New Covenant—15 Sept 24 (was 16 Sept 18)
Mark 8
27 Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” 28 And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” 29 He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.”[h] 30 And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.
31 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
There is nothing quite like a good disguise.
And nowhere is this more obvious than in films. Think Tootsie (1982) where Dustin Hoffman plays a notoriously difficult actor who must dress as a woman in order to find work. Or Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), where Robin Williams plays a divorced father who dresses up as a nanny to spend time with his children. Or Some Like it Hot (1959), where Tony Curtis and Jack Lemon dress as women to escape the mob, or to lounge around with Marilyn Monroe. Or both, really.
And disguises, of course, are not limited to famous actors putting on dresses. In The Parent Trap (1961), twins Susan and Sharon (both played by Hayley Mills) meet at Miss Inch’s Summer Camp for Girls and discover that they are literally “twins separated at birth.” Adopting the same hairstyle and mannerisms they switch places, a simple but effective disguise.
And there is the disguise we also call “slumming.” A famous example is Sir Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of Henry V (yes, I know it was a play before it was a film) where King Henry puts on the cloak of someone of lower rank and moves among his troops to learn how they feel about their king and the looming battle. He uses the not-very-convincing name Henry Leroy (literally French for Henry the king) and tells people he’s Welsh (well, he was once the Prince of Wales). I love the film, but recognize that it’s really just Sir Kenneth’s excuse to make the famous speech:
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
That’s the closest I’ll ever get to the stage. I share all this because the reading I shared is all about disguises. Listen again:
On the way [Jesus] asked them, “Who do people say I am?”
They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”
“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.” Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.
It’s an odd little exchange, really. It appears almost word-for-word in Matthew, Mark and Luke, with the only real difference being a sort of conclusion added in Matthew whereby Jesus rewards Peter with the “keys to the kingdom.” Otherwise, they maintain the dialogue we heard this morning. There is no parallel in John—where there seldom is—with John’s Jesus being more vocal about who he is through a series of “I am” statements familiar to us.
But in our passage, Jesus wants to know what people are saying about him. In some ways, the disciples become a sort of focus group, sharing the most common responses they have heard. The first most common response is also the most obvious: “Some say John the Baptist.”
Obvious, because Jesus and John the Baptist are together at the beginning of the gospels, John the Baptist baptizes Jesus, and John the Baptism even seems to help Jesus craft his early message (“I did not come to bring peace, but a sword”). Even Herod (who is responsible for the Baptist’s death) decided that Jesus is John the Baptist come back to life—which may say more about his remorse than any theological insight.
Others, the disciples then suggest, say Elijah. This suggestion is both logical and plausible: Elijah multiplied bread and oil for the widow of Zarephath, he raised her dead son to life, he confronted Baal in the same way Jesus confronted the Adversary. Elijah is even predicted to come at the last, “during the great and terrible day of the Lord.” The parallels are irresistible, and by the time Jesus is transfigured, Elijah will appear (with Moses) before Jesus in glory.
But he’s not John the Baptist and he’s not Elijah. We know this because the focus group continues, as Jesus—unsatisfied with the answers so far—says “yes, but who do you say that I am?” Peter speaks first and for the rest and says “You are the Christ.” Mark remembers it as “the Christ, son of the living God” and Luke simply “the Christ of God.” With this, Jesus says “tell no one.”
I can tell you that a lot of sermon ink has been spilled on this statement “tell no one.” Most often it’s the contrast to John, the Jesus who introduces himself as “the light of the world” or the “Good Shepherd” or “the way, the truth and the life.” It’s hard to overstate the contrast, but it’s also hard to discount John’s recollection, since so many of these “I am” statements have brought so many to faith in Jesus. So we live with the tension.
I can also tell you that “tell no one” is a vain hope. If the somewhat thick-headed disciples can figure it out, then so can everyone in the next row of followers, and those who experience some miracle or healing. The disguise becomes increasingly thin until it’s no longer a disguise at all. Near the end of Mark, as the trial begins, the High Priest examines Jesus and says “tell me, are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?” Jesus has finally embraced the spirit of John’s Gospel and says simply “I am.”
But the disguises will continue. Mary mistakes Jesus for the gardener asking “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me, and I will get him.” Two disciples have an extended conversation with Jesus on the road to Emmaus, only recognizing him when he breaks the bread before the meal. And again, after his death, the disciples are fishing and he appears on the beach, saying “Friends, haven’t you any fish?” “No,” they say, and he encourages them to try fishing from the other side. Only in the context of the miraculous catch that follows, do they see it is Jesus, who then grills some fish and shares some bread and instructs them one last time.
