Easter Perspective: Al----le-lu-ia!

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Comments are always welcomed.
If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Al----le-lu-ia!

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won't perish but will have eternal life.  God didn't send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

John 3:16-17 (CEB)

Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia!
Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia!
Once he died our souls to save, Alleluia!
Where's thy victory, boasting grave? Alleluia!

From "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today" by Charles Wesley

On Sunday mornings, I typically attend the early, "more contemporary" worship service at my church.¹  Both of the Sunday worship services at my church are mostly the same, but the things that make the service I attend "more contemporary" are that there is a band instead of a choir and that the pastors tend to dress more casually.  Last week, on Easter Sunday, the contemporary service I attended had something in common with a traditional Methodist Easter service: the service began with the singing of the Easter hymn commonly titled "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today."

This beloved Easter hymn was written in 1739 by Charles Wesley, one of the founders of the Methodist movement.  That same year, it was published in the Wesley Brothers' hymnal Hymns and Sacred Poems with the simple title "Hymn for Easter Day."  At some point, a refrain of "Alleluia" was added after each line of the hymn so that it could be sung to a tune commonly associated with Easter.²

Previously I pointed out that, in the early Methodist movement, hymns were used to teach theology and doctrine.  Since I wrote about the theology reflected in Charles Wesley's famous Christmas carol "Hark! the Herald Angels Sing" around Christmas, I thought that, since it is now Eastertide, I would also write about the theology reflected in Wesley's Easter hymn.


The hymn begins with a call for all of creation to praise the resurrected Christ with shouts of Alleluia!

Christ the Lord is risen today, Alleluia!
Earth and heaven in chorus say, Alleluia!
Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!
Sing, ye heavens, and earth reply, Alleluia!³

The theological meat of the hymn begins with the second verse, in which Jesus' resurrection is compared to a victory in battle.

Love's redeeming work is done, Alleluia!
Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia!
Death in vain forbids him rise, Alleluia!
Christ has opened paradise, Alleluia!

According to Wesley, through the Crucifixion and Resurrection, Christ won a decisive battle and completed "love's redeeming work."  To "redeem" something is to buy it back or to save it.  One definition of the word redeem is "to liberate by payment of a ransom."⁴

In the Letter to the Hebrews, one early Christian theologian compares Christ to an empathetic High Priest for all of humanity.  Referring to the Incarnation, Christ's becoming human like the other children of God, the writer states,

Since the children share in flesh and blood, [Christ] also shared the same things in the same way.  He did this to destroy the one who holds the power over death - the devil - by dying.  He set free those who were held in slavery their entire lives by their fear of death.⁵

By becoming human, dying, and rising from the dead, the Son of God defeated death and liberated humanity from the fear of death.

The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus show us that the worst thing that could happen to a person is not the end of the person's story.  As some Methodist pastors like to say, "The worst thing is never the last thing."⁶


As we sing the third verse of the hymn, we not only continue to celebrate Christ's victory but also begin to brazenly mock death.

Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia!
Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia!
Once he died our souls to save, Alleluia!
Where's thy victory, boasting grave? Alleluia!

In case such mockery makes you feel a bit squeamish, I would like to point out that the Church has a rich tradition of taking jabs at death.

In the First Letter to the Corinthians, as St. Paul explains the implications of the Resurrection of Christ, he mocks death by quoting two of the Hebrew prophets.⁷  He writes,

And when the rotting body has been clothed in what can't decay, and the dying body has been clothed in what can't die, then this statement in scripture will happen:

Death has been swallowed up by a victory.
Where is your victory, Death?
Where is your sting, Death?

... Thanks be to God, who gives us this victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!⁸

A few hundred years later, St. John Chrysostom echoes Paul's words in his famous Easter Sermon.  He proclaims,

O death, where is thy sting?
O Hell, where is thy victory?
Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!
Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!
Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!⁹

Even now, Christians regularly mock death without even realizing what they are doing.  Crucifixion was the most inhumane form of execution employed by the Roman Empire, so the cross was originally something that struck fear into people.  Nowadays, Christians brandish crosses throughout their churches and wear crosses on their person as jewelry, as if the cross is a symbol of life and hope as opposed to a symbol of fear and death.


