Two Quiet Josephs
March 31, 2024 • William A. Evertsberg • Matthew 27:57–61, Matthew 28:1–10
When you come to the end of all four Gospels, no matter what Gospel you’re reading, you’re going to see an obscure, minor actor with a walk-on part who appears out of nowhere, disappears just as quickly, and is never heard from again. His name is Joseph of Arimathea, and he is the guy who talked Pilate into handing over Jesus’ bruised, beaten, battered, bloodied body from the cross and then loaned him his own personal grave so that Jesus could have a proper burial. I say ‘loaned’ rather than ‘gave’ because as it turns out, Jesus wouldn’t need his borrowed grave for long. Now who is this Joseph of Arimathea and what makes him more important in all four Gospels than the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, the Magi, the Shepherds, and Zacchaeus? Joseph appears quadruple the number of times as those other events. Who is he and where did he come from? Where is Arimathea? But that’s just the point—no one knows. There are some educated guesses, but no one’s sure. This cryptic character comes out of nowhere and is never heard from again.
God's Odd Benedictions VI: The Unalloyed
March 17, 2024 • William A. Evertsberg • Matthew 5:1–8
The word for ‘pure’ that Jesus uses here in the sixth beatitude means in Greek just what it means in English, as when we say, “Her heart was pure gold.” We mean that her essence is unalloyed, not contaminated with traces of zinc, iron, lead, or whatever it is that makes gold less than 24-karat. Her heart is unadulterated, free from any hint of other color or substance, untarnished by any fleck of stain. There is only one thing in there, and nothing else, nothing else at all. No alloys, additives, preservatives, contaminants; nothing shameful, nothing false, nothing unclean. She is like Dany Targaryen’s troops: The Unsullied.
God's Odd Benedictions V: The Merciful
March 10, 2024 • Katie Lancaster • Matthew 5:1–7
In late 2015, Pope Francis designated a year of mercy. He called it a Jubilee of Mercy. I love this. 1.3 billion people energized, motivated, galvanized, ignited in the direction of mercy. A time for all to go out and offer mercy, to live out the mercy that God has for us. Pope Francis says that “The name of God is mercy”, that the very name of God is mercy, and he says “Jesus of Nazareth by his words, actions, and entire person reveals the mercy of God.”#_ftn1 Jesus of Nazareth is the living face of our God of mercy. The very character of God, the very nucleus of God, the core identity of God is mercy. #_ftnref1Pope Francis. "Misericordiae Vultus." Bull of Indiction of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, Vatican City, 11 April 2015.
God's Odd Benedictions, IV: The Hungry
March 3, 2024 • William A. Evertsberg • Matthew 5:1–6
This is the most sensible and least odd of "God’s Odd Benedictions". We get this one. Of course Jesus would love the righteous. Of course God would bless them. But that’s not exactly what Jesus says. He doesn’t say, “Blessed are the righteous.” He says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. It’s not enough to be righteous. You have to be desperate for it. You have to ache for it. Without righteousness, these kinds of folk have a visceral and existential, almost carnal, emptiness in the pit of their stomach.
God's Odd Benedictions, III: The Meek
February 25, 2024 • William A. Evertsberg • Matthew 5:1–5
The poor says Jesus, will receive the kingdom. The sad will be consoled. And the meek—what do they get? They get everything. The meek will inherit the earth. Eugene Peterson translates this beatitude like this: “You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.”#_ftn1 Everything that can’t be bought. Is Jesus right about that? #_ftnref1Eugene Peterson in his Bible translation The Message.
God's Odd Benedictions, II: The Sad
February 18, 2024 • William A. Evertsberg • Matthew 5:1–4
Said one Jewish scholar, “It is frustration and sorrow that are our passports to fellowship and sympathy. Life teaches us at every turn how insufferable are those who have never suffered.”#_ftn1 Yes? Have you experienced the insufferability of the unsuffering: the frozen face, the unmoved affect, the narcotic numbness of the unsuffering? When Katie Lancaster and Melanie Flynn train our Stephen Ministers, they know that one of the greatest obstacles they have to overcome is a stubborn lack of self-confidence. “I can’t do this,” they think. “I didn’t go to seminary. I don’t have the skills.” #_ftnref1Slightly adapted from Robert Gordis, Book of God and Man (University of Chicago Press, 1978), p. 114.
