What Did They Do As They Sat Around The Table? - Thoughts On The Lectionary

I am not (at present at least) a lectionary based preacher. I have been at times in the past; I probably will be again one day. But right now, I am not a lectionary based preacher. I do not, however, ignore the lectionary. Since most commentary websites are lectionary-based, and I like consulting them as I prepare messages, I constantly check a lectionary Scripture index. And, I usually look at the lectionary passages for the current week, mostly out of curiosity. And when I do, I find something like this (which came up this week): Genesis 15:1-12,17-18. And I wonder, what's in 13-16? And for that matter 19-21 - since the reading doesn't even end at the end of a sentence! So I looked this up. If one strictly adheres to the lectionary, one reads the following:

After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.” But Abram said, “O Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.”Then the word of the Lord came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir.” He took him outside and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. He also said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.” But Abram said, “O Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?” So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.” Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away. As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. ... When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates ..."

What a nice reading. God makes a wonderful covenant with Abram. He will have descendants. Many descendants. And they will have land. Wonderful. But pay attention to (...) in the above. Because that's what's been cut out.

First:

Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”

Apparently we're not supposed to hear that Abram's descendants are going to have troubles.

And, at the end:

 ... the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites,  Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.

So, apparently we're also not supposed to hear that the land Abram's descendants would receive actually belongs to someone else.

It all makes me wonder - as they sat around the table, those who prepared the lectionary seem to have actually said "oh, now, we can't include these verses. They're not as sweet as the rest so we'll just mangle this passage so that it doesn't offend any delicate ears." Why did those who write the lectionary have such a low opinion of we who might preach it or of those who might hear it preached? Are our ears really too delicate to handle the tough parts of a Scripture reading? Are we just supposed to promote a feel-good, airy-fairy faith, where God just snuggles his people real close in a gigantic, divine, cosmic bear-hug? And, if so, how does that prepare God's people for the real world, where bad things happen to us, and where sometimes we even do the bad things to others? Well, it doesn't.

This reading in this week's lectionary from Genesis helped to remind me why I'm not a lectionary-based preacher any more. For now, anyway. And, if I was, I'd sneer at those who put this together, and I'd read the whole chapter, and not the sanitized version of it. I'd read the one that's challenging and forces us to think about God and about ourselves and about our neighbours, and not just the one that's intended to give us the warm fuzzies!

My advice to preachers? To paraphrase someone we've all heard of, "the lectionary was made for us; we were not made for the lectionary." Use it to the extent that it's helpful to you and your people. But don't use it in a way that it presents a completely false picture of Scripture and faith, which is apparently how its authors hoped it would be used.

A Thought For The Week Of February 18

Thought for the week: "My salvation and my glory depend on God. God is the rock of my strength, my refuge." (Psalm 62:7) Last week, I talked about  what Jesus meant by "the rock" on which his church would be built, and I came to the conclusion that it meant the quality of steadfastness and courage that allowed us to proclaim our faith in Jesus even when all around us was denying Jesus. Today, in Psalm 62:7, God is our rock. If our steadfastness and courage are what the church is built on, then we can only have those qualities because God gives us that strength. Our salvation and glory - everything that we are; everything that we have; everything that we do - comes from God. We do nothing by our own strength or gifts or abilities, but only because God is with us. And because God is with us as both our strength (allowing us to stand when the going is rough) and as our refuge (allowing us to not be afraid when all seems arrayed against us) we can then serve God at all times and in all places. So take heart, live faithfully and proclaim Jesus in all you do and say, because God is your strength and your refuge. Have a great week!

