One Name Under Heaven

a sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year B

Acts 4:5-12 and John 10:11-18

For those of you who are using our new online membership app, Realm, you may be aware that two-factor authentication was just launched a few weeks ago. Two-factor authentication is an on-line security feature that many Realm users had been anticipating and hoping for, as two-factor authentication asks for users to use two distinct forms of identification before allowing access to personal information. For example, if you log in to the app using your phone, then it might send an email with a special login code to make sure you are really who you say you are.

Even if you haven’t made the shift to using our Realm app, my guess is that you have encountered it with banking or social media information. I’m pretty sure even the app I use for birding uses two-factor authentication when I try a new device because, you know, my bird life list is top-secret, sensitive information. OK, not really.

Like it or not, we live in an age of passwords and passcodes, and login IDs, and verification schemes. To get into anything, we have to create a very clever combination of numbers and letters and symbols and Zodiac signs and emojis and woe to the person who forgets what they’ve come up with. Then the whole process starts over with a new email and a new login code for that. I just long for one name!

All of this is to say that this is what it sounds like Jesus is like in this story from Acts when Peter rises before the tribunal of religious authorities. It sounds like Jesus is some sort of passcode or two-factor authentication for salvation. “There is salvation in no one else,” Peter says, filled with the Holy Spirit,“for there is no name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.” It sounds as if God has set up heaven like some sort of tightly locked up bank account and the only way you or I or anyone else can gain access to it is to type in the right word, which is Jesus.

Chances are you have probably heard Peter’s sentence used that way at some point. I know I have. Oftentimes this verse is used as some kind of mission or evangelism strategy. For example, people are told you don’t profess the name of Jesus or somehow figure out that code that God has set up then you are going to be out of luck when you die. And while I understand the comfort, the security, that may give some people, is that all Jesus is good for, as a type of passcode? In this rigid interpretation of Peter’s confession Jesus is no longer a person, someone you might have a relationship with, someone whose voice you might respond to. Jesus just becomes a device, a key to deliver something else that we might want, not to mention something cruel and divisive that condemns outsiders or people who don’t know the code to a dismal future. And clearly, if we look at what’s going on with Peter, he never means Jesus to be those things.

As some may remember from last week’s readings, Peter and John have just healed a man who was lame from birth. The man who is healed becomes a sign of God’s power that Jesus is the one God anointed to overcome the sin and evil in the world. The healing gets a lot of attention from the crowd, and now Peter and John are on trial before the religious authorities who fear the disruption that Jesus’ followers may bring and who want to stamp out any reference to Jesus’ name and story. In Peter’s testimony to them, the point of Jesus is not to just recite or claim his name so that you or I or anyone else can go to heaven when we die, but that we may run to Jesus now and receive forgiveness and mercy and unconditional love.

Peter wants his accusers and other listeners to understand that Jesus’ presence has power. Even if it is disregarded, God will just keep raising it up, over and over. Jesus can be trusted because Jesus’ love always works to undo and overturn the powers of sin and evil. Jesus liberates, Jesus frees people from oppression, Jesus heals the sick and forgives everyone.

Jesus does not condemn or ostracize anyone. Peter knows this and has seen the power of Jesus up close and is giving a defense of what has happened because he has been arrested and called before the authorities.

And that is crucial to understanding what is happening here. Peter is on trial. It is very likely that his life is on the line. He is not on the attack, so to speak, preaching a sermon trying to win people over, making sure they have their spiritual houses in order. He is making a statement to the authorities about what Jesus can really do. God has sent Jesus to rescue God’s people through his love and that is something Peter is willing to stand on even as they threaten to persecute him.

When have you come to trust Jesus? In what times have you realized that Jesus’ authority on love and life is something that can always be relied upon? When has your back been against the wall, so to speak, and you’ve realized that the words of Jesus, the way of Jesus, the love of Jesus is what threw you a lifeline? Have you experienced how the kindness and humility of Jesus has transformed a situation of anger and tension? Have you watched as a dead end in your life has somehow, unexpectedly and unpredictably given way to a new beginning? If you haven’t yet, Peter wants you to keep your eyes and your hearts open. He knows that these are the tried and true ways that the risen Jesus works to save the world. There is one name we can trust that brings this new life, and it is Jesus.

