By Thine Own Rejected

Posted on April 3, 2021 by taylormertins

Psalm 22.1-5

Mark 15.25-39

It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. The inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.” And with him they crucified two bandits, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying, “Aa! You who would destroy the temple and built it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!” In the same way the chief priests, along with the scribes, were also mocking him among themselves and saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe.” Those who were crucified with him also taunted him. 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, lama 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!”

It was early in the morning when they crucified Jesus.

The night before he was breaking bread with his friends and sharing wine. He was washing feet and talking about the command to love.

But then he was betrayed and one by one his disciples deserted him and denied him.

He went on trial before the powers and principalities, accused of crimes uncommitted, and ultimately sentenced to death.

He was paraded through the city to mocking crowds. His weakness was such that someone was commanded to help him carry his cross, his instrument of death, all the way to Golgotha.

And in the early morning light, they crucified him.

Nailed his hands and feet to the wood, and lifted him high for all eyes to see.

One by one they came to see this “King of the Jews” and the mocked him.

“You said you would destroy the temple and build it in three days! Good luck doing all that from up there!”

“You’ve saved others, let’s see if you can save yourself.”

“Come down from that cross you soon-to-be-dead-king, and we will believe you.”

Even those who were themselves hanging on crosses next to him lifted up their own taunts.

When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land and it lasted for three hours. And then, around three o’clock, Jesus cried out with a loud voice: “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” and he died.

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

I have thought about those words for a long time.

I can remember sitting in a dimly lit sanctuary as a teenager hearing those words proclaimed from a rather portly-looking Jesus in a dramatic re-enactment.

I can remember coming across them in college and wondering why in the world Matthew and Mark decided to include them in their versions of the Gospel.

I have read all sorts of commentaries and listened to all sorts of sermons just on this one sentence and, frankly, not one of them have left me satisfied.

I have been unsatisfied with so many thoughts on these words because they so often try to avoid what it is that Jesus said – they try to avoid the words that we, for millennia, have proclaimed in faith.

When I was in seminary, we debated this verse in a class. My professor wanted us to explain to him why Jesus used these words as his last. And so we competed with one another – “Well, surely Jesus meant to quote the entirety of Psalm 22nd but died before he could finish.” “Naturally, Jesus intended his disciples to understand that he didn’t really mean what he said.” And on and on we went.

That is, until my professor slammed his hands on the podium and declared, “This is one of the most important verses in the Bible! You cannot explain it away. Look at the words! Jesus has taken on our sin and he is abandoned!”

There is no good way to talk about this text. This is not a passage that leaves us walking with our heads held high. This is the depth of our depravity held high for all eyes to see.

This is, to put it bluntly, our sin.

In order for us to come to grips with the Cross of Christ, we are called to consider the gravity of sin. And I don’t just mean the little choices we make every day that we shouldn’t, or the things we avoid doing that we should do. I mean them plus all of the horrific examples that you only need a moment to scroll through Twitter to find.

“None is righteous. No, not one.” St. Paul says.

And he’s right.

Had we been there in Jerusalem all those years ago, we, like the crowds, would’ve started the week with “Hosanna” and ended it with “Crucify!”

Even his most faithful disciples abandoned him in the end.

“My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”

Why did he say it?

The moment of Jesus’ death is total hideousness. In that moment Jesus experienced separation for the Father for the first and only time.

Paul puts it this way: He became sin who knew known sin.

The condemnation that we deserved was absorbed by Jesus in totality.

Consider the strange new world of the Bible – God looked upon us and our sin and what did God do? God did not remain above and far removed from our struggle. Instead, God chose to come right down into the muck and mire of our existence. God looked upon us and our sins and God entered into our very condition, birthed as a baby to a virgin in a manger.

That baby grew to proclaim the Good News for a world drowning in bad news. He healed the sick. He fed the hungry. He befriended the lonely. And when he entered the Holy City we nailed him to a cross.

And in so doing, God removed the condemnation we rightly deserved.

This will no doubt cause us to wince, or simply to dismiss it because, surely, we don’t deserve condemnation. Maybe someone else like those people we saw on TV or the people who voted for the other candidate or for the person who keeps insisting on posting such reprehensible things, but definitely not us.

But we, all of us, are sinners without a hope in the world unless (unless!) we have something that can save us.

Something had to be done about Sin otherwise we would be doomed.

Something had to be done to get us from where we were to where we could be.

And that something is actually a someone – his name is Jesus.

In the Cross, justice is served. But it is also an injustice. It is an injustice because Jesus paid the price for the sins of the world.

All of our versions of justice in this life can certainly make things better and, at the very least, bring comfort to those wronged. But it will never be true justice because the specter of sin raises its ugly head over and over again.

But divine justice is altogether different.

We do not deserve God’s love, and yet God’s reigning attribute is love for us.

There is victory that begins on the cross (and comes to fruition in the empty tomb) in which the old word of Sin and Death is destroyed. That is our proclamation. It is, to put it simply, the Good News.

And yet, we sit in the shadow of the cross.

It’s why we put crosses in our sanctuaries and hang them up in our living rooms and even tattoo them on our skin – not just as a symbol of our faith, but a reminder about what we did and what has been done for us.

We lift high the cross because the Gospels remind us over and over again the bitterest of ironies – the only person who can touch us and heal and forgives and make us whole is dead. Forsaken and shut up in a tomb. Our only hope is that God won’t leave him there. Amen.

