Jesus declared that he had come to fulfill the law and the prophets – and it’s worth remembering what the law and the prophets had insisted upon.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about the fifth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 5:13-20), the continuation of the Sermon on the Mount. That began, as we heard last week, with the Beatitudes, that series of blessings. It continued with Jesus first saying to his listeners, “You are the light of the world,” and “The city on a hill cannot be hid…” “so let your light shine.”
Jesus then said that he had not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill them. The ancient Law and the guidance of the prophets was still relevant hundreds of years after they had been driven or spoken to the people. And so it’s worth remembering some of the things that it says in Law and Prophets that I think do represent that true light that can be seen as it shines from a hill.
A lot of people will tend to tell you it’s all about idolatry, about worshipping foreign gods, and indeed, the Law and the Prophets were concerned with these. The Law and the Prophets, however, were also concerned with the way that we treat one another. Over and over again the Prophets raised the question: what is happening with the widows and the orphans? What is their condition?
It is the welfare of the most vulnerable in a society that measures how well it is following the directives of God. If the widows and the orphans are suffering, if the foreigner among you is oppressed, if people are cheating one another in the businesses and the marketplaces, if they are lying to one another: Well, that is a measure of a society that is failing to keep the word of God.
So many things we shortcut. I’m not talking about dietary regulations or things like that. I’m thinking about the ways that we kind of let things slide and not insist upon a real diligence in our own ethical behavior. Those are the kinds of things that Jesus was concerned about. Jesus always raised the bar. He increased the challenge.
So for us, I think, the question is not just how are the widows and the orphans doing, but how are those other people who fit into groups that are usually dismissed, disregarded, dishonored? How are they doing?
And if they’re not doing well, then we as a society are not doing well in fulfilling the will of God.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
About 750 years or so before Herod arrested John the Baptist and Jesus returned to the region of his childhood, the Assyrian Empire attacked the Jewish nations of Israel and Judah. Judah, where Isaiah lived in the capital of Jerusalem, survived the invasion because an outbreak of infectious disease swept through the Assyrian army and forced them to abandon the siege of Jerusalem. Israel, however, the northern of the two nations, fell. It ceased to exist as an independent country. That land included the territories of the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali, an area we know better by its common name in Jesus’ day: Galilee.
Isaiah, catching his breath as the Assyrian armies retreated, spoke a word of hope to the survivors of Israel. He addressed a dwindling population. Unlike most empires of ancient Mesopotamia, the Assyrians actually resettled large groups of conquered people. Scholars have estimated that over 3 million were displaced over 250 years. The result is the disappearance of ten of the twelve tribes descended from Jacob. The “Ten Lost Tribes” lived on the lands conquered by the Assyrians.
Isaiah’s vision of a nation increasing in joy, freed from their burdens and restored to their homes, did not take place for those he addressed. Centuries later Matthew considered the way Jesus’ ministry had begun in the backwater region of Galilee and made the connection: in Jesus there was joy. In Jesus there was liberation. In Jesus there was light.
Matthew, and for that matter most of the Gospel writers and early Christians, might have preferred Jesus’ ministry to get a different starting point. Jerusalem. That was the spot. Right in the center of things. Luke, you may remember, told stories about the child Jesus in Jerusalem, once as a newborn and once as a twelve-year-old. The Jesus story led toward Jerusalem, but shouldn’t it have started there, too?
To some degree Jesus was “on the run” from the law. After his baptism, he seems to have spent some time – we don’t know how long – in the Jordan valley among those clustered about John the Baptist. Then John was arrested by Herod Antipas and, according to the first century historian Josephus, imprisoned at Machaerus on the east shore of the Dead Sea. Capernaum on the shores of Galilee was a fair distance from Marchaerus, but ironically it was still within the territory Herod governed. I don’t know if anybody was looking for Jesus except that somebody might have grabbed him off the streets on suspicion of being an associate of John the Baptist.
Jesus didn’t choose to hide. He began to bring healing to people. He began to speak to what were probably slowly growing crowds. He began to preach during synagogue worship. He brought them the exact same basic message that John the Baptist had: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
As Raj Nadella writes at Working Preacher, “The devil tried to coopt him. The empire tried to threaten him. But nothing seemed to deter him. Jesus withdrew into Galilee spatially but, missionally, he stepped right in the heart of the empire. He boldly stepped into a dangerous space so he can lead others to safety.”
