Ain't it a Shame

Sermon from Sunday March 23, 2014.  This sermon was delivered to the people of the Lutheran Church of the Nativity.  The text for the sermon is John 18:12-27.

I think it’s all too easy for us to give Peter a hard time in this text.  We listen to these women and men question his association with Jesus, and hear Peter’s denial of it, and we think…”really, you’re going to just straight up deny that you traveled with him? Really?”  And then it’s easy for us to harshly judge Peter.  To assume that if we were in his position we would stand up for Jesus right there in the courtyard.  That even if we knew that it meant that we too would be arrested and possibly killed, we would stand with Jesus to the end.  

And yet, it’s not that easy after all.  Perhaps there is more going on here in Peter’s relationship with these people that we can’t see on the surface.  Perhaps we need to dig a little deeper this morning.

Perhaps Peter isn’t at fault for his responses to these questions.  Maybe the world has “conspired against him” so to speak, so that Peter is being forced to answer negatively.  It’s not even that peer pressure we are all so familiar with, but it is something close.

If we take a minute and think back to our childhoods for a minute - for some of that won’t take as long as others...and we think about a time one of our parents tries to get us to do something.  I can think of a couple times when I would try and leave the kitchen before I had cleared my place at the table.  Instead of being asked to pick up my plate and silverware, I would sometimes get a question.  A question that goes, and perhaps many of you have heard it asked or asked it yourselves, “You’re not going to leave those there, are you?”  Or maybe with a messy room, “you’re not going to leave those Legos out are you?”

Well..of course I was going to leave my dishes on the table.  And of course I was going to leave the Legos out.  But the question is asked in such a way that I have no other answer than the one I was given in the question.  “No mom, I’ll clear my place.”  “Of course not dad, I’ll pick them up right away.”  Even though in my heart of hearts, I wanted to answer differently, I was trapped by the question and didn’t have a choice.

And I think that’s what happens to Peter this morning.  The phrasing of these questions is done in such a way that Peter can only answer in the negative.  “You aren’t one of *them* are you?”  Peter has been trapped.  He feels like he doesn’t have a choice.  He has to go along with the crowd’s opinion.  He is trapped by a language that should allow him to freely answer.  Even if he wanted to affirm his status as Jesus’ disciple, and I think he just might have wanted to do that very thing, he was forced into denying something very real about his identity.  

How many times do these similar things happen to us in our own lives?  In my experience, they happen more often than we like to think.  Such as when you’re in a conversation with friends about Clemson’s chances in the upcoming game, and all of a sudden they are looking at you to make sure that you root for Clemson and heaven help you if you say any other ACC team, or worse USC.  So, despite your own loyalty to Duke, you say, “Of course.  Go Tigers!”  

Or perhaps someone is talking about universal healthcare.  And they’ve torn everything about the new policies up one side and down the other.  And all of a sudden you’re being asked if you agree with their arguments and think the whole idea is terrible.  And you’re trapped into agreeing even though you think healthcare is actually a pretty good thing for everyone to have.

And when we feel the need to tell these “little white lies” that deny our identity we see one more glimpse of the brokenness of the world in sin.  We feel deeply that we are disconnected from one another.  We feel that we have to hide bits and pieces of ourselves.  And we feel like we aren’t going to be accepted by the world for being anything but normal - and nevermind that there’s no such thing as normal.

And yet, even the sin that permeates so much of how we talk, act, and live in our relationships with one another, that’s not what makes the problem worse.  Instead it’s the feeling of shame that comes with sin that causes the most damage.  The sense that we now have to hide our sins and brokenness - even if it’s a small one such as lying about cheering for Clemson.  We feel that we now have to be alone in our sins.  We can’t tell anyone that we struggle with sins - and nevermind that everyone struggles with some sins.

We want to sit alone and be left by ourselves - much like those who feel depressed feel.  For one of the major symptoms for many types of depression is feeling isolated and alone.  Feeling disconnected and feeling like you have to hide these feelings in shame.  And for many depressed women and men, it’s only when they realize that they are not alone in their journeys that they can begin to seek healing and therapy.  It’s only by having someone share their own struggles with loneliness and shame that a healing connection can be made.

