What Things?

Posted on April 30, 2017 by taylormertins

Luke 24.13-19

Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” He asked them, “What things?”

We only know what we know. Though, perhaps a better way to put it is this: we only know what we have been told.

On my first Sunday as the pastor here I stood up in the pulpit and I said that we are the stories we tell. The narratives we tell ourselves and our friends and our families reorient our lives in a way that we often can’t see unless in retrospect. This can be a good thing when our lives are determined by the great narrative of God with God’s people, but it can also become problematic when the only story we tell is our own.

As children we learn by stories. We teach our young about George Washington chopping down his cherry tree as a way to teach the virtue of telling the truth. We tell stories about Jesus teaching his disciples to treat one another the way they wish to be treated in order to instill a sense of the so-called “golden rule.” And perhaps the story we tell the most, the lesson we hope to share on a habitual basis, is this: don’t judge a book by it’s cover.

The “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” story is made manifest in a number of ways from literally not judging a written book by it’s cover page to not judging people because of their clothing. We tell that story over and over again to our children.

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And here’s the great irony: we judge books by their covers all the time.

We are told to love the street beggar, but we only see them for their shabby clothing, putrid smell, and most of the time we just walk straight past them.

We are told to love the wealthy, but we only see them for their perfectly pressed shirts, their obscene jewelry, and we assume they have no sense of how the world actually works.

We are told to love people from the South, but we limit our understanding of them to Confederate Flags, Country music, and repressed racism.

We are told to love people from the North, but we only see them for their entitlement, their inability to empathize, and we label them Yankees.

We are told to love the Democrat, but we only see them for their bleeding hearts, tax heavy foolishness, and their thirst for total power.

We are told to love the Republican, but we only see them for their love of guns, dismantling of Government programs, and white superiority.

We are told to love the Muslim, but we only see them for their headscarves, for their Sharia Law that the news channels are forever warning us about, and we blame them for all the problems in the Middle East.

We are told to love the Jew, but we see them as consumed by the pursuit of wealth, always digging up issues from the past, and we assume they are up to more than they let on.

We are told to love the Atheist, but we only see them for their over-reliance on science, their negative attitudes toward religion, and we assume they are going to hell.

We might not fall into all of those generalizations, but each and every one of us are sinners who are guilty of judging books based on their covers. Or, to put it another way, we only know the stories we are told.

It’s like something keeps us from recognizing Jesus in one another.

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We barely know anything about the disciples who made their way to Emmaus on the first Easter. One of them has a name, Cleopas, but other than that all we know is that they are walking and talking when Jesus shows up. Regardless of their past decisions, or even their faithfulness to the newly risen Christ, their proximity to the Lord on the road has cemented them in the identity and narrative of Christianity forever.

While they were walking and talking, Jesus came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What are you all talking about?” They stood still looking sad.

What a telling sentence; from the mere question of a stranger they were stopped dead in their tracks as the reality of what had taken place set in all over again. And then Cleopas realized something strange: how could this man, so close to the city, not know what we have been talking about? Everyone’s been talking about it. And so he asks Jesus, “Are you the only person in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place in these days?” And Jesus replied, “What things?”

What a remarkably important question. What had taken place in Jerusalem? What had they seen? What had they heard? What’s the story?

How would we answer the question? Imagine, if you can, walking downtown one afternoon, and a stranger walked up and asked us to tell them about Jesus. What would we say?

Would we tell the truth of Jesus’ horrific death on the cross? Would we add our own editorial reflections in order to cast doubt on what we really think? Do we so believe the story that we could tell it?

How we answer Jesus’ question constitutes the very fabric of our lives.

I announced last week that I’ll be leaving St. John’s at the end of June for a new appointment, and in the wake of that announcement I realized I could probably be a little more probing, and perhaps even controversial, from the pulpit since I’m on the way out. Rather than surface level faith stuff, we, and by we I mean me, we can talk about things we would otherwise ignore.

Since I arrived in Staunton four years ago there has been a debate about our local high school. It started long before I got here, and it will be here far after I leave. And it doesn’t have to do with student-teacher dynamics, or accreditation, or any number of other important educational precepts. The controversy is all about the name: Robert E. Lee High School.

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Some, of course, want the name to change: They say it’s a relic of the past, it encourages prejudice among the student body, it’s offensive, it’s archaic, it’s racist, etc.