But there’s an important tension we can’t ignore. For even as we hear Peter claim that there is no name under heaven by which mortals can be saved, we also hear Jesus himself say that there are other sheep that do not belong to this fold and he will bring them also. People have long wondered what other sheep Jesus may be talking about here. Perhaps they are other congregations or groups of followers that his disciples may not have known about? Could Jesus be talking about the Samaritans, that ethnic group in Jesus’ time who were not considered part of the Jewish family? Is he meaning people of completely different faiths and religious communities, faiths and communities that may even coexist with us today?

Jesus christ said about the shepherd,vector illustration

It’s hard to say, but no matter how we may interpret it, it must mean there is a foundational graciousness to life with Jesus that we must be careful never to limit or confine. Living as Christ’s flock means always being attentive to the fact that others we perceive to be outside our community may, in fact, be the ones whom Jesus is leading, hearing Jesus’ voice in tones we don’t recognize yet. He is working towards greater unity in ways that we might not perceive. We can be sure of his love, but we also keep in mind that the abundant life that Jesus brings is always going to be bigger than any words or doctrines that you or I might find lifegiving at any given moment. As the Reverend Ben Cremer says, “our Christianity should sound like, ‘the world is full of neighbors to be understood and loved,’ not ‘the world is full of enemies to be feared and conquered.’”

For a few days this past week I travelled to Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia, South Carolina, to take part in the last Alumni Days celebration before the seminary moves its campus to Hickory, NC, and the campus of Lenoir-Rhyne University. It’s the reality of most church life nowadays—declining numbers in seminary and in congregations have left enrollments so low that it is difficult, if not impossible, to sustain infrastructure from previous years…infrastructure like a separate seminary. This year’s incoming class has just two Lutheran students. Southern Seminary, as it is called, is the place where no fewer than seven of Epiphany’s current and former staff members and interns have received formation for church service. It is a special, holy place for many of us, and the time there this week was bittersweet.

One of the things the seminary did for this week’s celebration was to pull out and put on display most of the past composite photo arrangements of the past year’s graduating classes. As we sipped our drinks we could walk through hundreds, if not thousands, of faces of people who had been shaped by the call to serve and sent out into the world. It was like a treasure hunt—going back through the years I found Joseph’s photo in 2007, then Christy Van O’Linda Huffman’s in 2005. I saw our visitation pastor Mark Cooper’s and then Tom Bosserman’s. I saw Joseph’s father in the class of 1972. It was really quite overwhelming, especially as I prepare to rest and refocus during a time of sabbatical, to see myself quite literally placed amid this great cloud, this huge flock of people, most of whom I do not know but who had nevertheless heard the voice of the Good Shepherd to serve as a leader in the church. It made me think of how I have a responsibility to encourage new people to hear that call to serve.

I tell this not to raise any anxiety about the state of things, but maybe because those composites got me thinking. They got me thinking about how the Good Shepherd might view all of us as he walks us through the world. We are all in different groups and categories at times, many of which we make up to separated ourselves in needless ways. Jesus walks through the world, gathering us all together—these from this ethnic group, those from that race, these over here from that gender, that class, that religion—into one big group together. We are patiently, lovingly assembled by a leader who lays his life down for the sheep. He keeps us safe from forces that snatch and scatter us.

And through the mission of the church our service becomes a demonstration of how Jesus is that Good Shepherd, that he ultimately is working to bring life to all, and that he does it always in ways that involve some kind of self-sacrifice. He goes through the valley of the shadow of death with us. And pours our cups to overflowing.

The world is full of people to understand and love. Rather than forcing people to make some kind of choice about Jesus and presenting him as a code for getting into heaven we should just urge people to hear his voice—all people. With the confidence of Peter we can testify to Jesus’ ability to heal and save, but with the humility of a sheep we can keep our ears trained on what he says, for he is constantly calling, constantly calling out to a composite crowd, one flock, one shepherd.