He started with four fishermen, and he started as he went on: with an invitation. As Dr. Nadella writes, “The Roman empire relied on threat, coercion and enticements to recruit people into its military. The new kingdom, on the other hand, inspires them to participate in it.“
Jesus didn’t offer a $50,000 signing bonus. He offered a challenge.
He called it “fishing for people.” I wonder how Peter, Andrew, James, and John heard it. Fishing for fish meant long, backbreaking hours on tasks ranging from hauling nets to mending them, sailing boats and patching them. It meant a limited customer base, because the Romans controlled the fishing economy of Galilee. Through a combination of market control and heavy taxes, they kept the fishing families at a subsistence level and passed the fruits of their labor up the chain of wealthy landowners, nobles, and royalty.
Jesus clearly didn’t mean that. He doesn’t seem to have charged anyone for healing. He doesn’t seem to have asked a fee for preaching. He did accept the invitations of local religious leaders for dinner. He did accept the financial support of some who traveled with him.
As David Lose writes at Working Preacher, “…Perhaps we might re-imagine just what it is that Jesus is calling these first disciples to be and do: fishers of people. And that implies relationships. Jesus, that is, calls these first disciples into relationship — with himself, with each other, and with all the various people they will meet over the next few years and, indeed, the rest of their lives.”
Relationship. Not exploitation. Relationship. Not domination. Relationship. Not condemnation.
Relationship.
To my mind, that’s a different kind of fishing. These fishermen care for the fish. These fishermen recognize themselves as related to the fish. These fishermen realize that they, that we, that all of us are fish, each one looking for the safety of the school, each one looking for the guidance of the group.
And Jesus said, “Follow me.”
There are a lot of people who’ll encourage you to follow them, their ways, their values, and their commitments. Some of them you should probably follow. For the most part, parents are pretty reliable guides, though those of us who are parents know that we’re not perfect, and those of who’ve had parents know for sure that they weren’t perfect. Tragically, parents can fail dramatically and disastrously, and sometimes they do. It takes a lot of work by a lot of people to help the children recover and heal. It takes a lot of work by a lot of people for those grieving parents to recover and heal, too.
There are people in leadership roles and it should be good to follow them, right? Employers. Managers. Bosses. Those folks are imperfect, too. Richard W. Swanson describes a kind of boss that can’t be followed at Provoking the Gospel: “Managers who think of disruption as a management strategy want employees to be afraid that they will be fired… The only successful response is boot-licking.
“Have you ever worked for a manager like this? I have. They make the earth shake under everyone’s feet and they make the shaking unpredictable, chaotic. I have worked for such managers. It doesn’t turn out well. Good ideas are hidden away. Analytical critique is punished.
“…Do not confuse this disruption with the drawing-near of God’s Dominion.”
What did the drawing-near of God’s Dominion look like? In Matthew’s words: “…teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.”
What it doesn’t look like is what we’re getting from national leadership, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s assault on Minneapolis. New Yok Times reporter Charles Homans, a child of that city, wrote about an encounter he witnessed on January 14th: “What was clear in person, seeing the scene outside of the frame, were the limits of this performance of power. The agents had no capacity to maintain order or much apparent interest in doing so. Their presence was a vector of chaos, and controlling it was not in their job description. All that was holding the crowd back, as far as I could tell, was the knowledge that an officer like these shot a woman a week earlier and that another shot a man up the street an hour ago. I left the scene that night certain it would happen again.”
This operation and those like it in Los Angeles, Chicago, and now Maine (Maine. Really.) reveal a couple of things about U.S. immigration law. First is that much of what is legal is wrong. A favorite tactic of ICE agents outside of these enforcement sweeps has been to apprehend people when they come to immigration court, dismiss their hearings, and deport them. Apparently that’s legal. If it sounds absolutely unfair, I agree with you. When people engage with the system, they should get a full hearing.
Recently agents detained a five-year-old to get his father to open the door for them, and both are now in custody in Texas. The pair have an active asylum petition. Is this legal? Frankly, I hope not, but I’m afraid that it is and it illustrates how cruel the law can be.
