The Answer is "Jesus"

             Ever since the advent of the Reformation, churches in the reforming traditions have sought to be contextual in their expressions of worship. Attempts have been made to consider the particular needs of particular times and places, and create worship experiences that are attentive to those particulars. This has resulted in attention to space, aesthetics, music, and language, among other things.

            In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, mindful of cultural changes in family structure, community life, and church attendance patterns, worshiping communities often added something to their collective worship life – the children’s sermon. As regular Sunday School participation began to wane, the logic went, it was good and right to have a message within the whole of the worship experience that was specifically for children.

            Over time, various patterns emerged and developed for the children’s message. Some seized the opportunity to tell Bible stories, to either enhance or create a biblical literacy. Others have used the occasion to provide moral lessons, and still others, often have focused on a “question of the day” to drive home a point.

            Among my colleagues and friends, over the years we have enjoyed a standing bit of humor regarding the “question and answer” method of the children’s sermon. What is the correct answer to every children’s sermon question? “Jesus.”

            How do we know God loves us? Jesus!

            How do we know that our sins are forgiven? Jesus!

            Who promises to never leave or forsake us? Jesus!

            Who will be with us in the good times and the bad? Jesus!

            Who helps us love our neighbor? Jesus!

            Who shows us what God is like? Jesus!

            Who do we follow? Jesus!

            Who feeds us in church? Jesus!

            Whose light do we carry out into the world? Jesus’!

            My friends and I have often laughed about this, asking among ourselves, “what’s the point? If every answer is ‘Jesus,’ well, why have a children’s sermon at all?”

            But why not? What better answer could there possibly be around which to gather week after week? Isn’t that what worship is all about, to be drawn into the presence of God, to be reminded of God’s love poured out in Jesus, to be immersed in the promise of grace – in Jesus, to be fed by Jesus at Jesus’ own table, and to be sent out in Jesus’ name for the sake of the world?

            In the letter to the Colossians in the Christian Scriptures, we find these words “he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of creation.” The letter goes on to say that Jesus is before all things, holding all things together, the beginning, the firstborn of the dead, the one through whom God reconciled all things.

            When we dig around a little bit into the history of the people of Colossae, we learn that they were living in a time when they believed in Jesus, but they thought that Jesus was just one among many. They thought that Jesus was a revealer of God, among many revealers of God. They thought that Jesus was one mediator between heaven and earth, in a long line of mediators, and they thought that Jesus was merely part of making everything whole, one link in a long chain.

            The writer of the letter, however, wants to make it clear that Jesus is not one among many. Jesus is the revealer of God. Jesus is the mediator between heaven and earth. Jesus is the one who has reconciled everything in all creation.

            Jesus is the answer to every question.

            Sometimes these days, I find the news of our world downright terrifying. Gun violence. Otherizing. Fear. Division. Racism. Sexism. Name calling. Public rhetoric that is beneath our human dignity. Violence. International strife. Terror. I look at my newsfeed on social media and read the headlines on various news outlets, and it is often more than I can take.

            How are we ever going to “turn the temperature down?”

            How are we ever going to put on the brakes, take a deep breath, and see our common humanity?

            How is it all going to end – the violence, the hatred, the pain that we seem destined to inflict upon one another, with ever increasing speed?

            Abel’s blood is crying out from the ground day after day after day. How is it ever going to stop?

            And then I am reminded that the answer to every single question has already been given: Jesus.

            Jesus has already claimed it all.

            Jesus has already born it all.

            Jesus has already carried it all. Buried it all. Defeated it all, and risen - the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of creation, and the firstborn of the dead.

            Jesus – who did not meet violence with violence, but met violence with love, Jesus is the answer to our despair.

            Jesus – who tore down every single dividing wall he encountered – Jesus is the answer to how we live together as neighbors, brothers and sisters, friends in our common human family.

            Jesus – who washed feet instead of throwing stones, Jesus who told Peter to put away his sword, Jesus – the leper-healing, sight-restoring, other-loving, dead-raising image of the invisible God – is the answer to every human question.