Some, of course, want the name to stay the same: They say it has a profound history with the community that can’t just be washed away, Lee represents a class of gentlemen almost forgotten to the sands of time, we should be proud of the name. It’s important, it’s patriotic, it’s powerful, etc.

And this fight goes on and on and on.

And here’s the thing: the name of the school is offensive and it does hurt people, just like the Confederate flag does. They see the name and it brings forth all sorts of animosity and resentment and fear and pain. Yet, at the very same time, the name is just a name and changing the name of the high school will change very little. It’s as if we believe that by removing the name we will remove all the prejudice and racism and judgment from an entire community.

It doesn’t work like that.

The name Robert E. Lee will forever evoke positive and negative responses from this community; some will support it and some will oppose it. But the problem is far bigger than a name.

And what do we even really know about Robert E. Lee other than the fact that he was a general for the confederacy during the Civil War? We go on and on about what he represents both positively and negatively, but do we really know who he was? Or are we prevented from seeing the Jesus in him too?

A long time ago, in fact, within a year of the Confederate surrender at Appomattox concluding the Civil War, there was a fashionable church in Richmond, VA filled with white folk on a Communion Sunday. Battered and worn, the South was in quite a state after the war, but these people knew well enough that they should be in church. And on that Sunday, an unwanted black man walked into the church right in the middle of the worship service and made his way down the center aisle with all eyes following him and the preacher stupefied in the pulpit. The black man walked down the aisle under the weight of the prejudice and judgment of the church and he knelt down at the Altar and opened up his hands.

Can you imagine the whispered comments between the pews? Can you hear the hushed hateful words in the house of the Lord?

The congregation sat there completely shocked by what they had witnessed and the buzz of anticipation began to ring.

Sensing the room’s pulse, a distinguished member of the church stood up and walked toward the altar. Some leaned toward friends and spouses with whispers of gratitude for the church member handling the situation, and others sighed with relief knowing that he would take care of the awful interruption. But, when the church member arrived at the Altar, he knelt down beside his black brother, wrapped his arms around him, and began to pray. Within second, the entire congregation stood up, as if transfixed by the Spirit, walked to the front and followed his example.

That church member was Robert E. Lee.

Is that story enough to justify keeping the name of our high school? Or does the history of the South, and the continued prejudice toward people of color necessitate a change of name regardless of what Lee did in that church building? I don’t know.

But what I do know is that unless we are willing to open our eyes to the Jesus in one another, unless we are willing to kneel at the Altar with people different from us, unless we are willing to answer Jesus’ question, nothing will ever change.

We make so many assumptions of people without ever doing the good and difficult work of learning who they really are. We see a bumper sticker, or we hear an accent, or we observe a skin tone, or we read a Facebook post, and we let that dictate who they are to us. When truthfully, what we make of those limited observations says far more about us, than about the ones we see.

“Are you the only one in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place these days?” “What things?”

They talked on the road on their way to Emmaus, they told the mysterious man what they had seen and what they had heard, and the more they walked the more Jesus interpreted for them the scriptures. And when night came, Jesus continued to walk but the two men invited him to stay in the city. So they gathered around a table and Jesus took a loaf of bread, broke it, offered it to his friends and their eyes were opened.

Jesus opened their eyes to the truth of the one they were with. Through the simple and ordinary event of breaking bread the profound and extraordinary reality of the resurrection was made manifest before them.

On the roads of life our eyes are often prevented from recognizing the Jesus within the other. Instead we make the continued assumptions and judgments and ignore them. But when we encounter the other, and take time to sit around a common table, when we let the story of Christ reshapes our lives, when we kneel at the altar beside those who are different from us, Jesus opens our eyes. Amen.

Believing Is Seeing – Good Friday Homily on Mark 15.33-39

Posted on April 19, 2014 by taylormertins

Mark 15.33-39

When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, “Listen, he is calling for Elijah.” And someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.” Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was God’s Son!”

This is a day unlike any other. In the entire history of the world there has been nothing quite like what we remember today, and there will never be anything quite like it in the future. Millions upon millions of people have been killed unjustly and prematurely; but only this death has to do with the salvation of the world.

Look around at those who have gathered together with you tonight. Most people, of course, are not here. They are out doing what they do on any ordinary Friday night – dancing, drinking, eating, driving, laughing, loving. It has always been like this…

When Jesus was marched up to the place called Golgotha, which means the skull, most people did not even notice. Crucifixion was such a common activity that people were conditioned to avert their gaze from the bodies hanging on crosses. Many people were preoccupied with their own problems, which might help to explain why Jesus was so abandoned by his closest friends.