February 17 sermon - Life Of Jesus # 2: Seeing The Kingdom

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do apart from the presence of God.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:1-8)

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     I never really understood the sheer grandeur of the Great Wall of China until I saw it. I knew what it looked like. Over the years I had seen a lot of pictures. I knew why it existed - basically to prevent the warlike people north of the Chinese Empire from invading China. I knew when it was built. It was started several hundred years before Jesus was even born, although it took many centuries to get into its present form. Anyway, the point is that I knew a fair bit about the Great Wall of China. And then, a few years ago, I actually saw it. I was there Seeing it made a big difference to being able to really appreciate it. Suddenly I was able to climb its steps, and I walked along a bit of it, and I poked my head into the ancient watchtowers that were part of it. The Great Wall of China is pretty tall. When you think of how long ago it was built, you marvel at the fact that it was built at all. And as you stand on the top of it you can look off into the distance (because you can see a long way when you’ve climbed to the top) and you can watch it snaking among hills and fields far off into the distance until it hits the horizon itself, and it’s still going! You can’t see it from space (that’s a myth) because although it’s long, it’s way too thin - but I wasn’t in space. I was standing on top of the thing. All of a sudden the things that I knew about the Great Wall of China were matched by an experience of the Great Wall of China. When you match knowledge with experience, all of a sudden you gain understanding.

     In today’s story from the life of Jesus, Jesus encounters a man named Nicodemus. One of the biggest and most important things on Nicodemus’ mind apparently (for whatever reason) was the Kingdom of God, or you might call it the reality of God or the presence of God. As a Pharisee, Nicodemus probably spent a lot of his time talking about God and arguing about God, studying the Scriptures to learn about God - but one thing that seems abundantly clear is that while Nicodemus over the course of his life had gained a lot of knowledge about God, he was still struggling with understanding God. He knew a lot about God, but he really didn’t know God. And then, he heard about Jesus.

     Jesus’ life had been pretty interesting already. I don’t know if Nicodemus had heard anything about things like the unusual circumstances of Jesus’ birth - but as a Pharisee, he may have heard the stories of Jesus’ debating the religious scholars in the temple when he was only 12. That would probably be the sort of event that would make the rounds among religious scholars. We know from John’s Gospel (and John doesn’t make mention of Jesus’ birth or the incident in the temple) that Jesus has done a couple of things already that might have brought him to the attention of the religious folk. One was the miracle at Cana, which we talked about last week. It’s hard to believe that stories wouldn’t have been told after that, although they might have sounded a bit like stories that get told today about Bigfoot - you know, “great story, but, really?” More interesting for Nicodemus, though, would have been an incident that happened in Jerusalem. John records it as happening right before this encounter. Let me share that passage, because I think it’s important in understanding this one:

Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts He found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So He made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves He said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning My Father’s house into a market!” His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews then responded to Him, “What sign can You show us to prove Your authority to do all this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”

     I don’t think you can understand Nicodemus and both his curiosity and confusion without hearing that passage. Nicodemus, as a Pharisee, would have heard about this. Someone trashing the temple would have made even the religious scholars who weren’t there when it happened stand up and take notice. The leaders of the temple (who are probably “the Jews” that John speaks of) respond to Jesus actions and get into an argument with him - which some of the people probably enjoyed watching - and then later on we’re told that “while He was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs He was performing and believed in His name.” So, Jesus made a splash in Jerusalem, Nicodemus heard about it and was intrigued enough that he approached Jesus under the cover of darkness (probably because he doesn’t want his fellow Pharisees to know that he’s going to have a chat with this disrespectful young whipper-snapper!) and what results is the conversation John describes between Jesus and Nicodemus.

