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On the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. - Luke 24:1-5 Why do you look for the living among the dead? I feel defensive on behalf of the women of Easter when I read this. They had summoned great courage and resolve to come that morning, and they were there to offer a profound act of service and love in anointing Jesus’ body. The strangers in dazzling clothes who appear before them don’t acknowledge this, but seem to chastise them for being foolish. That bothers me. I do want to take their question seriously, though. Why do you look for the living among the dead? Do I ever look for the living among the dead? Do I look for life where I ought to know that no life is to be found? I know that I do. The things I’ve bought and consumed that I allowed myself to think would bring contentment; the precious resources of time and attention that I’ve dedicated to earning others’ approval; the hatred I’ve nursed that I desperately wanted to believe was redemptive. Yes, sometimes I look for life among the dead. But that’s my folly. The women at the tomb on Easter were not foolish, they were not making some naïve mistake looking for Jesus in the tomb. They didn’t look for the living among the dead, because they didn’t know he was living. Nobody goes to a grave to look for a loved one walking out of a tomb. The visitors point out that Jesus had indeed prophesied he would be raised on the third day – “Remember when he said that the Son of Man must be handed over and crucified and rise again…” Point taken, but absolutely nobody heeded those words. Even the disciples who witnessed the many miracles Jesus performed did not believe he would be alive among them on Sunday, after what had happened Friday. That is the gift and the supreme challenge of Easter. The cross is true, it must be believed. Resurrection is also true. You don’t expect it. You see the stone rolled away and you think you must have come to the wrong tomb. You look for any explanation for why the savior could be missing, to avoid the thought he might be alive. Is it because entertaining hope is too painful, since it’s likely to be dashed? I don’t know. But you come looking for the dead among the dead. Easter says, look for the living. Because the dead are raised, against every expectation. Families are restored after vicious discord. Justice does burst into bloom, amidst desolate societies. Wayward ones do arise after crippling addiction. Wars that claim to be eternal are brought to their end. Pain and death are real. Hope is terrifying. Resurrection is true. Happy Easter, friends. Look for the living. Pastor Rob Leveridge The Table meets for worship every Sunday at 11am, at 1435 W 14th St. in Davenport, IA. On Easter Sunday, April 9, 2023, our worship will be outdoors at Emeis Park on West Locust Street, in Davenport, at 11am.

When my little girl asked me why Jesus had to die, she had no idea that entire theological paradigms and overwrought theories of atonement had been built to deal with this very question. She just felt sad about the crucifixion. That’s where we ought to begin, you know. Not with trying to explain it, make it make sense, rationalize the horror as a necessary evil serving some greater purpose. No, we need to start with just feeling the hurt, the pain of loss, the heartbroken desolation that befits any great tragedy. We need to be sad. We can talk about what it means and how the cosmic plan of salvation operates, if that’s what you really want to do, but if we try to skirt the pain and go straight to the hopeful explanation, we proclaim salvation without any stakes, because maybe it wasn’t really that bad, anyway. And sadly, it really was that bad. Some people feel alienated by images of Christ suffering, and that’s nice in it’s own way. The humiliation and abandonment and brutality of the cross should be grotesque and foreign – these shouldn’t be things we recognize from our lived experience. It’s a fortunate position to be in, finding Golgotha unrelatable. But for many of us, the cross makes only too much sense. It’s too familiar, because we know about things like that. I once heard a marine speak about the torture he perpetrated at Abu Ghraib, in Iraq. He did monstrous things, things that broke his own moral code, things that were incompatible with the person he had thought himself to be. But it was a fact - he did these things. He really did. In the years that followed, as he felt his understanding of himself and his nation unraveling, something from his upbringing was becoming more clear. He’d grown up in Catholic church, and always disliked the ubiquitous images of the crucifixion. Now he was drawn to them, particularly those showing the men pounding nails through Jesus’ hands. He realized that those men weren’t evil superhumans. No, he thought. Those are regular guys, ‘just like me’. It’s a terrible thing to look upon the cross with comprehension and familiarity. I know of a survivor of sexual assault and trauma, whose ordeal was compounded by the abandonment of friends and the scorn of her community. When she’d shared the information about the assault, people believed her, but they also blamed her and were protective of the man who assaulted her. She had been brutalized, and when she spoke the truth about it, it cost her almost everything, because of how badly people didn’t want the truth to be true. In the years to come she kept her story confidential, but once told a friend her favorite bible verse was, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” I might be able to tell you why I think Jesus had to die on the cross, though I’m less confident in my explanations than I used to be. What I know better and better over time is simply how many members of this human family have lived the crucifixion – as abusers, as the abused, as onlookers wailing at the foot of the cross. They see Christ’s suffering and say, ‘I have been there. I am there with you, now.’ My prayer for you, friend, is that in your moment of greatest pain and desolation, you would the voice of Jesus, a voice of comfort and love, saying the same thing. God bless you, Pastor Rob Leveridge The Table is gathering for worship on Easter Sunday, April 9, at Emeis Park on West Locust Street in Davenport, at 11am.

On Holy Thursday, when Jesus gathered with his disciples for the last supper, he gave them bread and wine, and spoke words that Christians still say in worship, across these many centuries: “Take and eat, take and drink, this is my body, my blood, broken and shed for you.” The meal we commemorate as Holy Communion took place in the upper room of a house that did not belong to Jesus, or any of the 12. They were all guests that night, in the home of a generous neighbor. The disciples certainly didn’t know the owner of the house, at all. Jesus had sent Peter and John to look for a man carrying a jug of water, and told them to follow him to whatever house he went to. They had no idea who the owner of the home was, and neither do we. The owner’s story, the lifelong journey that led to him hosting that evening, is completely hidden from us. Had this person ever even met Jesus? The bible doesn’t say that he knew the Lord, only that he was expecting them all to visit that day. The room was set up and ready for the group to arrive. They had everything they needed, and because this person made a place for them, we have the story of the last supper. Our faith is anchored in stories. Some are our own experiences of want and plenty, and the times our personal heroes showed what courage and fidelity really mean. Others are stories from tradition and scripture, received across generations as legends of trial and triumph. We return to these stories throughout our lifetimes, seeking exemplars of sacrifice and wisdom, who practice goodness when goodness is greatly needed. All these stories take place on a stage set by hands we don’t see. Uncommemorated people and events enable the things we do see and remember to happen at all. This is a humbling and encouraging thought. It invites us into wonder and gratitude at the unseen saintly mesh that provided this present moment, in which we might serve and love and forgive and be saved. And it reminds us that we need neither credit nor acclaim to share what we have, and set the table for grace. God bless you friends! Pastor Rob Leveridge The Table meets for worship at 11am every Sunday at The Church House, 1435 W. 14th St. in Davenport. Easter Sunday 2023, worship will be outdoors at Emeis Park in Davenport, April 9, 11am.

