Sermon Video: Greatness in God's kingdom: service & sacrifice - Mark 10:35-45

 After his third and final prediction of his upcoming death, while journeying to Jerusalem for that purpose, Jesus is asked by the brothers James and John to elevate them to the 2nd and 3rd place of honor in his upcoming kingdom. Aside from the incredible chutzpah this request demonstrates, it also shows that the disciples still haven't internalized that the spiritual kingdom that Jesus intends to establish will not be run by this world's rules. So, once again, Jesus enlightens them, once more emphasizing that greatness in his kingdom is a matter of service and sacrifice. Indeed, Jesus himself is the prime example of humilty, service, and sacrifice when necessary. That his sacrifice will have the power to be a 'ransom for many', i.e. the basis of our salvation, ought to encourage his Church to transform our world through the same means of acting as servants rather than the fool's errand of trying to bring about the will of God through politics, power, or violence.

Sermon Video - Christian Patriotism: Our Citizenship is in Heaven - Philippians 3:20-21

 I recorded this message ahead of time given that we will be visiting family and enjoying our vaction on the 4th, but the topic is too close to my heart not to address patriotism from a Christian perspective.

With 'Christian' Nationalism on the rise, questions regarding the proper role and limites of patriotism for followers of Jesus are deeply relevant to discussion happening throughout the Church.  What does it mean that Christians are 'citizens of heaven'?  How does this impact our concurrent role as citizens of whatever nation we live in?  In addition, how does our knowledge of God's plan for history (that is, that Jesus will return and reign over the whole earth) impact how we live our lives?  As in many things, Christian patriotism requires both perspective and an adherance to ethical standards.  In the end, if our patriotism is interfering with our development of the Fruit of the Spirit it has ceased to be a virtue and has become, for us, a sin.

Sermon Video: Jesus leads the way to the Cross - Mark 10:32-34

 For the third and final time, Jesus tells his disciples that death awaits him in Jerusalem.  This time, however, Jesus is leading them there when he says it.  Demonstrating tremendous trust in the will of the Father, Jesus leads the way despite knowing in detail what is coming.  Even though he knows that none of his disciples will be able to stand with him during his Passion, Jesus continues to lessen their anxiety and fear by explaining once again what is about to happen.  Lasly, he ends his prediction with the reminder that death will not be the last word; that three days later he WILL rise again.  As we face uncertain futures, we too know that death is not the end, that the Father holds us safely in his hands, and we too seek to build up the faith and trust in God that will enable us to lead the way, following in Jesus' footsteps.

QAnon's kidnapping and “adrenochroming of children” is just repackaging the medieval antisemitic Blood Libel, the whole movement must be utterly rejected.

 John 8:44 (NIV)  You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

2 Corinthians 11:14 (NIV)  And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.

The Truth matters, embracing lies, for whatever reason, is the path of self-destruction.  If the Chruch fails to exorcise this QAnon 'demon' now, it will reap the whirlwind later.

When QAnon first appeared on my radar I shared briefly some responses debunking its odd conspiracy theories, with one respondent telling me that I was wasting my time with such a fringe element.  That was a year ago.  Today, roughly 20% of Americans believe (to an extent) that there really is a global conspiracy of elites to kidnap children for pedophelia and/or 'adrenochroming'.  That this is not actually true has not slowed the ludicrous speed of the spread of these lies.  In addition to endangering our republic, and inspiring violence, the basis of QAnon's primary conspiracy is just a repackaged medieval Blood Libel, and if it grows strong enough, it will lead to mass violence against Jews; again, with so-called Christians cheering them on, again.

In April, "Passsion of the Christ" star Jim Caviezel gave an interview {‘Passion of the Christ’ Star Jim Caviezel Pushes False QAnon Conspiracy at Right-Wing Conference} to a COVID-19 conspiracy theory conference in which he claimed to have knowledge of secret riturals being performed by an international elite to harvest the adreneline from the bodies of children (who would be killed in the process) in order to obtain perpetual youth for those who drank this unholy elixir.  The "adrenochroming of children" is just one of the manifestations of the QAnon conspiracy theory about the kidnapping and abuse of children by a shadowy organization, comprised of elites from the political world and Hollywood; a group significantly more Jewish than the population as a whole.  To those who know the sordid history of the relationship between the Church and Jews, this revival of the medieval Blood Libel is not surprising, as evil ideas do not fully die when discredited, but it is ominous, as the last time the Blood Libel gained a wide audience it began the dark road of modern antisemitism that led to the Holocaust.

