Jutlus 7.05.2023 – Roomlastele 8:1-11
Gustav Piir, koguduse õpetaja
Kirjas roomlastele 8. peatüki alguses keskendub Paulus evangeeliumile. Heliseval, positiivsel ja tugeval häälel ütleb Paulus veendunult: „Nii see on, nüüd ei ole hukkamõistu neile, kes on Kristuses Jeesuses.“ Ta ütleb seda, mida on varemgi öelnud, kuid ta ütleb seda veel kord, tundega. Ja ta ütleb seda ilma kvalifikatsioonita. Inimkonna probleem, mida ta on nii tabavalt ja jõuliselt kirjeldanud, seisneb selles, et kogu inimkond saab hukkamõistu osaliseks Aadama üleastumise tõttu. Selle küsimuse lahendab „Kristus Jeesuses“ olemine. Lahendus inimkonna probleemile on olla „Kristus Jeesuses“. Paulus on varem öelnud, et lahendus on usk. Usk tähendab olemist „Kristuses Jeesuses”. See ei ole lihtsalt Kristusesse uskumine, vaid Kristusesse olemine.
Usk, millest Paulus räägib, on palju enamat kui intellektuaalne nõusolek väidetele Jeesuse Kristuse kohta; see on midagi enamat kui ustavus Kristusele; see on midagi enamat kui Jeesuse järgimine. Nii nagu Vaim on ökosüsteem ehk koht või paik, milles Paulus usub, et võime elada (Roomlastele 8:9), nii on ka Kristus. Kristus on see, kelles on usklikud. Ja selles olemises, olles Kristuses, ei ole hukkamõistu. Probleem, mis sai alguse Aadamast, on lahendatud nende jaoks, kes on „Kristuses Jeesuses”. Paulus püüab selgitada selle tähelepanuväärse lahenduse mehaanikat. Elu Vaimu seadus Kristuses Jeesuses on vabastanud usklikud patu ja surma seadusest (Roomlastele 8:2).
Pauluse soovitus on lõpetada mõtlemine lihalikele asjadele. Teatud mõttes käsib ta meil oma mõtteid rennist välja ajada. Selle asemel kutsub ta meid üles Püha Vaimu poole pöörduma.
Kui me seda üleskutset loeme või kuuleme, ei tundu see algselt realistlik. Meie majandusprobleemid, võitlused hoida suhteid korras, tervist korras, mured seoses vägivalla ning sõjaga või riigivõlaga ning tõusvate maksudega ei kao lihtsalt kuhugi. Sellele lisaks - kui me ei leia oma elus piisavalt viletsust, hakkame enda ümber vaatama ja näeme, kuuleme ja paneme tähele või isegi võimendame valitsusjuhtide ja poliitikute raevu, kes ei ole aru saanud kompromisside kunstist, mille abil saavutada rahva väljatoomist sellest jamast, milles me oleme.
Meie kõik elame ja oleme kujundatud patu ja surmastruktuuridega, mis on imbunud meie ellu, kultuuri, moraali ja tõekspidamiste sekka, olgu see siis üksikisiku elus või meie riigi kultuuris ning keskkonnas. Paulus püüab aidata oma kuulajatel ning kirja lugejatel maha jätta oma vana identiteet, mille kujundasid patu ja surma struktuurid. Ta tahab, et me avaksime oma silmad ja näeksime Kristuse surma ja ülestõusmisega loodud kaunist reaalsust. Me elame selles alternatiivses kosmoses, sest me oleme uskunud ja seega Kristusesse toodud. Paulus arvab, et on kaks reaalsust, kaks maailma, kuhu inimkond võib kuuluda. Seal on reaalsus, patu ja surma kosmos, milles Seadus ei suuda pattu kontrollida ega elu tuua, sest patt on tugevam kui Seaduse käsud. Ja seal on reaalsus, Vaimu ja Kristuse kosmos. Vaimu/Kristuse reaalsus on struktureeritud eluvaimu seadusega – see kõik puudutab elu. Patu ja surma reaalsus on struktureeritud patu ja surma poolt ning see puudutab mõlemat neid kahte olemust.
Paulus usub, et Seadus saab täide minna ainult alternatiivses reaalsuses, mis on loodud Kristuse surma ja ülestõusmise kaudu – reaalsus „Kristuses” (8:4). Paulus avab oma kuulajate silmad, et nad näeksid, kus elavad. Meiegi oleme need, kes on „Kristus Jeesuses“.