The same goes with sin.  Unless someone comes to us and shows us that we do not have to be defined by our sin and the accompanying sense of shame we feel like we must struggle alone.  We feel like we have to stay pressured and bullied by a system that forces us to make hard choices.  And that even though we might have been trapped by the system we still made the mistake and we must feel bad about that.  

And because of that very one Peter ends up denying, we do not have to sit alone in our sin and we do have a chance to be healed.  For Peter this healing comes after Easter Sunday when “spoiler alert” Jesus is raised from the dead.  Peter is sitting on a beach having breakfast with Jesus when Jesus asks Peter if he loves him - no tricks, no traps, just a simple question about love.  And Peter replies that of course he does.  And this happens three times.  Just like Peter’s three denials.  Three moments of forgiveness and healing and connection to overcome the guilt and shame Peter probably felt after the night of Jesus’ arrest.  

And then for us, these moments of grace happen at the beginning of our worship services every Sunday.  We stand together and look at our baptismal font and say the same words recognizing that we have sinned and are broken, and need the one who works through the waters of baptism to heal us and make us whole.  

And even though there’s grace in the absolution that is proclaimed after our confession, I think we sometimes overlook the other moment of grace in our confession.  Confession together isn’t this time to feel ashamed because of the brokenness we feel inside, but rather it’s an opportunity to celebrate because we can see that everyone feels broken in some part of their lives too.  That we aren’t alone in this.  We don’t have to live in depression or sadness.  We don’t need to feel ashamed.  We have a whole community that has been joined together through the waters of baptism and we can begin to see each other as brothers and sisters - and see each other as only brothers and sisters can.  That way we look at our siblings, see their flaws and imperfections, and then love them anyways.  

And then we hear together that God comes to us, and forgives the sin, takes away the shame, and helps us the next time we are faced with impossible choices.  And then continues to forgive us when we feel like we need to hide and live in shame.  And God has promised to do this forever and ever.  Amen.  

Nothing Lasts Forever

This sermon was delivered to the people of the Lutheran Church of the Nativity on November 24th, 2013.  The scriptural text for the sermon is Jeremiah 29:1,4-14.

But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.

- Jeremiah 29:7,11

You ever have one of those days when nothing seems to go right?  When no matter what you do, it all feels like it’s for nothing?  Your friends and family feel disconnected or distant?  It feels like you’re all alone, that even God has abandoned you?

This is how the majority of people who suffer from depression go through every single day of their lives.  They feel isolated and alone.  They feel abandoned and cut off from the people they care about.  They feel that even God has left them.  

And this is how the people of Israel feel when we find them in the text from Jeremiah this morning.  They have been conquered by the Babylonians, even though they have tried to fight and pray to God.   And, to make matters worse, the Babylonians have taken the royal family, the priests, the prophets, and the entire upper class off into exile in Babylon.  The people feel isolated.  They feel alone.  They feel abandoned by God.  

And like many of us who have days where we feel abandoned or isolated, the Israelites have started to chase after false visions of the future.  These visions of the future are ones that we can sympathize with, perhaps all too easily.  

They are visions of a future that’s all about me - that I no longer have to worry about other people.  Visions that tell me, that because I am isolated and lonely, other people do not actually exist and I don’t have to interact or deal with them.  That whatever I do is fine, because I’m in such pain at this moment, that I can’t even begin to develop a concept of another person.

And these visions of individualism and loneliness in turn lead us to chase after other false visions of the future.  Visions of the future that speak of monetary wealth, or physical health.  Visions of lustful sexuality or escapism into the alternate reality provided by drugs.  Or perhaps these visions cause us to just give up.  We might find ourselves chasing after the delusion that we are incapable of making any lasting changes, or that we can mistreat the earth because, “it’s all going to end, eventually.”  Our mantras in this loneliness are that “nothing really matters” or “nothing lasts forever.”

