Chad Herring

Sermon of the Week:
Again & Again: We Draw on Courage

An online sermon preached with The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on March 28, 2021.

Palm Sunday ~ Passion Sunday

Keywords: Palm Sunday, Lazarus, Mary’s Perfume, Nashon, Courage. #pcusa

Scripture readings (which you may wish to read prior):
Isaiah 50:4-9a
and John 12:1-19

I went back to count,
And it turns out that this is my fifteenth Palm Sunday Sermon.

That feels like a lot to me.

Even though, as the months go by
We might focus on different things, you know:
The Parables of Jesus here, the letters of Paul there.
Maybe we’ll walk through parts of the Hebrew Scriptures together,
The major narrative arcs of Genesis, the story of Moses and the Exodus
The prophets Isaiah or Jeremiah…

The church calendar draws us back, from time to time, to key stories and events.

This is one of them,
The story of Jesus entering Jerusalem for the Passover festival
During that final, fateful week.

I was ordained as a pastor in 2005,
So, apparently, every year since my ordination
I’ve preached on one version or another of this story.

Now, for eight of those years I was an associate pastor
And since next Sunday is a major Sunday,
Usually the Pastor gets to preach that one.
So I got Palm Sunday,
Which is great, because I love this story.

But 15 times feels like a lot,
And sometimes I wonder, when I return to a story that many times,
If I’m going to find anything new in it.

Maybe you feel that way,
If you’ve heard a preacher preach on this story over and over again…
Is there anything new that we’re going to get?
Anything fresh and novel?

So, maybe we both wonder if this sermon is going to be any good.

But, in all honesty, every time I wonder
if I’ll find something interesting or timely
When I turn to the texts…
There’s always something there.

One of my professors in Seminary called it the fresh wind of the holy spirit
That engages us whenever we bring new questions to these ancient stories
And we look for where God is moving, what God is doing.

This year, I’m taking Denise Anderson’s suggestion
that we look at John’s version of Palm Sunday.
There are four versions of this story, one in each of the Gospels.
Not every story is like that.
Most of the time, they are just in a few of them.

But perhaps more than any other story found in each of the Gospels,
THIS story has key details that vary in each retelling.
Does Jesus come to town
on a Donkey, or is it a Colt,
Or, somehow, does he arrive on both, at the same time
(thank you, Gospel of Matthew)?
I can kind of picture Jesus trying to get both animals to behave as he worked hard to stay on top.

The answer to just what the animal situation was on Palm Sunday
depends on where you look.

And there’s more:
If you’ve been around a bit, and have heard all of these stories
You probably wondered where the negotiation about getting the donkey was.
That’s something that all the other stories mention, at length:
Tell the owner that the master needs it…
You don’t find that here, in John.
What you do find is the mention of the Palm Branches,
The reason we call this “Palm Sunday” in the first place,
But you only find that little detail here.
In the other texts, the bystanders either lay down their cloaks on the ground
Or they grab vegetation from the fields or whatever…

These little nuances are interesting,
and often we can focus on one or two of them in the sermon,
but in our mind’s eye we put them all together,
we synthesize them so that it feels like a coherent, single story,
rather than an event told by four different people,
each of whom relate relevant, important, but tangibly different information.

In all these years, I’ve never focused just on John’s version.
That was surprising to me.
I’ve turned here, to John, to do some compare and contrast, you know,
To try to get a sense of how John differs from the others,
But looking it during worship, together with you, that’s a first.

Also, again, taking Denise’s suggestion, we’ve stepped back a bit,
And considered more than just the four verses that describe Jesus’ regal entry on the Donkey.

Instead, our reading today opens a week before all of that,
At Lazarus’ house in Bethany,
Where Lazarus and Jesus, Mary and Martha are all enjoying dinner.
The disciples are there, too, apparently,
Because Judas is there, and if he is, the rest likely are as well.