And the disguises will continue. One of the most pervasive heresies in the early church was docetism, the belief that Jesus wasn’t really human at all, that it was merely ‘God-in-a-Jesus-costume’ that came to earth and walked among us. It seems a convincing way to explain all the miracles and all the wisdom, and it also became a simple way to explain the bodily resurrection: Jesus was never really here, just God visiting in the form of a man.
The problem with this idea was immediately obvious. It reduced the Christ-event to theatre, and it eliminated the vital link we have to God through the humanity of Jesus. It makes Good Friday, Easter and all the resurrection appearances false, along with the very identity of the Lord and Saviour that continues to walk with us down to today.
Most importantly, the heresy denied Jesus his humanness, the very means by which he experienced the pain of human living and the suffering we experience in the face of death. The deep well of pain that God holds is only present to us if Jesus knew pain, if he felt betrayal, if he drew a last breath, and returned to God with the totality of human suffering. He can only save us because he knows that from which we need to be saved. He can only forgive us if he experienced our failure first hand.
And the disguises never end. The famous passage in Hebrews says “Don’t forget to entertain strangers—for in doing so, some have entertained angels unawares.” In Matthew 25, we are reminded that what we do for the least and last we also do for Jesus, perhaps the verse that most animates those who serve and seek to see Christ in others.
Let’s do a for-instance, but first, I need to share a primary rule for preaching. In preaching, the preacher should never be the hero of the story. Anytime the preacher appears in the sermon it should be limited to ‘the valuable lesson I learned’ or that time I looked like a complete idiot. Examples abound. Some crafty ministers try to get around the rule by bragging about their congregations, so “hey look at me” becomes “hey look at us.” So I’m going to talk about my last congregation, but I’m going to talk about the time before I arrived—staying squarely within the rule.
Central United in Weston is located in the largest town that was overtaken by Toronto’s suburban sprawl. So by the 1950s the town was no longer a town, but a neighbourhood—albeit a unique one. It has an old “downtown” with rooming houses and payday lenders, ageing highrises, a fine collection of Victorian homes—surrounded by lots of sprawl. By the 90s a recession and the loss of some key employers in the area meant the homeless population was on the rise. By homeless, I mean the people who live some of the year in the ravine across the street; to the “couch surfers;” to those who are frequently evicted (for any number of reasons).
So that’s Weston—what about the church? Picture an old brick church, formerly Methodist, with an even older cemetery surrounding the church. In the 1920s, they decided they wanted tennis courts instead, so the cemetery had to go. By the 1950s they had enough of tennis, and decided to erect a gymnasium for the swelling crowd of young people. By the late 80s the young people were fewer in number, so they tore down the gym and built housing for low-income seniors. So, not afraid of change. And just when they were feeling really good about their apartment building, and a very tangible response to poverty, they took a harder look at the streets around the church. People were hungry.
Now, Weston already had a food bank, so they decided to serve a weekly meal instead. It felt like a small thing in the face of so much need, but something had to be done. Then they agreed to abide by one simple rule: that church volunteers would eat with the people they served. And this proved to be the decision that changed everything.
Members of the church learned firsthand that the unhoused and underhoused need expert help dealing with landlords and slumlords. A small grant was secured, and the first drop-in staff person was hired. This led to additional programming, and more grants, including hiring a harm reduction worker. Today, the centre is open six days a week, serving a warm meal each day, and offering support, informal counselling, and basic needs relating to harm reduction—clean needles, crack kits, and condoms—to name a few. The idea is that while you are in the grips of addiction you need protection from related harms—HIV, hepatitis, and the rest.
In other words, the congregation saw the needy—the hungry, the homeless, the addicted—but ended up in conversation with people in need. They heard stories that reminded them of their own lives—people living lives until some twist of fate led them to their current situation. Rather than simply helpers, they became students. And the people they helped were teachers in disguise. “Truly, I tell you,” Jesus said, “as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you also did it to me.”
Imagining everyone in need as perhaps Jesus in disguise is a revolution in thinking—it creates a realm of concern and empathy and it destroys the very human impulse to serve only kin and clan or those who can provide some sort of reward. It promotes our common humanity in a world that is sorely lacking in a sense of common humanity.
Seeing through the disguise becomes a way to meet Jesus—it becomes a spiritual encounter—and an act of faith that returns him to our midst once more.
May we find Jesus in everyone we meet. And may God bless every act of kindness, Amen.