God's Odd Benedictions, I: The Poor
February 14, 2024 • Christine V. Hides • Matthew 5:3–12
Ash Wednesday The third graders will also tell you that the secret to learning the unpatterned and unpredictable blessings of Jesus is to use these triangle memory cards which have a blessing on one side, the promise on the other, and when put in order become a mountain. When I asked them to tell me what it means to be “poor in spirit” here’s what the 3rd graders told me: ● It means being in humble ● It means you don’t have a lot of fancy stuff ● It is what you feel when something is really hard or sad They also told me that being blessed means that you can still feel happy and content if you are poor in spirit because the kingdom of God is here, still growing like a tiny seed that will one day be big enough for all the birds of the air to find shelter in its branches, and all creatures to find shade under its canopy. We should be proud of these young people who condensed 2,000 years’ worth of Christian interpretation of this Beatitude into 150 words! Well done!
Jesus’ Grandmothers, I: A Royal but Checkered Pedigree
January 7, 2024 • William A. Evertsberg • Matthew 1:17
Perhaps part of Matthew’s point in giving us this royal but checkered pedigree is to show us that God can use anything, anything at all, to bring about God’s purposes in God’s story on God’s green earth. History happens at this coincidence, this coherence, this meeting, of twisted human connivance and stealthy divine providence, so that despite all the turns and meanderings and dead ends of human history, God comes up with Jesus, the most perfect life that’s ever been lived. God uses what is mixed and fixes what is broken and heals what is sick and points the lost in the right direction.
The Unnamed, XI: Pilate's Wife
March 26, 2023 • Squire Prince • Matthew 27:11–26
Too often, we are so comfortable in our spaces, places, and races that we turn blind eyes to our siblings of humanity who are crying out for relief. We turn our heads to paradise while many, purposely outside of our gaze, are stomped upon by systems of oppression, violence, and hate. We focus on our bubbles of comfort and safety, while many just blocks away from us starve, giving up whatever items they can to have just one more meal, and a moment of warmth. How often are we captivated in fear by how others feel about us? Fear about losing friends or losing social status? So much so that we don’t speak out when others use their power or influence for wrong. We silence ourselves and allow ourselves to be a part of the problem because “that’s not our fight” or to save face and space.
Through Earthly Forms and Folds
January 8, 2023 • Christine V. Hides • Matthew 3:13–17
It is persistent, persuasive grace that sustains our baptismal identities as beloved children of God, called to new life in the divine flow, becoming part of God’s living, liberating, life sustaining work in the world. On our best days, we behave as though we know the truth that we are beloved. Other days, the never ending hustle leads us to three wrong and harmful conclusions about who we are. Theologian Henri Nouwen names them:[1] I am what I have. I am what I do. I am what other people say or think about me. Every new calendar year we are faced with the same pressures. We pledge to save more, achieve that work goal or school award, read more books, get more followers, and organize our messy homes and lives. All of these things can be good and helpful. But they are not who we are. We are more than the schools we went to, the teams we will cheer for during tomorrow night's NCAA football final, more than the job title we hold, more than our GPA and we are more than our bank account balance. Thank God for that. [1] Nouwen, Henri. Spiritual Direction, 25.
In The Meantime, V : Bringing Shiny Gifts to Dark Places
December 25, 2022 • William A. Evertsberg • Matthew 2:1–12
Let me introduce myself. Some through the ages have thought us to be kings—for instance that song you sing, We Three Kings of Orient Are. Others have said that we were priests from Persia. But actually I was neither a king nor a priest. I am, or was, a scholar, an academician, a teacher. ...For us, you see, the planet Jupiter symbolized kingship, and the planet Saturn stood for the lands of Syria and Palestine, and these two portents appearing together in the constellation Leo, or the Lion of Judah, convinced my young colleagues that a Jewish king was to be born in the land of Palestine.
In the Meantime, II : Are You The One?
December 4, 2022 • William A. Evertsberg • Matthew 3:1–12, Matthew 11:2–5
"There are two reasons why these texts are God’s timely word to us via the Common Lectionary this very morning. John the Baptist may have been the Doberman Pinscher of the Gospels, but the world needs its junkyard dogs, right? First of all, the world seems to have returned to the Age of the Herods. When the Berlin Wall fell more than 30 years ago and the Soviet Union collapsed, we thought that democracy had won. It would spread across the entire world like a virus, and despots would disappear. But now in important places of power around the world, there are potentates imposing their puny, pompous prerogatives on citizens who should be free and equal."
In the Meantime, I : The Already and The Not Yet
November 27, 2022 • William A. Evertsberg • Matthew 24:3–44
This Advent at Kenilworth Union Church, Katie and I want to preach this sermon series called “In the Meantime.” But you see why the Common Lectionary wants us to think about this apocalyptic literature on the first Sunday of Advent every year. “Advent” is a Latin word which means “to come,” “to arrive.” And the Lectionary wants us to remember that Jesus is the one who came and will come again. He came long ago to that feeding trough in Bethlehem, and he will come again on clouds of glory as a thief in the night. Christians live between the two Advents.