Ungodly

Posted on April 19, 2019 by taylormertins

John 18.37-19.6

Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate asked him, “What is truth?” After he had said this, he went out to the Jews again and told them, “I find no case against him. But you have a custom that I release someone for you at the Passover. Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?” They shouted in reply, “Not this man, but Barabbas!” Now Barabbas was a bandit. Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. And the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they dressed him in a purple robe. They keep coming up to him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And striking him on the face. Pilate went out again and said to them, “Look, I am bring him out to you to let you know that I find no case against him.” So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Here is the man!” When the chief priests and the police saw him, they shouted, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him; I find no case against him.”

In 1905 the Daily News in London published a piece titled, “What’s Wrong With The World?” And they asked for answers. Hundreds of people wrote in about hundreds of different subjects. GK Chesterton, writer and theologian, simply responded with two words: “I am.”

–

If you were with us last night for our Maundy Thursday service you heard me address our captivity to the past. That we are so captive to and by the past is evidenced in our grammar, in our actions, and even in our conversations.

I tried to make the case for confusing our sense of time because Jesus is not bound to the past and continues to live and reign with God and the Holy Spirit even today. Moreover, we always gather at the table in anticipation of the divine table around which we shall gather one day.

But now I want us to return to the theme of time, and in particular how haunted we are by it. We are of course haunted by our own histories, the wrong choices we made, and the right ones we’ve avoided – but we are also haunted by the history of our humanity, which, frankly, has been rather inhumane.

The last 100 years have perhaps been the most bloody in our history. Every time we engaged in a new war there was an assumption that the current war would be the end of war and yet we are now, have been, in a state of war for the better part of the last 20 years.

But we are good at denial.

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We look at something like the Holocaust and we feel as if we are able to wash our hands of it because the Germans were responsible for that horrific tragedy. But the “we” in that sentence is particularly problematic if the “we” is we Christians or even we Americans. Because, as Americans, we were given the opportunity by Germany to receive countless Jews before the Holocaust ever began and we turned them away over and and over again. Moreover, as Christians, it was the Christianity in Germany that led to the anti-semitism that resulted in death chambers and funeral pyres.

Tonight is Good Friday.

It is not an easy night in the life of the Christian witness.

We are forced to look at the cross, at ourselves, and at our Lord.

And in so doing we cannot deny that we are inheritors of a history that makes us a people who should acknowledge that we are anything but innocent.

There is a church right smack dab in the middle of downtown Detroit that was built before all the white people fled the city. The enormous pipe organ required a frighteningly ridiculous amount of money to purchase and install. The Tiffany stained glass windows portrayed the pivotal moments of Jesus’ life. And the pulpit towered above everyone who sat in the pews.

But, over the years, the sanctuary has changed.

They haven’t been able to afford an organist in years and no one even knows if the organ still works.

The stained glass windows are now punctuated with bullet holes and iron bars.

And they sold the pulpit to a growing church in the suburbs years ago requiring the pastor to just walk around by the pews on Sunday mornings.

I sat in that church years ago and stared up at their cross hanging 20 feet above the ground. I tried to imagine what the church must have been like during its hay day, because when I was there there were only 12 of us in the pews.

I listened to the sermon, but I didn’t pay attention. The cross commanded my attention.

It was huge, far larger than the one used to crucify Jesus. It had a deep are dark hue to it and certainly seemed like it had come from a far away land.

While almost everything else in the church was falling apart the cross was immaculate. Perhaps because it was dangling in the air no one had messed with it.

But the longer I looked at it, the more I noticed something strange; the bottom right corner was all gnarled and messed up.

Honestly, it looked like a dog had been chewing on it.

For years.

So after the service, while shaking hands with the faithful remnant, I asked about the cross and in particular what had happened to it.

One of the ushers proudly beamed, “We’ve been taking it down every Good Friday since the first year this church opened and we drag it through the streets of Detroit. And every year we hang it back up on Easter Sunday.”

“Why?”

“So that we don’t forget what we did.”

So that we don’t forget what we did.

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At the heart of our faith is the strange and bizarre proclamation that Jesus was degraded and dehumanized by his fellow human beings as much as was possible.

That he was murdered by decree from the religious establishments and from the state.

That even when given the opportunity to let him go, the crowds shouted “Crucify!” with reckless abandon.

In just about every religious system in the world, there is a huge distinction between those who are holy and those who are unholy, between the right and the wrong, between the godly and the ungodly.

But in Christianity, there is really no distinction, since all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. None is righteous, no, not one. (to quote St. Paul)

The crucifixion of Jesus, what we have come here to mark tonight, is not a very religious event. Which is to say, its not very spiritual. It is particularly and specifically rooted in what we might call “the real.” It happens in the midst of political jockeying for power, it is shocking and extremely violent, it threatens the established religious authorities, and it forces us to look upon the darkness of death.

During the time of Jesus, Jews did not crucify people – it was a Roman punishment. And yet, John portrays for us a strange back and forth between those in power. They certainly wanted the rabble-rouser taken care of, some wanted him dead, but no one wanted the responsibility.

And, as nearly all things in the church go, we could debate the responsibility of the death of Jesus. We can cherry-pick particular verses and try to pin it on someone or some people.

But the truth about the responsibility of Jesus’ crucifixion is what we were just singing: ’Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee: I crucified thee.