Thanks be to God!The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

Connections

a sermon for the Third Sunday of Easter, Year B

Luke 24:36b-48

Like many of you, I find time somewhere in my day—usually in the morning—to work some of the free puzzles in the New York Times. Wordle is fun, as is the Mini Crossword, but the one I get the most excited about is Connections where have to figure out connections between seemingly unrelated clues. The game presents you with sixteen words that all somehow fit neatly into four categories, but you don’t know what the categories are. You have to figure them out as you go. The end result is four rows of four related words. Some of the categories are pretty straightforward, while others are more obscure. For example, one of the Connections puzzles from last week included the words clown, king, colonel, and mermaid, and you needed to see that they all belonged together as fast food mascots.

In any case, what I notice is that each day when I open up and start the game I find myself utterly bewildered by what I see. I have a few minutes where I look at the sixteen words and nothing jumps out at me. I think to myself, “I will never figure this puzzle out. Nothing seems clear.” I find that I have to look at the words for a while, sometimes even say them aloud, before I ever start to see any connections. If it’s not Connections for you, then I bet there’s another game where you have to wait for clarity and resolution. A pathway through Amen Corner, perhaps.

I feel that this is a lot like the disciples’ encounters with Jesus after the resurrection. In every story we have in the gospels, the disciples start by staring at Jesus right before them and not really perceiving him at all. They are are bewildered, puzzled, and sometimes, like in this morning’s lesson, they are startled and terrified. If they have a category for him to fit into, it’s “ghost.” It’s going to take some real looking at Jesus, overcoming that initial discomfort and skepticism, in order for them to see the risen Jesus for who he really is.

This strikes me as very realistic for some reason. That the disciples must work through some doubt, that they didn’t just automatically respond to him as their Lord, helps me with doubts I often have in my faith and in times when I’m discerning how God might be present. Or am I the only one that feels that way?

Interestingly enough, in all of the gospels that have post-resurrection accounts, the way Jesus’ followers finally come to see him is through eating. Sometimes it is in a home with breaking bread and other times, like in this morning’s story, it is with some broiled fish. We may think this is painfully ordinary and ho-hum, because eating is something we do every day, but it is, in fact, in eating with Jesus that the disciples understand their connection to him—the connection they have to his generosity, the connection they have to his ministry, the connection they have to his new life. In the ancient world, especially, eating with people was one of the most intimate things you could do. This act invites them into seeing him for who he really is.

As many of you are aware, we are sending 22 high school youth and five adult leaders this summer to the ELCA Youth Gathering in New Orleans where they will be a part of ministry and mission for the church on a large scale. You have been so gracious in your support of this trip. All of this preparation makes me remember of one of the last trips I took with our youth group, which was ten years ago to the eastern shore of Virginia where we served the migrant worker population that lived and moved among the agriculture industry in that area of our state. We worked in the run-down trailer parks that were their temporary homes, running camps for the children and sending out work crews to do some painting and lawn care.

The week culminated with a meal that the migrant worker communities provided for us. They cooked dishes from their Central American homelands and spread it all out on tables they had set up in the midst of the trailers. It was a hot night in late July. The cicadas were buzzing and bats were zooming overhead. The small children were running around and playing with our youth, swinging on their arms like they were human jungle gyms. We didn’t speak Spanish and they didn’t speak English. None of us knew the names of the dishes they had made, and, quite frankly, it was the first time many of us had eaten that kind of food, but it was delicious and the food itself worked a kind of magic. It helped us feel more bonded with these people we had served that week, put us more on an even playing field.

I know the meal was placed at the end of the week as a way for them to thank us, and I’m not criticizing that program decision in any way, but I have always wondered what the week would have been like that that special meal been the first thing we did together. How would it have formed our relationships for the week? How might we have understood our deeper connections and commonalities right at the beginning?

There is a deep wisdom in Jesus’ decision to eat first-thing in his experiences with his followers after his resurrection and not waiting until later—a deep wisdom we can take for granted in these days of Door Dash and fast food. The first thing God does for humans at the beginning of creation is give them things to eat. The most transformative event in Israel’s history and faith involves a meal, the Passover. Jesus himself forges his ministry around the dinner tables and banquet halls of Palestine, and he makes a meal the sign of his new covenant of love on the night before his crucifixion.

