O God of love, help us to find our place in the holy drama of this week, that we might encounter anew the grace and wonder of our salvation. Amen.
One
of the intriguing aspects of Holy Week is that it all happens in public. A
parade into Jerusalem, an episode in the Temple, run-ins with authorities in the
streets and festivals, culminating in a public arrest, trial, and execution. It
allows us to wonder what we might have done if we were there. Would we have noticed
Jesus and the commotion he was stirring up? Would we have been so busy with our
tasks and conversations that we wouldn’t have noticed? Would we have decided to
just mind our own business and not worry about what he and his disciples were
up to? Would we have understood the heavenly significance of what was going on
around us?
On Palm Sunday, the sermon focused on the Je
wish crowds and tonight, on Holy Tuesday, I want to again consider the crowds and the disciples, but through a more general human perspective. The characters of Holy Week are helpful because they allow us to enter into the drama and to see how we move in and among the divine happenings of God that are all around us. In
the passage we heard from John, the Father speaks to Jesus and says “I have
glorified my name, and I will glorify it again.” There were four reactions to
this voice. The first is sheer ignorance. Maybe some of the people were
engrossed in conversation or worried about something else. You could have asked
them, “Did you hear that?” and they’d respond with “Hear what?”
There’s a famous social science
experiment in which a group of observers at a basketball game are told to count
the number of times that a ball bounces during the game. It’s not necessarily a
complicated task, but it requires a lot of focus. Even a momentary distraction
might make you miss a few dribbles of the ball. Well, in the middle of the
game, a person in a gorilla suit walks across the court. When people were asked
what they thought about the gorilla, they said, “What gorilla?” They were so
focused on counting bouncing that they didn’t notice something as out of place
as a gorilla on a basketball court. Life has a way of doing that to us – we’re
so absorbed in our projects, thoughts, and anxieties that we miss what is
happening right in front of us. It’s one thing to miss out on a gorilla, but to
miss out on God’s presence would be a tragedy.
Others
heard the voice, but John records that they thought it was thunder. Sure, some struggle
with hearing and maybe that’s what was going on here. But it’s also true that
we can only hear what we are prepared to hear. And the same is true for our thoughts,
beliefs, and feelings. It’s a question about our mental containers. If you don’t
have a category to receive divine revelation, it might sound like background
noise or thunder. If you don’t expect to encounter a burning bush, when you see
one, you might just say “That’s weird, why are there red Christmas lights in
that bush?” God is up to something. As CS Lewis puts it in his Narnia novels,
“Aslan is on the move.” Are we expecting God to show up in our worship, in our
meetings, in our conversations? It’d be a shame to hear God’s voice and dismiss
it as indigestion, just a dream, or probably just hearing things.
There’s
another group of people who said, “An angel has spoken to him.” John doesn’t record
who has this response. Maybe it was some of the disciples, maybe it wasn’t. The
word “disciple” means “student,” so these disciples had been trained to listen
for and expect the voice of God to speak. Hopefully, that is true of us as
well. When we hear that voice or otherwise sense that God is up to something, how
do we respond? Are we witnesses or bystanders?
A
witness is someone who has experienced something and shares that testimony with
others. A bystander is something who also has an experience and then goes about
life as it was beforehand. The Church needs witnesses, but we have a lot of
bystanders. On this point, I want to turn to the writing of the Reverend Martin
Luther King. From the jail in Birmingham, he wrote, “I must make two honest
confessions to you… First, I must confess that over the past few years, I have
been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the
regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride
toward freedom is not the… the Ku Klux Klan [member], but the white moderate,
who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace
which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of
justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I
cannot agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically
believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a
mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more
convenient season.’ Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more
frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm
acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection… In the end, we
will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
King
goes on to write further, “There was a time when the Church was very powerful –
in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer
for what they believed.” A note, the word “witness” comes from the Greek word “martyr,”
and King is picking up on this idea – the Church used to be willing to suffer
for the cause of justice. He continues, “In those days the Church was not
merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion;
it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early
Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately
sought to convict the Christians for being ‘disturbers of the peace’ and ‘outside
agitators.’ But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were ‘a
colony of heaven,’ called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they
were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be ‘astronomically
intimidated.’ By their effort and example, they brought an end to such ancient
evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. So
often the contemporary Church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain
sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being
disturbed by the presence of the Church, the power structure of the average
community is consoled by the Church’s silent – and often even vocal – sanction
of things as they are. But the judgment of God is upon the church as never
before. If today’s Church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the
early Church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions,
and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth
century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the Church has
turned into outright disgust.”
King
wrote that letter 61 years ago. His critique is just as accurate and his predictions
have undeniably come to pass. Too often the Church is a bystander and not a
witness. We might recognize something as the angelic call of God, but if we don’t
witness to it, then we’re just a bystander. But we are not Baptized into bystander-hood,
but rather discipleship and apostleship. That’s what the fourth and final group
who heard the voice of God did. We know they heard the words and didn’t dismiss
it as thunder or simply say “that’s an angel, but I’m not going to do anything about
it,” because we have these words recorded in Scripture. In John, the Passion of
Jesus takes up nearly half of the entire book, and tonight’s reading happens
after Palm Sunday. Jesus was fairly busy this week, and we don’t have any details
about “Now Jesus took the disciples aside and explained to them what the voice
of the Father said to him.” No, at least one person heard the voice and made
sure it got added to the record of the week which was eventually written down
and passed on to us.
Jesus
tells us that the voice came not for his sake, but ours. Thanks be to God that God
loves to speak and God has a lot to say. God is speaking to us – through beauty,
through service, through the Spirit, through Scripture, through Sacrament,
through neighbors, friends, and enemies. We don’t have to wonder how we would have
responded during Holy Week. Because of God’s abiding presence with us in all
times and places, every week is a holy week. When it comes to the holiness that
surrounds us, are we distracted, bystanders, or witnesses?