I crucified thee.

It was me.

It was us.

Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. We throw that around a lot in the church, and it might be the most important thing we can remember tonight.

We are the ungodly for whom Christ died.

Sure, had we been there in the crowds that day, we might not have shouted crucify, we might not have hammered the nails into his flesh, we might not have mocked him with his crown of thorns and purple robe.

But we all say “Crucify!” in our own way.

We make assumptions about people for no other reason than the color of their skin.

We judge people for the name of a politician on their bumper sticker.

We perpetuate systems of injustice in which more and more people suffer.

In the church today we have this strong desire to be inclusive, though we are often unsure as to what that really means. For to be truly inclusive is not just a matter of having different kinds of people in the building. It means a total and unwavering commitment to something that is frankly impossible for us.

Because even when we are able to ditch an old division between us a new one arises in its place. It is part of our sinful, and human, nature to do so.

This is no more ironic than outside the churches that have signs saying, “Hate has no place here.”

That a worthy claim but it is a lie.

All of us have hate in us, whether we like to admit it or not, and, to make matters worse, saying that hate has no place in a church affirms that that church hates people who hate!

Which leads us back to the cross. The crucifixion of Jesus puts to an end the religious categories that separate people from one another and unites us under a common banner. We might want that banner to be a declaration of love, or grace, or mercy. But the thing under which we are all included is actually our guilt.

We, all of us, are the ungodly.

And yet Christ dies, for us.

This is the great generosity of God who, knowing our hearts and minds and souls, dies for us anyway. It is a scandalous generosity because it is fundamentally counter to anything we would do.

To be honest, the crucifixion is a very ungodly thing for Jesus to do.

But that’s kind of the whole point.

It was about noon when Pilate said to the Jews, “Here is your King!” They cried out, “Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!” Pilate asked them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” Then Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.

So they took him; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them. Pilate also had an inscriptions written and put on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”

After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished he said, “I am thirsty.” A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of the hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” And he died.

What’s wrong with the world? I am. Amen.

The Cross Is Not Optional

Posted on April 15, 2019 by taylormertins

strangely-warmed-spreaker-header

This week on the Strangely Warmed podcast we have three episodes for Holy Week and we continue with Good Friday [C] (Isaiah 53.13-53.12, Psalm 22, Hebrews 10.16-25, John 18.1-19.42). Teer Hardy was gracious enough to join me for two of the episodes. Our second conversation covers a range of topics including long passages, bad Good Friday services, speed balls, Fleming Rutledge, theological claims, pole-vaulting, the work of the cross, and sitting in the mystery. If you would like to listen to the episode or subscribe to the podcast you can do so here: The Cross Is Not Optional

GoodFriday

Yet

Posted on March 30, 2018 by taylormertins

Psalm 22.1-11

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest. Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In you our ancestors trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them. To you they cried, and were saved; in you they trusted, and were not put to shame. But I am a worm, and not human; scorned by others, and despised by the people. All who see me mock at me; they make mouths at me, they shake their heads; “Commit your cause to the Lord; let them deliver – let them rescue the one in whom he delights!” Yet it was you who took me from the womb; you kept me safe on my mother’s breast. On you I was cast from my birth, and since my mother bore me you have been my God. Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help.

Last night we gathered to remember Jesus’ final night with his friends. We, like they, broke bread together and shared a cup in order to remember what Jesus did.

And while we were together we talked a lot about memory – What stories do we hold on to – What stories do we want to forget?

Part of our memories, what makes them such, is our ability to have something memorized. Think, for instance, of a beloved story you like to tell, or even one you like to hear. Think about a favorite song or movie. Can you remember the words? Can you repeat them just like the singer or the actor? We memorize that which is valuable and important to us. We internalize particular words or phrases from those whom we love and we cherish the memories they become.

I have memorized many anecdotes from my family. I could stand here tonight and fill the evening with hilarious stories from just one of my grandmothers, and come back tomorrow and do it again without repeating anything twice. Those stories are important to me, and because they are part of my family’s history, they are all the more important. Such that at any given moment, should it be required, I can pull the avenues of the narrative to the surface, and I could share the story.

During the time of Jesus life, people had profound memories of well. Some things, regardless of the sands of time remain the same. Get people together today, or 2000 years ago, for a meal and the stories start to flow. But there was a level of memory present during the time of Jesus that has all but disappeared these days.

Jesus, and his contemporaries, knew the scriptures.

And when I say they knew them, I don’t mean they could open up a bible and find the book of Malachi, or they could list of the books of the bible in order at any given notice. No, they had scriptures memorized.

As a young Jew around the first century Jesus, like many others, would pray the psalms out loud once a week. All of them. From 1 to 150. The psalms were the spoken word of the people, they were on their hearts, minds, and lips, all day long. Praying through the psalms was as natural to them as watching bad sitcoms are to us. It was part of their collective identity.

Such that when Jesus was hung on a cross to die, his final words were these: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”

GoodFriday

It is difficult and challenging to contemplate our Lord saying those words from the cross. We might be a little more comfortable with John’s story (It is finished) or even Luke’s version (Into thy hands I commit my spirit). But according to Matthew and Mark, Jesus’ final earthly words were “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.”

When I need to offer a grieving family a hopeful word, I often turn to Psalm 23, that beloved collection of verses that some of us have memorized. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, he maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside still waters, he restoreth my soul. They are comforting words. But rarely, if ever, have I pulled out Psalm 22.