The History of the Blood Libel

The following section in bold is verbatim from the Anti-Defamation League website: adl.org

The “blood libel” refers to a centuries-old false allegation that Jews murder Christians – especially Christian children – to use their blood for ritual purposes, such as an ingredient in the baking of Passover matzah (unleavened bread). It is also sometimes called the “ritual murder charge.” The blood libel dates back to the Middle Ages and has persisted despite Jewish denials and official repudiations by the Catholic Church and many secular authorities. Blood libels have frequently led to mob violence and pogroms, and have occasionally led to the decimation of entire Jewish communities.

The blood libel is particularly appalling in light of the fact that Jews follow the Hebrew Bible’s law to not consume any blood, which is found in the book of Leviticus. In order for an animal to be considered kosher, all its blood must have been drained and discarded.

ORIGINS OF THE BLOOD LIBEL

The first ritual muder charge took place in Norwich, England, in the twelfth century. A boy named William was found dead in the woods outside of town, and a monk, Thomas of Monmouth, accused local Jews of torturing him and murdering him in mockery of the crucifixion of Jesus. Although many townspeople did not believe this claim, a cult venerating the boy eventually sprang up. At this time the myth began to circulate that each year, Jewish leaders around the world met to choose a country and a town from which a Christian would be apprehended and murdered.

The blood libel spread throughout the Christian world in the Middle Ages. When a Christian child went missing, it was not uncommon for local Jews to be blamed. Even when there was no evidence that any Jew had anything to do with the missing child, Jews were tortured until they confessed to heinous crimes. Some Christians believed that the four cups of wine that Jews drink at the Passover Seder celebrations were actually blood, or that Jews mixed blood into hamantaschen, sweet pastries eaten on the Jewish holiday of Purim. Others claimed that Jews used Christian blood as a medicine or even as an aphrodisiac. Scholars have documented about 100 blood libels that took place from the twelfth to sixteenth centuries. Many of them resulted in massacres of Jews.

THE BLOOD LIBEL IN MODERN TIMES

The blood libel persisted into modern times. In 1840, members of the Damascus Jewish community were charged with kidnapping and killing a Christian priest who had disappeared. Several notable Jews from Damascus were tortured to extract confessions, and an angry mob destroyed a synagogue and its Torah scrolls. Jews were massacred repeatedly in the Muslim world, partly as a result of this libel, which had been imported from Christian society.

Blood libels continued even into the twentieth century as well. In 1913 a Ukrainian Jew named Menahem Mendel Beilis was charged with ritually killing a Christian child whose body was discovered near a local brick factory in Kiev. During a sensational trial, numerous respected Russian intellectuals and scholars testified that Jews attacked Christians and used their blood in obscene rituals. Ultimately Beilis was acquitted of the charges, but not before horrific anti-Semitic claims were repeated and broadcast throughout Russia.

A blood libel even occurred in Massena, New York, in 1928. When a four-year-old girl went missing from her home, a rumor spread that local Jews had kidnapped and killed her. Crowds gathered outside Massena’s police station, where the town’s rabbi had been summoned. A state trooper questioned the rabbi, and asked him whether Jews offered human sacrifices or used blood in rituals. The girl was eventually found alive and unharmed.

And this discussion of origins from Diarmaid MacCulloch's amazing book: Christianity, the First Three Thousand Years, p. 400-401

One of the characteristics of Western Christianity between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries is its identification of various groups within the Western world as distinct, marginal and a constant potential threat to good order: principlal among such groups were Jews, heretics, lepers and (curiously belatedly) homosexuals.  In 1321 there was a panic all over France, ranging from poor folk to King Philip V himself, that lepers and Jews had combined together with the great external enemy, Islam, to overthrow all good order in Christendom by poisoning wells.  Lepers (as if they had not enough misfortune) were victimized, tortured into confessions and burned at the stake, and the pogroms against Jews were no less horrific.  Muslims were lucky enough to be out of reach on that occasion.  From the mid-twelth century, a particularly persistent and pernicious community response to the occasional abuse and murder of children was to deflect guilt from Christians by blaming Jews for abducting the children for use in rituals.  This so-called 'blood libel' frequently resulted in vicious attacks on Jewish communities.  Sometimes higher clergy did their best to calm the community hysteria in such cases; sometimes they allowed shrine-cults of the murdered victims to develop.  Recurrences of the blood libel persisted into the twentieth century as a blemish on Christian attitudes to Jews, spreading from the West into Orthodoxy in later centuries.

