Krasno Being

2009-05-24T18:33:00.002-04:00

Each year on Memorial Day, Americans remember those who died serving their country. Once known as Decoration Day, Memorial Day is a tradition where we remember those who died serving their country. In the original general order establishing Memorial Day the purpose of such an observance was twofold. First, the observance was meant to preserve the Spirit in which the men and women served their country with courage and honor.

The second purpose as described in the original order of 1868 was, and I quote:

“Let us, then, at the time appointed, gather around their sacred remains, and garland the passionless mounds above them with choicest flowers of springtime; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved; let us in this solemn presence renew our pledge to aid and assist those whom they have left among us a sacred charge upon the Nation's gratitude—the soldier's and sailor's widow and orphan.”

The observance was meant to remind us that we have a responsibility. The men and women who fought and died for our country, did so for our freedom. But not for a freedom to do just anything we want. No they fought so that we could have the freedom to continue to be a part of a story that was bigger than us. A story of courage, of bravery, of dignity, righteousness and selflessness. A story of responsibility to take care of others less fortunate than us.

A story that I believe is deeply rooted in our understanding of God.

Psalm 24 speaks of such a story:

Psalm 24:1 - 25:1 ^RSPsalm 24:1 The earth is the LORD's and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it; ²for he has founded it on the seas, and established it on the rivers. ³Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? ⁴Those who have clean hands and pure hearts, who do not lift up their souls to what is false, and do not swear deceitfully. ⁵They will receive blessing from the LORD, and vindication from the God of their salvation. ⁶Such is the company of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob.¹Selah ⁷Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in. ⁸Who is the King of glory? The LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle. ⁹Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in. ¹⁰Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah

The psalmist begins with the profound declaration that the earth is the Lord.

In Hebrew the order is slightly different, “To Yahweh belongs the earth,” its inhabitants, its fullness. It is all God’s property and possession. God in his generosity has created the earth, had created us. And in his sovereignty God has ordered the world and in return God asks only that we live our lives in gratitude to Him.

But what does such a life look like?

Well the first point is for us to realize that we are not the ultimate authors of our stories. God, as King is.

§ He not only created us,

§ but he desires to write our story,

§ to order our lives.

But here is the rub. We often don’t want God to write our stories. We want to take control and write our own.

And God gives us the freedom to choose which story we want to write.

He gives us the material of our lives, and then he lets us decide how we want to write the story of our lives.

And many, Christian and non-Christian, choose to go it without God. And I believe that their stories are nothing but fiction with a lot of:

§ passion,

§ a lot of greed,

§ hate,

§ jealousy,

§ envy

§ and lust.

You know what kind of fiction I am talking about. Dime store novels,

§ with a lot of action

§ but no real plot and one dimensional characters.

§ That is a life lived in the freedom without God.

John Wesley, in his sermon entitled Advice to Soldiers, wrote that living in Hades is doing what we want. What may look like freedom is in actuality enslavement to our own passions and desires.

In such stories, there is a lot of brokenness.

§ People are used as mere props,

§ relationships are destroyed

§ and innocents are hurt.

§ Stories are fractured and meaningless.

Such a story has nothing to do with God.

God, the psalmist tell us is the King of glory. There is nothing false or deceitful about God, God after all is holy. He is a God that creates, restores and builds. He is a God that invites his people to ascend to Him and enter into his goodness.

And here we come to my second point. If we allow God to author our stories as an expression of our gratitude to Him, then our lives will have an underlying theme that runs through it.

I recently was discussing with some friends that I have had to preach at quite a lot of funerals lately. And while I was saddened by the losses we as a church have incurred, some who were even close friends, I was also extremely grateful for the honor to preach on these occasions.

As I met with families and friends to console them during their grief and to plan the funeral service for their loved ones, I had the privilege of listening to the stories of their lives.

§ Stories that to the casual observer might seem random or at best non-important in the grand scheme of things.

§ But the collection of the stories often revealed something sacred.

§ A thread woven through the stories by none other than God that gave the life of the deceased person special meaning.