Some of ICE’s actions, however, are clearly illegal. An internal memo has been leaked asserting that officers do not require a judicial warrant to enter a home. A federal judge in Minnesota ruled on January 17 that they do after a man was removed from his home based on an administrative warrant, one not signed by a judge. And once again, the man arrested was actively engaged in seeking proper status, and guess what? The day after his release he was taken into custody again when he appeared for an immigration hearing.
Officials have made clear that the deaths of two people at the hands of ICE officers will not be investigated. That tells me that justice has been decided. Due process has become plain force. Do what we tell you or die.
“…Teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.”
Our loyalty is being demanded. Our obedience is being required. Our compliance is being forced. These are not the ways of Jesus. These are not the acts of Jesus. These are not the voices of Jesus.
Whose people are we? We belong to Jesus and nobody else. When Herod threatened to arrest Jesus, do you know what he said? “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work.’” Let us be Jesus’ people. Let us go our way and bring healing. Let us teach and proclaim good news. Let us finish our work against the forces of chaos, violence, and tyranny.
Amen.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Sermon
Pastor Eric makes changes while he preaches, so the sermon as prepared does not precisely match the sermon as delivered.
The illustration is The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew by Duccio di Buoninsegna (between 1308 and 1311), part of the altarpiece in the Cathedral of Siena – The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=150337.
A basket of summer fruit is beautiful and nutritious. But it also rots – much like communities based on exploitation and abuse.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking that I’m very grateful to the Reverend Linda Petrucelli, who will be leading worship at Church of the Holy Cross this coming Sunday. I myself will be at the General Synod of the United Church of Christ in Kansas City, Missouri. This is the regular national gathering of the UCC. I’ll be doing some work with the UCC Media Justice Ministry. I’ll also be learning and worshipping. I’ll be spending time with old friends and treasured colleagues. This is, in many ways, the family reunion of the United Church of Christ.
Please hold in prayer myself and those others who are going to be traveling back and forth to Kansas City.
I look forward to being back in the pulpit again on July 20th, so therefore I’m thinking somewhat ahead, and I’m thinking about the eighth chapter of the prophet Amos (Amos 8:1-12). Amos was not a cheerful person, but the beginning of chapter eight started rather pleasantly. God showed Amos a basket of summer fruit.
Things went badly from there.
Because God announced a lot of displeasure with things that were happening in the nation. “You who trample on the needy,” said God: beware. People were being sold. people were being cheated. And it was primarily being done by the wealthy and the powerful.
Why start with a basket of summer fruit? Because prosperity looks like a basket of summer fruit: tempting, delicious, satisfying. The problem with a prosperity that is built upon exploitation, that is built upon the wealthy and the powerful adding to their wealth and power at the expense of the other members of society, is that it is hollow, that it fades. If you leave a basket of summer fruit out for very long, it will rot. It will rot to the very core.
This was Amos’s warning 2700 and more years ago. It should be a warning to us to make sure that our summer fruit is the results of a planting that nourishes the soil from which it grows, and not something simply torn from the trees, exploiting everything: soil, roots, plants, leaf. Or in human terms: worker, family, community.
Let us take warning from the basket of summer fruit, and make sure our society does not earn the same condemnation of God.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
These words of Jesus come from John’s account of the Last Supper, specifically from the long (three chapters worth) speech we usually call “Jesus’ Farewell Address to his Disciples.” During Bible study this week (and last week as well), I think it’s safe to say that people found these words to be assuring and, at the same time, confusing. Jesus spoke of coming and going and wouldn’t say where.
We get confused, and a little anxious, and we know how the story goes after this. We know that Jesus spoke of his crucifixion as leaving, of his resurrection as returning, and how were the disciples to understand what he told them without knowing about that? I suspect that Jesus’ friends listened to most of this address the same way I’ve listened to a number of speeches or lectures in my life: letting the words flow over me in the desperate hope that I’ll pick up something sometime that will make it all make sense.
Given our difficulties figuring out all Jesus said in the Gospel of John, I think the disciples didn’t figure it out until after the resurrection, and even then it probably took some time, wouldn’t you think?
Brian Peterson points out at Working Preacher that one of the important things Jesus was trying to convey was that whatever happened, they would not be left alone. He writes, “The first disciples asked where Jesus was staying (1:38); now they have their answer: Jesus is staying with them. Jesus is certainly going away, yet paradoxically, the life of the church is not marked by Jesus’ absence but by the presence of an abiding God.”