Paulus püüab aidata oma kuulajatel maha jätta vana identiteet, mille kujundasid patu ja surma struktuurid. Ta tahab, et me avaksime oma silmad ja näeksime Kristuse surma ja ülestõusmisega loodud kaunist reaalsust. Meie elame selles alternatiivses kosmoses, sest oleme uskunud ja seega Kristusesse toodud.
Kristuses olemine tähendab, et usklikke ei valitse patt ega surm. Usklikud on viidud uude kohta, kus meid juhib elu, mitte surm, ja kus puudub hukkamõist, sest patt pole peremees. Usklike väljakutse on avada oma silmad, näha ja elada selles uues kohas olemise kingitust. Võtame nüüd hetke ja keskendume sellele, mis meid praegu tõeliselt häirib. Küsime endi käest: mis imeb meist elu välja? Kujutame nüüd ette, et anname selle Jeesusele üle, et ta saaks selle eest hoolitseda. Võtame mõne hetke, et vaadata Jeesust ja näha tema armastust ja hoolitsust meie vastu. Põhjuseid, miks inimesed on tuhandeid aastaid jumalateenistust ja jumalateenistusel osalemist oluliseks pidanud, on palju. Kristlik kirik rõhutab alati jumalateenistuse vajalikkust. Üks põhjusi, miks me kummardame vaikselt Jumala ees, on oma tähelepanu ümbersuunamine. Me peatume hetkeks ja keskendume Jumalale – Vaimu elule, mitte sellele maailmale ja lihalikule elule, vaid elule Vaimus. Iganädalane jumalateenistuse praktika on peamine vahend, mille abil keskenduda rohkem Vaimu asjadele. Isiklikud pühendumised palve elule on veel üks vaimne distsipliin, mis võimaldab meil pöörata tähelepanu Vaimu asjadele. See ei ravi kõike, kuid aitab meil meeles pidada, kust meie abi tuleb. Kas tõesti on Kristuses uus elu? Kas oleme võimelised kogema külluslikku elu? Kas kristlaste elu on tõesti erinev nende inimeste eludest, kes ei tunne Jeesust oma Issanda ja Päästjana?
Paulus vastab kõlavalt: „Jah!“ Kuid selle uue, küllusliku elu elamine ei ole passiivne ettevõtmine. See hõlmab kutse vastuvõtmist, otsuse langetamist muuta mõtlemise fookus lihalt Vaimule. Me ei pea põgenema kloostrisse, et elada Vaimus, ega ka lihtsalt „sellest kõigest eemal olema“. Elu Vaimus on elu, mida elatakse selles reaalsuses, et Jeesus on meiega, meie oleme tema hoole all ja miski ei saa meid lahutada tema armastusest.
Sermon for May 14th 2023 – I Peter 3:13-end
Reverend Gustav Piir, priest-in-charge
In the serial drama “The West Wing” there is an episode where the White House chief of staff Leo McGarry reaches out to his deputy, Josh Lyman, and tells him a parable: This guy’s walking down the street when he falls down a hole. The walls are so steep he can’t get out.
A doctor passes by, and the guy shouts up, “Hey, you! Can you help me out?” The doctor writes a prescription and throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a priest comes along, and the guy shouts, “Father, I’m down in this hole. Can you help me out?” The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole, and moves on. Then a friend walks by. “Hey, Joe, it’s me! Can you help me out?” And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, “Are you stupid? Now we’re both down here.” The friend says, “Yeah, but I’ve been down here before, and I know the way out.”
The way out? Now many of us are familiar with Paul’s triad of faith, hope, and love, and his remark in First Corinthians 13 that the greatest of these is love. For those of us who take the time to read the First Epistle of Peter we discover that the more important of these gifts is hope. Hope is at risk for those who have difficulty keeping hope alive in the midst of their troubled lives. Hope is the way out.
So it is both instructive and effective that the First Epistle of Peter opens with a beautiful assertion of the blessing of God’s mercy accomplished in the raising of Jesus Christ from the dead and now bestowed on us as believers through our “new birth into a living hope.” Not only is this a present and living hope, but it is a hope kept in safety, on deposit as it were, in heaven, and so under God’s faithful protection as an “inheritance” that is “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading” (1 Peter 1:3-5).