The fourth verse of the hymn reminds us that, as the Body of Christ, we follow Jesus, our Head, on the path of death and resurrection.

Soar we now where Christ has led, Alleluia!
Following our exalted Head, Alleluia!
Made like him, like him we rise, Alleluia!
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!

Following Christ in this way can be understood both literally and metaphorically.

In a literal sense, the resurrection of Christ gives us the hope that someday we too will be resurrected after we die.  St. Paul writes, in his First Letter to the Corinthians, that Christ is "the first crop of the harvest of those who have died."¹⁰  In other words, the resurrection of Christ will be just the first of many resurrections.  Paul continues, "Since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead came through one too.  In the same way that everyone dies in Adam, so also everyone will be given life in Christ."¹¹

Death and resurrection are also a metaphor for sanctification, which is what Charles Wesley's brother John called "going on to perfection."  In the Letter to the Colossians, we read,

You were buried with [Christ] through baptism and raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.  When you were dead because of the things you had done wrong... God made you alive with Christ and forgave all the things you had done wrong.¹²

In the words of theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die."¹³  Following Christ, we are crucified and buried as the people we have been, and we are resurrected as the people we are becoming.


The fifth verse reminds us of certain truths about Jesus.

Hail the Lord of earth and heaven, Alleluia!
Praise to thee by both be given, Alleluia!
Thee we greet triumphant now, Alleluia!
Hail the Resurrection, thou, Alleluia!

The Letter to the Philippians includes what is thought to be an early Christian hymn about the incarnation of Christ.  The first half of this hymn, which is commonly called the Christ Hymn, tells us that the Son of God divested Himself the power and glory of divinity to take on frail human flesh.  He lived His life as a servant and died the death of a criminal.¹⁴  The second half of the hymn reads,

Therefore, God highly honored him
and gave him a name above all names,
so that at the name of Jesus everyone
in heaven, on earth, and under the earth might bow
and every tongue confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.¹⁵

Christ descended from heaven, to servanthood, to a criminal's death, and then God resurrected Him from the dead, raised Him back up to heaven, and gave Him a seat of authority at God's right-hand side.

This verse ends with a reminder of something Jesus says about Himself in the Gospel of John.  Before He raises His friend Lazarus from the dead, He says to Lazarus's grieving sister Martha, "I am the resurrection and the life.  Whoever believes in me will live, even though they die.  Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die."¹⁶


The sixth verse reminds us of the abundant, eternal life available to us.

King of glory, soul of bliss, Alleluia!
Everlasting life is this, Alleluia!
Thee to know, thy power to prove, Alleluia!
Thus to sing, and thus to love, Alleluia!

In the Gospel of John, we read that, on the evening before Jesus is arrested, He prays a high priestly prayer on behalf of His current disciples and all disciples who will come after them.  He begins His prayer,

Father, the time has come.  Glorify your Son, so that the Son can glorify you.  You gave him authority over everyone so that he could give eternal life to everyone you gave him.  This is eternal life: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent.¹⁷

The abundant life Christ offers us is eternal in not only duration but also depth, and integral to this abundant life is knowing the God who loves us and knowing Christ whom God sent to save us.


Eastertide is a roughly fifty-day season that begins with Easter Sunday.  If you observe Easter, dear reader, may you take some time in these fifty days to contemplate what the Resurrection of Jesus Christ means to you personally at this time in your life.

Notes:

1. https://www.trmethodist.net/sundays
2. Wikipedia: "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today"
3. Lyrics from "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today" are presented in this perspective as they appear in The United Methodist Hymnal, published in 1989 by The United Methodist Publishing House.
4. Wiktionary: "Redeem"
5. Hebrews 2:14-15 (CEB)
6. This saying was made popular by United Methodist pastor Adam Hamilton, who adapted it from the words of writer Frederick Buechner.
7. See Isaiah 25:8 and Hosea 13:14.
8. 1 Corinthians 15:54-55, 57 (CEB)
9. https://anglicansonline.org/special/Easter/chrysostom_easter.html
10. 1 Corinthians 15:20 (CEB)
11. 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 (CEB)
12. Colossians 2:12-13 (CEB)
13. Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  The Cost of Discipleship (translated by R.H. Fuller and Irmgard Booth).  ch. 4
14. Philippians 2:6-8
15. Philippians 2:9-11 (CEB)
16. John 11:25-26 (CEB)
17. John 17:1-3 (CEB)

The photograph of the stained glass window at Saint Elizabeth Catholic Church in Columbus, Ohio was taken by Wikimedia Commons user Nheyob and is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.

