Readings, Psalm 15, Micah 6:1-8, and Matthew 5:1-12
Image, William DeMorgan, The Good Samaritan (1860s)
 
Here’s the sermon in brief: the Christian life, is a life of creativity.
 
For when we come to respond to the graciousness of God, what are we to do:
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
   with tens of thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
   the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?’
That is to ask: is there a patterned response, a predictable, repeatable response to the goodness of God which can be tallied and measured with simple, empirical methods? Copied and pasted from one Christian to the next, to the next, to the next?
God has told you, O mortal, what is good;
   and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
   and to walk humbly with your God?
Which is to say, no, no such patterned, predictable, and repeatable response ready to be tallied. The life we must live in response to the gospel is one that takes creativity, change, interpretation, improvisation, reflection, and growth. For to do justice here and now, is different than there and then. Loving kindness and walking humbly, these are, like any act of love and humility acts which need to be distinct and personal if they are to be authentic.  
​

Readings, Isaiah 50:4-9a and Luke 19:28-40
Image, Anslem Kiefer, detail from "Palmsonntag" (Palm Sunday). 2006
 
Let us consider these words from the prophet Isaiah, long associated with the figure and struggle of Christ:
I know that I shall not be put to shame,
he who vindicates me is near.
To hear these words on the brink of Holy Week carries some dissonance. For between the hosannas of today and our hallelujahs a week from now, Christ will undergo a great deal intended to put him to shame. He will be stripped naked in public, assaulted, tormented, mocked. He will be dressed ironically in robes, adorned with a crown of thorns. Even his object of execution – the cross – will bear the inscription King of the Jews, designed to display the discrepancy between Christ’s supposed delusion and grim reality. Christ’s crucifixion and the abuse preceding it is a punishment aimed as much at humiliation as execution – the snuffing out of dignity as the snuffing out of breath. And yet, we hear these words, I know that I shall not be put to shame, he who vindicates me is near.
 
How do we contend with this discrepancy? Let us consider the gospel passage of the day. Let us picture the scene, cloaks and palms strewn about, the hosannas shouted aloud, the donkey and the itinerant preacher the centre of this hubbub. Jesus’ detractors are nervous what such a demonstration might mean for all of them. After all, if this display of the supposed arrival of a new king gets the Romans nervous enough it is going to end bad for all the Jews of the region. ‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!’ can sound a lot like the cry of insurgency in the ears of an occupier. So some Pharisees press in and implore Jesus, Teacher, order your disciples to stop. To which Jesus most memorably replies: I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.
 
It’s a killer line. Naturally we can take it as a kind of poetic effusion, a non-literal turn of phrase that communicates the frenzy of this moment and the impossibility of reeling in such joy. We can take it as a proclamation in line with many a psalm, where rocks, hills, oceans, and stars sing out the glory of God. Creation knows the hands, breath, and voice that formed it and worships in its way… the rocks, Christ alerts us, are just begging for an opportunity to join this triumphal moment as the one with God since the beginning moves amongst them.
 
In the context of today’s question, the discrepancy raised by the question of shame, these words of Christ might teach us something about vindication. Perhaps we might apply the words of Isaiah to the experience of Christ, because in acknowledging the readiness of the rocks, Jesus conveys his belief that the whole force of the cosmos bends toward this moment, the whole weight of creation sings his victory. Perhaps Jesus knows that even if his followers fail (or perhaps better, knows that when his followers fail) something primordial will pick up the slack. The rocks, Christ declares, know the score. They would cry out if the people fall silent, because they know that even if people fail, God will not.
 
For it is not the failure, betrayal, desertion, and abuse of the people that would put Christ to shame. The only thing that could is if he were failed, betrayed, or deserted by the one he calls Father. And the only way he could be failed by the one he calls Father is if Jesus Christ were crucified for his words and ministry, and was not raised again. For if that were the case he would be put to shame, he would not be vindicated. Shame would be heaped on his head like coal and all the mocking reverence of the crown of thorns and entitled cross would prove the last word.
 
The resurrection of Christ is often referred to as God’s great YES. For where the world sought to say no to Christ – to his message, his way, his hope, his challenge – God, in raising Christ from the dead says Yes. Yes, the resurrection proclaims, yes, this is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, this is my Son the beloved, this is the Anointed One. Yes, the resurrection proclaims, yes, the kingdom of God is like seeds and shepherds, it is a place where last are first, and poor are blessed. Yes, the resurrection proclaims, yes, true greatness is known in service, true love in laying down one’s life, true power in peace-making. In the Yes of the resurrection God vindicates the life and ministry of Jesus ensuring that who he was, and what he inaugurated, cannot be put to shame.
 