There’s something beautiful in scenes of Jesus’ birth that I notice more and more each year: Attention. That’s all that’s really happening in most images of the nativity. The baby’s already born, the shepherds have already met the angels. Now, people are simply… there. Gathered around the manger, in loving attention. It’s an image of mindful caring, focused devotion, and immersive wonder. Simon Weil wrote long ago that, ‘attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.’ To know that’s true is to recognize how limited a resource attention really is. It is precious, because we actually have very little of it. We can only give real consideration to one thing at a time, and our waking moments fly into the past with stunning speed. We truly cannot pay attention to very much of what the world presents. It means quite a lot to give your attention to someone or something. Our modern economy certainly knows this. We’ve built systems that reward engagement and attention theft. Every voice competes with the urgency of a smoke alarm to steal our focus away from whatever we’re presently trying to think about. You can’t watch a 5-minute video without an ad cutting in to divert you toward some product or message. How many times did I get distracted from writing this devotional on my internet-connected laptop before I finished it? I’m too embarrassed to count. Again, it means a lot to truly give your attention to someone or something. Another person. A piece of art. A bit of good work. A vision of a better world. Paintings and figurines of the holy family, kneeling in hay and dirt around their precious child, exhibit many things - humility, dignity, trust, affection. Let’s not forget that the nativity is also a picture of dedicated, undivided attention. I have a tiny fleck of discoloration in one of my irises. If you see it, it looks like a flake of gold dust landed on my eye, but almost no one has ever seen it. Only a very few, who have looked attentively at my eyes for extended periods have distinguished it, and it’s because of them that I even know it’s there. I’m humbled by this fact every time I think of it, that another human being has gazed upon me with such care as to notice something so slight. It’s a reminder that in our distractable age, when thousands of pattering gadflies are working to fragment our mindset every moment, even now, true loving attention is indeed one of our options. On Christmas, we’re invited into the nativity. Yes, we’re welcomed into glory. Yes, we’re embraced in exultation. And yes, we are summoned to attention. To turn away from despair and distraction, and to gaze upon the Christ child in humble, profound devotion. What do you think might happen to you, if you chose to give your full, true attention to hope, joy, peace and love, right now? Would you perhaps experience the birth of grace? It’s worth trying. God bless you friends! Pastor Rob Leveridge Christmas Eve Worship at The Table Saturday, Dec. 24, 4pm 1435 W 14th St. in Davenport

In our home garden, the flowers bloom in sequence. My beloved has planted a survey of lilies and peonies and chrysanthemums that mature in turn. In March we see blossoms in one spot, and as they whither, a different flower is opening up nearby, so there are new blooms through October. This week, the communion table at church was adorned with some of the year’s final bouquets. Spiritual truths jump out when I look at flower arrangements. I remember a Sunday School teacher telling me as a kid that no two snowflakes are exactly alike, and that’s how God made people. Each one special, unique and precious. Truly God made everything like that - any rock or leaf or cloud is distinct from every other - and when my wife crafts bouquets, she’s never made two just the same. Her portfolio is like the world - made of difference. The specialness comes from the passion of the artist’s heart. The arrangements are a labor of love and a practice of joy. My girl just loves flowers - planting, tending, pruning, picking and putting them together. It’s fun, it’s a gift. Again, it reminds me of church, when as a kid I was told that God loves to create, to bring life into being and send humans on paths of discovery and service. We are God’s bouquet of flowers, God’s labor of love and joy. And of course, not just human beings but the whole world. Landscapes and water cycles and critters that crawl, swim and soar. God’s holy creativity, God’s labor of love and delight. There’s one spiritual truth I think about now, when I look at flowers, that I didn’t learn as a kid. And that is the glory of brevity. These blooms are here, today. And maybe tomorrow, maybe a few more days, but then, they go. This joy has come, and soon it will have gone. At one time I’d have thought that was sad, regrettable. Too bad flowers don’t last. But now I realize that their brevity and fragility is in large part why we treasure them. They’re special because they’re temporary. Why do people prefer fresh cut flowers to plastic ones? Are they prettier? In many cases, no. Is it their fragrance or how they feel to the touch? That’s probably part of it, but their scent and texture comes from the fact that they are living and passing away. They are beautiful and ephemeral, a gift that fades. It’s their temporary nature that causes us to cherish them, to not take them for granted. We understand that these flowers are a gift for today. That is a reminder that today itself is a gift for today. Tomorrow there will be another day, and there will be flowers after these flowers. But these flowers and this day have to be appreciated for what they are – gifts that will not stay. We ought to treasure them now, because they won’t be here forever. This is true of so much in our lives. The toddler’s mispronunciation of spaghetti. The last day of vacation before loved ones return home. The sharing of bread and cup at Christ’s table on a given Sunday. The treasure is in the truth that this moment is not forever. It’s a gift to be embraced, right here, right now. You are in the midst of holiness. Don’t overlook it, don’t rush through it. The flowers really are beautiful. God bless you! Pastor Rob Leveridge

The words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. What makes something unbelievable? What makes a story nonsense to our ears, an idle tale in our estimation? Someone I loved had cancer, but didn’t get diagnosed for a long time because she wouldn’t see a doctor, even though she had a lot of symptoms. Her cancer got really bad, and the treatment was much worse than it would have been if she’d been diagnosed sooner. She just didn’t want to believe she might have the problem she most feared. For years of the global pandemic, we’ve heard people call Covid 19 an idle tale, and they wouldn’t believe that it was real, or that it was dangerous. Our nation, our communities, our families, have lost a lot of people because of that disbelief. Up until the day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in the news coverage, there were Ukrainian people saying, it’s a big bluff. Putin is not actually going to do anything, he just wants us to think he will. They couldn’t believe things were going to go the way they went. What makes something unbelievable? What makes something seem like an idle tale? It’s not just scary stuff that makes us scoff defensively. Cancer, Covid, War. No, we distrust the good stuff, too. When I was a classroom teacher, I used to call my students’ parents to tell them their kids were doing well at school – they couldn’t believe it. Why are you really calling me? There must be some bad behavior or missing homework. Hard to believe you’d get a call for a good reason. Your crush likes you back? Get out of here. What about more than a crush? Somebody wonderful really, truly loves you. Many people have a hard time believing it’s true when it happens. There’s a man named Derek Amato, who plays the most extraordinary music on piano. He was never taught, he never trained, he says he doesn’t have any actual musical knowledge. One day, as an adult, never having played the piano before, he sat in front of a keyboard and made exquisite music. He could just do it. Well, it didn’t happen from nothing. Derek had a traumatic brain injury, the kind of trauma that kills people. He was in a coma, it was bad, and unfortunately, to this day he has periodic debilitating migraines. But also, after recovering from his injury, he discovered that he could play music that he had never learned how to play. Something happened and his mind and hands knew what to do. When you see him play, and you are told that he was never trained, he never practiced, it just seems crazy. It’s unbelievable. What makes something unbelievable? What makes it seem an idle tale? With bad stuff, we’re capable of believing – catastrophe always seems plausible, but we don’t want it to be true. So we deny it. We refuse to believe. When it’s good stuff, we want to believe, but we don’t think we can. On Easter, the day the women found the empty tomb, the challenge to belief was double. Because Jesus himself was the one who had convinced people to believe. He got them to believe a new way of life was possible, and that a new world was coming to be. They were skeptical, and they had good reasons. But he changed their hearts, he changed their minds. Some thought they could never be forgiven. Some presumed they’d never be loved. Some thought they could never heal. Some were sure they’d never find their way home. Most were convinced that peace was a fantasy and justice a myth. But Jesus helped them believe. Jesus got them to trust that goodness is real, grace is true and compassion is worth the risk. People are not inclined to believe these things, but