     When this passage gets preached about or talked about or taught about, usually it’s in the context of Nicodemus misunderstanding Jesus’ words about being “born from above.” Today, we often use the phrase “born again” of course. Same thing. “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” You can point out from this the dangers involved in taking things too literally - to really understand the Bible, you have to be aware not just of the words, but of the spirit behind the word. Some people say you should just take the “clear meaning of the text” (whatever that means) but my experience is that often the Bible isn’t that clear. Nor should it be. It’s intended to make us think, to challenge us to deeper understanding. So Nicodemus blew it by thinking Jesus was talking literally about being “born again.” Then, when Christians take that too literally (“no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above” ) it often gets turned into a threat. So, “believe the way I believe or you’re going straight to hell!” I don’t think that’s what Jesus meant. I believe that these words are a kind of lament from Jesus toward Nicodemus and others who thought like him. Jesus is the Kingdom of God breaking into the world. His life; His love; His sacrifice; His teachings - these are the Kingdom of God being lived out. His body; His presence - this is the Kingdom of God in the midst of the people. This is what Jesus wants Nicodemus to get. Jesus isn’t threatening Nicodemus with hell if he doesn’t get it. Jesus is lamenting that Nicodemus can’t “see the Kingdom of God” - even though it’s right in front of him in Jesus - “without being born from above.” In other words, Nicodemus has to open himself to God’s presence and allow himself to be challenged and changed by God before he’s going to be able to understand Jesus. Nicodemus knows about God, but he doesn’t know God. Nicodemus knows about Jesus (or he wouldn’t have appeared) but now he’s told by Jesus “you have to actually know Me and not just know about Me. Once you know me, you’ll see the Kingdom of God in Me.”

     Nicodemus knew about Jesus. “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do apart from the presence of God.” So he knows that Jesus is a teacher; maybe that he’s come from God; maybe that God is with him. But he can’t take it farther than that and see the very Kingdom of God in the flesh right before him.

     I hear that all the time in today’s world. “Jesus was a good man.” “Jesus was a great teacher.” “God was with Jesus like God was with no one else.” And that’s true as far as it goes. Maybe some people here today are at that point. And it’s OK to be at that point. Jesus doesn’t get angry with Nicodemus for not going farther than that. Jesus doesn’t condemn Nicodemus for not going farther than that. Jesus simply challenges Nicodemus to think some more. It’s as if Jesus is saying, “come on Nicodemus. You’re sitting right here in front of Me. You’re talking to Me. Open your eyes, man, and tell me what you see. Open your ears and tell me what you hear.”

     Nicodemus appears to have figured it out. You have to read to the very end of John’s Gospel to realize that. After Jesus’ death,

Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen.

Obviously, somewhere along the way, Nicodemus had joined the disciples. He had opened his eyes and ears, and he had seen not just a rabbi who was a teacher with whom God was present - he had obviously at some point realized that here - in this man - was the Kingdom of God.

     We often think that Nicodemus went to Jesus at night simply because he was afraid to be seen with him. Maybe, but I wonder if there isn’t a subtler point being made. We can hit people over the head with the Bible, we can fill them with knowledge about Jesus, we can tell them what Jesus means to us, we can threaten them with hell unless they believe, we can bring them to church - we can engage in all these traditional ways of doing evangelism. Maybe the point of the story is that we simply need to encourage people to spend time with Jesus (alone). Maybe that’s when Jesus works most powerfully in people’s lives. Maybe that’s when he’s worked most powerfully in your life. I know that’s when he worked most powerfully in my life. We don’t come together to convince each other to believe; we come together to celebrate with each other what we believe, and that’s important. We should celebrate our faith with each other! But just as I had to actually see the Great Wall of China before I could really grasp its grandeur we all you need to take our time with Jesus by ourselves  to really be able to see Jesus for who He is - the Kingdom of God among us!

A Thought for the Week of February 11

"I tell you that you are Peter. And I’ll build my church on this rock. The gates of the underworld won’t be able to stand against it." (Matthew 16:18) I thought of this verse yesterday when I heard the news of the Pope's resignation. It's the primary biblical verse on which the whole concept of the papacy is based. Peter is the rock, and that makes him the head of the church, and that makes his successors the head of the church. Many Protestant theologians (not surprisingly) reject that out of hand. The rock becomes the confession of faith that Peter had just made ("You are the Christ ...") so that the church is founded on faith and not on a man. I find myself wondering if both aren't wrong. First of all, we're assuming a definite article: as in "the" rock. The definite article isn't in the Greek. Jesus says to Peter, you are "a rock" - which is what the word "petros" means. So Jesus says to Simon (his original name) "you are a rock." I find myself wondering if it isn't that quality that Jesus meant to be what the church was founded on. Peter, in the midst of a lot of doubts and hesitation, had just said "you're the Christ." And Jesus says, "that's the sort of quality we need to build a church." The church is built on people willing to stand up and be counted even when there's confusion and uncertainty and doubt and even active opposition all around them. Peter would have his ups and downs. So do we all. But the church is built on the fact that there are people all over the world at any given time who act as "rocks" - who stand firm and who won't be moved and who continue to proclaim good news to those in desperate need of it. Protestant or Catholic (or whatever else) - be that rock! It's only that quality in its members that makes the church able to be the herald of the good news of grace and salvation that Jesus called it to be. Have a great week!