And so we can say of Christ the words of Isaiah, I know that I shall not be put to shame, he who vindicates me is near. And we can say this even while acknowledging the humiliating torture, abuse, and mockery Christ will face in his passion. Because the vindication of Christ is not obliterated by the fact that he faces attempts to put him to shame, just as our own vindication as beloved children of God, made in the divine image, is not obliterated or marred by the humiliations, abuses, violence, and mockery which we have and may face on account of the cruelties of the world. Because the vindication of Christ is the act of God which reveals such mockeries and abuses as lies, the act which denies them the last word.
 
The vindication of Christ is the confession that the torturer does not get to define the worth the tortured, the tormentor does not tell the truth about the tormented, the abuser isn’t right about the abused, the judges of the world do not pass final judgment on the worth of a soul. For in the breaking of the tomb, the conquering of death, the resurrection of the body God vindicates Christ, and in Christ vindicates all of those the world has unduly sought to put to shame, all those it has stripped and scorned, pierced and punished, killed and buried. For this is, at least in part, what it means to share in Christ’s resurrection. It means to share in Christ’s vindication, and if we share in this, we can also claim those words of Isaiah for ourselves, we can say for ourselves the words Christ may well have held close in his hour of need: I know that I shall not be put to shame, he who vindicates me is near.          
 
Stand strong friends, even when the things we have held dearest and fought longest for appear to be shamed, scorned, and abused by the cruelty and ugliness of the world: the author of life is writing the story, God commands the final word. The things of God shall not be put to shame, the one who vindicated Christ will vindicate what is Christ’s, for God is near.

Readings, Psalm 126, Isaiah 43:16-21, and Philippians 3:4b-14
Image, 
 
May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. There might not be a more profound prayer than the one held in this simple line from today’s Psalm. It is a timeless petition, for until the age to come when God wipes all tears from our eyes, the human experience shall not be short of tears, nor the longing for them to be replaced with joy. It is a prayer we might have prayed for ourselves, for a loved one, or for whole regions and peoples wracked by ruinous calamity or military violence.
 
This sentiment, this hope, that those who sow in tears shall reap in joy, runs throughout Scripture. Could it not describe the yearning and journey of Ruth and Naomi, the prophetic hope given to slaves in Egypt and exiles in Babylon, is it not descriptive of the travails of Joseph or of Hagar. The psalm could be sung over the people of God at so many points in their history and feel as though it was written directly for them. Just as countless faithful have opened their Bible to this page and heard it speak the longing of their heart.  
 
It is fitting then, that this verse, particularly when we let it run on to the next, proves a succinct plot summary of that first Easter morning: Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves. Or, in a perhaps more potent translation (from Robert Alter):
He walks along and weeps,
The bearer of the seed bag.
He will surely come in with glad song
Bearing his sheaves.
 
For does this not describe the journey of Mary Magdalene on Easter morn? She who walked, weeping, bearing spices to the tomb of her Lord, is she who comes home with shouts of joy, returning to the disciples with glad song to rouse them from their mourning.
 
Perhaps it should be no surprise that such a verse maps so poetically onto the Easter scene. For the rising of Christ, his triumph over Death, is the divine signature beneath the promise that those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. The resurrection of Christ, as Paul strives to describe, is that which strengthens us to forget what lies behind and to press on toward the goal. The resurrection is that truth of surpassing value which permits us to hope that the story does not end in tears, that the losses are not forever, that the seeds watered in tears will not grow trees of sorrow. The fields of our lives might be laid to waste by calamity and tragedy but they shall not remain barren. For the resurrection signals the coming of a day when all shall rise, and all things shall be restored to their former glory, as the great Sower arrives with glad song, heralding the in-breaking of new creation.
 
None of this is to suggest that because of this promise of glad song we need put down our laments. For as the teacher says, there is a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. The psalm conveys that it is by honouring one time that the other comes to fruition. It is by sowing in tears that the changing of the seasons leads us to reaping in joy and glad song. Had Mary not gone to attend Christ in her grief, she would not have had her heard her name spoken by her Lord and friend. Our faith is one of death and resurrection; the latter does not ignore but transforms the former. So too the griefs in our life are real, the losses profound, and there are those who know sufferings and losses which defy the understanding of all but their compatriots in the valley of death. And far too many never live to feel taste the tears replaced by laughter returning to their mouths and glad song to their hearts. The tears of today are too real to be waved away by the promise of tomorrow, the time must be taken to sow and wait before there’s any talk of reaping.  
 