Again in First Peter 1:21 the author appeals to that hope; faith and hope are linked together as grounded in the conviction that God raised Jesus from the dead. Assertion of that living hope appears at the heart of today’s reading from First Peter 3:15, indicating how important a theme it is for the whole. Resurrection and hope belong together. We are encouraged by a double aspect of this attitude of hope. First, in case we are amongst those are hesitant to believe in the resurrection of Jesus and hope belonging together, there is an implied assumption and with this assumption there is the assurance. The assurance is that this hope is “in us”. Then, lest that hope be allowed to stagnate without being used, we the readers or listeners of First Peter are challenged to be at the ready to “give a defense,” to state in open testimony, that this hope, indeed, dwells in us.
Still, in the midst of all this talk of “hope,” the presenting issue remains the “suffering” that stalks the community whom First Peter is addressed to and our world today as well.
In First Peter the author recognizes suffering to be an overwhelming issue his community and this is clear from the repeated references to suffering in this letter. The implied complaint is compelling and painful. If God has raised Jesus from the dead, and Jesus Christ is Lord, then why living in the season of Easter do we keep suffering, and especially even when we are “doing what is right.” How can this be justice? Where is the hope in that?
These are not easy questions to answer. Yet, according First Peter, I observe that we are offered at least two responses. First is the reminder that righteous suffering was modeled in Christ’s own death. On the cross the righteous suffered for the unrighteous, for us; and so our suffering imitates the suffering of Christ and joins us to him.
The second is the encouragement, then, to bear this suffering and to continue to do good by not repaying evil treatment with evil. In the midst of suffering we may not be able to control the evil, but we can control how we respond by continuing to do good even in the midst of suffering.
Confidence in hope and in knowing that this hope is grounded in God’s protection and salvation does not lead to brow-beating or forceful pressure for submission or agreement. This is a tough hope that will live as tested only through suffering. Twice in our reading from First Peter we are pointed to the rewards of a behavior that are guided by this living hope, a good conscience (First Peter 3:16, 21). Who can harm us, if we remain eager to do what is good? The words seem to recall somewhat the words of Saint Paul to the Romans: “If we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience…We know that all things work together for good for those who love God…If God is for us, who is against us?” (Romans 8:25, 28, 31)
Saint Augustine in this “Homilies on the Gospel of John” has written, “Give me a lover and he feels what I am saying: give me one who yearns, give me one who hungers … give me one like this, and he knows what I am saying.” God’s revelation, Saint Augustine goes on to say, is not a message in a bottle, like bits of information sent across the abyss to be received by the intellect. Rather, God’s self-revelation is a magnet for desire. “This revelation is what draws. You show a green branch to a sheep and you draw her. Nuts are shown to a boy and he is drawn. And he is drawn by what he runs to, by loving he is drawn, without injury to the body he is drawn, by a chain of the heart he is drawn.”
The Canadian born philosopher James K. A. Smith has commented on this in an article entitled “The Intelligence of Love” saying: “What it is like to be drawn by love while inhabiting a culture of death and abject selfishness. We are not simply as a philosophers with ideas to teach but we are as co-pilgrims alongside our neighbors, all of us wondering if the darkness will overwhelm us.”
The Gospel of John (John 1:1-5) begins: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” According to First Peter (3:14) Even in the midst of suffering, God’s blessing is assured our hope is grounded in the surety that God has raised Jesus from the dead.
Christ’s resurrection and the new birth of baptism that joins us both to his suffering and to that resurrection power stands against all signs to the contrary and calls us to good work in the world. This good work has the power to shame every sign of evil that would seek to argue against the love and mercy of God.
So back to the parable of hole in which the two friends find themselves. What is the way out known to the friend? When suffering seems to be winning the day, we can offer people the story of Jesus to give them hope (3:18-22). Although Jesus suffered unjustly, God vindicated and exalted him. This God cares about righting wrongs that have been done. And such a God is worthy of our faith and hope (First Peter 1:21).
Sermon for May 7th 2023 John 14:1-14
Reverend Gustav Piir, priest-in-charge
The setting of our Gospel reading today is Jesus’ farewell address at his last supper with his disciples. Jesus has washed his disciples’ feet and has explained to them what this means.
He has foretold his betrayal by Judas, and Judas has slipped out into the night. He has told his disciples that he will be with them only a little while longer, and that where he is going, they cannot come. He has also foretold Peter’s imminent denial. So, it is no wonder that the disciples are troubled. Their beloved teacher is leaving them, one of their own has turned against them, and the stalwart leader among the disciples is said to be on the cusp of a great failure of loyalty. It is as though the ground is shifting beneath the disciples’ feet. Not just shifting, it is more like a major earth quake with the ground opening up as a great abyss.
