All Saints’ Sunday, November 2, 2014 | 8:00, 9:30, and 11:00 a.m.

Dislocation and Saints

Shannon J. Kershner
Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 107:1–8, 33–37
Matthew 23:1–12

Yet, through me flashes
this vision of a magnetic field of the soul,
created in a timeless present by the unknown multitudes,
living in holy obedience,
whose words and actions are a timeless prayer—
“The Communion of Saints”
—and—within it—an eternal life.

Dag Hammarskjöld

When I had been in ministry for about five years, I was invited to participate in the Women’s Preaching Academy sponsored by Auburn Seminary in New York City. This academy brought together nine Caucasian women and nine African-American women, from all different denominations and from all over the country to learn, to talk, to listen, and to preach. One of our professors was Barbara Lundblad. In addition to helping us become more comfortable as preachers, Barbara talked with us about how easy it can be to domesticate scripture, especially if we typically read and study it only within the confines of the church office. We make it too tame, she said, too predictable. We end up seeing only what we expect to see.

So she split us into groups, gave us a scriptural text, and sent us out into the city (in January, I might add). Our assignment was to reflect on God’s Word in different places in order to be given new vision. One group read and discussed the scripture while riding on the subway. Another group did Bible study in a laundromat. Some women reflected on the story in Central Park. My group went to a Spanish restaurant in Harlem, where we ate tortilla soup and talked about Jesus.

And when we returned and compared notes, we realized Barbara was right: the places where we read scripture do have an effect on what we are able to see in scripture. The places where we sit, the people with whom we study, the context in which we make our lives directly impact our interpretation of God’s Living Word. Barbara was convinced that the antidote to making scripture too safe, too predictable, too familiar, was to dislocate us with the text; to make us study in an unfamiliar place; to surround our discussion with unfamiliar people; to force us to look anew at where and how God might be at work in our world. Barbara felt that kind of intentional dislocation was critical if we desired to expand our discipleship vision and to refocus our gaze away from the shiny things and power players of this world and back on to God.

I see this same kind of dislocation work at play in our scripture for today. But this time, it is not Barbara Lundblad trying to challenge a bunch of preaching students to look for God’s work in new places and in different people. Rather, it is Jesus dislocating his discipleship students in order to shake them up and refocus their gaze, to get them to see something other than what they expect to see. Before we dig in, though, let us remind ourselves where we are in Jesus’ story. At this point of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus has arrived in Jerusalem, riding on a colt, and creating quite a buzz. But the buzz was not the only thing Jesus created. According to Matthew, Jesus also created quite a bit of confusion about who he was and what he was doing.

One group who could not figure out Jesus and what he was about was the religious elites (Warren Carter uses this phrase to describe those Matthew calls “the Pharisees”), the leaders. Just who did he think he was coming into their town like that and talking to their congregations like that, getting everybody riled up? They needed to neutralize him and keep his voice from getting any stronger. So they went after him by engaging Jesus in public verbal battles, hoping, of course, he would be shamed and would slink away, tail between his legs, head drooping. Needless to say, they miscalculated.

The religious elites tried in three different ways to get Jesus in trouble. They questioned his authority. They used flattery. They even presented him with religious law case studies. And yet all three times Jesus carried the day with his responses, and they were the ones left carrying the shame of defeat. He disarmed their critiques and used their various words to illustrate his mission. No matter what they tried, they just could not undo him. And Jesus’ persistent verbal victories must have frustrated the religious elites, because by today’s text, they have chosen to be done with him for a moment. They needed to gather themselves again and figure out a Plan B.

Yet at the moment when they metaphorically turn their backs from Jesus, Jesus took the opportunity to turn and face his outside classroom of students—the crowd and his disciples. Here is how Eugene Peterson translates Jesus’ words:

The religion scholars and Pharisees are competent teachers in God’s Law. You won’t go wrong in following their teachings on Moses. But be careful about following them. They talk a good line, but they don’t live it. They don’t take it into their hearts and live it out in their behavior. It’s all spit-and-polish veneer. Instead of giving you God’s Law as food and drink by which you can banquet on God, they package it in bundles of rules, loading you down like pack animals. They seem to take pleasure in watching you stagger under these loads and wouldn’t think of lifting a finger to help. Their lives are perpetual fashion shows, embroidered prayer shawls one day and flowery prayers the next. They love to sit at the head table at church dinners, basking in the most prominent positions, preening in the radiance of public flattery, receiving honorary degrees, and getting called “Doctor” and “Reverend.” (Eugene Peterson, The Message)

Now, let me pause to admit I feel convicted as I read Jesus’ accusations while standing in this pulpit. While I might not wear embroidered prayer shawls, I do wear a robe, a ministerial collar, and Geneva preaching tabs. And while I rarely sit down when attending a church dinner, I do sit in the middle of these beautifully carved seats and stand in this very high pulpit each Sunday. And while I do not yet have my doctoral degree, just this week I thought it was quite delightful to receive a package addressed to the Very Right Reverend Shannon Johnson Kershner. It had a nice ring to it. No wonder Karl Barth once remarked, “Nowhere is the grace of God more evident than in the fact that some preachers will be saved.” Truth be told, I can empathize some with those religious leaders Jesus is warning us about. The enjoyment of power is awfully tempting. Perhaps some of you know how that feels.