In a similar way, none of this is to suggest that suffering is inherently good. That the knowledge it brings, the experience it provides, the ground it serves for cultivating transformation is enviable. There’s a line in Saul Bellow’s novel, Mr Sammler’s Planet, where a Jewish survivor of the Nazi death camps remarks, “To some people, true enough, experience seemed wealth. Misery worth a lot. Horror a fortune. Yes. But I never wanted such riches.” We recall that Christ weeps for his friend Lazarus as he lies in his tomb, even though Christ is the resurrection and the life, who can call his friend by name and lead him into life. Griefs are too awful to be envied, even if what might be sowed in their season might lead to glad song in another. Just because Joseph’s sale into slavery leads to the salvation of many, or because Hagar’s casting out leads to her encounter with God in the wilderness, this does not mean we take as necessary, excusable, or enviable the actions of others that led them there. Nor should it prompt us to say, how fortunate they suffered such woe, otherwise they would never have felt such joy.
 
May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. This is a sublime prayer, an earnest hope, a foundational promise. It speaks God’s nature to make straight the paths through the wilderness and provide water in the dessert. It speaks the Easter promise of resurrection which transforms death and allows Paul to consider the worldly privileges he lost in his dying with Christ merely excrement compared to what he has gained by sharing in Christ’s resurrection. It speaks the Spirit’s power to prevent grief being the last word, or loss the final state. It reminds us that though there is a time to weep and mourn there will be another time, if not in this life, then in the age to come, when tears shall be wiped from our eyes and all things restored to dazzling glory.
 
And while speaking this comfort and promise, the psalm also speaks our commission as Christ’s disciples living in this time between Christ’s resurrection and return. For too much suffering need not be, and too many of our fellows are denied the time, care, and justice required to move from weeping to glad song. It belongs to us, as Christ’s, to live and work with our neighbours that we might share the burden of the seed bag when they weep and work to clear away that which stifles what could grow out from their season of grief if only the world would stop dumping calamity on their heads. Let us live with our neighbours in their times of mourning and their seasons of waiting, that we might join in the glad song and shouts of joy when the time of reaping has begun. For this is the very image of Christ, who though buried in tears, rises to gather his scattered and weeping friends so they may know once more the time of dancing and laughter.

Reading, Luke 15:1-32
Image, Samuel Songo (Rhodesian, 1929–ca. 1977), The Prodigal Son, 1954. Soapstone, h. 26 cm.

It is a long-known truth of storytelling that there is something very satisfying to establishing a pattern and delivering on expectation. And it is equally well known that it is delightful to subvert the expectation in surprising ways, this perhaps, is the foundation of comedy (exhibit A).
 
This, most famous and favoured of parables is part of a set of three. The first two establish a pattern: a small part of a larger whole is lost (in the first instance one sheep out of 99, in the second one coin out of ten), then someone searches for the lost thing (in the first, the one who has lost the sheep leaves 99 in the wilderness to pursue and retrieve the lost one, in the second parable the woman upturns her house to find the missing coin), and finally, they invite their friends over to rejoice with them, for what was lost has been found.
 
With this pattern established, Jesus tells a third, longer parable, and it is interesting to observe where the story departs from our expectations established by the pattern.
 
The most commonly observed departure is the ending. The first two parables end with neighbours being invited to rejoice for what was lost has now being found, and it appears at first, this is how the third parable is going to end. The younger son has returned, has been embraced by his father, and they began to celebrate. If you’ve been listening to the first two tales you are primed for Jesus to offer the words already established: Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.
 
Instead, Jesus introduces a new character and a problem. For thus far we have not had to concern ourselves with the feelings of the 99 sheep left in the wilderness, nor the nine coins which had the good sense not to get lost. But here, we find lurking in the background of the story since the beginning, a second brother. And he does not join the rejoicing, instead he became angry and refused to go in. The brother and father have a conversation, and the story builds back to the familiar refrain that what was lost has been found. And hearing that, the audience is primed again for the patterned ending… ah, we think, it took a detour, there were some hurdles, but now, of course, there shall be rejoicing in the story as there will be in heaven. And yet, the story does not resolve, it hangs there with no indication of how this older son will respond to his father’s reasoning.
 
Much has been made of the entitlement and ingratitude of the older son. He has served as an analogy for those relying on outward observance of the commandments without an inner awakening of grace, or for those who withhold forgiveness and restoration from who they deem sinners in the church, or for those who think their longevity in the church affords them greater privilege than those whose came later to the faith.
 