Jesus had a great effect on the people who heard him. After listening long enough, they believed him. But then, he died. He died, and then everything that had been built up, everything he had helped people to start believing in, was thrown into question. Does the new way you’ve started thinking about your own life hold up, when the person who enabled you to start thinking that way is killed? It’s a good question. After Jesus was crucified his followers were asking, what do we do now? They were also probably asking, who are we, now? What does life even mean, now? And if they were guarded and cynical before they met Jesus, how high are the fortress walls going up now, after everyone who let their guard down has had their hearts shattered? The women discovered that the tomb was empty. Strangers appeared and told them Jesus was risen – could they believe it? They saw the burial shroud lying in a heap on the floor. They believed. Could they convince anybody else that it was true? Not right away. Their words seemed to the other disciples like an idle tale, and they did not believe them. Because they’d taken the risk of believing in Jesus once, and look what happened. You know what this is like. You’ve believed in someone or something, and gotten hurt. It feels terrible, and maybe you regret ever having opened up in the first place. I don’t know. You get to a certain point in your life and don’t want to be naïve. Every lesson you’ve learned has been hard and painful, and you’ve been let down enough times already, thank you very much. Trust is a luxury you can’t afford. I just can’t let myself believe, again. This is a reasonable counterpoint to hope. The only clarification the two people in the dazzling clothes might make, is to say that this new moment, this dawn at the empty tomb, which asks us to have faith, is not a second try. It’s not a do-over. Just give God one more chance. We’re not being asked to believe one more time. Resurrection is not a second turn up at bat. What’s happening at the empty tomb on Easter is the continued unfolding of a story that began long ago. Everything that happened, the beautiful things, the tragic things, the uplifting moments, the horrifying things, it has all led to resurrection. The people in the dazzling clothes say to the women, Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.’ Then they remembered his words. This is the next page of the book. Resurrection is not a new story, not a different story. It’s the next part of the same story. The story in which the road through death, the road through betrayal, the road through suffering leads to new life. Resurrection is not the second attempt by love to triumph. It is the fulfillment of love’s long perseverance. So the friends of Jesus were not being asked to believe in him again. They were being asked to believe in him, still. We are being asked to believe in him, still. This is the heart of faith, this belief that all roads lead to the empty tomb. Jesus showed us a way of compassion, generosity, peacemaking, forgiveness and mercy. When we follow that way, there are many days, when the road is falling out from under us, or the house is collapsing around us. The world is a mess, and there are things so daunting that we doubt whether we’d ever be able to face them and prevail. But faith says that when we stay on the path where Jesus leads, Resurrection, redemption, new life, is on the other side of whatever we’re moving through. The kingdom of God was never going to come without fear or hardship or grief or pain on the way. In fact, the kingdom is found by the very grace and courage that passage through pain requires and summons. That means the life of faith is not easy, but it also means that no hardship, no trauma, no struggle, no pain, can banish the promise of the kingdom. There are things we should believe but don’t want to. There are things we want to believe, but don’t know if we can. Easter says that on the other side of death is new life. And every kind of loss we contend with, terrifying though they may be - the death of a relationship or a dream, the loss of a job or a home, this loss is not the whole story and it is not the end of the story. It is part of the story, on the way to the empty tomb. Because Christ is risen, and he announces redemption and resurrection, to and for the whole world. Even you, even me. Amen.

Do this, in remembrance of me. (Luke 22:13) It’s rare to find a person who fully accepts the fact of their own death. Most of us spend life trying to deny it’s end, pretending we don’t know the truth that’s closest to us, while reveling in the knowledge of distant and meaningless things. Fun fact: Kate Middleton’s wedding bouquet had a flower called Sweet William! Did you know that on Saturn it rains diamonds? Stuff close to home is harder to think about than details that send us off into some other world. Death is where we live, it can’t be avoided, but it’s undeniable presence feels impossible to deal with. Whatever aversion we feel when asked to consider death isn’t unique to our time or society – it was surely felt by Jesus’ friends, on the other side of the world, 2,000 years ago. Depending on how you count the stories, there are about 10 episodes in the gospels, where Jesus tells people he’s going to die. And man, his crew does not want to hear it. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.’ (Matthew 16:22) But of course it was going to happen. Wise counselors have always taught that meditation on life’s end helps to clarify the beauty, meaning and purpose of the days we have left, whatever their number. That’s true, and I know that if I really took it to heart, I’d give myself over to stress about mundane stupidity far less often than I actually do. Jesus’ example in this respect, though, is more than peaceful acceptance of life’s finitude. His life would end not in contented old age, but as a dream cut short, with betrayal, abandonment, mockery and brutality. Jesus didn’t just die; he was killed. Death is not evil; what happened to Jesus was evil. How was he able to face all that, to see it before it happened, and not jump into distraction and denial, the way I do whenever something scary announces it’s inevitable approach to me? I don’t know. There’s always a supernatural quality to courage – it defies explanation to a great degree. But I sense that part of why Jesus did not falter in the face of death, even a horrific death, is that he looked past the end. When he contemplated his final breath, there was more on his mind than the quality of his remaining days, or even his own personal, heavenly future. He was thinking about the people and the world that would live on, after he had left the earth. Certainly that meant those who had heard his voice and looked him in the eyes, but mostly it was the people they would tell about the kingdom, and those people’s children, and the children of those people’s children. Faith says he was thinking all the way forward to you and me, and to those who come after us. At the last supper, Jesus shared bread and cup and said, “Do this, in remembrance of me.” He anticipated the days after his death, and the lives his hearers would lead, without him saying the prayers at dinner. So he told them, when I’m gone, do this. Be like this. Just as we lived in Galilee, just as we gather as guests in a stranger’s home. Welcome. Share. Nourish. Commune. In remembrance. People often ask, “Do you believe in life after death?” A different way of framing the question would be to ask ourselves, “Do I believe in the life of others, after my own death?” Can I see forward in time, and contemplate the lives of those I leave behind, the communities that will nurture other people’s children when I’m gone, and the world, whose resources I’ll no longer use, but which must still provide for generations yet to live? To follow Jesus is to think this way: to love fully, without allowing fear of death to shroud our vision for the world God is still bringing to bear. The Gospel of John says of Jesus, “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” (16:1) It was an ending like dusk, which the wise one knows is part of a story that continues. God bless you friends! Pastor Rob Leveridge

Gifts are complicated. They’re beautiful, they’re wonderful, but they do stir things up. An inheritance comes to a family, or a big donation is given to a church, and arguments begin immediately, as to what should be done with the money. If a person receives a big gift, the people around that person start feeling bad – I wish I could receive a gift like that. How do I rate, next to the person who got this great gift? And if you are the recipient of an extraordinary gift, you may feel self-conscious – it’s too generous, could the giver really afford it? And do you deserve to receive such a gift, if you’ve never been so generous? So you start protesting – Please, you don’t have to do this… Gifts are complicated. Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, ‘Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?’ (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, ‘Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.’ In our scripture, Jesus is at dinner with friends, when one of his disciples, named Mary, begins anointing his feet with nard, a kind of perfumed ointment that was extremely expensive. The text says it was worth 300 denarii. A denarus was a day’s wage for laborers back then, so 300 denarii would have been a normal person’s income for an entire year. That’s a lavish. You might wonder how Mary even had that much money. Was she extremely wealthy? It’s possible. It’s also possible that she spent her life savings on this gift for Jesus. If somebody spent their life savings on something and tried to give it to me, I don’t know if I would be able to accept it. I have been given very generous gifts a few times, and felt very self-conscious receiving them, but nothing on that level. We try to imagine why Mary gave this extraordinary gift, and on the one hand, it’s not difficult understand. This story takes place at the home of Mary, her sister Martha (who is serving dinner), and their brother Lazarus. Not long before this story, Lazarus had been ill, and had died. Jesus travelled to his tomb, and raised Lazarus from the dead. And now, here they are, having dinner. Could you imagine wanting to do something extraordinary, to give something grandiose, to communicate your love and gratitude for someone who had done something so important for you, and for your family? On the one hand, this makes a lot of sense. But on the other hand, we should recognize that it doesn’t need to make sense. People judge other people’s choices, what they do with their money, and what kind of gifts they choose to give. The question is always insinuated, is a gift appropriate? Is it justified? Is it okay for someone to give this gift? Somebody bought a certain car for their kid on their 16th birthday, and I have thoughts. But this story is telling us that we are not entitled to decide whether Mary should do what she has chosen to do. It’s her choice, she has her reasons. Maybe we would approve if we knew her reasons, maybe we would not. But that decision is not ours to make. Judas says the things we’re at least thinking. 300 denarii, a year’s income – that money would be better spent on something else, other than smelly ointment for Jesus’ feet. He’s gonna have fragrant piggies, and then… what? And now all that money is gone. It’s her money, or perhaps it is Martha’s and Lazarus’ and Mary’s money together, she has done with this money what she or they have chosen, and onlookers have opinions. You and I have opinions about what other people do with their money. People freak out over the fleeting nature of the gift. It’s so expensive and then it’s just gone. Like a bottle of wine that costs $3,000 and then… you just drink it? And it’s gone. This seems crazy, but then I think of things in my life that cost a lot – money, time, energy - and they don’t last. I was in theater when I was a kid, and my children are in plays, now. The productions take so much work. Months of preparation, singing, dancing, blocking, set construction, costumes, so much time and work, and it costs a lot of money to put on a play. So much investment, and after all of it, they perform the play, a few times, and then it’s done. You don’t get to keep the play, you can’t sell it later, the way you can sell a house when you’re done living there. Parents aren’t even allowed to record the performance. So many have given so much, in order for this play to happen, and then it’s done. It’s over. And maybe some people looking on, will see the cost, and think it’s crazy to do all that for a play. It’s ludicrous to give that much time and energy and money, for something that doesn’t last. But the people who do it, love it. For them, it’s worth it. If anybody else doesn’t understand, fine. They don’t need to understand. We have chosen to do this. Yes, it costs a lot, and it’s what we want to do. Mary spent an enormous amount of money on this ointment, so she could give it to Jesus. It’s what she chose to do. The gospel of John actually includes several stories that feature what you might call over-the-top generosity. Jesus and the disciples feed a crowd of 5,000 people with a few fish and a loaves of bread – there were 12 baskets of leftovers. There’s a resurrection story in which the disciples have gone fishing but caught nothing. Jesus appears and tells them to lower their nets one more time, and they pull up 153 fish. That’s more than they needed for breakfast. Have you ever heard of Jesus turning water into wine? The story is in the gospel of John, and in the story, Jesus gives this party about 180 gallons of wine. Is that excessive? It was abundantly generous, for sure. When Mary gives an extravagant gift, in her way she is acting like Jesus. Jesus gives, boldly, extravagantly, decisively. And just like Judas raised the objection to Mary giving the ointment, people objected to Jesus doing what he had decided to do. Jesus gave his life in the end, and his disciples tried to dissuade him from doing what he needed to do. In the story of the ointment, Judas and Mary are really treated as countervailing examples. The text emphasizes the contrast between them. She is generous, and he is said to be a thief, looking to take for himself. When Judas says the ointment should be sold for money they could give to the poor, it’s because he kept the purse, and wanted to skim some off the top. This opposite equivalence continues. Mary anoints Jesus with ointment because she understands and believes what he’s been saying about his trial and death. Judas and the other disciples have been in denial about all that. Judas speaks his objection to Mary’s generosity, but does nothing to indicate his commitment the cause of Jesus. Mary says nothing; all she does is act. In this story, Mary provides an example of the truly faithful disciple; Judas shows what a fickle and corrupted disciple looks like. We must remember though, that they are both disciples of Jesus. We should never say, Mary is a real disciple, and Judas was a fake, an interloper! No, they’re both disciples, and they both exist in each of us. We all have both generosity and greed inside of us, of course we do. We have both devotion and corruption, both truth and deceit, and we are always being called upon to decide which kind of disciple we’re going to be, in this moment and the next. But before we’re done with this story, let’s do consider the point that Judas made. Because even if he was trying to pull some shady dealings, and he didn’t really care about the poor, the thing that he said is actually true. The money spent on the expensive gift of ointment really could have been given to the poor, and it would have helped people. Judas himself may have had cynical reasons for saying that, but it’s still true. We need to take this point seriously, because it applies to anything that we might spend money on, beyond the food and shelter we need to live. If you buy a new t.v. you could have given that money to buy blankets for the homeless, or food and medicine for refugees. It’s true. And if you spend time, doing anything just for enjoyment, like acting in the theater, or learning play the violin, or even just watching the sunset, well you could have spent all that time, volunteering at the food pantry or something. This is true. It reminds me of the end of the movie Schindler’s List, which is about the holocaust how Jewish people suffered and survived. It’s a terribly difficult movie to watch, but it is a masterpiece. The German character Schindler is a captain of industry, and he profits off the war, until midway through the story, he decides to use his money to basically purchase people as workers, whom the Nazis were sending to death camps. In this way, he saves the lives of hundreds of people, but at the end, all he can think about is the people he didn’t save. He spent his entire fortune, but he still had a really nice car, and if he had sold that car, he would have had enough money to save a few more people. Even his overcoat he could have sold, or the ring on his finger, could have brought money to save another person. It’s a devastating cinematic moment, and you have to contend with the truth of what he’s saying – he saved 306 but could he have saved 307? Could he have done more? When Judas says the ointment could have been sold for money to give to the poor, he’s right. We shouldn’t dance around it; it’s true. So we need to listen closely to Jesus’ response. He doesn’t dispute Judas’ point, but he says, Mary bought this ointment to save it for my burial. You will always have the poor with you. You will not always have me. I have heard people interpret those words, “The poor will always be with you.” to mean that Christians don’t need to worry about helping the poor. That’s a terrible interpretation that is antithetical to Jesus’ broad moral teaching, and also technically incorrect. When Jesus says, ‘the poor will always be with you, he’s actually quoting scripture. He’s referring to the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 15, which reads: “Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so, for on this account the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. Since the poor will always be with you on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbour in your land.’ The fact that the poor will always be with you is the reason you should always help. Just like, there will always be children who need to learn how to read, so we must always be teaching kids to read. You wouldn’t say, well there’s always gonna be kids who don’t know how to read, so what’s the point of literacy education? That would be absurd. Jesus affirms the fact that God expects God’s people to help the poor. It’s who we are, it’s what we must do. And generosity to the poor is not something we do one time, with a big showy demonstration. No, we must always care, and help and give. All the time. And. There are other things that we do in our lives, as well. Things that are meaningful and beautiful and good and right, in their own way. If you spend time painting or sailing or hiking or whatever you love to do, you’re not committing a moral transgression, just because you’re doing something that enriches your personal life. And if you choose to give someone you love a generous and costly gift, because you care about them, and you want to, it’s ok. Because we also know as Christians, that Jesus is not going to just validate our comfort zones. He is constantly pushing us, challenging us, to see our neighbor in the stranger, to summon compassion and forgiveness in a bitter and hostile world, and to give of ourselves in ways that are difficult. Mary was a follower of Jesus, we know she was dedicated to serving the poor, healing the sick, feeding the hungry, because that’s the Jesus movement was all about. But in this moment, she chose to do something that was less about the movement as a whole and more about the personal love for Jesus that she wanted to express. Sometimes you’re focused on making the world a better place, and sometimes you’re just trying to do something beautiful and kind for someone that you know. The two are not mutually exclusive. How do you know where the line is supposed to be, and which kind of giving is most right on this day or the next? I don’t have a great answer for that, but maybe pray about. There’s a lot of people in the world praying that God will destroy their enemies. If you pray, God what is the best form of kindness for me to practice today? My guess is, God will be glad to hear from you. Amen.