The religious elites against whom Jesus sparred knew how power felt, and they liked it. But what might have irritated Jesus even more is that those in the crowd did not question it. Those religious leaders had always had the authority to tell them how they were to live and what true faith looked like. That was their story. When those in the crowd wanted to know how to be faithful, they looked to those elites, those leaders, for the answers. And even when those answers weighed them down and leaked the joy from their lives, they still followed the plan the leaders laid out for them, trusted that story of what life was to be like. And those assumptions were exactly what Jesus fought against.

By his brutally honest appraisal of the religious leaders and their overt hypocrisy, Jesus was trying to shock his students into a dislocation of those familiar stories. He was trying to get them to lift their heads, to ask more questions, to not assume their spiritual leaders had it all figured out. By making such stark claims about the ones to whom those in the crowd looked as authority figures, Jesus was trying to expand his students’ discipleship vision and to refocus their gaze away from the shiny things and power players of their world and back on to God.

Jesus might not have sent his discipleship students all over Jerusalem, Torah in hand, to study the law in small groups, surrounded by unfamiliar people and in unfamiliar places, but he was undoubtedly trying to shake them loose from all their predictable and safe assumptions of what faithfulness looked like and felt like. For those assumptions were keeping them shackled to old ways of seeing the world and God’s work in it. They saw only what they expected to see.

And Jesus wanted to teach them that those on whom they usually focused their eyes, the elites, did not have the monopoly on God and what faithful living looked like. They might have known what scripture said, but they were clueless in how to live it out. They might have had the degrees, but they did not have the devotion. They might have put on their ministerial collars and preaching tabs, but they did not put on his easy, life-giving yoke.

I wonder if Jesus hoped his honest appraisal of the religious elites would dislocate, shake up his disciples enough to provide the kind of space their spirits needed in order to see anew the ways God worked in the world and through whom. I think he wanted to refocus their gaze, to help them take their eyes off of the ones who expected to be served, so they might watch for and learn from the ones who served. In some ways, I think Jesus was trying to redefine the saints, those from whom his students might learn about faithful living.

One reason I frame it that way is because today is All Saints’ Sunday in our liturgical tradition. But what we mean when we say saint might be different than what you expect. It would have been different than what those in Jesus’ outside classroom might have expected. Presbyterians do not think of saints as only those really holy people whom we set apart in glory, whom we put up on a pedestal, to whom we know we will never measure up. Rather, in our Reformed theological tradition, a saint is an ordinary believer in this age and in every age. In other words, you are a saint. We sit surrounded by saints. And those whose names we will read later, who have entered God’s Church Triumphant this past year, all of them are considered saints too. The faithful in every time and in every place are the ones we call saints.

Our saints are not the self-exalted ones like the religious elites Jesus warned us about. And our communion of saints is not only made up of the superstar holy ones like Mother Teresa or Gandhi, though they join in that heavenly parade. Rather, our saints are the regular ones, the broken and beautiful ones, those who walk as faithfully as they can—those disciples are the ones we call saints. And those are the ones to whom Jesus calls us to pay attention and to watch as living, breathing examples of faithful living.

On that day, by his withering critique, I think one thing Jesus was telling his disciples was to stop looking only at those who think they have it all figured out and to start looking for those who would never claim perfection, superiority, or holiness for themselves. He wanted them to look anew for how God was at work in this world and through whom. To whom might his disciples pay closer attention? Who did they need to stop watching in order to refocus their gaze for God’s work?

What about us? Perhaps those on whom we keep an eye, those to whom we pay the most attention, do not deserve the harsh critique Jesus gives those religious elites, but are the ones we watch the ones who can teach us the most about faithful living, about what it means to follow Jesus as one of God’s saints? Do we need to be dislocated by Jesus’ words in order to see anew through whom God is at work in our lives?

I’ve asked those questions of myself this week. When I fight against our culture’s obsession with celebrity and wealth and power, on whom do I refocus my gaze? Who has really taught me what faithful living looks like? Who have been saints for me? The ones I remember with the most affection are people like my elementary Sunday School teachers—the ones who used the flannel boards to tell me the stories and who put up with me even though I was a completely obnoxious preacher’s kid. They are wonderful and imperfect saints like the older adult we named Grandpa Bud, who used to mow the lawn at church and give me peppermint Lifesavers, in whose presence I felt always valued and safe. And then there are all those preacher saints whom I buried in North Carolina who taught me what faithful dying looks like as they sang hymns and prayed prayers and openly expressed their affection for their loved ones. When I let Jesus’ critique dislocate me and refocus my gaze, I stop paying attention to the ones in the social spotlight and start remembering the ones from whom I learn how to live as a disciple.

What about you? Who are the saints that teach you faithful living? Are they folks like Cecy Szuba, whose hospitality and warmth made space for all people? Are they men like Joe Aguanno, who rediscovered his faith and dedicated himself to generous servanthood? Are they pastors like John Boyle, whose gentleness is legendary, whose ability to exude care made everyone feel valued? Who are your saints? On whom could you refocus your gaze so you might learn more about faithful living from their witness or from their memory? Perhaps it is the person sitting next to you. But who are those that teach you about discipleship?

Jesus did not hold back with his students that day. He was bound and determined to make them feel as dislocated as possible in order to expand their discipleship vision and to challenge their habit of looking primarily at the shiny things and power players of their world as examples of what they needed to be about. And perhaps he would hope we won’t hold back with ourselves this day. Perhaps he desires that we, too, will be brutally honest about who gets our attention and the way that gaze affects our lives. And then, maybe we will be dislocated enough to lift our heads, ask more questions, and see anew through whom God is at work and what we might learn from their witness. Amen.