Doubt. It seems like a timely topic these days. In our world, we look around and see one distressing thing after another: dead emaciated whales their bellies filled with plastic waste, children starving on every continent, new border walls being built around the world to refuse sanctuary to refugees fleeing from war and violence, humanity’s basic fears fueled by self-centered hate-mongering. It’s hard to imagine what comes next.
Last year, the day before Palm Sunday was the March for our Lives against Gun Violence. In the wake of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, Julien and I took our children to the rally and march. Led by the youth of our community, we joined 100,000 people of all ages and skin colors and religious backgrounds, including our bishop Greg Rickel and many Episcopalians. We carried signs, we chanted, we used our physical presence to make a statement about our hope for a future that is different than the one where there continues to be a school shooting every 12 days. [1]
We carried signs. We joined our voices with others. We chanted our protest, our lament, and our beliefs. We used our physical bodies to make a statement about our hope for the future.
Many of us know this parable that Jesus tells today as the Parable of the Prodigal Son. It’s one of the longest parables Jesus tells. And one of the most complex because of the familial relationships. No matter how many times we hear it, we find ourselves in it.
Jesus told parables as a way of engaging his listeners in theologically complex ideas. Parables use a story of some familiar situation to highlight something that doesn’t make sense by the world’s standards. Parables often illustrate some promise of the kingdom of God, the spreading of which Jesus began and we continue. Notably, parables seldom ‘finish’ the story; they usually leave the ending open, the storylines waving in the breeze, as a way of engaging us in living the next part of the story.
We know the feeling of horror and disbelief when unimaginably bad things happen to good and innocent people. When space shuttles filled with the potential of brilliant lives and exploration of the universe explode. When earthquakes and floods, cyclones and hurricanes kill and displace thousands of good-hearted, hard-working families. When someone walks into the halls of education in Newtown, CT, or Parkland, FL, looking for innocents to slaughter. When people praising God are no longer safe in their houses of worship. How do we find sense in these deaths?
Julien and I watch a series called Lucifer. The main character, Lucifer Morningstar has a way of looking deeply into a person’s eyes and asking them, “What is it that you truly desire?” The subject replies with an unconsidered and deeply honest answer. The kind of answer we wouldn’t normally share with our closest friends, much less a very well-dressed stranger who shares a name with the Prince of Darkness. And, yet, we all have those desires in us – to be loved just as we are, for fractured relationships to be repaired, to end violence in the world, for us and our loved ones to feel safe and secure, to know deep peace.
Did you know the word lucifer means light bearer? Could the devil be a light-bearer, inasmuch as our answers to his wily questions shed light into the deepest parts of our souls?
Epiphany. It’s a sudden manifestation or realization of the essential nature of something.
Epiphany. It’s an appearance of a divine being.
Epiphany. It’s an intuitive grasp of reality through something simple and striking.
Epiphany. It’s the season of the church year when we see the divinity of Jesus revealed in both simple and striking ways, unveiling the essential nature of God’s transforming and healing love for all people.
It’s hard to say where an epiphany begins. Does it begin the moment we consciously realize something? Or does it begin around us earlier, before we can name what is happening? Or is an epiphany something we can only name later, as we look back on what has happened and tell the story of it?
We are back with Jesus on the Plain, as we were last week. One thing I’ve noticed about being in the middle of a crowd, when you’ll all on the same level, it’s hard to see much beyond the first couple of rows of faces in the crowd. Jesus is face to face with a crowd of disciples who have come to be healed and to hear him teach. He is IN the crowd, in relationship with the people by sheer proximity. Seeing faces and body language and no perspective on how far the mass of people stretches, smelling food and other odors of humanity, hearing whimpers of babies and groans of aching old people, being touched by everyone who came for healing. Knowing deep needs, fears and desires of humanity, Jesus has just offered a set of blessings and woes that exhort the gathered crowd to live with humility and generosity.
In this next section of the sermon, he talks in more specifics about how we live with our selves, and our motivations for how we relate to our co-human beings - particularly those we don’t like or who seem to stand against us or our values. In a nutshell, he says, “love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return” (Luke 6:35a).