Jesus promised that presence through the Holy Spirit, and went on to promise something else: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”
Peace. Peace.
What did Jesus mean by peace?
Let’s face it, he didn’t mean, “You’re going to live an easy life.” His followers didn’t live easy lives in the first century, and they’re not living easy lives in the twenty-first century.
Even so, people accept an all-too-limited idea of peace. If there’s no war, we might think, there’s peace. Mind you, an end to war is an important step toward peace. There’s no peace in Ukraine or Gaza or Myanmar these days because there are wars going on. Organized violence destroys peace.
So does the violence of official coercion. Osvaldo Vena writes at Working Preacher, “The peace that Jesus gives contrasts sharply with the world’s peace. Even though this affirmation has been spiritualized by conservative and fundamentalist readings of John it is pretty obvious that in its present context this text has in mind the first century world and its understanding of peace as that of the Pax Romana. Therefore, we have here a profound critique of the social and political order of the day.”
The Pax Romana, the Peace of Rome, was enforced by a military establishment that routinely committed mass executions, enslavements, and savage punishments. Thirty years after Jesus was crucified – a torturous method of execution used by Romans against non-Romans – a British chief named Prasutagus died, leaving authority over the Iceni tribe to his two daughters. The Romans in Britain ignored his will and annexed his territory. According to the Roman historian Tacitus, “…his kingdom was pillaged by centurions, his household by slaves; as though they had been prizes of war. As a beginning, his wife Boudicca was subjected to the lash and his daughters violated: all the chief men of the Icenians were stripped of their family estates, and the relatives of the king were treated as slaves. Impelled by this outrage and the dread of worse to come — for they had now been reduced to the status of a province — they flew to arms, and incited to rebellion the Trinobantes and others, who, not yet broken by servitude, had entered into a secret and treasonable compact to resume their independence.“
Boudica’s rebellion failed, of course. A Roman force broke her army and slaughtered not just the soldiers but the women and even the pack animals.
Pax Romana.
The peace the world gives. You may recognize it. It’s been popular for millennia.
It was not, is not, the peace Jesus gives.
In the 1985 Pronouncement “Affirming the United Church of Christ as a Just Peace Church,” the 15th General Synod defined Just Peace as “the interrelation of friendship, justice, and common security from violence.” In a just and peaceful community, people live without concern about imminent violence, enjoy the political rights we highly value, and have access to the necessities of life including clean water, health care, food, housing, and employment.
Any other peace, I’d say, and I think Jesus would say, is not peace. It’s better than outright war, but it’s not peace. Not fully. Not completely. Not truly.
There are a lot of people out there, many of whom claim the title of Christian as not just their identity but their authority for what they say, who assert that peace is gained by adhering to their rules and nobody else’s. It’s an historically popular opinion. I mentioned a few weeks ago that the Emperor Charlemagne imposed the death penalty on non-Christian religious observance in parts of his empire. The Church created the office of the Inquisition in the 12th century and through it instigated full-on wars of massacre and pillage against groups with differing Christian theologies. They went on to bring torture and death to non-Christians in Europe. One of the early English translators of the Bible, William Tyndale, was burned to death in 1536 for his Protestant writings. The wars between Protestants and Catholics have stained the world with blood and the Church with shame.
Would that it had ended there. But force as a substitute for peace is as popular as it ever was.
Its most obvious face in the United States is in Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They’ve come to coffee farms on this island. They’ve staked out schools. They’ve claimed that political speech is equivalent to terroristic threatening. At a recent meeting of the Micronesian Ministry Committee of the Hawai’i Conference, we learned that some Micronesians are avoiding even travel within the United States because they fear their status will be arbitrarily questioned when returning to Hawai’i.
In the meantime, the House of Representatives has passed a bill that reduces funding for Medicare, which provides access to medical care to the nation’s kupuna, by an estimated $500 billion, according to Robert Reich. Medicaid cuts, which serve the nation’s poor, will cause an estimated 8.6 million people to lose coverage. He writes in a recent post on social media:
“4. How much will the top 0.1 percent of earners stand to gain from it? (Nearly $390,000 per year).