Easter Perspective: Was It Not Necessary?

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.
Comments are always welcomed.
If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Was It Not Necessary?

Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, [Jesus] also shared the same things in the same way.  He did this to destroy the one who holds the power over death - the devil - by dying.  He set free those who were held in slavery their entire lives by their fear of death.

Hebrews 2:14-15 (CEB)

Christ is risen from the dead
Trampling over death by death
Come awake, come awake
Come and rise up from the grave

From "Christ Is Risen" by Matt Maher

Toward the end of the Gospel of Luke, we read about two travelers who are heading from the city of Jerusalem to a village called Emmaus.  Until just a few of days ago, they had been disciples of a traveling teacher and miracle worker known as Jesus of Nazareth.  They once had high hopes for Jesus, but their hopes were shattered when He was arrested, put on trial, and unjustly executed by crucifixion.  That morning, a group of women visited Jesus' tomb and found that Jesus' body was missing.¹  Disappointed and confused, the two disciples walk down the road, discussing the strange events of the last few days.²

A stranger joins the two disciples on the road and asks them what they are discussing.  Wondering where this person has been hiding for the last few days, they tell him about Jesus.³  They say,
Because of his powerful deeds and words, he was recognized by God and all the people as a prophet.  But our chief priests and our leaders handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him.  We had hoped he was the one who would redeem Israel.  All these things happened three days ago.  But there's more: Some women from our group have left us stunned.  They went to the tomb early this morning and didn't find his body.  They came to us saying that they had even seen a vision of angels who told them he is alive.  Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found things just as the women said. They didn't see him.⁴

For some reason, the two disciples do not realize that they are speaking to the very person they are describing.

The Risen Jesus says to His two disciples, "You foolish people!  Your dull minds keep you from believing all that the prophets talked about.  Wasn't it necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and then enter into his glory?"  He then interprets the Hebrew Scriptures for them, pointing out everything that is written about the Messiah.⁵

The Risen Christ asks rhetorically whether or not it was necessary for Him to be crucified and resurrected, and He seems to be suggesting that it was indeed necessary.  After all, Jesus had warned His disciples on multiple occasions that, once He reached Jerusalem, He would be rejected by the people in charge, beaten, put to death, and then resurrected from the dead.⁶  Many people are haunted by the question of why Jesus had to die, and often the answers they receive are no less disturbing than the question itself.  For example, some suggest that Jesus had to die in order to receive the punishment the rest of humanity rightly deserves so that God can forgive us.

As for me, I have two rather obvious answers to the question of why Jesus had to die.  First, Jesus had to die because He came into a world in which innocent people like Him will be put to death for simply speaking the truth to people who do not want to hear it.  This is the kind of world that desperately needs to be saved.  If you think we have made a lot of progress in the last two thousand years, consider the assassinations and genocides that still happen.  Second, Jesus had to die so that He could be resurrected from the dead.  A person cannot rise from the dead unless that person is first dead.

If you asked me to summarize the Gospel message in just a few words, I would simply tell you, "The Risen Christ is Lord."  Jesus died and rose from the dead in order to free us from the power of sin and death.  Through His crucifixion and subsequent resurrection, He showed us that the death-dealing powers of this world - the kind that nail innocent people to crosses and hang them up to die - are not truly sovereign.  No matter how badly they wanted Jesus out of the way, they could not get rid of Him, for He is the true Lord of this world.  By rising from the dead, Jesus triumphed over death, showing us that the very worst thing that the death-dealing powers of this world can do to a person is not the end of the story.