It’s difficult just to get past the first verse. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? We are pulled to the cross, to the torment and to the agony of Jesus yelling out into the void moments before his death.

Jesus suffers. It is both disconnected and disconnecting. In suffering on the cross he was made completely alone. Entirely and utterly alone. In this moment we are welcomed into the divine in a way not parsed out in other places of the bible. Here on the cross, in the cry of dereliction we experience the duality of Jesus’ divinity and humanity, we experience the abyss of fear and the hope of things unseen, we confront the elect and the reject.

And yet here, on the cross, with his final moments, Jesus turned to prayer. Not a final sermon on the marks of a faithful life, not a moment of divine healing. Jesus prays.

Prayer corresponds with experience. It is the way we process the moment we are in with something larger and more enduring. Prayer is what enables us to scale the impossible mountains of torment that threaten to close us off from all we have known, and prayer is what enables us to see the truth of our lives in terms of what has gone before and what is yet to come.

Of all the things we do as disciples, worshipping the crucified Jesus is possibly the strangest. It is only something we can do through the power of prayer. It is also why tonight’s worship is usually the least attended of all the worship services in a year. Tonight we glorify the Son of God who was degraded by his fellow human being as much as it is possible to be, by decree of both church and state. We worship the one who died in a way designed to subject him to utter shame and to be erased from human memory.

It is a story realer than real. It cannot be spiritualized away, nor can it be fully comprehended by we finite people. The climax of the gospel takes place in the midst of political and economic life, it is shocking and violent, it threatens the prevailing authorities, and it results in people two millennia later worshipping God nailed to a cross.

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There is a paradox in our worship tonight, a paradox as difficult as Jesus’ final words. The paradox is that the generosity of God means the crucifixion of the Son. In Him both the godly and the ungodly are justified.

According to the strange and mysterious wisdom of God, it is in the crucified death of Jesus that all of the cosmos is altered (and altar-ed). This death makes our lives possible. This death is what makes the Christian experience intelligible. This death is at the heart of who God is.

If you’re anything like me, you’re eager to jump to Easter. Enough with the crucifixion! Give me resurrection! But you can’t have one without the other.

We cannot ignore the challenging words of Jesus from the cross. We cannot imagine away, or explain away, the overwhelmingly jarring nature of the Son of God crying out to the Father in fear.

But of course, that’s not where the Psalm ends.

Psalm 22 contains what it possibly the greatest “yet” in scripture… “O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest. Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In you our ancestors trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them.”

On that “Yet” hangs both the Old and New Testament. In that “Yet” we confront the true paradox of the crucifixion: that Jesus is both elected and rejected, that he knows sorrow and hope, that he dies and will rise again.

Jesus knew the power of “yet.”

But we must wait for Easter. We have to take the terrible time to sit in the shadow of the cross, to see in this first century man all the fullness of God, to recognize our sin in him nailed to the tree.

Good Friday, unlike just about anything else we do as a church, cannot be tied up neatly in a bow. We can’t fast-forward to Sunday morning. We, like the disciples in the distance, have to look at our Lord on the cross and wait. We have to wait for God to do a new thing. We have to recognize that this is what God did for us, and not the other way around.

We will leave this place tonight under the cover of darkness. And yet… Jesus is the light of the world.

The words of our prayers and hymns will fall silent. And yet… God cannot be silenced.

The shadow will feel darker than ever. And yet…

Why The Cross? – Good Friday Homily

Posted on March 25, 2016 by taylormertins

John 19.28-30

After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), “I am thirsty.” A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

I get asked a lot of questions. I’ll be in a bible study when the conversation moves to an area of confusion and all eyes will turn to me and someone will inevitably say, “What does this mean?” Or I’ll be in my office and someone will walk in to share about all of the trials and tribulations they’ve experienced and finish by asking, “So where is God in all of this?” Or, like after the atrocity in Brussels this week, I’ll receive an email that says, “How could God let this happen?” People are looking for answers.

On Wednesday morning I gathered all the little preschoolers into the sanctuary to talk about the cross. I wanted to show them the cross we have here in the sanctuary and eventually have them march outside in a line while I carried the cross. For most of them, Easter is about the bunny and the candy so anything I can do to make it more about Jesus is important.

They were all sitting nice and quiet in the pews as I explained Jesus’ final week, and that he died on a cross to help us get to heaven, and most of the kids nodded along. But one sat in the back pew with her eyebrows in an expression of “huh?” I tried to keep moving us forward but I could tell it wasn’t connecting with her so when I saw her shoot her hand up with a question I wasn’t surprised.

She asked, “But why did he have to die on a cross?”

In the moment I tried to answer her question in a way that only a four year old could understand, but the question has stayed with me nonetheless. Why did Jesus have to die on a cross?

Well, he had to die on a cross because that’s the way the Romans executed those who they regarded as a threat. Today we have drones and missiles that we can fire from far away in order to remove ourselves from death, but during the time of Jesus, they were hung high in the air so that all could see what happened when you challenged Rome. The cross was a sign of death and fear.

But that answer is not good enough for those, few, of us who gather in a place like this on Good Friday. If you’re here right now, you get that discipleship is more than just Easter. You get that Jesus was more than just a nice guy. You get that there is something more to this cross than symbolic remembrance.

