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05/07/23 – Paying Attention in the Jungle

PAYING ATTENTION IN THE JUNGLE

May 7, 2023
5th Sunday of Easter
Acts 7:55-60; Ps. 31; I Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14
Rev. Denise Clark-Jones

There’s an old quip: If you aren’t worried, you aren’t paying attention.” That line made it into the theme song for an old TV show Tom and I used to watch. The series is called Monk and it’s about an obsessive-compulsive, germophobic detective. He was a good detective because he was so observant of details. But he paid such close attention to everything in his environment he worried constantly. The songwriter, Randy Newman captured Monk’s dilemma perfectly with the lyrics to the show’s theme song:

“It’s a jungle out there
Disorder and confusion everywhere
No one seems to care
Well I do
Hey, who’s in charge here?
It’s a jungle out there
Poison in the very air we breathe
Do you know what’s in the water that you drink?
Well I do, and it’s amazing
People think I’m crazy, ’cause I worry all the time
If you paid attention, you’d be worried too
You better pay attention
Or this world we love so much might just kill you
I could be wrong now, but I don’t think so!
‘Cause there’s a jungle out there.
It’s a jungle out there.” (1)

If that theme song were to have been written today, there would have been mention of mass shootings, I’m sure. If you pay attention to the news, you will know that there is a mass shooting nearly every day. People are gunned down in schools, parking lots, shopping centers, churches, banks, doctor’s offices – any public place. Or, as in the case of a family recently, five members were shot in their own home by a drunken, irate neighbor armed with an automatic weapon. A teenager was shot because she mistakenly got into the wrong car in a grocery store parking lot. Another teenager was shot because he went to the wrong house to pick up his younger brothers from a birthday party. Gun violence in this country worries me, and I could name a few other worries today, I bet you could too.  Jesus’ opening line in our gospel reading for today is “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” Well, easy for you to say, Jesus. Look at what’s going on in the world we are living in now.

Yet if we look at the context of these words, Jesus had plenty to worry about. In the gospels, we read that Jesus experienced sadness and anger, but never fear. When he advised his disciples, “do not let your hearts be troubled,” he was speaking words of comfort and assurance to his very worried disciples. They had every reason to be worried. They had just had what Jesus told them was their last supper with him before he went to his death. Prior to the start of the passage in John’s gospel, Jesus had washed his disciples’ feet and announced: “so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ 34I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13:33-35) He had also informed them that one disciple would hand him over to his enemies and another disciple would deny him three times before dawn the next day. With this in their future, how were they to go on without him? How could they continue the mission with which he had entrusted them, with two disciples down and Jesus gone. Jesus spoke as if he had it all under control. He assured them: “If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.”

These are comforting words often quoted at funerals, but Jesus’ words were more than a promise they would see him again in heaven. He went on to explain that they had been prepared to carry out his mission in the world because they had journeyed with God. 7If you know me, you will know my Father also. Along with his spiritual presence with them, they would be able to do what he did, and even more he tells them. That is, if they had been paying attention. In this pre-Resurrection scene, the disciples had not put it all together, but like in a great mystery story, all the clues they had missed were remembered at the Great Reveal on Easter morning.

Thomas and Philip were the two that voiced the other disciples’ fears. 5Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7If you know me, you will know my Father also.” (14: 5-7) Like us, during the Easter season, they would go back over what they had seen and heard about Jesus with the new understanding gained after the Resurrection. At this time, when the disciples were the most troubled, Jesus invites them to remember the trust they had placed in him. A trust that had been established in relationship with him through his relationship with God. He had given them the commandment ‘to love one another as he had loved them.’ He calls them to a deeper relationship with him in their current state of anxiety about the future.

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” No one comes to the Father except through me.” In the historic interpretation of this verse, the emphasis has been on declaring who is going to heaven and who is not. Yet, going back in the gospel accounts, we see Jesus was consistently inclusive — that God sent him into the world for all the world to be reconciled with God. Jesus is also consistent in his stand that we are not the judge of others.

Jesus was telling his disciples they will know the way because he has shown them God’s way. ‘I have told you God’s truth, and in my life, you will find the life God intends for you. If you didn’t pay close enough attention to the details you will, if you remember me and all I did for you after I am gone.’