5. If you figure in the benefit cuts and the tax cuts, will Americans making between about $17,000 and $51,000 gain or lose? (They’ll lose about $700 a year).
6. How about Americans with incomes less than $17,000? (They’ll lose more than $1,000 per year on average).
7. How much will the bill add to the federal debt? ($3.8 trillion over 10 years.)”
Pardon me if this doesn’t sound like Jesus’ peace to me. It sounds like the Pax Romana. It sounds like “more for me, less for you.” It sounds like…
Well. It doesn’t sound like Jesus.
Karoline Lewis writes at Working Preacher, “Those who say they ‘keep Jesus’ words’ and yet whose words — and actions, for that matter — in no way reflect Jesus’ love. How should we and do we respond to such observable duplicity? Do we look away? Do we remain silent? And why? Because of anxiety? Too worried about the bottom line to be bold in the proclamation of God’s love? Because of fear? Too concerned about securing our future and forgetting that our future, and the future of the church, is in God’s hands? Because of misplaced conviction? Thinking that success of ministry is all up to us, leaving behind the truth that it’s in God we trust?”
The truth is that when Jesus left peace with us, he left a challenge with us. He didn’t leave us a peace that had been accomplished. He left us a peace toward which we strive. He didn’t leave us a peace that makes us feel good. He left us a peace for which we hope. He didn’t leave us a peace that already stands. He left us a peace for us to build.
Yes, that’s not as the world gives. The world will happily give us a peace that is not peace, and insist that it’s the only peace there is.
It’s not. Christ’s peace lies before us. Christ’s peace is the only peace worth having. Christ’s peace is worth building.
Amen.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Sermon
Pastor Eric changes things while preaching. Sometimes intentionally.
The authors and editors of Second Samuel have labeled this poem “The Last Words of David.” Ralph W. Klein has noted that this is the first of ten passages one might call “the last words of David.” There’s a part of me wondering if David kept talking in the hope that so many last words meant he’d never die… Well, no.
Among David’s talents in life was poet and songwriter. Seventy-three of the 150 psalms are credited to him, and the Books of Samuel contain other songs remembered as his work. If I were a monarch and a songwriter – I guess I claim one, but not both, of those titles – if I were both, I would be very pleased to write a song like these words in 2 Samuel to summarize the nature of my life as a king.
The God of Israel has spoken; the Rock of Israel has said to me: “One who rules over people justly, ruling in the fear of God, is like the light of morning, like the sun rising on a cloudless morning, gleaming from the rain on the grassy land.”
Is not my house like this with God? For he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure.
If I were David, that’s how I’d like to be remembered.
As Kathryn M. Schifferdecker writes at Working Preacher, “The light of morning, especially after a good rain — that’s what a God-fearing king is like. In the semi-arid land that is Israel, rain is a very precious resource. A good, soaking rain during the night, and then the sun rising to bring forth grass and grain and fruit from the earth — these are priceless gifts of God. And so is a good, just king, one who rules in the fear of the Lord. Both enable life to flourish.”
If you’re struggling to imagine this, think of what rain brings in Kona rather than Hilo, and it will make more sense.
“Is not my house like this with God?” David asked, rhetorically, I’m sure. But it’s a question that has a complicated answer. David lived for many years as an armed rebel opposed to the established government. In order to support himself and his army he became a mercenary, and contracted with the nation’s enemies. After the death of King Saul and most of his heirs, David used military force to subdue other claimants and gain the crown. David committed rape against Bathsheba and murder against her husband Uriah. David’s apparent failure to hear the complaints of the citizens primed the rebellion of his son Absalom. In their next book, 1 Kings, the authors of 2 Samuel described yet another attempt by one of David’s sons to usurp the throne.
In writing these “Last Words of David,” he was wearing rose-colored glasses that I’d describe as more rose than glass. Valerie Bridgman writes at Working Preacher, “As a former hospice chaplain, I know that when people come to the end of life, their memories often soften to ‘clean up’ the messiness of their lives.”