February 10 sermon - Life Of Jesus # 1: Why Wine?

On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.” “Dear woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My time has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim. Then He told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.” They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.” This, the first of His miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed His glory, and His disciples put their faith in Him. (John 2:1-11)

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     Preaching last week on “Life Of Pi” was a great experience, and a worthy one at that - since I believe that since everything that is comes from God basically anything and everything is a sermon waiting to happen; you just have to look hard enough to find the message of the gospel in it. Having done, that, though (at least I think I did!) I don’t want us to get off balance in terms of what’s really important, and so it seemed to me that one sermon based on Life Of Pi, should be balanced with some reflections on “Life Of Jesus,” and so I’m going to spend the next seven Sundays looking at significant events in the life of Jesus, after the temptation narratives but before the entry into Jerusalem. What do we learn from Jesus’ life? Not from His teachings (which are also important of course) but from his life; not from what he said but from what he did?

     If time travel were possible, I would love to travel back to the late 19th century to have a conversation with Letitia Youmans about today’s Gospel passage. The name might not be familiar to you. Letitia Youmans was basically the leader of an organization which eventually came to be known as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. The WCTU was absolutely and totally opposed to Christians drinking alcohol of any kind. Their influence was important in causing many churches to use grape juice instead of wine at Communion services. The WCTU explained that wine contained "the narcotic poison, alcohol, which cannot truly represent the blood of Christ." I’d be fascinated to see what the WCTU would have to say about this passage in which Jesus acts - for lack of a better word - as a vintner; a maker of wine. Perhaps that’s why this passage often gets overlooked when we consider the great events in Jesus’ life. Yes, we know it’s His first miracle; that we’re told. But then we don’t think about it too much. A hint of how beloved a Scripture passage is can be found in how many times a hymn writer chooses imagery from a passage as the basis of a hymn. Voices United has almost 900 hymns in it. Do you want to know how many of the 900 refer to this event? Exactly 1! And I’m not using that hymn today because it’s not really about this passage; it just makes a reference to the passage. And in all my research, I’ve only come across one other hymn that refers to Jesus turning water into wine; a more modern hymn written in 1973. You see, this passage often gets ignored, because even in the modern world the image of Jesus as a party-goer grates on a lot of people. A lot of people still have trouble with the image of the laughing Jesus. But Jesus at a party? But that’s exactly what today’s Gospel describes. Jesus, His mother and some of His disciples were at a party; they had been invited to what we would call today a wedding reception. And we, the church, aren’t quite sure what to make of a party-going Jesus who makes sure that there’s enough wine for the guests.

     I admit myself that this seems like a strange way for Jesus to reveal his miracle-making ability. I mean, why not calm a storm as the first miracle? Or feed some hungry people? Or heal a sick person? Or raise a dead person? Why not do something really dramatic that future generations of Christians wouldn’t feel at all squeamish about commemorating with songs? Somehow, we expect more of Jesus, don’t we?