Jesus died on a cross to reveal the heart of God.

The cross is where God’s grace crosses our life to create a new way of living.

We’ve got crosses everywhere and sometimes we forget how terrifying they were and should be. It is our central icon and we have them displayed in our sanctuary, some of us have crosses around our necks, and some of us even have them tattooed on our bodies. But notice: our crosses are empty. It would disrupt our Protestant sensibilities to have a murdered and graphic Jesus hanging on the cross for everyone to see. We would rather have the clean empty cross to remind us of the resurrection. But if we lose sight of the fright and discomfort of the crucifixion, the empty grave becomes cheap grace.

So, to be here on Good Friday implies a willingness on our part to confront the cross and we also want it explained. We want to know ‘why.’

But Jesus doesn’t offer us an explanation.

Whenever the religious elite, or the crowds, or his disciples questioned him, he would respond in cryptic parables that left them more confused than in the beginning. Jesus doesn’t offer simple explanations. Instead he offers love.

Explanations will never calm our anxieties in regard to suffering and tragedy. The people who try to explain the death of a young child by saying that “God wanted another angel in heaven” transform God into a murderer for the sake of an explanation. The people who try to explain a disabled child as “God’s way of punishing the mistakes of the parents” make God in a torturer for the sake of explanation. The people who try to rationalize terrorist attacks with “God is using them to show us its time to go to war” morph God into a selfish, violent, and manipulative entity for the sake of explanation.

Love, not explanation, is required when we are faced with tragedies. Instead of telling a grieving mother that God wanted her baby, we are supposed to show up with love and not answers. Instead of blaming sinful or faithless behavior for the disabilities in a child, we are supposed to love them with every fiber of our being. Instead of dropping bombs and sending drones to wipe out the Middle East we are supposed to see them as our brothers and sisters.

To be Christian is to enter into suffering. We do not look away from tragedies, we do not abandon those who are alone, and we do not isolate ourselves from the ways of the world. Instead, because of the cross, we are tasked with showing up for others when there is literally nothing we can do to save ourselves from suffering.

So, we could take the time to outline the connections between Jesus hanging on a tree with the first sin of Adam and Eve taking fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We could go deep into rationalizing the cross through theories like God used Jesus as bait to hook the devil from hell. But the truest response to the cross, the way we are called to go forth from Good Friday, is to look at the cross and take up our own to follow Jesus. Amen.

Devotional – Holy Week

Posted on March 22, 2016 by taylormertins

Devotional:

Psalm 118.1

O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his steadfast love endures forever!

Prayers for Holy Week:

Maundy Thursday

O Lord, we confess that when we pray before meals, we do so out of habit rather than faith. We look out over out tables filled with food and we forget to remember those for whom such a meal is rare. We feel the presence of our friends and families in the seats next to us and we forget to remember people who are alone. We eat our fill and we are content. God of Life, afflict our comfort in our meals so that we will really remember that all of these gifts come from you. Work in our hearts to remember that whenever we eat, and whenever we drink, we are called to give thanks for the great gift of your Son so that we can be more like him between our meals. Use the bread and cups of our tables to make us appreciate the Bread and the Cup at your table. Amen.

Good Friday

Great God, why did Jesus have to die on a cross? Why do bad things happen to good people, and why do good things happen to bad people? What will happen to us when we die? Where are you in the midst of the suffering in our lives and in the world? We ask questions like this, O God, because we want explanations. We see our churches like courtrooms and we want to hear your justification. We believe that we are entitled to know the ‘why?’ to every question we could possibly ask. So Lord, replace our selfish desires for explanation with ears to hear proclamation. That instead of looking for the meaning behind every little thing, we might be content with giving thanks for what you have done whether we can understand it or not. After all, how could we possibly comprehend, with our finite minds, the infinite wonder of your grace? Amen.

Easter Sunday

God of Grace and God of Glory, we give thanks to you for you are good, and your steadfast love endures forever. We remember this day that you have not abandoned us to our own devices, you have not abandoned us in the midst of trials and tribulations, and you have not abandoned us in death. Through the resurrection of your Son, Jesus Christ, we see a glimpse of our future resurrection with you in the new kingdom. So Lord, as we gather with friends and strangers alike to celebrate your victory over death in Jesus, give us glad and generous hearts to rejoice in the knowledge that your love truly knows no bounds. Shake our sensibilities like you shook the earth when the tomb was opened. And resurrect us here and now to walk in the ways of Jesus and transform the world. Amen.

The Final Week

Posted on March 20, 2016 by taylormertins

Mark 11.7-10

Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

It was early in the morning when Jesus sent two of his disciples to a village atop the Mount of Olives to find a donkey. The day had come for Jesus to enter the holy city of Jerusalem during Passover, a time when the city’s population would balloon up to 200,000 people entering to celebrate. On a Sunday morning, while the crowds gathered with palm branches, Jesus entered Jerusalem. Five days later he would be killed on a cross. This is what happened during the final week.

The two disciples procured a donkey and Jesus prepared to make his triumphal entry. Riding on a donkey was a richly symbolic act, one that can be traced back to the time of David. To arrive in the holy city on a donkey calls back to the prophet Zechariah who declared, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey.”

As he rode toward Jerusalem, droves of people arrived on the streets and they began to waves palm branches while he passed. They were so enraptured by Jesus that they took off their cloaks and placed them on the road with their palms in order to create a royal pathway for their king. They shouted things like “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” and “Hosanna!” which means “Save us!”