Fiona Hill is a diplomat and a former US intelligence officer who focused on Russia and Ukraine. She’s been on a lot of news shows since the war began, and she’s told a story of attending a fancy state dinner, quite a regal event, with people from many nations, and she was seated next to Vladimir Putin. A captivating detail that she observed was that Putin went the entire evening without eating or drinking anything. Plates were set before him, and 20 minutes later taken away, untouched. Several courses. He never even took a sip of water. Her conclusion was that he’s afraid of being poisoned. Security measures at this event were already extreme, and of course, world leaders always have to take precautions to stay safe. But Putin takes things to a different level. Of course, he himself has ordered the assassinations of many journalists, political rivals, and others who might be critical of his rule. If he’s afraid of being poisoned, he’s afraid of someone doing to him what he has done to so many. When a dictator uses brutal tactics to achieve his goals, he probably sees violence as a solution to a problem. Hurting or killing an opponent is a way that he can remain free to do what he wants to do, right? But Putin has created a situation in which he feels unable to take even a sip of water in the presence of other people, for fear that his own tactics will be used against him. Sometimes, the things we believe will free us, actually imprison us. I think of addiction stories, vary a lot from person to person, but a certain theme shows up in many people’s experience. There is some terrible thing that a person is trying to escape. It could be grief, it could be trauma. It could be physical pain from some injury. It could be social anxiety or self-loathing, but a person has something going on, that feels too difficult, too painful for them to deal with. And so the person drinks or uses, as a way to escape from this scary, painful thing. Again this is not everyone’s addiction story, but it’s common. And something people in this situation often discover is that alcohol or drugs, despite being used as a method of escape, actually become a prison. A person trying to get free of their pain gets locked up, in a chemical dependency which creates all kinds of new pain. Sometimes, the things we believe will free us, actually imprison us. Money can function this way, too. Money can improve a person’s life and happiness dramatically, if you go from not having enough to eat and stay warm, to having enough food on the table. But above a certain modest income, more doesn’t make people happier, and in some cases people have more stress when they get more money, because they start to consume more things and they have more bills and there is more pressure to pay for everything. It’s strange to think that people could look back and say they had less money trouble when they had less money, but that does happen. Sometimes, the things we believe will free us, actually imprison us. Luke 13:10-17 Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, ‘Woman, you are set free from your ailment.’ When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, ‘There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.’ But the Lord answered him and said, ‘You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?’ When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing. In today’s scripture, Jesus performs a miracle for a person he sees while he is teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath. It’s a healing miracle – the woman has some kind of back problem, and she hasn’t been able to stand up straight for 18 years. Although he does heal her, Jesus doesn’t use the language of healing in this story. He doesn’t call it healing. Instead, he talks about being set free. This woman had been bound, imprisoned by her affliction, and Jesus’ gift was to release her. She was not going to be held captive, anymore. The language of bondage and freedom rings true. When your body is not well, over a long period of time, you don’t just feel sick, you don’t just feel injured, although you do feel those things. You feel caught, trapped, chained. You want to be free of this thing. When I think of the woman in this story, I wonder, what must she have tried, or what would she have been willing to try, in order to get free of her affliction? If she were living in our time, would her story have become part of the opioid epidemic? During those long 18 years, was she in danger of becoming imprisoned by something else, as she sought freedom from her ailment? When Jesus touched her, she was finally freed. Finally, at long last. The fact is, so many of the people Jesus healed in the gospels had been suffering for years, or even their entire lives. The miracle creates a new beginning for them, but they have not been spared hardship. No, life has been very difficult. And sometimes, the healing never comes. Most famously in the bible, the Apostle Paul had some kind of physical affliction that he asked the Lord to free him from, and it didn’t happen. But he did still believe that God was freeing him, and giving him the strength in the midst of hardship, to live by grace, with courage. That reliance on grace is necessary for anybody who is waiting on miracle. Because you don’t know if a miracle is coming, or what form it might take. Imagine talking to the woman in the story after she’d been suffering for ten years, and trying to encourage her to believe that one day her back would be healed. She’d been suffering ten years. So we know she must’ve found a way to accept what was happening with her physically, to live with it even if she wasn’t at peace with it, and to carry on. People with disabilities are often the strongest people you will meet, because of the challenges they live with. And part of how she lived with her condition was her faith. She practiced her faith, she went to synagogue on the Sabbath, prayed the prayers, listened to the scriptures, heard the ancient stories of God’s covenant with God’s people. That’s why she was there the day Jesus saw her in the crowd. It was the Lord’s day, and she was a church lady. And this is where the story becomes supremely ironic, because when she is healed, amidst a congregation of people who are gathered to express their faith, the faith leaders get mad. It’s the Sabbath day, and a healing miracle is work. You’re not supposed to do work on the Sabbath. The leader even says - there’s six days for working; healings should happen on those days, not this day. Jesus is pretty frustrated by this reaction, and he calls the guy a hypocrite on the spot. But the hypocrisy is not about the rules, and the Sabbath is not really about work. It’s about freedom. So Jesus doesn’t say, ‘you hypocrites! You know you work on the Sabbath, too sometimes!’ No, he says, if you have an animal that tied up, bound, you untie your donkey or your ox on the Sabbath, you release it, you set it free, so that it can get a drink. Of course you do, it needs water. If a person needs to be freed, the Sabbath is the best time for it, because the Sabbath is the Lord’s day, and the Lord sets people free. God set our Hebrew ancestors free from bondage in Egypt; Jesus spoke the words of the Prophet Isaiah, saying he was anointed to let the captives go free and set at liberty those who were oppressed. The Sabbath day itself frees people from back-breaking toil at the end of the week, every week. Rest, sacred rest, divinely ordained rest, is freedom. The Sabbath is meant for freedom, but the religious leader in this story, has allowed to become a prison. Faith is meant to liberate. But very often, religion doesn’t feel like freedom. Feels more like bondage. The leader of the synagogue would rather this woman not be healed than have her healed on the wrong day. Some religious leaders would rather people not get married than marry the wrong gender, or reject science if it doesn’t align with a literal reading of the bible. So often religious conversations focus on what we can’t think, or are not supposed to do, rather than helping us see everything that God is making possible. Because God is doing beautiful, transformative work, all the time. Setting people free, from violence, from greed, from sickness, from fear. It’s God’s gift of freedom, not God’s power to control, that makes God worthy of praise. And as we see it, as we see Jesus setting people free, to live, to love, to serve, to thrive, let’s not try to lock them back up.