     This is the Son of God! This is God in the flesh! And He goes to a party and turns water into wine. Well, I suppose if His goal was to reveal His power, He accomplished it. I mean, people don’t turn water into wine. Water is water; wine is wine. You can turn water into something that looks like wine. To do that you need sodium carbonate and a chemical called phenolphthalein. I don’t believe that Jesus would have had access to either in the Palestine of 2000 years ago, and in any event, you can’t really drink the stuff made with sodium carbonate and phenolphthalein, but the master of the banquet tasted what Jesus had created and declared it to the “the best.” So, it was wine - alcohol and all. It’s a dramatic revelation of Jesus’ power, I suppose, but it also has the tinge of a parlour trick, don’t you think? At best, it seems like something a magician might pull off. At worst, it seems mundane; pedestrian; unimportant and insignificant. So what? Jesus turned water into wine. So what? It’s dramatic, but what did it accomplish? What good did it do?

     By the time Jesus’ life ends, of course, He has accomplished a lot and He had done a lot of good. By the time Jesus’ life ended He had calmed a storm, He had fed the hungry, He had healed the sick and He had even raised the dead. But it all started with a curious little miracle of little importance that seems to have accomplished little purpose except to make sure that the party was a success. Jesus’ first miracle was to rescue a party that seemed to be going downhill because the wine had run out. And you know what? The more I thought about this, the more I realized - maybe this isn’t only the first miracle of Jesus; maybe it’s actually the most important miracle of Jesus. Not the most dramatic; not the most helpful; not the one that touched the most people - but maybe the most important.

     By saving a party that was going nowhere fast because there was no wine, doesn’t Jesus essentially associate Himself with the mundane and unimportant things of everyday life? And if Jesus was God in the flesh, doesn’t that tell us something about God? Maybe the first miracle had to be something quite unimportant and even trivial, because if Jesus had started with something big, the implication would have been that God only cares about the big things in life - and in everything else we’re on our own. We see that expressed often. When a football player prays before a game, we say “God doesn’t care about a football game.” But think again. If God cared about a party, God probably cares about the football game. Do you know why God cared about the party - because God’s people who were at the party cared about the party. Do you know why God cares about the football game? Because God’s people who are at the football game care about the football game. We want to limit God to only the biggest and most earth-shattering things. Healing the sick and raising the dead by all means. Feeding the hungry and caring for the poor? Absolutely. The particular troubles and trials and tribulations that I’m going through right at the moment. Well, sure - because they’re my troubles and trials and tribulations, and that makes them important. But saving a party? Or blessing a football player? Say it ain’t so. It can’t be. But I want to ask - why can’t it be?

     Did Jesus not say “I am with you always …” He didn’t say, “I’m only with you when you’re facing the biggest challenges.” He didn’t say “I’m with you for only the most important things.” He said, “I am with you always.” The miracle of turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana is a sign to us of God’s presence in the everyday things of life that so many people want to declare off limits to God because God should only deal with the big things, as if God’s attention span was as short as ours, and as if God were incapable of multi-tasking. 

     I will confess to you that in one sense I really couldn’t care less that Jesus turned water into wine. I don’t much care for wine. I really don’t. It’s not a temperance issue. I just don’t much care for wine. I couldn’t tell the difference between a $5 bottle of plonk and a $200 bottle imported directly from France. Nor do I care. I hear people talk about the aroma and the flavour of wine. To my taste buds, wine is wine. I’ll never be a wine connoisseur, so, in a way, this miracle fizzles a bit. But then I think about it. If Jesus cared this much about saving a party, how much does he care about the admittedly trivial things that sometimes get to me? Is there anything so inconsequential that I can’t “take it to Jesus,” so to speak. The wedding at Cana tells me that, no, there isn’t. From the big things to the small things, Jesus cares. From the earth changing and life changing events to the things that don’t much matter and are barely remembered an hour later, Jesus cares. To me, that’s the message of this passage, and that’s the point of this being Jesus’ first miracle. It’s to make sure we understand that Jesus cares about it all!

