic systems, moneychangers in the temple. Jesus not
only prays but also puts prayers into actions of healing and feeding and forgiving
and restoring to place in community. Jesus not only fasts but also eats with
tax collectors and sinners and is called a glutton and drunkard. Jesus’ actions
speak louder than words and get him into more trouble.
Our preaching and worshiping theme for the season is “Follow the Leader: What Would
Jesus Do?” Not only what would Jesus say, but also what would Jesus do?
For faith without works is dead. Jesus is looking for fruits of our faith.
I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink . . . you
clothed me, you welcomed me, you visited me, you came to me. Even when nobody
else would. Even without knowing it was me!
Many will say “Lord, Lord,” but few will do the will of the One who calls and commissions
us all. Leave your fishing nets – and follow. Leave your dead ones –
and follow. Leave your tax booth – and follow. Take up your cross –
and follow. Sell all you have, give to the poor – and follow. How does
the song go? “Try to remember, and if you remember, then follow -- follow,
follow, follow . . .” Integrate being and doing.
Paul makes painfully clear what putting his faith into action has cost him – afflictions,
hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, etc. In fact, Paul commends
those same costs to us! He calls us to be as imposters! Unknown!
Dying! Punished! Sorrowful! Poor! Having nothing!
How’s that for a casual armchair Lenten practice?!
When Jesus is asked such well-meaning questions as, “What must I do to inherit
eternal life?”, he answers – first with belief – but then with such stories of costly
action as the compassionate Samaritan proving neighbor to a roadside victim – bandaging,
picking him up, putting him on his own horse, taking him to a room in the inn, asking
whatever is needed to be done for him, and paying for it himself!
One gospel commentator put it, “Jesus never taught easy believism . . . . He called
people to abandon their own agenda and trust him radically. Radical trust
calls for both belief and action.” And Henri Nouwen says, “As a teacher I
used to resent that students were always interrupting my work – until it came to
me that my work was to be interrupted!”
Joel is all about interruption in action here – Drop everything to “return to the
Lord!” Blow the trumpet! Sanctify a fast! Call an assembly!
Gather the people! Interrupt the whole congregation! The aged!
The children! Even the infants! The bridegroom and bride! Let
the nations see God in action in us! Whatever our “business as usual” Lent
invites, even summons us out of it.
Our title comes from the DVD series George Bennett is leading in Adult Class this
season – “Beyond Theology: What Would Jesus Do?” Important as theology is,
it is not an end in itself. As we say, faith is not just a thoughtful “head
trip” but also an active heart trip and “hands on” trip. Rev. Charles Sheldon
-- pastor to Central Congregational, Topeka, KS, from 1889 to 1920 -- to enliven
the Sunday evening prayer meeting, told a series of “sermon stories” serially, an
episode a week, leaving his audience wanting more. He collected them into
the book In His Steps, or “What Would Jesus Do?” in 1897.
Sheldon grew out of the “social gospel movement” of the 1890s – like John Wesley
over a century before challenging the morality of business leaders in newly industrialized
society – asking them to do their business as Jesus would! Imagine that –
knowing what we know of some of the giant corporations and how infinitely much more
than workers their CEOs make – asking them (us?) to do business as Jesus would!
It is said his book was outsold among religious texts only by the Bible. We
can see and hear Sheldon’s full story on video after either worship service
a week from this Sunday, the 17th. Meantime, on Sunday we will
be invited to wear handmade “WWJD” bracelets this season! Thanks to Elizabeth
Wong, Young Lowe, and Kay Montgomery!
The question proceeds from the premise, what if Jesus came back today? Came
back to where we live? Where we work? Where we worship? Came back
to us? To our homes? To our families and friends? Came back to me?
Walked with me and talked with me? Observed my lifestyle, my personality (or
my persona!), my relationships, my interests, my investments, my values, my commitments,
my principles, my priorities? What would Jesus wonder at? What would
Jesus ask? How would Jesus challenge me? How would he address my life
and my work? All that I say I do “in his name!”? How would he like that?!
How might we spend this season looking at Jesus more closely, more literally?