As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’ - Luke 7:11-7 ...a man from the crowd shouted, ‘Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child. Suddenly a spirit seizes him, and all at once he shrieks. It throws him into convulsions until he foams at the mouth’ Jesus answered, ‘You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you? - Luke 9:37-43 If you’re a little disturbed by such harsh and un friendly words coming from the mouth of Jesus in that second reading, you’re not alone. For many of us, it’s frankly alarming to imagine that Jesus was ever impatient or unsympathetic to people asking him for help. We expect Jesus to be the voice of comfort and encouragement, offering reassurance and grace. That’s certainly what we get in the first reading. Jesus has compassion; Jesus helps because he cares. Why is there such a big difference in how Jesus speaks to a grieving mother one day and a distraught father on another? Can we live with the idea that Jesus was sometimes more and sometimes less generous with the people he met? After all, the two scenarios have a lot in common – Jesus encounters somebody who is thought to be beyond help, but Jesus is able to help him. In both stories, Jesus deals with the parent of the person who needs a miracle, and in both stories, the person in need is the parent’s only son. In the first case, Jesus is tender and kind with a woman whose son has died. “He had compassion for her,” the scripture says. In the second, when a man begs Jesus to help his son who has violent, epileptic seizures, Jesus is angry and judgmental, saying “‘You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I bear with you?” He still heals the boy, but he’s quite agitated in the moment. It’s shocking, and you wonder why Jesus reacted this way. Was the first parent more worthy of Jesus’ sympathy and help than the second? Did the second parent do something offensive that set Jesus off? The text doesn’t indicate any such thing. Both parents only wished for their sons to be well. No desire could be more basic, and nothing could be more right. And so I think the difference in how Jesus speaks to them comes from what’s going on within Jesus, himself. He hasn’t changed into a different person from one story to the next; his desire and readiness to help people remains the same. But there are ways we see Jesus’ experience of his own life and work evolving, as time goes on, and the burden of fulfilling his calling became something new, the longer he ministered. I don’t think it was ever easy to be Jesus, but it got harder as the days went by. The story of the widow at Nain is found in Luke, chapter 7, and the deliverance of the young boy happens in Luke 9. Reading this whole section, you see Jesus’ mission, message and struggles becoming more acute. At times during these chapters, it seems like the principles and practice of the Jesus movement are truly taking hold, and the people who follow Jesus are inaugurating a divine reality of peace, provision and goodwill. Then, you read a couple more verses, and it’s all setbacks, obstinance and slander, that make you feel like nobody’s actually trying to see the kingdom come, at all. I wonder how this affected Jesus. Did he feel discouraged, disappointed, maybe even jaded, at times? How did his disciples experience his mood and tone? Was there more frustration and less good cheer? And as people kept asking for miracles, did Jesus begin to feel used, by people who didn’t actually want to follow him? I don’t know the answers to these questions, it’s just stuff I think about. I think about the third beloved son mentioned in these chapters of Luke, between the son of the grieving mother, and the son of the distraught father. It’s Jesus, himself. The day before Jesus delivered the boy from the demon, he’d been up on a mountain with three of his disciples, Peter, James and John. They witnessed him transfigured in glory, and heard a voice from God, saying, “This is my beloved Son, the Chosen One.” Jesus was a beloved son, and he knew that that he was going to suffer, but despite doing so much for so many, when his tribulation came, almost no one would be there for him. If you’ve felt worn out, depleted, and like all you ever do is give, to a world that only wants to take, and you’ve got your own stuff to worry about – painful things, scary things – and still you have to give and give, well, you may have found yourself speaking impatiently and uncharitably to people, even though you did still care about them. You don’t want to be mean, but you’re just speaking out of what you’re going through. This is a thing that happens with human beings. Back up on that mountain, when God told the disciples that Jesus was God’s son, God said one more simple thing. First, “The is my beloved son, my Chosen One.” And then, “Listen to him!” I think it’s hard, whether you’re Jesus Christ, or a police officer or a classroom teacher, or a medical doctor, when people want your help, they want you to do things for them, but they don’t want to listen to you. About 9 months ago, I started reading articles about burnout among doctors and nurses caring for Covid patients. They weren’t just overworked; they were struggling to serve patients who’d refused to get vaccinated, and who had rejected all the information that doctors had been giving them about the pandemic. But then, when they got Covid, and got real sick, and found themselves at death’s door, they expected doctors and hospitals to take care of them, and save their lives. Of course, the doctors did take care of them, and when possible, they did save their lives. But they were made weary and jaded, from being asked to heal people who would not listen, over and over again. One doctor said that her well of compassion was almost dry. Was something like this going on with Jesus? I don’t know, but maybe. Jesus’ heart to help people, to bless them, to care for them, didn’t change. But perhaps his perspective was evolving with time and experience. One compelling fact about the gospel of Luke is that, as Jesus’ ministry progresses, he actually performs fewer miracles. The stories with large crowds and Jesus healing people dawn to dusk are closer to the beginning of the narrative. By the halfway point in the story, Jesus is healing just one person, every now and then. In Jerusalem, during his last week before he is crucified, Jesus doesn’t heal anybody. Something about Jesus’ relationship to this aspect of his work changed, over time. Has that kind of thing ever happened to you? Something that was central to what you did and who you were, became less central? Was it a conscious choice you made, or something you barely noticed as the shift was taking place? If the change was deliberate for Jesus, I wonder what his reasons were. If I had to guess, I’d say that Jesus’ miracles were not achieving all of what he intended. The miracles were meant to be more than what was happening in the moment. When Jesus healed or fed someone, it was of course to meet some immediate tangible need. But it was also to show people – this is how we are meant to be together. We help. We share food. We invest in one another’s healing. But having witnessed Jesus’ miracles, were people taking on the values they represented? Imagine somebody wins the lottery, 10 million dollars, let’s say. And she decides to give all the money away. Now, in immediate terms, she’s probably thinking, I can really help some people out, by giving them money. But in a much bigger sense, she’s thinking, I want inspire the world to be generous. I want to give what I have, so that people will be encouraged to believe that they can give what they have. That’s the plan, but as soon as she starts giving away money, people just flock to her, with their hands out. Hey, can I have some? And she gets a lot of praise and admiration for being so generous, but what she really wanted was for everyone to give the way she was giving. She was trying lead, by example, and after doing it for a while, she starts asking herself, does anybody even care about what I’m saying? Does anybody care why I’m doing what I’m doing? Or do people just want my money? Jesus wants to give good things to us. He wants heal us. He wants to feed us. He wants to welcome us. He loves you, and he loves me. But if we really accept Jesus into our hearts, it means more than just taking whatever blessings we can get that he’s giving out. It means taking up the cause of Christ, and choosing to walk the path upon which he leads us. Jesus loves, and asks us to love. He gives, and expects us to give. He healed the sick, and now entrusts the sick to his disciples. He triumphed over the violence of the cross, and now asks us to face violence as peacemakers. I pray all the time, and I ask Jesus to help me, and to help people that I love. I hope that I never hear the voice of Jesus shouting back at me, as I pray, calling me faithless and perverse. But if I do, I know the question I’ll need to ask: Have I been willing to give my life to Jesus, as I asked Jesus to bless me? Amen.