New Covenant—1 September 2024 (was 2 Sept 2018)
Luke 12
22 He said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. 23 For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. 24 Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! 25 And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?[a] 26 If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? 27 Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin;[b] yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 28 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! 29 And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. 30 For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. 31 Instead, strive for his[c] kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.
32 “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
If you’ve ever seen an old painting, there’s a good chance you’ve seen a religious painting.
For you see, there was a time (before the Renaissance of the fourteenth century) that almost everything painted had a religious theme. It helped that the church was the primary patron of the arts, but in general terms, religious themes were considered to be the only themes suitable for representation in art.
And even after this assumption changed, and people started painting the human figure for the sake of beauty alone, or some Roman ruin in nature, or some classical story or character—even after such a profound shift in subject—religious art was still being created. The Last Supper is a Renaissance painting, an obviously religious theme by a painter who was equally interested in showing his use of perspective and the brilliant way he could paint human figures. Ask Dan Brown, he’ll tell you.
According to the National Gallery in London, fully a third of their collection of Western art is religious in nature. And the topics are easy to predict: the crucifixion, the (aforementioned) Last Supper, and any story that involves a beautiful woman: David and Bathsheba, Susanna and the elders, Samson and Delilah. Perhaps the most popular—unsurprisingly—is the Madonna and Child, to the extent that I’m sure a third of the third of religious paintings in the National Gallery In London depict Mary holding the baby Jesus.
(Incredibly, I’ve only ever seen two paintings of Joseph with the baby Jesus, and they’re both at the San Antonio Museum of Art. Seems it’s a theme that occurs in Latin American art, and a pleasing one to this dad.)
So I’ve taken you on this brief tour of religious art to highlight a bit of an anomaly that relates to our reading this morning: there are very few paintings based in the Song of Solomon. Yes, by the nineteenth century painters like Dante Rossetti would try, and Marc Chagall some decades later, but by-and-large the Song of Solomon was ignored over the span of Western art.
Why would this be? The primary reason, it would seem, is the way the book has been viewed through the ages. From the time it was included in the Jewish Bible down to the modern era of biblical interpretation, it has been viewed as allegory. Not a story of desire between two lovers, not a story about Solomon and one of his many wives, not even a guidebook on how to woo your lover (though it does a good job at that)—but a story that points to something else altogether—in other words—an allegory.
And it would have to. This book of the Bible that doesn’t mention God, or the law, or the covenant, must have some larger, symbolic meaning—so the earliest thinkers settled on the relationship between God and humanity. Later, Christian theologians would clarify this belief and say it’s an allegory of the relationship between Christ and his church, but the view is the same: a story about the passion God has for us and the passion we are urged to return.
I think you can see the issue for the visual artist. You could paint lovers or various creatures described in the book, but it’s not really about that. If it’s an allegory of mutual love between Creator and creature, that’s something that is hard to represent on a canvas. I think there may be a way—or at least I may have uncovered one way—but before we look at that, we should spend a bit more time on the Song of Solomon.
I used the word “story,” but even that is a little misleading. It’s not a story in the sense that it has a plot or a series of events. It’s more of a dialogue between lovers, a “celebration of love,” and a loose collection of moments (according to one scholar) of “passion, descriptions of physical beauty, memories of past encounters, and longing for the lover's presence.”*
It’s more like a collection of scenes, meant to evoke a sense of the passion and mutuality that exists between these lovers. Let’s listen in again:
8 Listen! My beloved!
Look! Here he comes,
leaping across the mountains,
bounding over the hills.
9 My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag.
Look! There he stands behind our wall,
gazing through the windows,
peering through the lattice.
10 My beloved spoke and said to me,
“Arise, my darling,
my beautiful one, come with me.
11 See! The winter is past;
the rains are over and gone.
12 Flowers appear on the earth;
the season of singing has come,
the cooing of doves
is heard in our land.
13 The fig tree forms its early fruit;
the blossoming vines spread their fragrance.
Arise, come, my darling;
my beautiful one, come with me.”
We can hear the passion and the mutuality, but there is something else. A few verses later she says “My beloved is mine and I am his,” (2.16) which adds the virtue of fidelity, the abiding sense that these lovers will remain faithful within the sensuousness of the place they find themselves. Suddenly, this is starting to sound like a wedding homily, but there’s more.
Just a few chapters later, she picks up this theme again, but restates it to say “I am my beloved's, and his desire is for me.” (7.10) According to Dr. Ellen Davis, this is a critical moment in scripture, a moment when this confident woman has reversed the curse found in the Book of Genesis. Davis explains it this way: After the fall, Eve is punished for her disobedience and God says "your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” And human history would seem to bear this out. But within the Song of Solomon, comes the reversal: “I am my beloved's, and his desire is for me.”