But Philip presses on “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” 9Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? In other words, have you not been paying attention? Here Jesus seems to be impatient and irritated at Philip, who has not grasped the evidence before him many times before. It was Philip who had questioned how Jesus could feed five thousand people with just a few fish and loaves of bread. He had seen how Jesus had miraculously made provisions for what people needed, yet he couldn’t grasp that Jesus had always been acting in accord with the Father. Phillip had missed that Jesus’s whole life and ministry had been about revealing and glorifying God. Jesus tells his disciples here, ‘now you have what you need to show my Father to others, abide in me, follow me. Yes, worrisome things will be placed in your path, but you have observed me handle conflicts, obstacles and setbacks and how I have remained faithful. You can too.’

Jesus had warned his disciples following his Way would not be easy. In our reading from Acts, we hear the story of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. The thread running through Stephen’s selected account of Old Testament scriptures was the guilt of the people to follow God’s laws and the leaders and prophets God sent them. Without uttering his name, but clearly implied, Stephen accused them of killing Jesus.

Stephen was testifying before the Sanhedrin, defending himself against the charge of blasphemy. Sadducees, Pharisees, high-ranking priestly family members, elders, and scribes were present. Politics and religion were tightly interwoven in the Roman Empire, thus making it likely that Roman political leaders were also on the Jerusalem Sanhedrin. This body “sat as a judicial court interpreting and guarding Jewish life, custom, and law in Judea.” 1 (Harper Collins, p. 972) As the purpose of this body was to keep the peace and maintain the status quo, it was understandably biased again these early Christ followers. So, you see, biased, politically motivated judicial bodies have been around since antiquity.

Stephen used the witness of the Hebrew scriptures to remind his persecutors of the Hebrew prophets that had been killed for speaking God’s truth. He proclaimed they were guilty of doing the same to God’s Son. Among his persecutors was Saul to whom, later, the risen Christ appeared on the road to Damascus and was transformed completely from a persecutor to a courageous Christian disciple.

In our reading from 1 Peter, we see the strain persecution placed on the early Christian congregations. First Peter’s words are affirming, yet also challenging. Yes, these new Christians were set apart, “chosen, “as a royal priesthood, but not as a reason for boasting.” The ugly beast of Christian triumphalism is spawned from such a misunderstanding. These first Christians, and we as their descendants, were set apart for service in the way of Jesus Christ. If you watched the coronation of King Charles III yesterday, you heard this Jesus quote several times: “I come not to be served, but to serve.” (Matt., 20:28, Mark 10:45, NIV)

The persecuted minority of Christians in the early second century of the Roman Empire did not feel “royal” like Christians who claim superiority and privilege in this country by claiming it to be a white Christian nation. The early Christians had to forge their identity by imitating Christ in their daily living, not by claiming status. Christ lived a life of obedience to God, immersion in the study of the Holy Scriptures and service to his neighbors to the glory of God. It is Christ who is the cornerstone upon which the life of the church, and its individual members, is grounded.

When churches get worried about the future, 1 Peter is one of the many New Testament books which urges fearful Christians to keep Christ as the “cornerstone” of the church. In our passage from 1 Peter for today, the author uses the imagery of the people being the stones that make up the building with Christ as the cornerstone. The building is spiritual. The church is not confined to a particular building because we can worship anywhere in community with other Christians. The author uses a compilation of quotes from the First Testament, the Hebrew bible, to support his stand. When the church is faced with major decisions about the future, God’s Word is the critical guide for our discernment.Christ ordained our commission to go out into the world showing who we are by what we say and what we do. We do not need to define Christianity to a skeptical world, we need to show that we are walking with Christ in such a way that there is no doubt as to who we are, to whom we belong and why we do what we do.

This is why Jesus invites us to his Table. Listen to the ancient words of institution: “take, eat, do this in remembrance of me.” (Luke 22:19) Jesus promised to reveal himself in the breaking of bread and the drinking of the cup. These are little details that tell the bigger story of God’s love and Christ’s love-filled sacrifice for us. If we pay attention, we will leave the table changed; because when Christ abides in us, we cannot remain the same. Christ has shown us how to pay attention, not for the sake of worrying, but for seeing the opportunities to be Christ’s body in the world.

Yes, it may seem like a jungle out there, but there is a way out and someone is in charge. Through God’s gracious, steadfast love we have Christ as our guide and our savior.

Amen. May it be so!

Resources:

1.      source: https://www.lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/monklyrics.html

2.      Achtemeier, Paul J. ed. Bible Dictionary, HarperCollins, New York, 1996 p. 972.

 

 

© Rev. Denise Clark-Jones, 2023, All Rights Reserved
Westminster Presbyterian Church | 1420 W. Moss Ave. | Peoria, Illinois 61606
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