When the travelers reach Emmaus, they two disciples invite the stranger to stay with them for the evening.  When they all sit down for dinner, the stranger takes some bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them.  Remembering that they have seen Jesus do the very same thing, they finally realize who has been walking with them in their disappointment and confusion.⁷

When Jesus asks whether or not it was necessary for Him to die and rise again, I have to agree that it was indeed necessary.  Through His crucifixion and resurrection, He showed us that we have no real reason to be afraid.  I do not know how He could accomplish what He accomplished without suffering what He suffered.  I do not know how Jesus could have defeated sin and death for us without confronting the sinful brutality of this world head-on, subjecting Himself to death, and then rising victorious over it.

During this Easter season, may you remember the Gospel story, and may it give you hope amid whatever you're facing.


Notes:

1. Luke 24:1-12
2. Luke 24:13-14
3. Luke 24:15-19
4. Luke 24:19-24 (CEB)
5. Luke 24:25-27 (CEB)
6. Luke 9:21-22; Luke 9:43b-45; Luke 18:31-34
7. Luke 24:28-31

The Pilgrims of Emmaus on the Road was painted by James Tissot in the late 1800s.

Sermon: What We Leave Behind

Delivered at Northside United Methodist Church in Greenville, South Carolina on July 31, 2022

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.
Comments are always welcomed.
If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

What We Leave Behind

Audio Version

Click here to watch the entire service on YouTube.

Someone in the crowd said to [Jesus], “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.”  But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?”  And he said to them, “Take care!  Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”  Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly.  And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’  Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.  And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’  But God said to him, ‘You fool!  This very night your life is being demanded of you.  And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’  So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

Luke 12:13-21 (NRSV)

When it's all said and done
No one remembers
How far we have run
The only thing that matters
Is how we have loved

From “Blink” by Revive

In the mid 1990s, singer Alanis Morissette recorded a song titled “Ironic,” in which she describes a number of disastrous reversals of fortune.  In the first verse, a man who has just turned ninety-eight years of age wins the lottery... and then dies the very next day.  In the second verse, a man who has always been afraid to fly finally works up the courage to board a plane to take a trip he has always wanted to take... only to die in a plane crash.  As the plane falls from the sky, he says to himself, “Well, isn't this nice...”  Irony, according to Morissette, is “like rain on your wedding day.”  “It's a free ride when you've already paid.”  “It's a black fly in your Chardonnay.”  “It's a death row pardon two minutes too late.”  “It's meeting the man of [her] dreams and then meeting his beautiful wife.”¹

This song stirred up a bit of controversy back in its day, not because of the morbid stories contained within it but because of Morissette's use of the word ironic.  It has been suggested that the things the singer describes in her song are not truly ironic, making her use of the word an irony in its own right.  Irony is, according to one dictionary, “a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what was or might be expected” or “an outcome cruelly, humorously, or strangely at odds with assumptions or expectations.”²  Some examples of irony would be a burglary at a police station, a fire at a fire station, or a dentist's requiring a root canal.³  A friend of mine once argued that what Morissette describes in her song is not irony but rather what we might call bad luck.

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus tells a parable that, in my opinion, would fit in quite nicely alongside the stories of ironically bad luck Alanis Morissette tells in her infamous song.

---

As we read the Gospels, we can see that different people have different motivations for coming to Jesus.  We read a number of stories in which people come to Jesus because they have questions for Him.  Some ask Him questions because they are sincerely seeking answers.  Others have more underhanded motives, for they ask Him questions with the hopes of either tripping Him up or later using His answers against Him.  We read other stories in which people come to Jesus because they are seeking healing for themselves or for loved ones who are suffering.  In Jesus' culture it is not uncommon for people to turn to respected rabbis for help in solving their problems,⁴ so naturally there are stories in the Gospels in which people come to Jesus with their disputes as well.

One day, when a crowd has formed around Jesus, someone in the crowd makes a request of Him.  He says, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.”⁵  The Jewish Law dictates that two thirds of a man's estate must be bequeathed to the firstborn son, regardless of whether or not he happens to his father's favorite child.⁶  Such a system of inheritance is sometimes known as primogeniture.⁷  To people like us whose culture emphasizes things like equity and fairness, the idea that something like sex or order of birth should privilege one child over another might seem unjust, and it probably seemed unjust in Jesus' day to anyone who did not happen to be a firstborn son.  We can surmise that the man who asked Jesus to speak to his brother about the family inheritance is a younger brother who either thinks that he has not received his fair share or believes for some reason that he deserves more than he has received.