And this chilling conclusion about the path that led to the Holocaust from MacCulloch, p. 948

It will not do to point out the undoubted fact that most Nazis hated Christianity and would have done their best to destroy its insitutional power if they had been victorious.  As the Nazi extermination machine enrolled countless thousands of European Christians as facilitators or uncomplaining bystanders of its industrialized killing of Jews, it could succeed in co-opting them in the work of dehumanizing the victims because the collaborators had absorbed eighteen centuries of Chrstian negative stereotypes of Judaism..the most mendacious and marginalizing such as the 'blood libel'

Lastly, below are quotes from the articles linked at the bottom.

But historians offer another thesis for the purpose QAnon serves. The “nocturnal ritual fantasy”—a term coined by the historian Norman Cohn in his landmark study of European witch trials, Europe’s Inner Demons—is a recurring trope in Western history. And it is often a politically useful one. Deployed by the Romans against early Christians, by Christians against Jews, by Christians against witches, by Catholics against “heretics,” it is a malleable set of accusations that posit that a social out-group is engaged in perverse, ritualistic behaviors that target innocents—and that the out-group and all its enablers must be crushed. - Talia Lavin

It is easier to imagine violent predation by political opponents—and perhaps unleash vengeance against them—when you already believe they consort with demons and drink the blood of children for amusement. - Talia Lavin

“This whole blood libel is very prominent there, the idea of kidnapping children for blood,” said Magda Teter, a Jewish studies professor and author of “Blood Libel: On the Trail of an Antisemitic Myth.” “People are going to start googling ‘killing children for blood.’ That will lead them to anti-Semitism even if they may not be initially inclined.”- Ben Sales

Some of QAnon’s supporters are surely aware that they are targeting Jews. But the ideas of harvesting children’s blood and controlling the world through a secret cabal are anti-Semitic even if the growing numbers of QAnon adherents don’t realize it, or don’t directly refer to Jews, Teter said. These ideas are so old and established, she said, that they function as codes for anti-Semitism and obviate the need to mention Jews directly. - Ben Sales

QAnon, Blood Libel, and the Satanic Panic How the ancient, antisemitic nocturnal ritual fantasy expresses itself through the ages—and explains the right’s fascination with fringe conspiracy theories - by Talia Lavin, The New Republic

Fear and adrenochrome: The conspiracy theory right is addicted to crazy ideas about a drug - by Ben Sixsmith, The Spectator World

QAnon an old form of anti-Semitism in a new package, say experts Some of those tracking conspiracy theory note its use of tropes, vocabulary of anti-Semitic propaganda and blood libels throughout history By Ben Sales, The Times of Israel

** An added connection to antisemitic tropes: QAnon's foe is a shadowy group of elites, not much different from the nonsense that "Jews run the world", that lie was used to devestating effect against Jews.  In addition, two of the biggest villains of Q are the Rothschild family and George Soros, in other words, rich Jews. **

There is NO place in the Church of Jesus for QAnon; period, end of story.  Just as there is not place in the Church of Jesus for antisemitism.  A rational analysis of QAnon's beliefs will demonstrate that at its heart, in addition to being a lie, it is full of antisemitism.  The Church must firmly, fully, and forcefully reject this belief system, even if it causes those who adhere to it to leave the church (showing their true loyalty) and even if it costs some ministers their jobs.  This issue is that serious.

Sermon Video: How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God - Mark 10:17-31

 "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" This is, indeed, THE question for all of humanity. Asked of Jesus, he responds by considering the Law of Moses which offers humanity understanding of the character (holiness, righteousness) of God, which we are commanded to imitate. Jesus then shows that God requires total commitment from human beings, a requirement that weights heavier upon the rich and powerful. If those with the most resources among us have no chance of earning eternity, what chance have any of us? None, but don't despair. God has already offered the answer to this question through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which offers us forgiveness by grace through faith. In the end, our devotion to God is not akin to padding our resume or studying for a final exam, instead it is our thank you note to God, our response to what he has already done for us.