That’s the theology. From a scientific perspective, to eat one must be alive, willing to move forward in some way. And we are God’s Easter people. And from a social standpoint, to eat means one recognizes dependence on other people as well as one’s inherent vulnerability, since we can only receive nourishment from outside ourselves. The act of eating forms community at its most basic level and that is what Jesus has come to transform: how we connect with one another. And, perhaps most obviously, Jesus’ eating proves he is not a ghost. He comes to physically gather his people into God’s presence and to feed us with God’s love and grace, to get us around the table, eye to eye and hand to hand. It’s why we begin our week around a table, eating. Fed and restored, it is how we get launched into the places we will go.

Just as mother’s milk becomes the first sustenance for an infant’s life that first moment of eating with his disciples becomes the beginning of their new life. So much probably swirls in their minds about connectedness and faith as they stare at Jesus eating fish that morning. Fear and puzzlement slowly give way to understanding and to the formation of a new identity. He sits down and shows them the Scriptures and tells them about this new life of forgiveness and compassion they won’t just talk about but embody. Jesus reminds us with the bread and the wine we aren’t just supposed to talk about love and mercy and self-sacrifice but to put them into practice.

In an article this past week published in The Atlantic, Derek Thompson, who himself is an agnostic when it comes to the existence of God, discusses what Americans have lost as they’ve given up going to church. It’s an insightful reflection, considering the fact that author himself doesn’t really identify with a religious group, having left the faith of his childhood long ago. But now he is starting to rethink that, observing that many Americans have found no alternative to build a sense of community outside religious groups. One statistic he shares really stands out: the United States, he explains, “is in the midst of a historically-unprecedented decline in face-to-face socializing.”[1] “Boys and girls ages 15 to 19 have reduced their hangouts by more than three hours a week. There is no statistical record of any period in U.S. history…where young people have spent more time on their own.” The same kind of isolation applies to all groups, Thompson finds.

I don’t know what to make of all that, but I do know that here, Jesus is trying to combat our isolation, again and again. And even as we give thanks for the ways, for example, our worship livestream has connected us through the gospel news to people far from us, we can recognize that Jesus is still seeking to gather us for this new life of love around his table and the other tables where God’s mercy is freely given. God doesn’t want us to be scattered and lonely, but connected and nurtured so that we may be strengthened for mission.

One of the ministries this congregation has been involved in over the past few years is Moments of Hope. Many of you have made lunch sacks for Moments of Hope, or MoHope as it is often called, which goes out into Richmond each Saturday with hundreds of these meals for anyone who is hungry. Sometimes they end up feeding up to 600 or more. Two weeks ago the place where the tables were set up decided they no longer wanted to host the meal distribution, so a frantic search for a new area parking lot area was undertaken.

I asked Faye Coppage here what the organization of Moments of Hope was looking for. The requirements were that it be outside, on the busline, and in the city or near the city line. The idea is that their feeding site be convenient and accessible for both those feeding and those being fed. Thanks be to God that a new site was found within a few days. Feeding hungry people will continue. There will be more moments of hope.

Jesus is God’s presence for us, convenient, accessible, gracious, free. Death tried to prevent him from loving us, but he overcame that on the cross. Now he comes as the one feeding us, gathering us at a table that has been set up like a parking lot, assembling us as residents of a life’s trailer park where we gain sustenance for the journey and forgiveness for our souls. Jesus gathers us to eat with him, the doubting and the lost, the hopeful and the committed, with the hope we will see connections. Connections everywhere—between each person with outstretched hands, connections between this table and the ones that feed the world. Connections between Jesus’ cross and God’s grace. He has hopes we will see connections of real love put into action, as Jesus says, into all nations.

Thanks be to God!

The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/america-religion-decline-non-affiliated/677951/

Were You There?

a sermon for Good Friday

“Were you there when they crucified my Lord?”

Me? Was I there? Are you asking me that?

I guess I always kind of thought that hymn was a rhetorical question. Was I there when they crucified you Lord?