One might expect Jesus to side with the lesser-privileged son in this matter, considering His concern for the underprivileged, but Jesus apparently wants nothing to do with this dispute.  He asks the man, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?”⁸  (I actually find this response ironic, since, as we hear in the Apostles' Creed, Christ will someday return “to judge the quick and the dead.”⁹)  Jesus then turns to the crowd that has gathered around Him and says, “Take care!  Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”¹⁰  He then tells the crowd a parable which is often called the Parable of the Rich Fool.

Jesus tells the crowd about a farmer who is blessed with an extremely abundant harvest one year.  His land has yielded more crops than he ever imagined he would have, so he does not have enough room in his barns to store everything.¹¹  The farmer surely realizes that, if he takes his crops to the market, he probably won't make much money, since everyone else's land has likely produced just as abundantly as his that year.  If, on the other hand, he waits until a year when crops are significantly less plentiful, he can charge as much as he wants at the market.¹²  He also knows that he can simply store his crops and live off them for a number of years.  The farmer decides to demolish his barns and to build bigger ones, so that he has enough room to store his crops.  With plenty of food stored up, he will be able to take it easy and enjoy his life for a while.¹³

God says to the farmer, “You fool!  This very night your life is being demanded of you.  And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?”¹⁴  In the words of Alanis Morissette, “And isn't it ironic?  Don't you think?”¹⁵  Jesus warns the crowd, “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”¹⁶

---

Before I continue, I want to acknowledge that there is some ambiguity regarding what exactly is meant in the parable when God says to the farmer, “This very night your life is being demanded of you.”  It is possible that God is telling him that he is about to die.  In the Common English Bible, God simply says, “Fool, tonight you will die.”¹⁷  It is also possible that what is demanding the farmer's life is not God but rather the farmer's possessions.¹⁸  In other words, God could be saying to the farmer, “You Fool!  The things you own are owning you right now.”  Though this latter interpretation warrants a sermon of it's own, for the purpose of this sermon, I am making the assumption that God is telling the farmer that he is about to die.

---

I think that Jesus' Parable of the Rich Fool might be telling us something about the futility of the way we often live our lives.  The farmer in the parable makes a plan: he will build barns that are big enough to store his abundant harvest and then take it easy as long as his crops will sustain him.  Sadly, he dies before his plan can be fully realized.  The parable isn't really clear in regards to how much of his plan he is able to complete before he dies, but it is clear that he does not get a chance to enjoy the easy life he wants to live.

It has been suggested that, “if you want to hear God laugh, tell God your plans.”¹⁹  Though I do not especially like the snarky image of God this saying conveys, I do think it makes an important point.  Our plans do not always work out as we hope they will.  Who among us has not had to cancel plans because of some unforeseen circumstance?  The Scottish poet Robert Burns once destroyed a mouse's nest while he was plowing a field.  Still holding his plow, he composed a poem as an apology to the mouse.²⁰  He mused,

The best-laid schemes of mice and men
Go oft awry,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!²¹

Perhaps what is most laughable about our making plans is the assumption that life will actually accommodate them.  The last few years have been, among other things, a bitter reminder that we are not in control of our lives to the extent that we want to think we are.  St. James writes in his letter,
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.”  Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring.  What is your life?  For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.  Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.”²²
There is a futility in making plans, because we simply do not know what lies ahead of us and because we are ultimately not in control of our lives.  We need to learn how to live our lives in light of these realities.

For me, Jesus' parable calls to mind the book known as Ecclesiastes, which tells the story of a teacher and king, presumably Solomon, who sought meaning amid the meaninglessness of life.  First the king sought meaning through wisdom, becoming wiser than anyone who preceded him.  He realized that “in much wisdom is much vexation” and that “those who increase knowledge increase sorrow.”  The king then sought meaning through pleasure.  He said, “Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them; I kept my heart from no pleasure...”  He also sought meaning through his wealth by building houses and planting gardens and vineyards.  He realized that, upon his death, everything he worked so hard to accomplish would be passed on to someone who did not work for it and who may or may not use it wisely.²³

In Jesus' parable, after telling the farmer that he is about to die, God asks him, “The things you have prepared, whose will they be?”  There is a futility in accumulating things, because we cannot take the things we accumulate with us when we die.  We will have to leave them all behind.  In the words of Job, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there...”²⁴  One pastor I know remarked that he had never seen an armored car at a funeral.