After Jesus had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. A centurion there had a slave whom he valued highly, and who was ill and close to death. When he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to him, asking him to come and heal his slave. When they came to Jesus, they appealed to him earnestly, saying, “He is worthy of having you do this for him, for he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us.” And Jesus went with them, but when he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to say to him, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; therefore I did not presume to come to you. But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed. For I also am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and the slave does it.” When Jesus heard this he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, he said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” When those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health.That’s quite a thing for Jesus to say, there at the end. That he has never seen such faith, even in Israel. He said that about the centurion who asked him to heal his servant. - Luke 7:1-10 That’s quite a thing for Jesus to say, there at the end, that he has never seen such faith, even in Israel. He said that about the centurion who asked him to heal his servant. By this point in the gospel story, a lot of people have come to Jesus and asked him for healing. Healing for themselves, or healing for somebody that they care about. Every one of those people must have been acting on faith, right? We certainly see in the text that their faith matters to Jesus. There are several episodes in gospels, wherein people’s faith affects Jesus, and he speaks to it. A woman who has struggled with bleeding for years seeks Jesus out just to touch him in a crowd, and Jesus says to her, “Your faith has made you well.” Jesus heals a group of 10 people with skin diseases, from a distance; nine run away cheering but one comes back to Jesus to thank him, and Jesus says to this person, “Your faith has healed you.” A group of people brings their friend, who is paralyzed, to Jesus, but they can’t get in the house where Jesus is teaching, because it’s too crowded. So they climb up top and lower their friend down through a hole in the roof. The bible says that when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the friend, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ And he healed him. People come to Jesus in faith, and he sees how sincere powerful their faith is. So what is it about the centurion’s faith, that leads Jesus to say he has never seen faith like this? Well, let’s look at the story step by step. This episode appears in the gospel of Luke and the gospel of Matthew; it’s set in the city of Capernaum, on the northern coast of the sea of Galilee, which is where a lot of important Jesus stories take place. Jesus is beseeched for help by a centurion, whose servant is ill and dying, and the centurion is desperate for help. A centurion was a Roman military leader. He commanded a unit of soldiers, called a ‘Century’, which I always assumed was a hundred soldiers, but having looked it up this week, apparently it was about 80. A high-ranking Centurion might command multiple centuries. This character is a reminder to all of us, that the whole Jesus story takes place in the context of imperial domination. Jesus’ homeland was conquered and occupied by armies, and subjugated as part of the Roman empire. There was a military presence in the places where Jesus traveled and ministered. Roman soldiers aren’t mentioned per se in a given gospel story, we know that the story took place in a country under military occupation. The Romans used violence and the threat of violence, to impose order, and extract resources from communities, in the form of taxes. Rebellions against Roman rule periodically, and they were always crushed, mercilessly. It’s important for us to remember that when Jesus died, he was killed by the Romans. He was crucified, which was a Roman thing. Jews did not crucify people. In fact the only other time a centurion appears in the gospels, besides today’s reading, is at the crucifixion, when a centurion near the cross watches Jesus die, and says, “Surely this is God’s son.” The presence of Romans in Israel during Jesus’ ministry, is of course relevant to current events in Ukraine. Putin wants to be like Caesar. He commands a fearsome fighting force, and has invaded a neighboring country with ferocious violence. His plan is to conquer the cities and people of Ukraine, and use the nation’s resources for his benefit. The Ukrainian people are fighting fiercely against the invaders, and their hatred for Putin and the Russian military grows every day. If we can imagine how Ukrainians feel about the Russian military in their country, we can imagine how ordinary Jewish people in Galilee, would have felt about a centurion in their town, in Jesus’ day. He would have been hated, and feared. He would have been seen as the enemy and the oppressor. With this in mind, it’s more and more compelling to consider that this is the person who Jesus says has a faith like he’s never seen before. Wow, this guy? I mentioned that this story appears in both Matthew and Luke. One interesting difference between the two versions of this story is that, in Matthew, the centurion himself comes up to Jesus on the road, and asks for help. But in Luke, the centurion sends people on his behalf to speak to Jesus. In fact, in Luke, we never see the centurion, we only hear about his request. And we can tell in Luke, that Roman soldiers were despised, because the centurion sends a group of Jewish elders to bring his request to Jesus. Their job is to make a case for the centurion, to convince Jesus that he should be help the centurion, assuming that Jesus’ natural inclination would be to not help a centurion, because centurions are the enemy. The elders say to Jesus, essentially, “We know you probably hate centurions, and so do we, but this centurion is a good person. He is righteous, and he actually loves our people. He’s not like the other centurions, he is worthy of help. In fact, he actually gave us money to build synagogue. So we vouch for this person.” And Jesus goes with them. Did he go because the elders persuaded him? I don’t think so. I think Jesus healed people because he cared them, and certainly the servant’s life mattered more to Jesus than the centurion’s righteousness or unrighteousness. But it’s clear that the elders expected that Jesus would not want to help in this situation, and they thought they needed to persuade him. Jesus goes with them, but before they get to the house, another group of messengers intercepts them bringing a second message from the centurion. “Please don’t come,” the centurion says, I’m not worthy to have you enter my house. In fact, I’m not worthy to come and speak to you, in person. Don’t come to my house. Just say the word, and I know my servant will be healed. The next part of the centurion’s message is absolutely crucial. He says, I understand authority. I have authority. I have people around me do whatever I tell them to do. They come and go as I please. For years, whenever I read this story, I thought the centurion was bragging, telling Jesus Christ how important and powerful he was. But at some point I realized this could not possibly be the case. I mean, if expressing his power was the centurion’s goal, he didn’t need to explain it. He could have sent his soldiers to Jesus. We can imagine that, right? A military commander hears about a miracle worker traveling from town to town, and since his prized servant is gravely ill, he sends a detachment, brandishing swords and shields, to go arrest the miracle worker, bring him in, and procure a healing at the point of a spear. Sure we can imagine that. After all, what is the point of having soldiers if you’re not going to use them to get the things that you want? The centurion does not do that. Quite the contrary, he puts his tools of domination aside, and actually relies on the good graces