And yet, there are efforts to understand the older son, an understanding that is propelled when we consider a second departure from the pattern. For sheep, let alone coins, can hardly be blamed for getting lost. Indeed, a coin has no agency, and sheep are famous absconders, so if anyone is to blame for the situation in the first two parables it is the shepherd and the woman. And yet, the third parable makes clear that the younger son bears pretty well full responsibility for everything that happens to him. He’s the one who demands his share of the property (which is gauche to say the least), only to find himself alone and penniless in the far country. That’s a fairly important detail, not one to be overlooked when adjudicating the actions of the older brother.
 
The older brother might be further understood by virtue of perhaps the largest and most perplexing of the discrepancies and departures of this third parable: that the father did not go looking for the lost son. The father does not leave the sheep, nor turn over house and home, he stays put. We celebrate his grace-filled acceptance, his knee-jerk forgiveness, his compassion-fuelled running to the son while he was still far off… and yet, when the son was really far off, out in the far country, he did not go out to find him. The older son was perhaps justified in thinking that he and his father’s attitude was in concert: the son who betrayed them was not to be sought, nor welcomed home.
 
One of the most engaging and sometimes elusive questions to ask of a parable is who represents God/Jesus. We are often fairly quick and confident to assign their part, but there are many that defy easy assignation. Indeed, there are many parables where God or Jesus is in a rather surprising or unexpected place. And while God is often quickly identified with the father ready to offer grace, forgiveness, and acceptance to the younger son, ready to host a celebration with the angels for the one sinner who repents, the fact that the father does not pursue the son into the far country to find him and bring him back raises a question to this one-to-one identification of the father of the parable and the Father of Jesus Christ.
 
In Romans 5 Paul goes to extremes to emphasise that while we were still weak… Christ died for the ungodly… while we were still sinners Christ died for us… while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God. In Ephesians the language is even more apt for today’s parable: You who were once far off have been brought near. The gospel message is that in Christ, God goes into the far country. The Eternal Son emptied himself and taking the form of a slave went out to seek and save the lost. In this way Christ resembles the one who goes and finds the sheep and the woman who goes and finds the coin, and yet, does not resemble the father who stays and waits for the younger son to repent and return.
 
Which leads us to this, that perhaps the greatest discrepancy, the most poignant departure of this third parable is that it teaches us that the story of the gospel is even better, more wondrous, more out of the ordinary than this most favoured and famous of stories. That the love of God is even greater, than the father who went running when he saw his son, the grace of Christ abounds more still than the father who adorned his son with the robe and the ring, that the kindness of the Spirit surpasses the father who killed the fattened calf.
 
For as another passage in Ephesians goes, God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be whole and blameless before him in love. God destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will. In absolute freedom, in beginningless time, God elected not stay in the heavenly home, but to venture into the far country to adopt us. God did not wait until we turned and walked back, until we were close enough to be seen from the front gate. No, before we left the house, before we squandered the wealth, before we even looked longingly at the pods fed to pigs, God destined us for adoption, God elected us in Jesus Christ. God – according to the good pleasure of divine will (which is to say not because of any catastrophe but simply because of who God is) – chose to be our God, to be the One who sent the Son in love to shower us with new life. Before the foundation of the world God determined to be for us. While we were weak, while we were far off, God went out like the shepherd to seek and save, to adopt and rejoice, to be for us and for our freedom. This is the story that makes us who we are, and it really is good news. So much good news in fact, that even the story Jesus is telling us to explain it is not enough to capture it all. And that discrepancy, that departure, is no joke, but does prove rather satisfying.

Image, Joan Mitchell, Cypress, 1980

In one of the great segments of The Twilight Zone a scholarly man finds himself post-apocalyptic scene, seemingly the last man left alive. It all seems fairly dire, until he stumbles upon a library... of course, it is the Twilight Zone, so things don't necessarily go as planned. You can watch the ending here.
 
We have a lot of stories where we long for a place, some utopia, and then, when we arrive there is a cruel and ironic twist. The vision of the future, the idealised time to come, the mythical place of the character’s dream looks great from afar, built up by imagination and yearning but by the end of the story we discover that what has been eagerly awaited cannot live up to expectations, plagued by some flaw inherent to its nature. Readied as we are by such stories and their twists, the words of the psalm, One thing I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, might be accompanied by a sense of foreboding. Like, yes, you wish that now, but have you really thought such things through? Will there not yet be a rug pulled out from under your dreams?
 
We are progressing through the season of Lent, the forty days of preparation for Calvary. We ready ourselves through piety, prayer, and proclamation to feel the upheaval, the drama, tragedy and victory of the cross and the empty tomb. Our readings today serve such an end.
 