The king who sought meaning in life came to the conclusion that all people, whether they are wise or foolish, happy or sad, rich or poor, will inevitably meet the same fate.²⁵  This, I think, is the bitter reality with which we are confronted in the Parable of the Rich Fool.  No matter who we are, someday our lives will be demanded of us.  As people who worship a crucified and risen Lord, we cling to the hope that death is not the end of the story.  We hold on to the hope that, because Christ conquered death, His resurrection will be the first of many resurrections.  Until then, death is a reality all of us must face.  All of us will lose people we love in this life, and all of us will inevitably reach the end of our own lives.

If I had been preaching here three years ago, when this parable was previously the Gospel reading assigned by the Lectionary, you might have heard a very different sermon form me.  Though I have always been haunted by the reality of death, I have done my damnedest to keep it out of my mind.  Over the last couple of years, the reality of death has been slapping me in the face repeatedly.  In October of 2020, my father suddenly died of what appeared to be a heart attack.  In September of last year, one of my grandmothers died after living with dementia for a number of years.  Then, in November, my other grandmother died of complications caused by COVID-19.  I suppose that, at this particular moment in my life, it is only natural that this parable would force me to confront my own mortality.

A few weeks ago, when I began thinking about this parable in preparation to preach here today, it began to hit a little too close to home for me.  I have been working at my current job for nearly thirteen years.  I cannot say that it is my dream job, but I can say that it is a lot better than the job I had previously.  That said, I sometimes wonder if I was meant to do something else with my life.  In fact, when I accepted the job back in 2009, I had already been contemplating a career change.  What keeps me at my current job are my benefits, which include health and dental insurance, and the possibility of retiring with a nice pension.  In the last few weeks, it occurred to me that I have no guarantee that I will live until I am able to retire.  I am starting to wonder if I am wasting my life by chasing a pension I might not even live to enjoy.  Needless to say, I have a lot of things I need to think through at this time.

The Parable of the Rich Fool reminds us that we are ultimately not in control of our lives.  It reminds us that we cannot hold on forever to the things we accumulate in this life.  It reminds us that our lives will someday come to an end.

So how are we to live our lives in light of these harsh realities?

I wonder if maybe this parable is calling us to consider what we will leave behind when our lives are demanded of us.

In Jesus' parable, the question God asks the farmer is unfortunately left unanswered.  We simply do not know who will receive the things he has prepared for himself.  Maybe someone else will be able to benefit from the crops he has stored up, or maybe they will be left to rot.  Jesus' parables do not always provide us the details we wish we had.

A certain editorial cartoon that has made its way around the Internet depicts an elderly father standing with his son in front of an open storage unit, which is crammed full of things the father has accumulated over his lifetime.  The father says, “One day, Son, all of this will be yours.”²⁶  If this son is like most of us, then he is probably not looking forward to inheriting his father's stuff, because he has already accumulated on his own more stuff than he really needs.

The farmer in Jesus' parable leaves behind a barn full of crops, which may or may not go to waste.  Many people leave behind garages, basements, and storage units full of junk that, truth be told, their families will not need.  Some people leave behind bitterness and broken relationships.  Some people leave behind legacies.  Some people leave behind stories of how they made a positive impact on the lives of others through their self-sacrificial love.  Some people leave behind examples for others to follow.  Some people leave the world around them a little better than they found it.

The 1995 film Mr. Holland's Opus tells the story of Glenn Holland, a gig musician who becomes a high school music teacher to make ends meet.  What he really wants is to be a composer, but the demands of teaching and the needs of his family leave him very little time to write music.  At first, Mr. Holland hates teaching, because he feels that he is not reaching his students, but over time he starts to love it.  He learns to meet his students where they are, showing them how the rock and roll they love has roots in the classical music taught per the school curriculum.  He learns to give extra time to struggling students and to take an interest in their lives, since struggles within the classroom are often caused by tensions and pressures from the outside.  He teaches his students that music is more than notes on a page and that making music is meant to be enjoyed.²⁷