Sometimes during Lent we focus just on this story,
The anointing of the feet of Jesus with costly perfume
And the controversy this anointing incites.
How ridiculous, Mary.
That was a whole POUND of pure nard!
We could have sold that and given it to the poor,
Which Jesus would have liked, you know,
Given all that he did and taught about serving the poor,
Feeding the hungry,
Giving water to the thirsty…
Three hundred denarii, Mary.
Three hundred. What we could have done with that kind of money for the poor of Bethany…

And that’s a story worthy of its own sermon or two, for sure.
With the benefit of hindsight, John tells the reader that this isn’t an honest protest,
Even if you and I might sympathize with it.

I do, actually.

I might have thought the perfuming of Jesus was too much myself.
Wasteful
Extravagant.

John tells us that it is a way for Jesus to point, once again,
to the fact that he is going to die soon,
maybe to try to get these dear friends ready for the anguish to come…
as if we could ever be prepared for death, for losing those we love.

John tells us that Judas was actually a thief,
And didn’t make this protest about the perfume in good faith….
But that doesn’t make it any less complicated a question.
There was some truth in what Judas was saying,
And Jesus’ answer reminds us that not everything is cut and dry, black and white,
That often we make choices that mean we can’t do other things,
even other good and worthy things,
and that this is one of them: honoring Jesus, at this particular moment, was worth it.
It was an act of prodigal love, overflowing love
For a Jesus who would be on a cross within a fortnight.

But what I hadn’t noticed before, in those previous sermons,
was how closely that story about the perfume falls
In John’s overarching narrative,
How it is just before Jesus’ entry at Jerusalem
on a Donkey
with palm branches
and Hosannahs
and Blessed is the One who Comes in the Name of the Lord.

And what separates these stories, John says, is a plot to kill Lazarus.

To kill Lazarus?
Why? What had HE done?

///
Well, if you step back just a little bit further,
And look at the previous chapter, John chapter 11,
There Lazarus died. [Read more…]

Sermon of the Week:
Again & Again: We are Reformed

An online sermon preached with The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on March 21, 2021.

Fifth Sunday in Lent

Keywords: Greek, Interpretation, Literalism, Want to See Jesus, Bible. #pcusa

Scripture readings (which you may wish to read prior):
Jeremiah 31:31-34
and John 12:20-33

Sometimes, when things are hard to understand
People throw up their hands and say:
Its all Greek to me!

Have you ever heard that?

Wikipedia says that this idiom makes sense
Because complex math formulas often use Greek symbols,
and who knows what’s going on in there.

But it’s not just math.
Apparently, there was a saying in Latin, from the Middle Ages,
that goes Graecum est; non legitur
which means “It’s in Greek; therefore it cannot be read…”
which goes to show you that even medieval Monks
made fun of trying to read the Greek language.

Even so, and risking the possibility that you’ll throw up your hands
I want to talk a bit about some of the subtle things you pick up
When you try to read the scriptures in the original languages.

Please don’t throw up your hands yet. Stay with me a bit.

I’m not bringing all this up to brag or grandstand or anything.
Like a lot of things, I’ve forgotten quite a bit since I studied Greek in college
and then later in Seminary,
but it is one of those things that our denomination, the Presbyterian Church USA
requires of its pastors.

The Bible is in Greek, and Hebrew,
So preachers need to learn some Greek and Hebrew.

One of the reasons why it’s so helpful,
It seems to me,
Is that every so often the original languages
unlock these little gems
That you just can’t see in the English translation…

Sometimes it’s a bit of humor, maybe a word that gets carried throughout a story.
First you’ll see it in a verb, then it comes up again as an echo of a name.
Thinking about this can add some beauty and some texture to a story,
Something that you can’t replicate in translation.

For example: consider Jacob, son of Isaac.
We learn about him in the book of Genesis.
Jacob means ‘to follow, to be second,’ which makes sense,
because he was a twin, and the second born,
Grabbing at the heel of his brother Esau… the story goes.
But the name Jacob also means ‘to supplant, to overreach’,
which, when you read the story of those brothers,
how he tricked his father Isaac to give him the blessing that was rightfully Esau’s
the tension that ensued,
leading to Jacob’s wrestling with God at the Jabbok,
the place where he would get a new name, Israel,
the one who wrestles with God…and lives!
The dynamic behind the wordplay of these names explains so much about what is going on.