The Psalm captures the Lenten yearning for refuge and salvation. The psalm teaches our heart to Come and seek God’s face. For at heart, this is what Lenten habits of fasting and forgoing, or of focused intensifying of spiritual practices are aimed toward: teaching our hearts to seek the one thing, to strip away the distractions and find the one thing to ask of the Living God, to discover or rediscover the one place in which we shall find true rest, refuge, and delight.
 
Pressed in on all sides the Psalmist looks toward the refuge of God’s presence. World-weary and wrung dry the Psalmist yearns to come in from the cold and exist in the warmth of God’s beauty – represented on earth for them in the Temple. Their desire, born of faith and struggle is to spend their days where eternity and time intersect, where divine presence dwells on earth. To press in with the assembly to seek God’s face, learn God’s ways, and see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
 
Speaking of a place where time and eternity intersect and the divine presence dwells on earth, let’s talk about the gospel reading. Evil doers assail Jesus, seeking to devour his flesh, and he is warned by some Pharisees to flee for safety. This is a good reminder that the relationship between Jesus and the Pharisees is not simply one of protagonist and antagonist. While there is (at times heated) disagreement between the parties, it is clear Jesus spends a great deal of time amidst the Pharisees. And here, we see that far from betraying Jesus into the hands of Herod, the Pharisees burst in with warnings… warnings which serve to ready us again for Easter.
 
For where the psalm readies us by giving voice to yearning, the gospel readies us by setting the stage of the conflict narrative that will drive us to the cross. For having been warned, Jesus offers perhaps his most explicit critique of Herod and the worldly powers assailing him: Go and tell that fox for me… The following proclamation of Jesus’ messianic mission, his prophetic cause, his foreshadowing of his death and victory is all placed here in direct confrontation and defiance of Herod, which is a confrontation and defiance of the imperial rule of his day.
 
In calling Herod a fox, Jesus is also able to define the nature of this conflict. Because, in the same speech that Jesus refers to Herod as a fox, he describes himself as a Mother Hen. Flee, Jesus is warned, a fox approaches, no, Jesus says, my desire is to gather the children of Jerusalem like a mother hen her chicks. Compared to the wily, destructive, and violent fox, Jesus is the nurturing, protective, and unassuming hen. The contest between Jesus and the forces out to subdue him is not likened by Jesus to two waring armies, but a fox and a mother hen. Jesus’ desire is not glorious battle, but to gather and shelter. To make of himself, a place where we will find our refuge, a place we can seek to live all the days of our lives, a place to behold the beauty of the Lord. Here, his very body – which at this moment is assailed and threatened by evil forces – is held out to the world as a place of refuge and hope. Jesus speaks to those around him: ready yourself, the hour approaches, and remember when the work is finished, who it was that dwelt among you.
 
We seek something which will not disappoint, sweet waters with no bitter aftertaste. For he who has been tried did not fail. He who was buried did not stay buried. Lent readies us for a crescendo, the climax of the contest. Lent readies us for an ending, the death of Christ on the cross. And Lent also readies us for a new beginning in the Easter dawn. And when we arrive at each of these sites, we shall not be disappointed. We shall not feel the pinch of poetic irony. We shall not grow weary of their fields and flowers. For this is the site at which eternity and time intersect, where the divine presence dwells on earth, where the kingdom of God draws near, on earth as it is in heaven. Pressed on all sides, world-weary and wrung dry we can come again and again to the story and find the very presence of Christ, his very body opened toward us offering shelter and refuge from all sorts of foxes. Be strong and take heart, for here we behold the beauty of the Lord.
 
And yet, while Lent readies us for an ending, teaching our hearts to seek the one good thing, it also teaches us to seek this ending in the middle. Lent teaches us, that is, to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. In walking these forty days with Christ we learn to value power which nurtures, shelters, and gathers, and wonder how we as Christ’s body might act the hen. In gathering together in prayer, piety, and proclamation we learn how to lift our heads to make sounds of joy, and wonder how we as Christ’s body might battle back the forces that compel our neighbours to keep their heads low. In moving out into the world to bless the living with love and good deeds, we learn to seek God’s face in the least of these and wonder how as the body of Christ we might behold the Lord’s beauty in places the world consigns as ugly.
 