I’m not really sure how to answer. I guess, technically-speaking, I was not there when they crucified him—as in there-there. I mean, that was that about 2000 or so years ago, right? All I’ve got is a handful of documents from that time period from people who knew people who were there when they crucified him, but I’m not sure that’s what you’re talking about. And yes, from what they say it sounds like it would make me tremble too. He was treated like a criminal of the day, hung on the cross to die in agony, no one lifting a finger. I suppose everyone felt that the circumstances were just out of their control, that the forces of power and violence were too overwhelming and complex to really steer the whole scene off-course.

And not to mention it was hard to be really convinced that this Jesus was the guy whom God had anointed. I mean, how could God allow this to happen…a crucified Lord! It makes me think of Gaza these days, or these Ukrainian villages on the front line of war, and how all the pain and death we witness on the news just seems awful but also beyond my ability to change it. I would just as soon not look at the images or hear the reports about innocent suffering of our day and go about my life. My problems. My suffering. So, no, I was not there when they crucified our Lord. Let’s move on.

Oh, so now you want to know if I was there when they nailed him to the tree. I think you can go ahead and assume I wasn’t there for that if I already wasn’t there when they crucified him. Nailing is an integral part of the crucifying, right? At least that’s how I understand it from the history books. I bet it was terrible to hear as it happened. Just gives me the shivers.

But that word “tree” in your question makes me a little uncomfortable. I know that cross was made of wood and all,but must we really call it a tree? Plus, a tree, in this instance, especially with your voice singing it in that gospel style, makes me think of, well, of a lynching tree. And that is a part of American history that I’d just as soon not be reminded of. Those were things some of my white-skinned ancestors talked about and maybe participated in, but can’t bear that shame, can I?

Besides, how dare you compare the two? I mean, Jesus was trapped by a gutless, bloodthirsty crowd, and then accused of charges that were made-up. Then they didn’t give him any way to defend himself before they tortured him and mocked him and killed him in front of everyone as a public spectacle. The whole time he was innocent and helpless. It was like they just hated him for being who he was, and afraid of where accepting him might take them, afraid of a world where all peoples might be together. I mean, how is that even similar… to…a… lynching? Well, OK, maybe you have a point. I guess I can admit some similarities, and I wasn’t there when they nailed him to the tree but I can see how this strikes close to home for you. Now I am starting to tremble a little bit.

You have another question, don’t you? Was I there when they laid him in the tomb? Well, if I wasn’t there for the first two, can I really say I was there there for this part, when they remove him from the wood, flesh tearing from the nails and then carefully wrapping him in a burial linen? That’s part and parcel to the whole crucifixion thing, especially since it wouldn’t be appropriate to leave a dead body up therefor the Sabbath and its preparations. I wasn’t there when they laid him in the tomb, but I can say I’ve been at other burials, when other people have been placed in the ground. And what I can say is that it never gets easy. Whether they are a young person who took their own life, or a middle-aged person who died of cancer, or an older person who died peacefully after a long life the grief is always there.

What’s also there is this sense of abandonment, of finality. And I can’t fathom that God would ever submit himself to that. God is eternal, right? All-knowing, all encompassing, and to contemplate some part of him succumbing to what we all must succumb to just doesn’t calculate. Unless, God wants to know what death is like, unless God cares enough to go through that for us, with us.

Tremble? That makes my whole brain ache. And so I guess your question suggests, then, that God knows what it’s like when things for us end. And not just the big ending, when we die, but all of the other little endings along the way. The relapse into drug addiction… the failing of a marriage…the estrangement of a dear child or parent. That’s truly something to ponder: that in being laid in a tomb is a promise that God is well-acquainted with everything we would ever go through.

So I suppose I see where your questions are going. Was I there? Was I there? Was I there? Well, Jesus on the cross gives us the ability to ask certain piercing questions of God… questions like, “Were you there, God, when we crucified our Lord?” And, “Are you there, God, when I’m suffering here with life?” “Are you there, God, when I stand in nothing but my own shame, my shame for my complicity in violence, my apathy in speaking up for others, my regret of my own bad choices?”Are you there, God, with forgiveness? With compassion? With your unconditional love? With your support as I try to move forward? And, by God, I think I know the answer that question now. And I am trembling with you. Trembling with thankfulness.