Getting at who he was – not so much theologically and cosmically as “the Christ”
– but as plain Jesus according to gospel accounts -- more personally, persuasively,
actively, missionally – in the midst of everyday life and work? How did Jesus
act as a believer in the God of the Jews of his time and place – reacting against
what he may have seen as distortions and perversions of his own faith tradition
– in theory and in practice? How did Jesus identify with John the Baptizer’s
kind of apocalyptic break with that tradition – yet remain so painfully human himself,
so compassionate, unable to condemn absolutely or to write people off as beyond
all help or all hope?
How might we experience what Jesus did, his kind of encounters with people – for
that’s what we get in upcoming gospel stories – Jesus meets Satan, Nicodemus, the
woman at the well, the man born blind, etc.! What are his encounters -- with
what people, where, under what circumstances, in what conditions – facing what choices
and decisions, with what needs and what desires? What exactly did Jesus offer
them? What did he say? What did he do? What happened as a result?
And how do we bring all that forward to our own times and places? Our own
lives and work and worship?
We are invited to ask where this Jesus we find in the gospels shows up in us! What
does he see, what does he say, what does he think, what does he feel, what does
he ask, what does he do – in us?! What difference does Jesus make in us?
What more difference could he make? What would happen if you and I actually
did what Jesus would do? What Jesus would say? What would Jesus confront,
challenge, question, oppose – as well as accept, affirm, sustain, support?
Even angrily? Passionately? Defiantly? Fatally? What would
Jesus care about? (Another resource available to us – “A 40-Day Lenten Calendar”
– focusing on the crisis of safe sacred waters in our community and in our world.)
In closing, I found myself thinking back to the age of the “Jesus Freaks” and the
“Jesus People” (Anyone else date back that far? “Jesus People” were a large
community on the northside of Chicago – and for much good!) -- known for wearing
their bracelets and bumper stickers, but also for forming their communes and their
commitments – all asking, in effect, “What Would Jesus Do?”
I remember the popular underground-press “Wanted Poster” versions of who Jesus was
and what Jesus did and said. Here’s a colorful one entitled “Jesus of Nazareth
– Revolucion.” “Wanted for sedition, criminal anarchy, vagrancy, and conspiracy
to overthrow the established government. Dresses poorly. Said to be
carpenter by trade. [Do we know Woody Guthrie’s song “Jesus Christ?”
Shall we learn it sometime?] Ill-nourished. Associates with common working
people, the unemployed, and the criminals. An alien, believed to be a Jew.”
A story in Time Magazine, July, 1971, begins – “WANTED. JESUS CHRIST.
ALIAS: the Messiah, the Son of God, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Prince of Peace,
etc.” [One estimate is there are 600 alternative names for Jesus!] “Notorious
leader of an underground liberation movement. WANTED for the following charges:
Practicing medicine, winemaking and food distribution without a license. Interfering
with businessmen in the temple. Associating with known criminals, radicals,
subversives, prostitutes and street people. Claiming to have authority to
make people into God’s children. APPEARANCE: Typical hippie type – long hair,
beard, robe, sandals. Hangs around slum areas, few rich friends, often sneaks
out into the desert. BEWARE: This man is extremely dangerous. His insidiously
inflammatory message is particularly dangerous to young people who haven’t been
taught to ignore him yet. He changes people and claims to set them free.”
[Sound like anyone so “feared” today?]
There’s more. I’ll leave some for Sunday. You get the idea! This
season is all about Jesus -- arousing fear, making trouble, undermining security,
mobilizing dissent. This season is all about Jesus -- under suspicion, under
surveillance, generally “underground” – questioned, confronted, harassed, entrapped
– accused, arrested, abandoned, betrayed, denied, charged, tortured, tried, convicted,
condemned, humiliated, executed.
There is the proverbial question asked of each one of us and of us as a body of
Jesus the Christ – If we were charged with following him, would there be enough
evidence to convict us? Let’s spend this season finding out. For Sojourners
Community says, “Faith is hoping in spite of the evidence, and watching the evidence
change!” Watching the evidence change . . . . Amen.
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