Jesus responds to the anxiety of his disciples by saying, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me”. Jesus calls them back to this fundamental relationship of trust and assures them that he is not abandoning them. Rather, he is returning to his Father, which is good news for them. In speaking of his ascension to the Father, Jesus assures his disciples that this is also their destination. There are many dwellings in his Father’s house, and he goes to prepare a place for them, so that they will be with him and dwell with him in his intimate relationship with the Father. When Jesus says that they know the way to the place where he is going, Thomas, like most characters in the Gospel, takes Jesus quite literally. He wants directions, the Global Positioning System, a road map to this place. Jesus responds by saying that he himself is the way: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”
Many contemporary Christians and some of my good friends among them use this passage from John 14:6 to argue that the only way to “eternal life” is through belief in Jesus. There is no allowance for the mystery of God to be revealed in any other religious systems such as Jewish or Islamic faith. I believe that such an interpretation is not our major take-away from this text. Getting back to our Gospel reading, Philip asks Jesus how they will know “the way.” Is “the way” a road, or highway? While the term can serve as an understanding for an actual road or way, I also would like to point out hear that “the way” can also mean a journey or a trip. Then there is also a connotation that serves metaphorical purposes: “The “way” or the “way of life” that connotes behavior. In Acts of the Apostles, the first Jesus-followers called themselves “people of the way” (Acts 9:2). Jesus serves as our example of what it means to walk on the way. When we take “the way, the truth, and the life” together, this passage from our Gospel reading cannot mean an exclusive meaning that some espouse today.
This is the whole of Jesus’ mission, to make known the Father, to reveal who God is. Jesus, who has come from the bosom of the Father and is now returning there, is the fullest revelation of the person and character of God. If we want to know who God is, we need look no further than Jesus. All the words that Jesus has spoken, all the works that Jesus has done, come from God and show us who God is (14:10-11). When we read John’s Gospel we find that there are many who witness the “signs” that Jesus performs and yet have trouble seeing the work of God right before their eyes. Toward the end of John’s Gospel, Thomas sees the risen Lord and confesses, “My Lord and my God!” (20:28). Jesus responds, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” This is not so much a scolding for Thomas as a blessing for us who have not seen and yet believe, however feeble our believing may seem. Jesus promises to be with us through the power of the Spirit, to work in and through us to accomplish his purposes in the world. This does not necessarily happen in easily visible, spectacular ways. Many have known the pain of praying for healing that did not come, of feeling powerless in the face of disease and death. Many will ask: how can Jesus’ promises be true?
Perhaps the problem is that in hearing these promises, we expect to do these greater works in the same way that Jesus did them, with miraculous power that instantly solves the problem at hand. Yet even miracles are not guaranteed to produce faith. Yet wherever there is healing, reconciling, life-giving work happening, this is the work of God. Wherever there is life in abundance, this is Jesus’ presence in our midst. In the first chapter of the Gospel according to John it is written: “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known” (1:18). Jesus has made known to us the heart of God, and he has entrusted this mission of “making known” to us. Where might we see Jesus’ work and presence in our midst? How might we show others the very heart of God? Our greater works must exhibit the way, the truth, and the life for communities that continue to be disconnected and denied access to all of the areas that can bring abundant life such as quality food, access to medical care, affordable housing, and continued dignity no matter what their identities are. It is in serving others that the very heart of God is revealed.
Yesterday I was at the Estonian Television studios to help comment on the coronation service of Charles III. An innovation in yesterday’s coronation was the “King’s prayer”, which King Charles recite aloud and it was the first time a monarch has done this at a coronation in England. It is a prayer specially composed for His Majesty to pray alone in response to the promises made. The prayer continues to reflect the theme of loving service. It is inspired by biblical language (Galatians 5) and also the language of the much-loved hymn ‘I vow to thee my country’, itself inspired by words from the Bible (Proverbs 3.17). The „King’s Prayer“ refers to Christ’s dictum about serving, and not being served. The King also prayed: “Grant that I may be a blessing to all thy children, of every faith and conviction” — an attempt at inclusivity. In this we find that the way, the truth, and the life are meant for a collective people with a singular heart. So I close with the „King’s Prayer“ by including our voice with it:
God of compassion and mercy whose Son was sent not to be served but to serve, give grace that (I) we may find in thy service perfect freedom and in that freedom knowledge of thy truth. Grant that (I) we may be a blessing to all thy children, of every faith and conviction,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.