In this poem, he cleaned up the past, for sure. As he “cleaned up,” he managed to tell the truth. The characteristics of a good ruler, a proper leader, are as he described. They seek to bring justice to their people. They start with what we would think as structures to define liberties and responsibilities, that seek to prevent people from being injured by others, or being so heavily burdened that they lapse into poverty. The laws you’ll find in Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy provided that framework. Among the obligations you’ll find there is to make sure that widows, orphans, and foreigners had access to food, and that they were not denied shelter.
Beyond structural justice comes the resolution of disputes, both those we call crimes and those we call civil complaints. Some of those – probably most of those – would have been resolved within the villages or the family groups without ever coming to the King. Respected adults in the clan or a council of elders would have resolved the questions of disputed property lines, who owned the stray goat that turned up in somebody’s herd, and what should be done about the fight between those two guys. It was the more difficult cases that went to the monarch, who had to discern truth that others were not able to.
Ah, truth. Another essential characteristic of just leadership. One mentioned by none other than Jesus himself. Cheryl Lindsay writes at UCC.org, “Jesus prioritizes truth to such a degree that he frames his life’s ministry, from incarnation to this moment and beyond, to his act of testifying to the truth. Truth is so important to Jesus that he told the Samaritan woman at the well that the test of worship is the measure of spirit and truth. Above all, therefore, the good news is centered, anchored, and rooted in truth. This is our test; let it be our testimony. Testify to the truth.”
We might, with Pontius Pilate, mutter, “What is truth?” at this point and leave the room. Jesus didn’t answer Pilate’s questions at any point thereafter.
I think we can do better than Pontius Pilate.
In the Last Words of David, we have the truth about leadership, power, and authority. It is founded in justice. Further, it stands upon accountability. That’s what it means to rule “in the fear of God.” David the King, when he was doing well, realized that he needed the support of his officials and his people. He took care to listen to their concerns. Several of the stories about David are not about how resolute he was, but how willing he was to change his mind when someone brought him new information. If you’re going to be rigid as a leader, then you’d better be right every time, and who does that? If you won’t learn as a leader, frankly, what good are you?
David’s capacity to change his mind was one of his best qualities.
David described himself in this poem as “the oracle of God,” that is, one empowered to speak on God’s behalf. That doesn’t sound particularly humble, and it wasn’t. He called himself the man God exalted – again, not humble. He called himself the anointed of the God of Jacob, and if you were wondering if he’d found humility yet, no.
All these titles, however exalted, did reveal another truth. It was God who spoke. It was God who exalted. It was God who anointed. David might have been king, but God made him so.
He was accountable to the people and to those around him. Most of all, he was accountable to God.
His greatest successes took place when he remembered God’s authority over his. His greatest failures took place when he believed he had more authority than God.
Rulers who acknowledge no accountability to others are not like the light of the morning shining upon grassy meadows drinking in the night’s rain. No, they are like the weeds and thorns that nobody wants to touch because they injure you. They are like the things cut and gathered and burned because there’s nothing more to be done with them.
Good leadership brings light. Poor leadership brings thorns.
Those are the standards for us to use in evaluating our leaders. Do their stated policies promise light, or do they promise thorns? What experience do we have of them? Did their leadership shine, or did it cut and pierce? Did they strengthen structures of justice or did they dismantle them? Did they make decisions based on fact and fairness? Did they tell the truth? Did they acknowledge accountability to others? Did they claim to be more than they were?
Light? Or thorns?
These are also the standards to use in evaluating our own leadership. Have we illuminated? Have we encouraged? Have we assisted the people on the margins? Have we been humble before God? Have we told the truth? Have we diligently worked to understand the truth?
Light? Or thorns?
Pilate never learned the truth from Jesus. He crowned him with thorns, not light. Three or four years after sending Jesus to the cross Pontius Pilate was ordered back to Rome to explain why he had executed a group of Samaritans. We don’t know what happened with that. The Emperor died before Pilate reached Rome, and no record survives.
Thorns. Not light.
Jesus went to the cross wearing thorns, and rose from the grave to enlighten the world. Jesus did not reach for the temporal power of a Pilate or a David or an Emperor Tiberius. He simply told the truth.
Let this be our leadership, and let this be our leaders: Tellers of truth. Builders of justice. Wise and discerning souls. Open to learn. Accountable to those they lead and to God.
Light. Not thorns.
Amen.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Sermon
Pastor Eric sometimes improvises while preaching. “Sometimes” means “every week, at least a little.”