So, I guess that’s it, then? Trembling with thankfulness and in resignation. God has come to claim us in Jesus, wherever we are. Oh no? You have one more question for me? “Was I there when God raised him from the tomb?” Well, now, that sounds preposterous. It just keeps on coming! Give me couple—maybe three—days to get back to you.

The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

Already Dead, But Over It

a sermon for the second Sunday in Lent, Year B

Genesis 17:1-7 and Mark 8:31-38

On Wednesday evening as I was standing in line waiting for soup in Price Hall conversation among the people I was standing with turned to downsizing. One person was sharing that they were in the process of moving and were therefore getting ready to go through their belongings trying to decide what needed to be kept, and what needed to go. As a person who is sadly very much in the accumulating phase of my life, with three children still in the house and myself years from retirement, I started to wonder what that must be like. I often imagine a big bonfire.

This person then said, “The whole process is just overwhelming.” It takes not just a certain amount of physical fortitude but emotional fortitude to sift through years of memories and possessions and ultimately let many things go. At that point another couple had wandered up and had started to listen and join in. They shared that they, too, had gone through the grueling tasks of downsizing a few years before but that ultimately it was all so liberating. “It’s all so, so freeing when you’re done with it,” the wise woman reiterated, and we all nodded, as if deep down we already knew exactly what she was talking about.

Over and over in scripture the life of faith is presented as a kind of downsizing—learning to lay down certain things in order to take up a new kind life and be freed. Abram does it, along with his wife Sarai. In beginning a relationship with him, God calls Abram to downsize, to leave their ancestral land behind, to let go of all the relationships and property that might have belonged to him one day, and venture forth to something of his own. It’s hard to imagine hearing that kind of invitation and believing it at the ripe old age of 99, but off he goes, laying aside that former life of his in order to live into a new reality.

And what is the new reality? God promises Abram will not just receive a new land and a new name, but be will become a whole nation. Kings and peoples will come from Sarai, who has never born even one child. That promise must have been difficult to trust, given the circumstances, but Abraham ventures forth in faith. As the apostle Paul would later say, Abraham “hopes against hope” in downsizing his own dreams, his own designs, in order to cling to God’s.

Lent this year asks us to think of the path of Jesus in this way. No matter what we tend to think faith is or is about, no matter what ideas we have about what faith is supposed to look like, the stories of God’s people in scripture and God’s covenants with them urge us to hope against hope, realizing that God raises us up from the ashes of our past to a new beginning. It is a process of moving forward, and in moving forward letting go of many of the things and ideas we think are important but which aren’t. It is a process of laying aside certain sets of beliefs or relationships or priorities and taking up the new ones that Jesus gives us. It is a journey where fear subsides and gives way to faith.

In last week’s lessons we heard about how God chooses to forget humankinds’ sinfulness and our ways of violence in order to remember God’s grace toward us. Through Noah’s delivery in the ark and then through Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, we see that God creates new beginnings. This week the new beginning involves losing our lives to gain them, laying aside our own often selfish goals in order to take up the cross and follow Jesus.

That is precisely where we find Jesus this morning, in fact, teaching his disciples that he himself will be the model for this. Just prior to this conversation in Mark’s gospel, Peter has rightly identified Jesus as the Christ, or the Messiah. Jesus then needs to clarify immediately and openly what kind of Messiah he will be; that is, what kind of Savior and representative for God Jesus will be. He will be a Savior that doesn’t come to conquer and establish his authority through human demonstrations of power. He is a Savior that does it through rejection and death. And despite how utterly objectionable Peter finds that kind of Savior to be, Jesus is undeterred. Despite how much Peter is horrified (and embarrassed) by the thought of following someone who will be scorned at by all the people who seem to matter, Jesus knows that he comes to choose a different way. He will lay aside his own life so that God will eventually raise him us to a new and glorious reality.

Much of the world was shocked and saddened last week by the murder of Alexei Navalny, the leading voice of the opposition in Russia who for years had been one of the only people brave enough to question Vladimir Putin’s policies and hold on power. He had been imprisoned for a while in a distant prison in Siberia, his exact whereabouts and conditions unknown. I am not an expert on Navalny or all of his views but I think much of the world was captivated by how he persisted in his quest to make his country more democratic and less corrupt even when it meant danger to his own life.