So, on this strange night, a night unlike any other, we gather together to remember the death of a man who was, and is, God in the flesh.

All week long I have been wearing my clerical collar. I know this might seem like a fairly Catholic thing to do, but it is traditional for all clergy to wear such things. For years I have been warned by other pastors about the dangers of wearing this collar: “No matter wear you go, people will assume that they can talk to you about all their problems.” “You can never prepare yourself for all the glares you will receive.” “It is a relic of the past, if you want to connect to people of today, ditch the collar and find something contemporary.” For me, I simply wanted to wear it this week to mark the occasion of Holy Week, and on another level I wanted to wear something that would force me to act like a Christian in public. You can’t get away with cutting in line at the grocery store when you’re dressed like this.

So I initially chose to wear it this week to honor this special time in the life of the church, but it slowly became an experiment here in Staunton. After hearing all of the stories about what this collar can bring in terms of interactions in the community, I was excited to see what might happen. I had plenty to do this week, but whenever I had the chance, I would go somewhere publicly; I worked on a sermon at a coffee shop, played drums for the Stonewall Brigade band, went to Walmart, the Staunton mall, Food Lion, I walked up and down Beverley street. I went everywhere that I could think of.

I was anxious about all the conversations and judgments people might make of my appearance, but I went out anyway. And you’ll never believe what happened… nothing.

I walked around this whole town and I received absolutely no response about my appearance. No one asked me about it, no one pointed and whispered, no one even looked at it. Now I know I’m not the best looking guy, but I’m used to people tat least taking a glance my way occasionally; its something we all do out of habit. But for the last few days I have felt largely invisible.

So I decided to take it one step forward… Today, at noon, I arrived at church to begin carrying our cross all around Staunton. The cross that the confirmands so diligently decorated and created dug into my shoulders as I departed from the church and walked toward downtown. I walked from the church to Beverley Street, went up both hills on either side, and eventually made my way back toward the north end of town. I walked for two hours, and you know what happened? Nothing.

Now, of course, walking with a 8 ft long cross will gather attention, I noticed a handful of people driving and walking who began to stare at the object on my back, but the moment I smiled, made eye contact, or waved, they diverted their attention to something else. Two couples actually switched what side of the road they were walking down in order to avoid my trajectory. For two hours I walked in silence and contemplation, every greeting I uttered was met with a blank stare, and just like with the clergy collar, I felt invisible this afternoon.

That was until I was standing next to a man waiting at the light by the library. I noticed that he kept looking at my cross, back to the ground, back to the cross, and back to the ground. Finally I heard him mutter, but loud enough for me to hear, “Jesus H. Christ.” To which I replied, “Actually its Taylor C. Mertins, but thanks for the compliment.” He did not think it was as funny as I did.

While walking across the lawn to put the cross back in the sanctuary I began to wonder if this is what Jesus felt like when he carried his cross. I wonder if what was most tragic was not the fact that he died, but that he died without anyone really caring or noticing. How strange that God chose to save us in this way, in the death of his Son abandoned by his friends on a cross.

Today, as it was in the time that Jesus died, many of us believe that we need not look at the cross at all. Here in our sanctuary all we have is this tiny cross on the altar. Many of us are far more familiar with the idea that, “God so loved the world, that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.” In that verse we are told not to look, but merely to believe.

We so desperately want to skip over the suffering of Friday and jump straight to the glory of Sunday. Thats why more people attend church on Mother’s Day than Maundy Thursday and Good Friday combined. The cross is a harsh message. We want to divert our attention away from it. We want to hear good news. We want to laugh in church. We want to walk out feeling better about ourselves and the world.

Yet, to ignore Christ’s death on the cross is to be tempted to believe that we are no longer in danger. But my friends, even Christ’s death does not mean we get to escape death, but only that even in death we will not be abandoned by God.

Looking on the cross and believing God are inseparable. Perhaps we have grown so accustomed to seeing the Christian cross that we now largely ignore it. Or we really know what the cross means so when we see it we, like the contemporaries of Christ, avert our gaze. But, Christ died on the cross. He hung up there for hours. He cried out to God. He suffered. He died.

This good Friday we are called to open our eyes to what Christ did, to look on the cross and live, to realize that believing is seeing.

How very strange of God to save us in this way, and how much stranger that we are to look on Jesus’ death if we are to have life.

Amen