Wait for the Lord! The Psalmist proclaims. This isn’t a waiting until there is finally time enough, when all the diversions are wiped away and the ecosystem aligns with the fruition of our desires. We are waiting for one who was and is and is to come, waiting for one who is present with us, and who has already gone ahead to make for us a room to spend all the days of our lives. This is an active, engaged, creative, and communal waiting where we live within the belief that we shall see (and indeed might become) the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. So be strong and let your heart take courage. Live as those gathered and sent by a hen amongst foxes, until the great and glorious day when you say, Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

Readings, Jeremiah 17:5-10 and Luke 6: 17-26
Image, Dora Chapman, Self portrait in brown hat, 1935

The ambition at the heart of much portraiture is to try and capture the human character of the sitter: their heart, their will, their history – in short, the fullness of the person. The aim is to evoke - through the many varied and studied choices – the fullness of the subject beyond simply a collection of shapes and tones. To ask and perhaps answer, who is this person, or even perhaps, delving further, what do we know of the human creature?

Because it is seldom the aspect we direct our primary attention, we can miss that the Bible contains astute and probing passages on human psychology and moral life. We tend to think first of the stories, or the proclamation of salvation, or the odes to God’s nature, but there is much concerning the nature of the human creature, our hearts, our will, our virtues and follies. Offerings, as it were, to Hamlet’s immortal question, what a piece of work is man?

Usually, my go to example of such is Paul’s famous quip: I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Who among us does not know this feeling, has not exclaimed years later in the car or shower, why did I do that? Who has not known the agony born of the gap between will and act, intention and execution?

But Paul also has, and I’ll use the King James here just to give it that appropriately Shakespearean flair: For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Does this not run at the core of so much poetry and psychology? We are mysteries to one another and ourselves, and who can know the things of Jock over here except Jock himself.

In another way, I’ve always felt Cain’s response to the Lord’s question: where is your brother Abel, I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper? Speaks to the habit of the guilty, to fight question with question. This is perhaps the essential dynamic of discourse between parents and their teenage children. Asked where they were the night before, the nervously guilty jump to their own questions: I told you yesterday? Don’t you trust me? Is this a police state? 

Or, speaking of teenagers, there’s that line in Ecclesiastes which comes to mind as I walk through the shops and see those younger than me reviving mullets and other fashion trends which were buried in obscurity for good reason: Is there a thing of which it is said, ‘see this is new?’ It has already been, in the ages before us. 

With all that established, today’s reading from Jeremiah offers another such contribution to the understanding of human nature and will.
More crooked is the heart than all things,
It is grievously ill and who can fathom it?

This is perhaps a bleaker view of humanity than we might usually operate with, but there are plenty of times it appears accurate. It is helpful to remember that the heart was associated less with emotion (as we might today, when valentine’s day decorations are a sea of red hearts). The emotions were in the gut, kidneys, or bowels (all of which are slightly more complicated to render in the window of a florist). The heart was the seat of understanding, the loci of the will. Jeremiah’s diagnosis is that there is crookedness (or deceitfulness) in our understanding/will. That something in our instinct is ill and lies beyond our understanding, beyond our ability to fathom. As the wise and noble Olaf the snowman remarks (paraphrasing this very passage in Frozen 2), who knows the ways of men.

For this crooked or deceitful heart is the site of snap judgments, instinctual reactions, and first impressions – all of which on further interrogation, we know can be faulty. Because while we might often be advised to trust our gut, go with our instincts, and don’t overthink it - this is often far from advisable. It is not to say there are never times to do this, as we rely on our instincts and gut reactions for a million micro-decisions across the day. But we ought to be wary of believing that our will, our instincts, are automatically good (or even neutral). 

For any thorough self-examination reveals our instant reactions are often those we would be uncomfortable speaking aloud. Prejudices, stereotypes, judgments can spring to mind as we walk behind someone in the shops, hear a voice over the phone, or read a story in the news. And after a second or two of contemplation we recognise these judgments as uncharitable, and without merit; vestiges of inherited scorn. Because why should we see the unhoused person and assume they are the architect of their struggle, see the crying child and assume they are product of ill-disciplined parents, hear the person detailing the difficulties of losing weight and assume lack of discipline, hear the testimony of the victim and wonder if they also ought to shoulder some blame? Well, it is as Jeremiah proclaimed: 
More crooked is the heart than all things,
It is grievously ill and who can fathom it?