At the same time, on the other side of the city, Pontius Pilate (the Roman Governor of Judea) entered Jerusalem with at least 1,000 soldiers to demonstrate the power of Rome during the Jewish celebration of the Passover. It was a show of force to prevent the people from revolting against their imperial rulers while they remembered that time when God had delivered them from captivity in Egypt.

But with Jesus, there was no show of force. Instead of armor and swords, the people took off their cloaks and waved palm branches. Instead of cowering away in fear they rejoiced in the humble man on the back of a donkey.

While the distance between the Lord and the city grew closer and closer, while the crowds were dancing and shouting, he began to cry. He looked out over the holy city and he wept for Jerusalem. He wept knowing that he was entering as the prince of peace, and within the next few days the very people who were begging for his salvation with their palm branches would reject him and call for his crucifixion.

And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

On Monday, Jesus made his way to them Temple with countless other Jews. With the episode that had transpired the day before, all eyes were on the humble man with expectation of deliverance. As his feet walked over hallowed ground, Jesus encountered the moneylenders and changers who were taking advantage of all the Jews in Jerusalem. The prices for clean animals necessary for sacrificial rituals were vastly inflated to the benefit of the merchants and the religious elite.

Jesus, who had spent the better part of three years berating the elite for taking advantage of the poor and outcasts, Jesus, who had told the rich young ruler to sell everything he had and give it to the poor, became incensed when he saw the poor being ripped off in the name of God. He walked straight over to the tables and he lifted them off the ground and disrupted everything in the temple. He threw the merchants out of the Temple and declared that his Father’s house had been turned into a den of robbers.

The elite and powerful, who had heard about this mysterious man claiming to be the Son of Man, now had their attention on Jesus. It was one thing to have a crowd with palm branches welcoming him into the city, but to disrupt the economic scheme they had established was going too far. From this point forward, the tides began to turn against Jesus. The leaders started looking for a way to discredit him, or to remove him completely. For as long as Jesus stayed in Jerusalem, their power would be in question, and they would no longer make the money they had planned on.

And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

On Tuesday, Jesus once again entered the Temple and he began to teach. If people were excited to see him after his entry in Jerusalem, they were now even more eager to listen to the one who had throne the merchants out of the sacred space. The Pharisees and religious leaders began to interrupt his teaching and demanded to know whom he thought he was to speak with such authority. Jesus, the one who shared parables with his disciples and followers, used parables to respond to their accusations. Over and over again he used examples to show how the powerful and lost sight of their responsibility to take care of God’s creation and he labeled them “hypocrites.”

He accused them of neglecting to practice what they preached, he called them “snakes” and a “brood of vipers” and he told them they had failed to do the one thing required of them which was to love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love their neighbors as themselves.

Jesus had a following, he had entered with a display of peace, but he had removed the leaders’ economic disparity, and now he had called them hypocrites. They tried to trap him in his words, but he continued to point to the love of God in all times and in all places.

And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

On Wednesday Jesus left the arena of the Temple and continued his teaching on the Mount of Olives. Some of the disciples made comments about the beauty and the magnificence of the Temple and Jesus responded by foretelling the destruction of the temple and his own body. He revealed images of God’s cosmic plan for the world made manifest in Jerusalem and called for his disciples to stay vigilant no matter what.

He used parables to describe the call of his disciples and ended by saying that his followers would be blessed in the end if they had fed the hungry, gave water to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked, cared for the sick, and visited the prisoner.

Word about Jesus continued to spread fast throughout Jerusalem and the leaders learned that he was now prophesying the end of their rule and the destruction of the temple. Gone was the joy the people felt on Palm Sunday. Fear was present with the leaders and the elite.

And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

On Thursday Jesus continued to teach and gathered with his twelve disciples in the upper room for the Passover celebration. Around the table they remembered God’s great work in the delivery of the Hebrew people out of slavery in Egypt to the Holy Land; they remembered God’s actions in the lives of God’s people including themselves. But before the supper was over, Jesus did something radical. He took a loaf of bread, gave thanks to God, broke it, gave it to his friends and said, “This is my body, and I’m giving it for you.” Later, he took the cup, gave thanks to God, passed it to his friends and said, “This is my blood, and I’m pouring it out for you and for the world.” Even though he knew that in short time his disciple Judas would betray him he still shared this incredible meal and gift with his friend.

Later that evening, they arrived in the Garden of Gethsemane, and Jesus urged his disciples to keep awake while he prayed. He knelt on the ground and he communed with his Father and prayed about what was about to happen. But he ended the prayer by saying, “Lord, with you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.” In essence he prayed, “Let thy will be done.”

When Jesus finished praying, Judas arrived with soldiers. They grabbed and arrested Jesus. The disciples fled into the distance. Jesus was dragged back into the city to be tried for blasphemy.

And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

On Friday Jesus was brought to the Roman leader Pontius Pilate. The leaders demanded that he be crucified and executed, but Pilate could find no fault with Jesus. He then brought Jesus before the Jewish people and they chanted with loud and bellowing voices, “Crucify him!” The same people who had gathered on the road with palm branches yelling “Save us!” were now demanding Jesus’ death. In order to appease the crowds and the Jewish leaders, Pilate sentenced Jesus to death by crucifixion.

