23 Pentecost A 2023
Joshua 3:7-17
Psalm 107:1-7, 33-37
1 Thessalonians 2:9-13
Matthew 23:1-12
Jesus Helps
What I love most about the passage from Joshua is God’s instruction to Joshua, the leader: “When you come to the edge of the waters of the Jordan, you shall stand still in the Jordan.”
God commanded Joshua to stand still. Christian leadership is more about standing still than I used to realize. In other worlds than the church of God, leaders define the agenda, leaders define the ways and means, leaders motivate people to do stuff.
But a Christian leader stands still and lets Christ do the leading. Just as God defines the agenda and the ways and means and even the motivation for his people, and uses Joshua only to announce himself, so a Christian leader allows Jesus to set the agenda and the ways and means and the motivation.
In our reading from 1 Thessalonians, Paul seems to be blowing his own horn pretty loudly, but we need to remember that he is trying to distinguish himself from his opponents. Many in the early, heady days of the church’s formation tried to take advantage of the redistribution of wealth that wealthier Christians were funneling toward the support of evangelists and prophets and the poor. Paul wanted to make clear that they came to take, but he, in imitation of his Lord, came to give.
There is a tension in the New Testament that appears throughout. Violence was the power of the Roman Empire, and violence was the power that stood behind King Herod and the Jerusalem religious elite, and most other wannabe messiahs of the day were militant revolutionaries who all ended up on crosses, like the two rebel bandits crucified with Jesus.
But Jesus the true Messiah taught his disciples to obey authority, but to avoid imitating them, particularly in this realm of violence. The Romans and the Jewish authorities they backed did violence to the Jews all the time: their soldiers required them to carry their gear for a mile, they could physically abuse people in any way they like, they could arrest and imprison them, they could fine them into poverty, they could lop off someone’s head and serve it as a party favor at a kid’s birthday party, they could whip them with barbed whips, or hang them on crosses to suffocate.
Jesus taught his disciples not only to refrain from retaliatory violence, not only to refrain even from anger, but to actually walk an extra mile with that soldier, to offer the other cheek to that centurion who struck them, to forgive, pray for, bless and even love the people that violated them so often.
He himself, though falsely accused and wrongly convicted, though in command of God’s unlimited power that he could have called down on his tormentors at any time, chose instead to practice what he preached, and offered himself as an innocent victim, a living metaphor for the passover lamb, the holy sign of a new covenant with God, trusting in the hope of being the first to be resurrected.
Jesus commanded that the righteousness of his followers exceed that of the Pharisees back in Matthew 5. And yet here he sharply condemns the Pharisees for loading heavy burdens on the people without offering any help in carrying them.
The key phrase here is about the help. Jesus asks us to carry an even heavier burden than the Pharisees, but Jesus also offers us God’s power to carry it!
Jesus’ resurrection empowered him to share his Spirit with all of humankind. And while Jesus asks far more of us than the Pharisees asked of their people, his Spirit is more than powerful enough to enable us to do all the marvelous and miraculous things that Jesus himself did, but more importantly, it enables us to have a righteousness that is not our own.
I am like the Pharisees in that I love attention. When I returned to the acting biz, my ego was in full bloom, and as I began to have success, I did everything in my power to blare the good news to everyone I could.
Later, when I hit some dry spots and couldn’t manage to book any work, I found that hearing about other actors’ successes on the same platforms I used to announce mine was rather depressing. It made me think of all those talented actors who were unemployed for no reason other than the limited amount of available work. I stopped blowing my own horn so much. Instead, I began to announce other actor’s work, to promote my colleagues.
I did this not because I am such a good person, but because I have a relationship with God in Jesus Christ. I still love attention. I still struggle with my ego, but God is doing for me what I could certainly never do for myself: God is knocking me down a few rungs, so that I can think about others a little bit more.
I love to wear my collar and my vestments, because I’m theatrical and love dramatic outfits. I realize that some folks have unpleasant associations with these outward signs, and some believe that ministers who wear them are putting on airs. I suppose, to a degree, they’re right. But a collar marks me as an ordained person. It means that people in the community know that a church is nearby. And the robe I wear comes right out of scripture, based on the church’s early practice of bestowing white robes on the newly baptized.
I continue to be a sinner, continue to relish importance and power, but at the same time the grace of God is making inroads through my relationship with Jesus, activating the Spirit within to overcome what is wrong with me. Unlike the Pharisees, Jesus doesn’t load me with any burden he is not prepared to empower me to carry. And so, while I continue to be self-centered and pompous in many ways, I am evolving into someone who can see and love my neighbors as I see and love myself.
The big differences between Jesus, and all earthly human authorities, are two fold:
First, Lord Jesus serves everyone, good or bad, but puts the least first and the greatest last. Human authorities generally care only for those who can help them maintain their power, and most often prioritize the mighty over the small.
Second, the Lord Jesus not only teaches a higher righteousness, but will give that righteousness to all those who ask, his light yoke and easy burden, whereas human authorities generally set standards convenient to them but unreachable by most anyone else.
Let Jesus be your teacher. Let God be your Father. And let the Spirit set you free.
Amen.