After being poisoned by what was likely Putin’s forces in 2020, he was evacuated to a hospital in Germany, where he made a recovery. In an interview with “60 Minutes” in 2020, Navalny was asked whether he feared for his life. In response he said, “my job is not to be afraid and to go back to Russia.” As his obituary in the Economist states, “Navalny often talked as if he had died already, and had gotten over it.”

And so he did return to certain suffering, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer once did to Nazi Germany. In one of his last appearances before his death, Navalny was seen joking and cheerful, a sign that he refused to be broken because he was now living for the “beautiful Russia of the future.” It remains to be seen when that future will arrive, but Navalny’s witness of letting go of life for the sake of a new one should inspire us all to deeper convictions.

Jesus, the Savior who suffers and is rejected, sees and knows the beautiful kingdom of the future. He sees and knows the beautiful beginning that will come from the ashes of the cross and the new life that will come from the ashes of our past. It is a new life of forgiveness out of the ashes of hurt. It is a new life of compassion out of the ashes of indifference. It is a new life of love for those who think they’re unlovable. It is a new life where our neighbors’ needs become important to us. It is a new life where self-denial takes the place of—and is far more rewarding than—the self-assertion and self-promotion our culture peddles in.

And, to be clear, self-denial is not self-loathing, a distinction we often blur. Jesus never calls anyone to despise who they are. Self-denial, rather, means laying our own privilege and sometimes our rights aside in order to bring about a vision of God’s future, a beautiful future where all are cared for. Self-denial is a path that reveals just how dependent we really are on God and God’s love, how dependent we really are on everyone else.

There was an endearing story that surfaced last week about the NBA star Horace Grant, who played for the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s. Many people knew him not just for his mad defensive skills, but for the large, gaudy eye-goggles he used to wear when he played. Grant wore them because he had an eye disorder, but then he ended up getting surgery to correct it and didn’t need them anymore. However, he had gotten so much fan mail from parents and grandparents of kids who wore glasses that Grant decided to continue wearing them in games without the prescription in them. Grant says people kept coming up to him explaining that his wearing goggles in the game helped the kids who had to wear glasses or goggles feel less awkward and be less bullied. In a small but significant way Grant demonstrated self-denial. He laid aside his privilege and took up the goggles to follow Christ’s example.

I wonder how often we really think of God’s kingdom in this way? I wonder how much Jesus realizes we could change this world if we did? More often than not Christ’s followers think their responsibility is to deny the rights and lives of others. Jesus doesn’t ask us to do that—not once. Jesus never expects us to call out the actions or behaviors of other people, deciding what they do or don’t need to give up. Look at what happens to Peter when he tries to call out Jesus this morning! Jesus asks those who claim to be his followers to look inside—to do our own inventories of our storage units of the soul and decide what might need to go or be changed. I think we’re afraid to do that, to be honest, afraid, like Peter, of the sacrifices involved. We then cling to the old life however we can, not wanting to give up our old life, and so we’re held back from the beautiful future. And still God calls us forth, urging us, reminding us how liberating it will be.

That exciting life of the future has been given to us already in baptism, Similar to Navalny, we can say we’ve really already died, and gotten over it. We’ve already died in the waters of the font, the old self drowned—downsized!—and now we get to live in God’s beautiful new future. It is a future where a fellowship hall full of women lay aside an entire Saturday of beautiful weather, for example, to come and learn more about prayer and strengthen faith with new friends.

It is a life where a form of self-denial is practiced in the kitchens of dozens of congregation members who purchase and then make lunches for Moments of Hope to be distributed to hungry people on the streets of Richmond.

It is a life where the cross liberates us from collecting the meaningless mental junk we’ve accumulated through things like racism and xenophobia and Christian nationalism. It is a life where God takes our minds and continually sets them on divine things—divine things of mercy and kindness, justice and humility—because God has decided we’re worth it. God looks at what we’re all about, takes stock, and plunges us in for a deep cleaning. We rise from the water, wipe our eyes once again, and learn to walk with Jesus. We learn to move forward into suffering and service only to discover, over and over, we gain everything…everything that ever really matters.

Thanks be to God!

The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.