A Thought For The Week Of February 4

Moses said to the Israelites, "Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up." (Deuteronomy 11:18-19) I found myself thinking about this verse today after conducting a funeral and hearing truly one of the most moving and well prepared eulogies I've ever heard. Eulogies are about memories, of course. And that's what Moses was telling the Israelites. He wanted them to remember what he had taught them about God - about God's will, God's love and God's providence. Centuries later, Jesus would himself live out God's love on a cross, and before it happened he would invite his disciples to commemorate the last meal he woud eat with his disciples, telling them to "remember me" as they did. Memories are strong and powerful. As much as the Israelites and as much as the original disciples of Jesus, we who follow God today need to "remember." We need to remember the glorious things God has done for us. Often we forget. God's love and God's goodness are such integral parts of our lives that we begin to take them for granted, and eventually we don't think of them at all. Don't let that happen in your life. Remember all that God has done - and be thankful! Have a great week!

February 3 sermon - The Gospel According To Life Of Pi: Tell Us A Different Story!

Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:24-29)

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     “I have a story that will make you believe in God.” So said the elderly Piscine Molitor Patel (better known as “Pi”) to Mr. Abdirusamy in the introduction to the book. Keep that line in mind. “I have a story that will make you believe in God.”

     Several weeks ago, when I came upon the idea of donating a sermon topic to the Silent Auction, allowing whoever made the highest bid to pick the topic for this Sunday, I was pretty sure that I knew what to expect. The subject would be something like abortion, or same sex marriage, or capital punishment, or euthanasia - something simple and uncontroversial, in other words. What I wasn’t expecting (but what I opened myself to) was being asked to preach about a piece of secular literature. It’s not as if I’ve never done it before. About 15 years ago, in my previous church, I actually preached a 6 part series on the Wizard of Oz. It included sermon titles like “Caught In A Cyclone,” “Flying Monkeys And Talking Trees,” and “Ding! Dong! The Witch Is Dead!” It was about how the challenges of life help us come to truly appreciate what we already have. Well, the request for today was not “The Wizard Of Oz.” It was to find a gospel message out of a more recent piece of secular literature: “Life Of Pi,” written in 2001 by Yann Martel. It’s a movie now. In fact, it’s been nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture of 2012. I haven’t seen the movie, but I have read the book. Some of you may be planning to see the movie or read the book, and so I proceed cautiously. I don’t want to give too much of the story away. I will say that’s it’s a very spiritual story in its own way.

     Pi is a 15 year old boy in India, who becomes interested in religion. So interested, in fact, that he decides to take up the Hinduism of his native land - as well as Christianity and Islam, and he claims allegiance to all three. When challenged that he can’t be all three at the same time, he wonders, “why not?” But Pi does have an abiding faith in God, and I suppose that one could argue that all religion in one way or another represents the human desire to know God. All religion is a search for the divine. Pi’s search takes him in an unexpected direction. He ends up facing challenges and tragedies and sorrows and hardships that few people will ever face. And in the midst of it all, there’s the question of God. Where’s God in the midst of all this? How is God involved? Or, maybe, is God involved at all?

     Life of Pi is an allegory, which can be both tremendously exciting and tremendously frustrating. Although the author has certain goals, the reality of an allegory is still that the story basically means whatever the person reading it decides that it means. Having read some reviews of the book I find myself chuckling a bit at what you might call the more conservative Christian response to it, which some of you may have heard. Conservative Christian commentators have generally panned the book for no reason other than that it’s not Christian and that it presents a faith view that isn’t Christian. Well, seriously - give me a break. Of course it isn’t a Christian book, and since it isn’t it also doesn’t attempt to explain or promote Christian faith. It’s an allegory. The author certainly has a point, but - as I said - the reality of allegory is that it can mean different things to different people. So it turns out that I have a lot of freedom today, and I’m going to take that freedom in a direction that probably no one would expect. The key to unwrapping the gospel according to Life of Pi doesn’t appear until the very end of the book. It’s in Part 3, which only takes up 33 of over 350 pages, that I personally found the message. Parts 1 and 2 are the story, but Part 3 is the message, and it tells us a lot about the state of the world and the place of faith within the world today.

