faith — Page 43

April 13, 2014 ~ Always Go to the Funeral from John Knox Kirk on Vimeo.

A sermon preached at John Knox Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on April 13, 2014.

Isaiah 50:4-9a
and Matthew 27: 11-26, 38-56

I’m wondering if there are any of you who—

when I was reading this text – your mind started to wander?

I don’t need a show of hands.

Just ask yourself if your concentration was on this text

the entire time it was being read.

If your answer was no, don’t worry, you’re not alone.

When the HBO series “The Sopranos” ended its run several years ago,

somebody uploaded a “7 years of Sopranos in 7 minutes”

compilation to YouTube.

They tried to cover every major plot point of the entire series

in 500 quick cut scenes—

–all in 7 minutes.

It was a don’t blink, don’t breathe or you’ll miss it kind of experience.

It has felt this way through much of Lent,

with the passages of John we’ve looked at,

and so with this reading today:

There is A LOT in this text, this story of Jesus’ passion;

Its packed like that YouTube video,

and I only read an excerpt this morning.

But…I don’t think that’s why we might have wandered.

It’s hard to keep our focus when the text is the suffering of Jesus.

* * *

The great English poet John Milton once tried to write a poem

about the suffering of Jesus on the cross.

He wrote 7 or 8 stanzas, and then he quit.

He quit because he realized that when he was writing about the suffering of Jesus,

ALL he could really talk about was

how John Milton felt about the suffering of Jesus.

How melancholy he became.

How sad it was to read and hear these words.

So he gave up.[i]

A sermon preached at John Knox Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on March 23, 2014.

Exodus 17:1-7
and John 4:3-29, 39-42

Mark Ramsey warns us about our tendency

to try to keep score with texts such as these:[i]

For those who are tempted to keep score with this text,

the woman—the unnamed woman at the well

–is NOT Elizabeth Taylor (may she rest in peace)

with a string of marriages to multiple men

living it up in some swirl of indulgence.

This woman is not “living in sin” with a man not her husband.

She is NOT being called out by Jesus for her lack of faith or morality.

Look for it, and those words just aren’t there.

Maybe closer to the truth is the poem that the thirty year old

Emily Dickenson began with the words:

I’m nobody! Who are you?

Are you nobody, too?

Then there’s a pair of us – don’t tell!

They’d banish us, you know.

In first century Middle Eastern culture,

a woman didn’t have a choice when it came to husbands.

This woman – who didn’t even merit a name – a NOBODY –

–had either been widowed or divorced,

and thus passed from man to man to man

probably in the midst of some forced, desperate downward mobility.

* * *

For those wishing to keep score, WHO shows up alone, at noon

in the scorching mid-day heat, at the town well?

Only those who are shunned from “normal” society.

Only those who are NOT welcome in the daily give and take of a village.

…And while we are at it: what’s that despised foreigner, a Jewish man,

doing there too?

* * *

While we are keeping score,

there are SO MANY things wrong here:

women didn’t come to the well at noon;

men…didn’t come to the well at all—

–they sent women or slaves to do that;

men and women did NOT speak to each other in public;

Samaritans and Jews didn’t speak to each other PERIOD. [Read more…]

Sermon: Always Go to the Funeral

Sermon: Quarreling With God