            And so, we gather week after week to be reminded that in the river that flows from his side, we have been washed and made new. We gather week after week to be fed at his table. We gather week after week to be reminded that we are his body now – his flesh and blood in the world to bring his healing, hope and life.

            Jesus is the answer. We are part of Jesus’ own body. Go be Jesus for the world.

A Little Girl in Church

It was a moving day in worship. The music was lovely. The leadership was gracious. The sermon was relevant, poignant, and powerful. The community was warm. The bread and the wine were a taste of the goodness of God. But those things will not be what I remember. As time will pass, I expect that most of the particulars from this worship will bend and weave their way together with the thousands of other worship experiences from my life. It will, for the most part, become indistinct. I do expect, however, that one thing will remain in my memory to mark this worship as different.

That one thing is a little girl’s question.

Within my half century of life, there have been several events within the public sphere that have been demarcations on the signposts of time. There have been those moments that still now, many years later, I can recall the place where I was and my own visceral response  to the news of the day.

I know where I was when the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster happened. I can still feel the unexpected shock, and the almost tangible “punch in my gut” as I watched the unfolding story on live television. The images of the explosion are seared in my memory.

I know where I was and the feelings that came over me when the Berlin wall came tumbling down. I can still feel the energy conveyed through the airwaves as I, along with the rest of the world, watched this crack in history as it unfolded.

I know where I was on 911, and any recollection of that day brings back the horror and helplessness that descended like a cloud.

Then there is last week. A busy time in the height of summer. One teenager away at camp. Another teenager energized by her job. Me - living the routine of parenthood and middle age. And then came the news. A black man shot and killed by police - again. And then, within a day - another one. And then a city on edge amid the assassination of police officers. Social media filled with both cries of enough, and “what do you mean there is a race problem in this country?”

Calls for prayer and peace. Calls for calm. Politicians being politicians. Theologians weighing in.

And I wondered, knowing that the Sunday reading would be the familiar story that is known to many as “The Good Samaritan” - I wondered - what would the preacher preach on Sunday? What would we hear in worship?

The preacher did not disappoint. He named the names of those who had been slain. He named our own fallibility to see and be the neighbor that God calls us to be, and he called us to tangible, real action

All good.

But what I expect I will remember is the hushed question of a little girl - maybe five or six years-old - sitting with her mother in the row to my right, and one row behind.

As the pastor was naming the tragedies of the recent days past, recounting the lives lost by the shootings, the little girl asked, “why is he talking about shootings in church?”

Why is he talking about shootings in church

I could not hear how her mother responded, but her question, though spoken in a whisper, resounded loud and clear. Why is he talking about shootings in church

I suspect that there may have been many across this country who wondered the same thing as pastors sought to speak the Gospel amid our own particular broken times. It seems that we have become accustomed to a detached Gospel - one that keeps anything that might be considered controversial or political at arms length, one that tells us all about “Bible land,” but struggles often to be the prophetic and redemptive voice amid our own lived and broken lives.

But what better place to speak of such things, such horrors, such tragedy? What better place to name the particular sorrows of our world? Because you see, Jesus dealt in particulars. He met the needs of the people in front of him. He responded to the crises that were present around him. He spoke in the language and the images not from another time and place, but from his own time and place.

In words and deeds, Jesus was immersed in the particular brokenness of those he encountered. Lepers. Blind. Diseased. Women. Children. Samartians. Syrophenicians. Tax Collectors. Sinners.

And to those particular people, and amid each particular experience of brokenness, Jesus spoke truth to power. Jesus named the brokenness. Jesus brought new life.

Why is he talking about shootings in church? Because this is the brokenness of this time and place. This is the particular pain of this moment. This is the sorrow of this season of our lives. And we are called to speak truth to power - now. We are called to name the brokenness - now. We are called to bring new life - now.

Why, oh little girl, is he talking about shootings in church? Because in so doing, he is saying the words, naming the sorrows, speaking the truths that God wants him to speak so that we - you and me, all of us - can be filled with the Holy Spirit to bind up the wounds of our broken country, to name - and repent from - the sins that bind us, and to embrace one another as the neighbors God has made us to be.