Giving just a bit of thought to the original meaning of these words
helps open that up, don’t you think?

There’s a depth, a richness, that can get lost in translation.
Any translation.

And some of that is inevitable, even predictable.

Here’s one that often surprises people:
Sometimes what gets obscured is a curse word, an expletive,
that the translators thought was just too much.

Gasp! We can’t have that! That word? Really? In the Bible?
So they, well, toned it down a little, whoever was in charge of such things.

The Apostle Paul curses from time to time, did you know?
The most famous example is in one of my favorite books, Philippians, chapter 3.

And I don’t know, I don’t think it matters too much for our everyday purposes
That the text is cleaned up a bit,
But, perhaps,
if we rendered these words of his more accurately,
or if we collectively spent a bit more time trying to understand
the context, background, flow of Paul’s letters, did some word study,
then maybe Paul would seem more human in the end,
Less self-righteous, more normal,
More like you or me…

Look: I’m not advocating for bringing curse words back to scripture.
That’s not the point.
But we are reading old, old texts,
And more often than you might suspect,
These little choices, well, they make all the difference in the world.
They influence how we feel about a text, how we argue about what the texts mean,
And, behind that, what sort of God we look for, and expect to find.

///
There’s this passage in Second Timothy, for example,
Second Timothy 3:16-17,
Where the author is talking about the use of holy writings, the scripture,
For the life of faith.

It is an important enough text
That that scripture reference, 2 Timothy 3:16-17,
was engraved in the pulpit of my childhood church.

I saw it every Sunday, when the preacher got up there to read scripture
And to reflect on it,
A communal act of listening together for God’s word for the day.

The New Revised Standard Version, the NRSV,
one of the most popular English versions out there,
translates 2 Timothy 3:16-17 like this:
All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching,
for reproof,
for correction,
and for training in righteousness,
so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient,
equipped for every good work.

So far, so good.

By itself, even if considered out of context,
you can tell that it speaks to the importance, the central importance,
Of our holy writings, that they are inspired by God,
Or, better, that they are God-breathed,
which is what the word actually says,
God’s very breath undergirding these writings,
And as such, they are useful,
for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.

And you can understand why that reference might go on a pulpit,
where we preachers
Regularly turn to these sacred texts and go looking for meaning, for God’s word
For the movement of the spirit in our lives, in this life.
Breathe on me, breath of God….

We, you and I, are looking, right this very moment, for a God-breathed word.

And on one level, I love this succinct, focused sentiment,
The idea within the bible itself,
about what the Bible is, and how we might use it.
Very helpful.

///
Sometimes.
Sometimes it is very helpful.
Other times, not so much.

Because there are other times when this little passage
Is cited as the final proof, the absolute answer, for one’s reading of the Bible.

Take, for instance, this sort of discussion,
which I saw play out in the comments of a social media post not that long ago:

The Bible says that women are not supposed to teach in church.

Well, let’s talk about that.
Do you know where it says that, and what the context is?
And how do you balance that with these other examples of women
that Jesus empowered,
who ran early house churches,
who preached and taught and healed and led…

I’m sure you’re not reading those right,
because it says over here that they’re not supposed to teach in church.

Well, and maybe your reading is the one that isn’t right,
in light of all the other things we see…

No, it is. The Bible says so.

Why? Maybe that passage is wrong?

No! All scripture is God-inspired and is useful for teaching…. And so on.

I’ve heard this sort of logic more times than I care to count.

In fact, for some, this text in 2^nd Timothy
has become THE foundation for their literalist view of the Bible.
All Scripture is God-Breathed. [Read more…]

Sermon: Again and Again, We Draw on Courage

Sermon: Again and Again, We Are Reformed