The gospel is in many ways, the great rebuff against going with your gut, of trusting our instincts as naturally virtuous, our understanding as untarnished. For the gospel asks us to trust that the one crucified by the State was not some degenerate or miscreant, but saviour and messiah. The gospel asks us to trust that the one who was pierced and buried, has been raised and ascended. The gospel asks us to believe that the last will be first, and first last. The gospel asks us to believe that the mighty shall be cast down and the lowly lifted high. In today’s very passage, when Jesus begins his sermon on the mount, the gospel – in full contradiction of our common understanding and instinct – declares:
Blessed are you who are poor,
   for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who are hungry now,
   for you will be filled.
Blessed are you who weep now,
   for you will laugh  

Then, as now, common understanding and gut reactions attach wealth to personal virtue. The rich must be blessed, hardworking, noble, and trustworthy… the poor must be idle, shifty, cursed, and of loose morals. This is the deceitful will, the crooked heart, the corrupted understanding at the base of our instincts. Jesus overturns this time and again. Those who shall laugh are those we might see weeping and wonder ‘what have they done to improve their lot?’ Those who will be filled are those we hear ask for food and wonder ‘are they lying to me?’ Those who will inherit the kingdom of God are those we feel the flash of doubt when asked, ‘can they be trusted here alone?’
​
To be a Christian is to open our heart to Jesus. To ask Jesus into the crookedness of our hearts so that its ways might be made straight. To ask Jesus into the deceitfulness of our instincts so that it may be judged by the truth. To ask Jesus into our ill understanding and so that it may be made well. We open our hearts to Jesus so that we might learn how to question our gut, to question those snap judgments, hidden prejudices, and unspoken assumptions. We ask Jesus into our hearts so that what we will see in the face of another is the fullness of a portrait painted by God. What we see in another is not defined by our initial and faulty instinctual reactions, but we recognise a deep inner life, a full story, a complex and evolving mystery. But more than this, we see the person in front of us in the shop, or on the phone, or in the news as  a neighbour, made in the image of God, who deserves dignity, love, and service. We ask Jesus into our hearts because he can fathom it. Jesus can search the human heart and uproot that which does not serve us, or our neighbour, or God’s kingdom. We say, come, Lord Jesus: reform, reshape, and repair our heart, let not our will be done, but yours. 

Readings, Jeremiah 31:31-34, John 12:20-33
Image, Eric Gill,  The Body of Jesus is Laid in the Tomb (1917)

Where I am, there will my servant be also.
 
This is the call on the life of the Christian. That we serve Christ by following Christ, serve, that is, by living after the pattern of Christ’s own life. Christ who, late in the day, looked around and saw the mounting opposition, the increasing animosity, the threat intensifying, and did not seek to be spared what the hour required. Instead, despite his troubled soul, Jesus trusted that through his service of the world he would be glorified, and through his glorification the holy name of God would be glorified too.
 
For Christ knew the saying was true and trustworthy: unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies it bears much fruit. Christ trusted that his crucifixion would not be a site of defeat, but his glorification, that his death would not be a site of loss, but of victory. He trusted that even if the world said “no” and rejected him, God would say “yes” and vindicate him.
 
This “yes” is heard in the resurrection of Christ. It is in his word of comfort and commission to Mary, his word of peace to Thomas, his asking John to feed his sheep. This “yes” echoes in the fruit of Jesus’ followers, who receive the Spirit at Pentecost and spread out to be the body of Christ in all the world. The saying is true and trustworthy, Christ was planted into the ground in death, so that through his resurrection, he could bear much fruit.  
 
It is by this, Christ declares, that the ruler of this world will be driven out. That the powers of Sin, Evil, and Death shall be confronted and overcome so that their grip on the world will be loosed. Having driven out the ruler, having loosed the grip of sin that has traced its course through human history since Adam, Christ is able to perform that which he was sent to perform, the reason he has come to this hour: Christ is able to draw all people to himself. His arms reach wide upon the cross, wide enough to embrace the whole world, draw us toward himself and hold us fast, so that wherever we are, there he shall be also.
 
In some ways, in the latter days of Lent, we are led back to where we began: The call placed on the Christian (to take up our cross and lose our life for Christ’s sake, to be found always where Christ is found) has been made possible by what Christ has already performed for us. Indeed, not only has Christ made it possible, but he made it the way to glory.
 
To say it another way, the servant is able to be where Christ is, because Christ has promised already and always, to be with us. Christ is Emmanuel, after all. Christ went down into the ground so that in resurrection and ascension he would be with all people in all times and places. Through the Spirit the single grain bears much fruit.
 
Now, it is good to delineate, that while Christ is Emmanuel, and has acted already to draw us to him and abides with us always, there are nonetheless places in which the servant is specifically called to be in order to be with Christ. Sites where the servant encounters and follows Christ in the most palpable and specific way.
 
The first place is at the table of grace, where Christ shares with us his very body and blood. The church community is the body of Christ, where the Word is proclaimed and the sacrament administered. And so we follow him here, to be further conformed to his image, to learn again – hour by hour - how to bear the fruit of his grain of love.
 