About thirty years after Mr. Holland began teaching, the school cuts out all music and art programs in order to save money, forcing him into an early retirement.  A special farewell assembly is held for him, where students he taught over the course of his career gather to honor him.  The state governor, who was once a struggling clarinetist in the school orchestra Mr. Holland directed, gives a speech.²⁸  She says,
Mr. Holland had a profound influence on my life and on a lot of lives I know.  But I have a feeling that he considers a great part of his own life misspent.  Rumor had it he was always working on this symphony of his.  And this was going to make him famous, rich, probably both.  But Mr. Holland isn't rich and he isn't famous, at least not outside of our little town.  So it might be easy for him to think himself a failure.  But he would be wrong, because I think that he's achieved a success far beyond riches and fame.  Look around you.  There is not a life in this room that you have not touched, and each of us is a better person because of you.  We are your symphony, Mr. Holland.  We are the melodies and the notes of your opus.  We are the music of your life.²⁹

Glenn Holland wanted to leave behind some great music for the world to enjoy, but his magnum opus – his “great work” – is the positive impact he made on his students.  I have tried to determine whether or not this film is based on a true story.  I have come to the conclusion that the story is indeed true, in the sense that there are many people in this world who believe that they are now better people because of the teachers who selflessly invested in their lives when they were young.

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So what could the farmer in Jesus' parable have done differently?  How might his story have had a happier ending?

Jesus goes on to encourage His followers not to worry about their basic needs like food and clothing but to instead trust in the God who feeds the ravens and clothes the lilies.  He urges His followers not to strive for the things they need but to strive instead for the Kingdom of God, assuring them that their basic needs will be met as well.³⁰  The Kingdom of God is not just Heaven but also anywhere God's will is done “on Earth as it is in Heaven.”³¹  It is anywhere people follow the Royal Law to love their neighbors as they love themselves.³²  The Kingdom of God is what Christ came to Earth to establish.

Before Jesus began His public ministry, His forerunner John the Baptist called people to “bear fruits worthy of repentance” in anticipation of the great change that was coming.  When people asked him what they should do specifically, he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.”³³  The farmer in Jesus' parable could have considered for a moment that maybe he had been blessed by God so that he may be a blessing to others.  He could have used his abundance to leave the world around him a little better than he found it.  It has been said, “When you have more than you need, build a longer table, not a higher fence”³⁴ – or, we might add, bigger barns.  Even if the farmer had sold his crops at the market, he would have driven the overall price of food down, benefiting everyone in the community.³⁵

Jesus says to His followers,
Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.  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.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.³⁶
The things we accomplish and the stuff we accumulate will amount to nothing when our lives are inevitably demanded of us; however, the love we show to others has a way of living on.  It lives on because showing love to the people around us can cause them to become more loving to the people around them.  It lives on because it is the kind of thing that is treasured by God.  Even if our acts of love are forgotten in this world, they will never be forgotten by God.

Thanks be to God.


Notes:

1. https://genius.com/Alanis-morissette-ironic-lyrics
2. Wikipedia: “Ironic (song)” (section: “Linguistic dispute”)
3. https://literarydevices.net/irony/
4. William Barclay.  The Parables of Jesus.  1990, Westminster John Knox Press.  p. 121
5. Luke 12:13 (NRSV)
6. Deuteronomy  21:15-17
7. Wikipedia: “Primogeniture”
8. Luke 12:14 (NRSV)
9. Wikipedia: “Apostles Creed” (section: “Church of England”)
10. Luke 12:15 (NRSV)
11. Luke 12:16-17
12. J.R.D. Kirk and Sean Gladding.  “Slavery and Food, Sex and Money with Sean Gladding.”  Homebrewed Christianity's LectioCast, 07/25/2015.
13. Luke 12:18-19
14. Luke 12:20 (NRSV)
15. https://genius.com/Alanis-morissette-ironic-lyrics
16. Luke 12:21 (NRSV)
17. Luke 12:20 (CEB)
18. Michael D. Coogan, et al.  The New Oxford Annotated Bible, Third Edition.  2001, Oxford University Press, Inc.  New Testament pp. 121-122
19. A quote like has been attributed to Iyanla Vanzant, Woody Allen, and perhaps others.
20. Wikipedia: “To a Mouse”
21. ibid.
    