     Here’s where the rubber hits the road, you see. The owners of the ship that sunk come to Pi and ask him what happened, and he tells them his story - complete with a tiger and a hyena and an orangutan and a zebra and a carnivorous island. And they don’t believe him. And more than simply not believing him - they insist that he tell them a different story; one more believable to them. In other words, “cut out the nonsense.” Or, to offer a few words directly from the book,

“These things don’t exist.” 

“Only because you’ve never seen them.” 

“That’s right. We believe what we see.” 

“So did Columbus. What do you do when you’re in the dark?”

     And Jesus said, “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” You see, for all the adventure and excitement of the story, the rubber hits the road in this novel (for me at least, and from a gospel perspective in my opinion) in the last 30 pages. This is where the sacred meets the secular. This is where the holy meets the profane. This is where the seen meets the unseen. This is where doubt meets faith. This is where the gospel meets the world. Every week when we gather (and I hope every day that we live) we do our best to celebrate the Christian story - up to and including every now and then singing “Tell Me The Stories Of Jesus,” as we did earlier. And on a regular basis we find ourselves confronted by those who - for one reason or another - are overwhelmed by the world around them and aren’t able to see anything that isn’t right in front of them, and that therefore can’t be proved. Pi’s question - “what do you do when you’re in the dark?” - is a good one, once you define what the darkness is, and maybe we have to define it by its opposite. The opposite of “dark” isn’t “bright,” the opposite of “dark” is “light.” Light isn’t knowledge, and light isn’t proof, and light isn’t fact. Light is how you make sense out of knowledge and proof and fact.

     The story “Life of Pi” ends with two possibilities: a story that highlights human brutality; or a story that highlights human potential. The ship owners are so obsessed with human brutality that they can’t accept the possibility of human potential. Isn’t that like so much of the world? So obsessed with the bad and evil things that happen that even the possibility of a good God at the root of our existence is simply dismissed? The point of “Life of Pi” isn’t so much that it’s not Christian; it’s that it pays homage to the ability of humanity to perceive the presence of God in the midst of all the ugliness that so often happens around us and then - with God’s help - to rise above that ugliness, to persevere, to beat the odds and to keep going when every bit of knowledge that we have tells us that there’s really no hope.

     You see, for us, this world is the lifeboat, and we’re on it and there’s no getting off. And all around us we can see the ugliness and brutality of humanity. Just turn on the news any night of the week and you’ll see more than enough human ugliness and human brutality. And some people get overwhelmed by it. They have little hope that it will get better; they just want to survive as long and as well as they can in the dreadful circumstances that surround them. But Life of Pi’s message is that you can get through, and more than that - that you can triumph. Pi’s story (the real one) highlights human potential and the ability we have to overcome the odds. The gospel tells us that there’s always hope, no matter what may be happening around us, and the human spirit always has the ability to rise up because the Holy Spirit dwells within us.

     “I have a story that will make you believe in God.” So said the elderly Piscine Molitor Patel (better known as “Pi”) to Mr. Abdirusamy in the introduction to the book. I don’t believe that. No story can make you believe in God - not even the story of Jesus can do that. It can only open you to possibilities. It’s only the Holy Spirit who can fill you with faith and start your relationship with God. But the story of Jesus can inspire you and strengthen you and give you hope even in the midst of the most hopeless of situations. The world will sometimes say “tell us a different story. That one’s too unbelievable.” Bananas can’t float, said the ship owners. But bananas did float! The dead can’t be raised, says the world. But Jesus was raised! The world is full of signs and wonders and miracles that bear witness to the presence of God all around us.

     Our story finds its culmination at the table, where we gather today. Some don’t like our story and its message, summed up by Charles Wesley as “amazing love, how can it be, that Thou, my God, shouldst die for me.” Some want that story changed. They raise all sorts of objections. Jesus wasn’t God. God can’t die. Eating the body and the blood? EEEEWWWW! But this IS our story: God in the flesh - crucified and risen for the world. We could make up a new one just to satisfy those who don’t like it; or we can stand firm on it. I choose to stand firm! Whether the world likes it or not!