The soldiers whipped and beat Jesus nearly to the point of death and then, to mock him, they placed an opulent robe on his soldiers, and they made a crown of thorns for his head. They forced Jesus to carry his torture device, a cross, on his shoulders all the way to the place called The Skull. The crowds berated him on either side while he marched forward to his death. “If you really are the Messiah, save yourself!” “Where are all your disciples now?!” “Some King of the Jews you are!”

He arrived at the top of the hill and the soldiers nailed his hands and feet to the cross and hung him in the sky. For six hours Jesus’ life slowly slipped away while the crowds continued to mock him from the ground. With some of his final breaths he offered a prayer that has haunted the world ever since, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” With two thieves on either side hanging on crosses, while some of his disciples watched from the distance, he died.

And there was evening and there was morning, the final week.

Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey proclaiming and inaugurating a time of humility and peace. Jesus rebuked the elite for preying on the poor and weak. Jesus confronted the hypocrites in leadership. Jesus called his followers to love God and neighbor. Jesus shared his final meal with the one who would betray him. Jesus was crowned with thorns and enthroned on a cross in the sky. Jesus forgave his murders from the moment of his death. And Jesus died so that we might participate in his kingdom and salvation. Amen.

The Shadow of the Cross – Good Friday Homily on Luke 23.32-46

Posted on April 3, 2015 by taylormertins

Luke 23.32-46

Two others also, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one of his right and one on his left. Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And they cast lots to divide his clothing. And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!” The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.” One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Having said this, he breathed his last.

Religious people aren’t supposed to fail, or suffer, or get arrested. They’re not supposed to hang out with vagrants, and criminals, and failures. Religious people are supposed to live good lives, surrounded by good people, doing good things. They’re supposed to have life all figured out, to be content, and to be filled with joy.

Jesus was beaten, dirtied, and was marched to his death with two criminals. While they walked along the way, the few disciples who had yet to abandon him must’ve lost all their hope; their Messiah was carrying a cross to the place called The Skull where he was to be crucified. Yet while the crowds screamed and threw their complaints into the air, Jesus calmly forged ahead with his eyes on the ground and the cross digging into his shoulder.

When they arrived on the hill, the guards nailed Jesus and the two thieves to their crosses and hung them in the air. The crowds must have grown larger the closer they came to the place and they hurled insults at the man in the air, ridiculing him for all that he had said and done. With the chaos erupting around him, Jesus bowed his head to speak with his Father: “Forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing.”

In the entirety of the Christian year, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are the least attended services. Christmas Eve and Easter are big days in the life of the church because we celebrate the incarnation and Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. But Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are all about death; “You are dust and to dust you shall return,” “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

We don’t want to talk about death, we don’t want to talk about our own suffering, we don’t want to “bring other people down.”

One of the things that surprises me most about funerals is our inability to confront death. When I preside over services of death and resurrection I am tasked with talking about, and affirming, the one thing that most people are afraid of: death being real. The juxtaposition between a funeral and the reception afterwards is sometimes nauseating.

Here in the sanctuary we speak the truth about death, we begin the process of grieving, we talk about what the person did with their lives and we acknowledge the void we now feel. But then I go to a reception and everyone wants to talk about everything else: March Madness brackets, the latest movies, new restaurants, and children’s activities. I’m not saying that we need to wallow in the sadness of death, but it is clear that we want to avoid death because it stinks.

By the time Jesus made it to the cross, the disciples had all cleared out. They had abandoned him for the same reasons that we avoid death today, it is too frightening, too heavy, and too sad.

The people began to mock the messiah in the tree: “he saved others; let him save himself if he really is the Messiah!” The soldiers taunted him with sour wine and scream out: “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself.” And above his head they hung a sign containing his conviction: “This is the King of the Jews.”

Verbal attacks kept pouring in from the ground, but the scene now moves to the air. One of the criminals rebuked Jesus: “If you are the Messiah, save yourself and us!” But the other criminal spoke up, “we are getting what we deserve, but this man has done nothing wrong. Jesus please remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

For the next three hours darkness came over the whole land and the temple curtain was town in two. Then Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” And he died.

For a long time I always inserted myself into the story as the forgiven criminal. I believed that even at the end I would’ve understood what Jesus was doing. As I grew older I started seeing myself as one of the disciples who abandoned the Lord and was nowhere to be found. I recognized that my faith isn’t as strong as I would like it to be, and that I would’ve been more concerned with my safety than with Jesus on the cross. But now, now I see myself as one of the bystanders who was there on Palm Sunday screaming “Hosanna” and then quickly began to scream “crucify!” a few days laters.

We sinners are lousy and fall short of God’s glory. We avoid people who are not like us, we want to shy away from common criminals, we want our lives to be perfect, and organized, and clean, and comfortable. And more often than not we enjoy witnessing the suffering of others.

But there is no shade in the shadow of the cross.

It is vitally important for us to remember that Jesus Christ was executed as a criminal among criminals! His death was made real on a cross because it warned the people about crimes agains the state and it added shame, pain, and public ridicule.

From the cross Jesus had no anger, only peace. He did not save himself, instead he saved a criminal. He did not thrash about with frustration, instead he was filled with serenity. He did not doubt God’s presence, he only trusted and kept faith.

Death is messy and ugly. I have been in enough hospitals, and stood over enough caskets to know how frightening death can be. Jesus’ death was likewise ugly. It was filled with shame and embarrassment. How did this prophetic Messiah go from the crowds cheering his name to being killed on a cross? How did he go from having faithful disciples to spending his finals moments with two criminals?