of people he’s tasked with subjugating, to bring his petition for him. When he tells Jesus not to enter his home, he’s saying, ‘all of my power, all of my authority, is nothing compared to you. With all my wealth, and position and armament, I am still unworthy. I see in you an authority that I have never possessed.” He said this to Jesus of Nazareth, the itinerant preacher, who had no money, no swords, no armies, didn’t even know if he’d have a bed to sleep in on any given night. The centurion who asked Jesus for help, was an extremely powerful person who recognized that his power, despite the fear it bred in the people around him, was not proof of greatness. He perceived that greatness is in those who serve and heal, which is what he saw in Jesus. And so, from his position of power and authority he chose to humble himself. This is something that Jesus urges his followers to do, all throughout his ministry, such as when he brought a small child to the front of a crowd of adults, and said, “you must become like this child to enter the kingdom of heaven. Those who humble themselves like this child, will be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. This is something Jesus himself demonstrated when, on the night he was betrayed, he knelt with a basin of water and washed his disciples’ feet. Jesus urges us to humble ourselves, to let the last be first, to serve and care for the least among us. And it hard for us to relinquish whatever power or privilege or status or wealth we may have. Whether we’re low down or high up in the social or economic strata, we don’t want anyone who’s beneath us to be elevated, and we don’t want to be diminished, whatever our status might be. When I played little league, I was the second-worst hitter on my team, and I thanked God for that other kid – because of him I knew I was better than at least somebody. Jesus wants me to throw that thinking away. The centurion humbled himself. In reverence for Jesus and his compassion for his servant, he laid down his power, his authority, and any thoughts he was tempted to have about his own greatness. He laid these things down, so that somebody else could be raised. And Jesus said he had never before found someone with faith like that. If the centurion was the first, he need not be the last. You and I can have faith like that, too. Amen.

We are witnessing a stunning and horrific assault on the people and nation of Ukraine, by Vladimir Putin and his allies. Here are some suggestions for Christians trying to discern what the best responses to this violence might be. Reckoning and Repentance Putin is a war criminal, and we must resist the temptation to ennoble ourselves by comparison. It is right and holy for Americans in particular to listen to Putin’s ludicrous rationalizations for his brutality, and remember times we’ve allowed our leaders to argue that American wars were legitimate, when they were not. In late 2002, American leadership had decided to invade Iraq, and spent months convincing the populace that it was the right thing to do it. It wasn’t, and the reasons they came up with to defend their decision were proven in time to be obfuscation and lies. The same can be said of a multitude of American military campaigns in Latin America and Vietnam. None of those situations is the same as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in terms of geopolitical context and on-the-ground details (Saddam Hussein was guilty of the worst human rights abuses imaginable, and nothing in Ukraine’s contemporary life should be compared to that). But there is a common thread in the way a powerful nation wages war on a less powerful nation, using a self-serving and dishonest story. Invaders must tell themselves and their people a fiction of their own righteousness. Nobody goes to war believing they are the bad guys. In order for us to meaningfully confront the lies Putin tells today, we must confess our sins as a nation in all the years leading up to now, and commit ourselves to rejecting false justifications for dehumanizing violence, going forward. We cannot allow brutality to be perpetrated in our society, or in our name throughout the world. Christians confess and Christians repent. We must reckon with how we have been wrong, in order to do what is right. Creativity The overwhelming brutality of an unprovoked military invasion is a shock to the senses, something we’d all like to believe would never happen, despite the evidence of history. In moments like this, it’s natural to assume that the only possibilities are to outdo the aggressors in aggression, destroy the destroyers, get more bombs than your attacker, or otherwise to submit, or to run away. Ukrainians are fighting bravely and impressively in defense of their country, but everyone understands that Russia has more troops and bombs to send than Ukraine can defeat on its own. Even if they can prevail militarily, for every day of the war more babies will be bombed in their cribs, and more of the nation will be wreckage whenever Ukrainians are able to rebuild their lives. The rest of the world, observing this trauma, must resolve not to accept Putin’s aggression, while discerning how to stop the assault without inaugurating world war three. Never has there been a greater need for creative non-violent resistance to an evil-doer, by people of goodwill. Various sanctions on Russian banks and oligarchs are undermining the financial vitality of Putin’s regime, and proving that helping a wrongdoer feel the pain of their own actions can be a component in changing their decisions going forward. Not the whole solution but a critical piece. Another essential element of nonviolent resistance is the simple act of story-telling. We are learning that many Russian soldiers are quite ignorant of Putin’s plans for the military campaign they are a part of. Their lives are on the line in this senseless war, and facts about their leaders’ recklessness are essential information for them to understand. As journalistic reporting and crowd sharing of facts abound, some Russians are getting the support they need in understanding that their country is on the wrong side of this conflict. Truth-telling is courageous work, part of the fight that doesn’t involve bullets and bombs. One more essential way that the nations of the world must creatively respond to this war is the embrace and empowerment of refugees. Hundreds of thousands of vulnerable Ukrainians have fled their homes, and yes this is a story of trauma and desperation. But it is also an opportunity for the greater fellowship of nations to welcome and care for an abused people. Communities are always strengthened by their own hospitality and generosity. But beyond that, imagine a restored Ukraine, years in the future, in which hundreds of thousands of people return home with lifelong bonds of friendship tying them to other nations that helped them in their hour of need. What could be better for peace in the tomorrow’s world than that? Trust The heart of Christianity is our faith in a savior who did not imitate his abusers. Jesus did not repeat and multiply the domination of those who attacked him. His ultimate triumph in the resurrection and the coming kingdom is a repudiation of the evil inflicted upon him, and upon all who are brutalized by dehumanizing violence. The faithful Christian then asks, How can we confront an evil-doer, without becoming, or behaving like, the evil-doer? This must be our prayer: Gracious God, bring peace into this story of strife, and show us how to help. War has descended upon Ukraine, and people are already dying in large numbers. There is no escaping this moment without bloodshed, and the violence of those defending their homes and families is justified. But there is a path forward from this moment that leads to ever-greater destruction, exponential atrocity. There is also a path that leads to slowly blooming peace and hard-won healing. We who believe in Jesus must follow him on this second path, and commit whatever he asks of us, in service of salvation. For Ukraine, and for the world. God bless you friends! Pastor Rob Leveridge