22. James 4:13-15 (NRSV)
23. Ecclesiastes 1:12-2:23 (NRSV)
24. Job 1:21a (NRSV)
25. Ecclesiastes 2:15-16
26. https://www.cartoonstock.com/cartoon?searchID=BA500208
27. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113862/
28. ibid.
29. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113862/quotes/
30. Luke 12:22-31
31. Matthew 6:10
32. James 2:8
33. Luke 3:7-11 (NRSV)
34. This quote, which has made its way around the Internet, is of unknown origin.
35. Kirk and Gladding
36. Luke 12:32-34 (NRSV)

The Man Who Hoards was painted by James Tissot in the late 1800s.

Introspection: My Grief and My Hope

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.
Comments are always welcomed.
If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

My Grief and My Hope

But the truth is that Christ has been raised up, the first in a long legacy of those who are going to leave the cemeteries.

1 Corinthians 15:20 (The Message)

Life is only death, or death is life disguised
We endure this time of death until by life we are surprised

From a poem in the story "The Desecration" by Jesse Turri¹

When a member of my church dies, my pastors say that, though we grieve, we grieve with hope and that, while we have tears in our eyes, we have hope in our hearts.

The past thirteen months have brought a lot of grief and loss into my life.  Last Wednesday, my grandmother, Emma Snyder, lost her life after a long battle against the effects of COVID-19.  Just seven weeks earlier, my other grandmother, Mildred Whisnant, passed away after living with dimentia for a number of years.  A little over a year ago, my father, Bobby Snyder, died suddenly of what was most likely a heart attack.

Something that gives me hope right now, amid all this grief and loss, is the Gospel story.

The Gospels tell us the story of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who lived among humanity during the days of the Roman Empire.  He traveled throughout the land, healing the sick, bringing peace to the troubled, raising the dead, feeding the hungry, befriending the friendless, touching the untouchable, giving hope to the hopeless, and proclaiming the coming of a Kingdom not of this world.  One fateful week, He clashed with the religious and political leaders of His day.  Though He had done nothing wrong, He was arrested, put on trial, and sentenced to death by crucifixion.  He was stripped, beaten, nailed to a cross, and hanged up to die like a terrorist.

A couple of days after Jesus died on the Cross, His followers went to His tomb and found that it was empty.  He appeared to them, alive and well, and commissioned them to share His message of hope with the whole world, and His followers have continued to do so for the last two thousand years.

The Gospel story gives us the hope that, as we like to say at my church, "the worst thing is never the last thing."²  It dares us to hope that, in the same way that a brutal and gruesome execution was not the end of Jesus's story, loss and death are not the end of ours.  Right now, the Gospel story is giving me the hope that someday, somehow I will once again see the loved ones I've lost.

St. Paul, in one of his letters to the early Christians, refers to Jesus Christ, who "has been raised from the dead," as "the first fruits of those who have died."³  Paul is referencing the "first fruits" offering required by the Law of his religion.  In the Book of Leviticus, the ancient Hebrews were instructed to bring the first of their crops the priest.⁴  According to Scholar William Barclay, "The first-fruits were a sign of the harvest to come; and the Resurrection of Jesus was a sign of the resurrection of all believers which was to come."⁵

For most of my life, I've tried my best not to think about death, be it my own or that of someone I love, but lately death has been slapping me in the face repeatedly.  The harsh truth of the matter is that all of us will face death.  Throughout our lives, we will lose people who are dear to us, until we inevitably come to the end of our own lives.  Though we will grieve in this life, the Gospels, which tell us of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, offer us the hope that the Resurrection of Christ is just the first of many.


Notes:

1. https://unfolded.jesseturri.com/portfolio/episode-3-the-desecration/
2. My pastors borrowed this saying from pastor Adam Hamilton, who borrowed the idea from writer Frederick Buechner.
3. 1 Corinthians 15:20 (NRSV)
4. Leviticus 23:10
5. William Barclay.  The Daily Bible Study Series: The Letters to the Corinthians (revised edition).  1975, The Westminster Press.  p. 150

The photograph of the candles is used courtesy of Pixabay.