In other words, there is something in these words that returns these lovers to the Garden of Eden, repairing the rift that begins with forbidden fruit and restores them once more to equality and mutuality. Add to that the abundance of nature in our passage—flowers, cooing doves, the early fruit of the fig tree, and the fragrance of the vine—and we are transported to another theme in art that seems to locate our lovers once more: the peaceable kingdom.
The Peaceable Kingdom (already teasing your imagination up there on the screen) is a common theme in art—Edward Hicks painted this painting at least 62 times! The theme is most often associated with Isaiah 11: “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.” It’s the same chapter where we find the Jesse tree, another frequent theme in early Christian art, making a link between King David and Jesus.
Hicks’ paintings often included settlers and their First Nations neighbours, or groups of Quakers (from his tradition) or simply the abundance of the natural world. In some ways it’s about a return to Eden, like the Song of Solomon, but it’s also about the age to come. It’s a glimpse of what God intends for us, and what God will provide in the fulfilment of time.
Before I continue, I want to pause for a minute or two over that little scene on the left hand side of the painting. As I said, Hicks often included this particular assembly in his paintings, a representation of William Penn and his fellow Quakers meeting members of the Lenape tribe, also known as the Delaware. It fits with the general theme of the painting. William Penn’s well-known respect for the first inhabitants of the colony (and his fair dealing) was worthy of a canvas that portrayed the lion and the wolf and the lamb together, and children sitting safely among wild beasts.
Sadly, the symbolism ended a generation after the meeting Hicks shows us. Penn’s sons, and unscrupulous land agents perpetrated one of the most infamous frauds in American history, the so-called Walking Treaty of 1737. An early (and forged) document was presented to the Lenape people, revealing a “newly discovered” treaty between the elder Penn and their indigenous forebears. It allowed the settlers to claim the amount of land a man could walk in a day-and-a-half. So out of respect for the late William Penn, the Lenape agreed.
Early on the first morning of the “walk,” the Lenape knew they were being swindled. Paths were cleared for miles, and fast runners were hired to head west as part of a well-planned relay. 36 hours later, the government managed to secure over a million acres of land, forcing the Lenape from their ancestral home. By the time Hicks was painting the Peaceable Kingdom, the Lenape had been on the move for over a century, forced further and further west by white settlers. Part of the genius of Hick’s painting is to add a note of discord—to remind the viewer that human failure is ever-present, and can test God’s great wish that we return to the garden.**
And in this sense, we’re back to allegory. If the Song of Songs is about God and humanity, or Christ and his church, then what we’re shown in the book is the way things ought to be. Or the way things will be in the age to come. There is living with passion, there is mutuality and the respect we extend to the people around us, there is fidelity to the relationship and the future we share, and there is the abiding sense that we are not only loved but sought after.
And it’s this passion that holds the key. Imagine each day God says to us “Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me.” See the world as I wish it to be. See the world beyond human failure. See the others among my beloved who are doing my work, remaking the world as we speak, bringing together heaven and earth. “Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me,” and see the peaceable kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. How can we resist?
Jesus said “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” How can we resist?
Then and now, Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves. And since he knows us better than we know ourselves, he first presents a kingdom without worry: worry about the span of your life; worry about the latest fad diet and that stubborn “final fifteen” you doctor never fails to mention; worry about your wardrobe, and that clever trick of keeping clothing long enough for them to become fashionable again. ‘Consider the egret,’ he says, or the pelican, or the sandhall crane: they neither sow nor reap, yet they don’t have a cupboard full of cans for hurricane season. Instead, God feeds them, all of them, even the Muscovy ducks, birds only a mother can love. “Can anyone by worrying,” Jesus asked, “add a single hour to the span of your life?”
Consider the Coreopsis—they neither spin nor toil—and even Solomon didn’t have a state flower as lovely as these! We need to do less striving and less worrying and strive instead for God’s kingdom—for where our passion is, there our heart will be also.
God would have us paint our own peaceable kingdom: a kingdom of fidelity and mutuality, a kingdom where needs are met and troubles are few. A kingdom where our first thought is for others and the world God made. A kingdom where we learn from our mistakes and gently help others do the same. A kingdom where the canvas is filled with love: hard to paint but easy to see, and easy to share, and should be easy to accept.
“Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me,” and see the peaceable kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Amen.
*Kathryn M. Schifferdecker (workingpreacher.org)
**https://hiddencityphila.org/2019/08/philadelphias-forgotten-forebears-how-pennsylvania-erased-the-lenape-from-local-history/
