Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost, 24B, October 18, 2015; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O suffering God, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Our Rabbi-in-Residence, Howard Berman, is fond of asking me whenever he preaches at one of our services, “Why do I always get the hard texts?” I say, I wonder the very same thing! Why do I always get the hard texts?” (I think the answer might be that they’re almost all hard.) When it comes to the Isaiah reading, I’ll admit that I did it to myself when I agreed to take a week away from our reading of the story of Job in the interest of Ryan Turner’s request for the lovely Distler motet.

In the season of Pentecost (that is, between Trinity Sunday and the beginning of Advent), there are two lectionary tracks from which to choose lessons from the Hebrew Bible. The first track is a semi-continuous reading of large parts of the First Testament, intentionally not tied to the readings from the Gospel. The other track is complementary, which means that First Testament lessons are selected based on the theme or message of the Gospel reading, which is how the First Testament lessons are always paired from Advent through Trinity Sunday. Sometimes, like today, the Hebrew Bible passage seems to be just what the Gospel writer was thinking about when he was telling about Jesus. It certainly is true that Jesus’ earliest followers knew their scriptures and experienced Jesus as fitting the descriptions in some of those scriptures. They experienced Jesus as a fulfillment of some of the prophecies. It certainly is not true that the writers of the First Testament were ever thinking of Jesus (or anybody else) hundreds and hundreds of years in the future. Because of the Church’s sin of Supersessionist theology (that is, the truly terrible idea that somehow God nullified the covenant with Jewish people in order to establish a covenant with Christian people), I tend to stay away from the complementary lectionary track so that we all have a break from Hebrew Bible passages propping up the Gospel. As far as I’m concerned, the Gospel can stand on its own merit. It doesn’t need us to use the First Testament as a treasure-trove of prooftexts.

Whether we hear today the story of Job or the Suffering Servant song of Isaiah, we must grapple with the ancient and deep-seated idea that it is ever the will of God to crush people with pain as a test of fidelity or purely for sport. Honestly, we are still not free of this crippling notion. How many times have you heard a version of, “God doesn’t give anyone more suffering than they can handle.” Oy. Even people who reject the notion of God, understand suffering as punishment. Maybe you heard the recent interview by Krista Tippet of Dr. Mary Catherine Bateson. [1] Tippet noted that Bateson’s mother, Margaret Mead, said that “Too many people, when they reject God, go on believing in the devil. That many intellectuals have sense of evil, without a confidence in good.” [2]

The thing that both the First and Second Testaments of our Bible want to encourage us to do, again and again, is to have confidence in good. In that interview with Krista Tippet, Bateson went on to say, “To me, the starting place is the sense of wonder. And that can take you into science. It can take you into art. Other human beings are amazing and beautiful. The natural world around us — the more we study it, the more fascinating and intricate and elegant it turns out to be.” [3] Bateson mentions that she dislikes the distinction people make when they say, “I’m spiritual but not religious.” I wonder what she’d think of my wife Joy’s description of so Emmanuel Church (or so many of us here) being musical but not religious! I’m fine with it, although I am in the business of encouraging engagement with religion. A few weeks ago I heard Bishop Gates teaching a gathering about the etymology of the word religion – the lig in the middle of the word being the same root as ligament or ligature – connecting. Re-ligion is connecting again. Religion is about re-connecting people with people and people with the Mystery (capital M).

In the Letter to the Hebrews, the writer describes the moral arrangement at the heart of reality, wherein the world is a reflection and consequence of relationship rather than solitude. We are not alone, the writer asserts. God is with us [Emmanuel]. As high priest, Jesus the Christ represents the intimate relationship between creation and creator…in contrast to the aloof God or Aristotle (the unmoved mover), the author of Hebrews describes, “The most moved mover,” [4] hizedek? (A name that makes most lay readers afraid – but Ivanna read beautifully!) How many of you heard “You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek,” and thought right, right. What?

Melchizedek is something of a mysterious figure. He is mentioned in Genesis as the King of Peace, and priest of the most-high God. He brings bread and wine and blesses Abraham and God. The word melchizedek literally means, “my sovereign ruler is righteousness.” It is not necessarily a personal name. The word appears again in Psalm 110, for the second and last time in the First Testament. In the Second Testament, only the letter to the Hebrews mentions Melchizedek – and the word appears eight times. But in the ancient scrolls discovered at the Dead Sea, Melchizedek is described as a divine being associated with atonement – that is, re-connection with one another and the Holy. [5] Melchizedek is one who eternally reigns over peace and justice. Jesus is just like him, the letter to the Hebrews wants people to know. So peace and justice, bread and wine, and eternal blessing. That is what according to the order of Melchizedek means.

Then the writer of Hebrews goes on to make sure we do not imagine the delivery of peace and justice, bread and wine, and eternal blessing without Jesus’s “prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears.” Here it’s the language of submission and obedience that trips so many of us up, because it feeds into the idea that suffering and violence is what ultimately saves. It was the late Walter Wink who first introduced me to the concept of “The Myth of Redemptive Violence,” to explain how pervasive is the idea that violence is salvific. He explained that “Violence simply appears to be the nature of things. It’s what works. It seems inevitable, the last and, often, the first resort in conflicts… What people [often] overlook… .is the religious character of violence [–how] It demands from its devotees an absolute obedience- unto-death.” [6] (Here Wink is referring to the kind of religion so many of us reject.) So many of our hymns and prayers promote this myth, but there is another narrative running through scripture – through the First and Second Testaments, through our liturgy, through our life together, and that is the narrative of non-violence. That is the narrative of dignity, of integrity, and of compassion (of suffering with).

In my view, Jesus the Christ, fiercely gentle Rabbi of Nazareth, fully embodied this narrative of dignity, of integrity, and of compassion. In my reading, Jesus fully embodied the idea of “my sovereign ruler is righteousness” – that is, right-relationship. In other words, my sovereign ruler is not Caesar, not money, not military might, not weapons of any kind. The kind of suffering that Jesus is inviting others into as part of following him and cooperating in furthering the rule of right-relationship, has to do with opening our eyes, our hearts, our minds to the needs of others in a beautiful, yet troubled world.

A few years ago, Lutheran pastor, Sharron Blezard wrote about being invited by Jesus to be a part of the “suffer” club. [7] My first reaction to that wordplay was to look down my nose and think, “How suburban.” I remembered when my parents moved to a suburban community when I was in high school, and we were greeted with a strong assumption that we would want to find ways to get to know the others in the development. There were all kinds of opportunities to join clubs: there was a swim club, a bridge club, a garden club, you name it – and none of those clubs were anything like exclusive! (Quite the opposite really.) With five other couples, my parents formed a supper club that prepared gourmet meals together around an elaborate theme once a month.

While the supper club was maintained by six couples, there was always room at the table for visitors and travelers. They had a ball and formed deep bonds that have carried them through celebrations and sorrows, long illnesses and sudden accidents, deaths of parents, spouses, children and grandchildren. I realize now that their supper club did become a suffer club – the kind of shared suffering that comes from living and loving in close community. It seems to me that belonging and beloving in service to others enhances both our joy and magnifies our sorrow. It’s not possible to open our eyes, and our ears, and our hearts to one another or to the Divine, and feel only comfort and not grief. The most wonderful thing about beloving and belonging in service to others, though, is it’s not possible to feel grief and not have it be followed by hope and gratitude when we are surrounded by Love. So come closer. Open your eyes and ears and hearts in service to others and to the Holy One in our midst. Come to this feast, to this table, where there is always room for you, whoever you are, wherever you’ve been, whatever you’ve done, you are welcome here.

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