Jesus’ crucifixion was dirty and shameful. Yet, the hardest thing to comprehend is his willingness to forgive. More than the physical suffering and his literal death, his forgiving spirit is what stops us in our tracks when we read these words from so long ago.

From the cross Jesus announces forgiveness – this is the heart of the Gospel, it is the crux of the story, and it is what we are called to do if we are to follow him.

Last year I asked us to look at the cross and live. I implored us to give thanks to God for dying in Christ on our behalf to save us. I handed out crosses so that we might ponder the kind of divine love that was made real for us. I asked us to look at the cross and live.

This year I want to ask us to look at the cross and forgive. If Jesus was willing to use some of his final breaths to forgive the crowds for betraying him and bringing him to the cross, why are we so unwilling to forgive? If Jesus was so filled with love, shouldn’t we do the same?

Being a Christian is messy, ugly, and frightening if we are willing to follow Jesus. If we really want to be like him, then we have to start by forgiving others, and forgiving ourselves.

Amen.

Devotional – 1 Corinthians 15.3-4

Posted on March 30, 2015 by taylormertins

Devotional:

1 Corinthians 15.3-4

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.

Worship had come to a conclusion and people were lining up on their way out of the sanctuary. While I shake hands with those who have come to worship the living God, I attempt to really connect with them as they leave but I also listen to the conversations going on in the line a few people away. Yesterday I overheard a man saying to the person behind him, “I just don’t understand why we need to have services in the middle of holy week. Can’t we just show up for Easter?” With every fiber of my being I resisted the temptation to explain, in detail, the importance of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday when he came to shake my hand; without them, the resurrection loses it’s meaning.

A similar episode occurred last week when I was teaching our Preschoolers about Palm Sunday. I told the story about Jesus entering Jerusalem on the back of the donkey because he was preparing himself for the beauty and wonder of Easter. I was in the middle of a sentence when one of our 4 year olds shouted out, “I love Easter Pastor Taylor!” I said, “I do too, it’s my favorite day in the entire year.” She replied, “I love Easter because the bunny is going to bring me lots of candy and toys!”

Chocolate, games, and Easter eggs are all important for the celebration of Easter in the way they fill us with joy and excitement, but they are not fundamental to the story. Paul wrote to the church in Corinth about what he handed on to them. As a new and budding Christian community they were tasked with hearing, remembering, and retelling the fundamental aspects of Christ’s incredible gift: Jesus died for our sins, he was buried, and then he was raised on the third day.

If Easter is just another Sunday that we come to church to hear a message, if Easter is just about searching the yard for plastic eggs and having a meal with our families, then we are not properly handing on what we have received.

God came in the form of Jesus to dwell among us, fully God and fully human. Jesus ministered to those in need throughout Galilee and proclaimed the year of the Lord’s favor. He went to the places where people needed to feel loved and he gave everything he had to serve others rather than himself. When the time came he made his way to Jerusalem and spent a final night with his friends feasting on bread and wine and washing their feet. That night he was betrayed, arrested, and sent to his death. He carried his cross with a crown of thorns adorned on his head and was hung in the air next to two thieves. Jesus died. But three days later he rose again and the the world was changed forever.

The story of Easter is one that was handed to us, and now we have the privilege to hand it to others. This week, this final week of lent, let us all remember to tell the whole story, to live through Jesus’ final days, so that we might live with him forever in the resurrection.

“A Stick, A Carrot & String”

Posted on March 26, 2015 by taylormertins

In preparation for Holy Week…

mewithoutyou – “A Stick, A Carrot & String”

The horse’s hay lay beneath His head our Lord was born to a manger bed, that all whose wells run dry could drink of his supply.

To keep Him warm the sheep drew near, so grateful for His coming here: You come with news of grace, come to take my place!

The donkey whispered in His ear: Child, in thirty-some-odd years, You’ll ride someone who looks like me (untriumphantly).

While the cardinals warbled a joyful song: He’ll make right what man made wrong, bringing low the hills, that the valleys might be filled!

Then Child, asked the birds, well, aren’t they lovely words we sing? The tiny Baby lay there without saying anything.

As a distance stood a mangy goat with crooked teeth and a matted coat, weary eyes and worn, chipped & twisted horns.

Thinking: Maybe I’ll make friends some day with the cows in the pens and the Rambouillet, but for now I’ll keep away – I got nothin’ smart to say.

But there’s a sign on the barn in Cabbagetown: “WHEN THE RAIN PICKS UP AND THE SUN GOES DOWN, SINNERS COME INSIDE! WITH NO MONEY, COME AND BUY. NO CLEVER TALK NOR GIFT TO BRING REQUIRES OUR LOWLY, LOVELY KING. COME YOU EMPTY-HANDED, YOU DON’T NEED ANYTHING.

And the night was cool and clear as glass with the sneaking snake in the garden grass, as Deep cried out to Deep, the disciples fast asleep.

And the snake perked up when he heard You ask: If You’re willing that this cup might pass we could find our way back home, maybe start a family all our own… but does not the Father guide the Son? Not my will but Yours be done! What else here to do? What else me but You?

And the snake who’d held the world, a stick, a carrot and a string, was crushed beneath the Foot of Your not wanting anything.