https://joelssermons.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/20190519sermon.mp3

Text: John 13:31-35

The writer of Ecclesiastes famously said, “There is nothing new under the sun.”  And he should know.  He’s been around the sun a time or two.  He’s an old man.  He’s seen a lot of living and a lot of dying.  And, let me tell you youngsters, there’s nothing new under the sun.

Of course, one wonders what his reaction would have been had someone slipped him an i-phone which enabled him to Facetime with his cousin way out in the Judean hill country.  Does the relentless march of technological innovation qualify as something new?  Or, to stick with the perspective of Ecclesiastes, is it ultimately just more mist in the breeze of time?

What is new, at least according to Jesus in John’s gospel, is a commandment he gives his closest companions.  “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

To claim love as a new commandment is borderline comical, to the point that one wonders if Jesus is speaking a bit tongue in cheek.  These words are a part of the lengthy farewell discourse, covering John chapter 13 – 17.  The end is approaching, and Jesus has some things he needs to say before he’s out.  He’s with his friends, and he has just washed their feet – their dusty dirty feet, like a servant would do.  He will go on to speak of the coming of the Holy Spirt as an Advocate, to speak of his mystical oneness with God which his companions can also experience.  He urges them to be one.

Just before this “new commandment” Judas has left the room and gone out into the night to speed along the events that lead to Jesus’ death.  Just after this new commandment…

https://joelssermons.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/20190519sermon.mp3

Text: John 13:31-35

Speaker: Joel Miller

The writer of Ecclesiastes famously said, “There is nothing new under the sun.”  And he should know.  He’s been around the sun a time or two.  He’s an old man.  He’s seen a lot of living and a lot of dying.  And, let me tell you youngsters, there’s nothing new under the sun.

Of course, one wonders what his reaction would have been had someone slipped him an i-phone which enabled him to Facetime with his cousin way out in the Judean hill country.  Does the relentless march of technological innovation qualify as something new?  Or, to stick with the perspective of Ecclesiastes, is it ultimately just more mist in the breeze of time?

What is new, at least according to Jesus in John’s gospel, is a commandment he gives his closest companions.  “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

To claim love as a new commandment is borderline comical, to the point that one wonders if Jesus is speaking a bit tongue in cheek.  These words are a part of the lengthy farewell discourse, covering John chapter 13 – 17.  The end is approaching, and Jesus has some things he needs to say before he’s out.  He’s with his friends, and he has just washed their feet – their dusty dirty feet, like a servant would do.  He will go on to speak of the coming of the Holy Spirt as an Advocate, to speak of his mystical oneness with God which his companions can also experience.  He urges them to be one.

Just before this “new commandment” Judas has left the room and gone out into the night to speed along the events that lead to Jesus’ death.  Just after this…

https://joelssermons.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/20190505sermon.mp3

Text: John 21:1-14; New Membership Commitment statement

For the first time in a while, I’m just going to talk.  No sketchers, although their work will be here throughout May.  No singers or musicians.  Just a good old fashion monologue.  Spoken words.

What I’d like to talk about is words.  Written words.  Specifically, the words of our new membership commitment statement which we’ll be using and testing this year, printed today on the front of the bulletin.

A lot of thought has gone into these words and phrases.  In the winter we invited input through an online survey and through focus groups.  We looked over our old, long standing membership statement and several from other congregations.  And lesser known statements like our Peace statement and Mission statement.

I don’t know how the percentages break down across the population, but I know there is a group of us that gets pretty excited about language, and other groups not so much.  Especially when it comes to statements like this that are worth very little unless we actually live out the words.  This is a very Mennonite and Anabaptist concept.  “Faith is as faith does” says the bumper sticker with the green peace dove logo.

And, there can be something grace-filled and even mystical about good language. Leonard Cohen sings “there’s a blaze of light in every word” – a very Jewish concept, with light itself originating as a Divine word in the opening scene of Genesis.

We’re not creating a new cosmos here with a new Membership Commitment Statement, but hopefully it can serve something like a light to illuminate the path in front of us.  Maybe even offer a fresh way of seeing this path.

So here’s the challenge:

How to say everything important, concise enough to fit on a half page, with at least a touch of Leonard…

Text: Luke 24:1-12, John 20:1, Matthew 28:1-2, Mark 16:1-2

Speaker: Joel Miller

When I say Christ is Risen, you say Christ is Risen Indeed.

Christ is Risen….Christ is Risen.

How many people does it take to witness resurrection?

How many people does it take to witness resurrection?

It sounds like the set up line of a bad joke.

Like, How many Mennonites does it take to change a light bulb?

We probably shouldn’t go there.  Change can be a sensitive topic.

Back to the first question, which is not a joke.  How many people does it take to witness resurrection?

Our Bibles contain four gospels, and thus four accounts of those first witnesses of resurrection, at the empty tomb, that first Easter morning.  You’d think of all the stories to get the particulars just right, this would be it.  The continuation of the Jesus story hinges on this – that the crucifixion is not the end of the line.  That Jesus most certainly died, and that this same Jesus, in some wonderful and glorious way, has been raised up, and is very much alive in this world.

And it all starts early on that first day of the week, after the Sabbath, when the women go to visit the tomb.  To properly anoint the body.  To honor the life.  To grieve the one they loved who had loved them so dearly.

You’d think a single story of what went down that morning would emerge.  Each gospel writer carefully adhering to those details.

Remarkably, each gospel has a different way of answering that question: How many does it take to witness resurrection?

This is Year C in the lectionary, the year of Luke’s gospel.  So we’ve heard that reading.  Of all the accounts, Luke’s scene at the empty tomb is the most…crowded, shall we say.  He names some of the women who were there, and…

Text: Luke 19:28-48

Speaker: Joel Miller

This is how it works: When the ruler or conquering general comes to town you run out to meet him.  City leaders and citizenry surround the procession.  There are songs and loud acclamations.  You reach the entrance of the city and the pageantry continues through the streets.  You hail the general’s greatness.  You welcome him as god’s own, sent to you.

This is how it worked in the ancient world.

The Greek biographer Plutarch writes this about the entrance of Mark Antony into Ephesus:

When Antony made his entrance into Ephesus, women arrayed like Baccanals (Bacchus the god of wine and revelry), and men and boys like satyrs and Pans (part goat part man), led the way before him, and the city was full of ivy and (decorative wands) and harps and pipes and flutes, the people hailing him as Dionysius Giver of Joy and Beneficent.  For he was such undoubtedly, to some.  Plutarch, Antonius, 24.3-4

Another flourish was for the visiting ruler to enter the local temple and make a sacrifice, claiming his god-ordained authority in that space.

The first century Jewish historian Josephus writes this about Alexander the Great’s entrance into Jerusalem:

Then all the Jews together greeted Alexander with one voice and surrounded him..[then] he gave his hand to the high priest and, with the Jews running beside him, entered the city.  Then he went up to the temple where he sacrificed to God under the direction of the high priest. Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 11.332-336

That’s how it works.

This is how it goes.  When the Passover approaches, you get ready.  You prepare your house, you prepare your heart, you prepare for a trip.  A pilgrimage to the temple.  You and your whole extended family.  It could take several days, so you pack what you need.  But you…