And the second place is with the least of these. It is when we love and serve the hungry, sick, poor, lonely, estranged, and imprisoned that we are most directly where Christ is. For what we did to the least, we did unto Christ. The servant of Christ is one who becomes a servant of the least of these in their struggle for freedom. Standing with those the world pushes and punishes, forgets and forsakes. It is with these the Lord of Glory sought fit to be intimately identified. The servant who intends to be found with Christ, must be found amongst the least, following in Christ’s way of mercy, friendship, and justice.
 
Holy Week draws near, we shall see the grain planted in the earth once more. May we bear fruit worthy of this glory, finding ourselves with the One who drew all humanity to himself.

Readings, Genesis 9:8-17 and 1 Peter 3:18-22
Image, The Rainbow: Study for 'Bathers at Asnières,' Georges Seurat (1883)
 
Today’s readings lead us into Lent, the church’s season of repentance and preparation, with two reminders:

• The covenantal promise of God that nothing shall ever come to pass by which all flesh shall be destroyed.
• And that Christ has already suffered once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, so that we all shall be brought closer to God.

The promise of God’s preservation and the proclamation of Christ’s one for all salvation usher in the season of Lent. And it is for good reason.
 
Earlier this week, I was speaking with a young guy who was very passionate about justice actively organising campaigns on climate, refugees, Gaza. He asked what had inspired me in the past to get involved with justice campaigns and action. I was able to share about how both my faith motivates a love of justice and relationships within the Christian community played a key part in guiding our activity. But what I also noted, was that a key way faith and relationships play in drawing one into the work of justice is that they allow a path for repentance without shame.
 
I think one of the principal barriers prohibiting people committing to a justice issue, is that we must accept that the world is worse than we want to believe or have experienced. We have to accept, for example, that the astronomical and devastating statistics about domestic violence are in fact true (and who would want to accept such a thing). And if true, then also they are closer to home than we would like (present in our neighbourhoods, community organisations, schools, sport clubs, and churches). We then have to accept that these are not isolated, individual occurrences, but there are insidious and harmful views and values baked into our culture, which we have imbibed and need to do the work of unlearning and relearning.
 
It is difficult to stay open through this process. It is difficult to remain open to the truth. All the more so today with the onslaught of news, exposing us to a preponderance of tragedies happening around our world in real time, and the rigorous work of history exposing us to injustices and atrocities long swept out of view.
 
To be confronted with the prevalence of sin and harm in our communities, world, and history is not easy. We can quickly become ashamed that we didn’t know, that we hadn’t spoken, that we might have profited, that we could be unconsciously complicit. And shame is a negative spiral. Shame grabs right at the core of our being and activities that flight/fight/freeze response. When confronted with the truth of the scope of injustice and harm, it is so easy to run, to push away, to shut our ears and hearts. Insisting that the rose is on the bloom is one of the more understandable human responses to ugliness. And all the more understandable when we are alone.
 
The call for us to acknowledge the truth, repent of our sin, and take up the work of justice that lies before us, is impossible alone. Alone it feels awful, immense, impossible. Alone guilt and shame dominate the conversation. Alone we falter and flail without hope.
 
Lent is not meant to be about shame; it is about readiness. Repentance is not self-flagellation; it is a return to Christ. Truth is not scary; it sets us free. Justice is not punitive; it is restorative. To confront sin, we first must comprehend grace. To confess we must know we have been forgiven. To take up our cross we must first behold the empty tomb. For it is only when we know, deep in our bones, how loved we are, how safe we are, how accompanied we are, how saved we are, that we are ready to receive the truth of the world and ourselves, to repent and return, and to go forth in love for the sake of the world. 
 
And so we begin Lent with these reminders. 1) The bow in the sky signifies the promise of God’s covenant with all of creation which shall not be forsaken. And 2) Christ has died once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, so that all shall be brought closer to God. Christ even went to those spirits in prison, thought condemned from the days of Noah, to proclaim deliverance and salvation. We cannot be cut off or estranged from God’s love. We shall not perish, for the one granted all authority over heaven and earth has shared all things with us.
 
It is only after all this is accomplished, only on the heels of this promise, only within the covenant, only when we know ourselves as under the umbrella of grace that we can begin the work of confession, repentance, and renewal. It is from here that we can tell the truth about ourselves and face the truth about our world and not be struck down by shame, stuck in apathy, or led away by falsehood. It is only from here that we can look rightly at the sin in our hearts, homes, and world and trust that we can make a change, trust that we can work for justice, trust that what has been doesn’t need to determine what will be. It is from the sphere of nurture that is the saving grace and restorative love of Christ Jesus our Lord that we begin our Lenten journey. Let us not fear, nor let us delay, the Spirit is calling, repent, be reconciled, and become the righteousness of God.