As the people in exile chase after their own versions of these false futures, Jeremiah writes to them encouraging them that “nothing lasts forever.”  And when Jeremiah says this, he really means “This feeling of nothingness, this feeling of loneliness and isolation, this feeling of being abandoned by God will not last forever.”  He offers these people in exile words of hope, words of comfort that even though this pain might last for a long time, the seventy years he mentions in the text, that seventy years is not eternity.  

Jeremiah does not deny the pain and suffering that the people are going through.  He does not pretend that life is going to be easier, that the feeling of nothingness will just fade away, as quickly as it overwhelmed them.  He does not pretend to have all the answers to the questions that they have, questions that make them wonder about why they feel the way that they do.

Instead, Jeremiah offers them God’s vision for the future.  Jeremiah reminds the people of the dream that God has been sharing with them since Adam and Eve were in the garden.  God’s dream is that of the people’s welfare.  

However, our word that is used in the translation isn’t quite accurate.  The Hebrew word for welfare that we see used throughout this text is actually shalom.  More often than not, when we come across shalom in the Bible, it gets translated as peace.  And yet, the true definition of shalom lies somewhere in between these two definitions.  Shalom conveys the emotional feelings and calm that come up out of being made whole in God.  It’s being healed of physical and spiritual maladies.  It’s being made new as part of the kingdom of God.

And so, as part of Jeremiah’s message of hope, this message of shalom, of God’s kingdom, he offers the people in exile some baby steps on their journey to healing and wholeness.  He encourages them to build houses, to plan gardens, to marry, to have children, to live their lives in such a way that they start to recognize the fact that other people are in the world.  More importantly, Jeremiah encourages the people to seek shalom for Babylon - to seek healing and wholeness with the very people that have taken them into exile in the first place.

Now our reaction to this is similar to how the Israelites reacted, I’m sure.  We look at Jeremiah’s words and think, “You’re crazy.  There’s no way that I can seek to be reconciled with the very people who have hurt me.  I’m not going to be able to look at them and see them as part of God’s kingdom when they’ve brought me into exile. They’ve created these feelings of isolation and loneliness within me.  I’m not going to be at shalom with those people.”

Even here in America, where we aren’t in exile, nor are we isolated or cut off from our loved ones or our communities, we share in this message with the Israelites.  We live in a culture that is dominated by individualism, that very feeling that happens in depression - the uncanny feeling that no one else matters.  We might let one or two people into our high walls that protect ourselves, but we tend to overlook or ignore people who are outside of those walls.  We want to keep them out, because we think “nothing really matters” and “nothing lasts forever.”

And that’s true.  “Nothing does last forever.”  Well, it’s almost true.  God lasts forever.  God’s kingdom lasts forever.  But these feelings of nothingness, that nothing matters - those things will not last forever.  

They might not disappear overnight.  They might take five years, ten years, seventy years, or a thousand years, but they will disappear eventually.  These feelings will vanish in the presence of God’s light.  There is no room for the anxiety that these thoughts and feelings produce in the kingdom of God.  Instead, there is only room for shalom.

And like the Israeli people in exile that Jeremiah encourages in his letter, it is in bringing about shalom for those around us that we will find shalom for ourselves.  It’s in building up, planting gardens, creating families, feeding the hungry around us, caring for those who are ill, spending time to understand one another, to really listen to one another, to be a presence of shalom for the people we come across day after day, that we will truly understand what Jesus talks about when he tells us that he leaves us with “Peace, but not as the world gives.”

Jesus’ peace is shalom.  It’s being comforted and welcomed with our sisters and brothers around the world into the kingdom of God.  It’s learning from one another and being made whole in what we learn.  It’s feeding the hungry and then in turn being fed.  It’s about losing that “It’s all about me” feeling and gaining a “We’re all in this together” feeling.  It’s about imitating Christ’s love for us in all that we say and do.  And I honestly cannot think of a better future than that.  Amen.