And so often that thread, that special meaning revealed an aspect of God’s goodness.

MARY JANE HART For my mother in law, Mary Jane, who had lead a life filled with tragedy, she lost three of her children before they were adults and experienced times of poverty, she was able rise above the tragedy and live a life of honor and artistic expression. When all the brokenness of her life could have easily defined her, she relied on God to help write her story. And because of that, she served her country with honor as a Wave in World War II. She went on to paint beautiful paintings, which she displayed and sold at local art fairs, bringing blessing and beauty to the lives of many people, including her family.

Anne Scudder was another example of a woman that allowed God to write her story. She too had troubles in her life. But from God she received the gifts of love, humor and hospitality. She honorably served her country during WWII in the US Marine Corp. In all her roles, as wife, mother, sister, nurse and church leader, she always made people feel welcome and at home. Many of us will remember her for the bug pins that she wore on the back of her blouses. She wore those pins so that she when people asked her about the pins, she could enter into a conversation with them and make them feel welcome. Her family and friends knew they could turn to Anne in times of trouble and she would be there to walk with them through any storm.

And then there was Kim Barbato, who just passed recently from a long struggle with cancer. Kim always taught her daughter Cara that love is a choice. Through out Kim’s battle, all who knew her were amazed at her positive outlook and joyful countenance. In the last years of her life, she blessed by leading them to a relationship with Jesus Christ. All who knew Kim were drawn into a deeper spirituality that had as its source the goodness of Jesus Christ. And even as cancer began to race through her body, she continued to use the gifts that God had given her as she volunteered to bring essential medical care to the poor and homeless.

When you listen to the stories of Mary Jane, Anne and Kim, and so many other saints that have passed

§ you see the thread of God woven into their stories.

§ These are people who had the freedom to choose to write any story that they wished.

§ And given the challenges they faced in life, I don’t think anyone would have blamed them if their stories had turned into vignettes of bitterness and dejection.

But that is not what they did with their freedom. They took the freedom that God gave them and they decided to live a larger story, to live God’s story. The psalm in verse 3 asks the question ³Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place?

These women said with their words and actions, that they would. .And so they joined others who in living their lives, choose to live a story beyond themselves. A story of gratitude, joy, and wholeness. A story that is dedicated in its entirety to God.

Now were these women saints? Are those who live and die beyond themselves for their country saints? It depends on how you define saints. And this is my third point.

I believe they are now saints in heaven. Because in writing their lives stories they continuously sought the righteousness of God, they are now joined with God in his glory, just as the psalmist promises. But here on earth, they were not saints because God had given them the freedom to write their own stories. We can seek the perfection of God the king, but for the majority of us, we will fail to obtain it.

There will be paragraphs that are not of God. Whole sentences that do not have the grammatical order of God or His righteous content. Our stories are always in need of editing as we sin. There will be times when our actions and words are not consistent with God or how we seek to live our lives.

And it is in those times that we need to ask God for his forgiveness to help us correct that, which is in error; to heal that which is broken.

I am reminded that back in the days I used to have to type my term papers at college on an electric typewriter, which for that time was a radical and new invention. And if I made a mistake I had to use white out or an eraser pencil or correction tape. And no matter how hard I tried to make my papers perfect, there were always smudgy evidence left of a mistake or two.

Now a days that is not the case, because of computers, we can now present a perfect product, and no one has to ever be aware of the mistakes or corrections made.

But I wonder, if that has made our lives too easy and reckless. If I know that I have the freedom:

§ to make a mistake and then erase it completely, pretending it was never there,

§ or to say something mean and then go on as if I had not said it,

§ or worse to make a choice that does not reflect the goodness of God and no one has to know about it,

am I falling into a dangerous trap of writing my story without God? We can’t just hit the delete key in our lives and pretend nothing has happened.

God does not desire our perfect stories, our stories without mistakes. These stories are too often, of our own construction and not of God. They might look good, they might be an interesting read, but when we try to find God’s theme of righteousness and love in it, He is not there.

The psalmist reminds us to open our doors that the King of Glory may come in. God wants us to open ourselves so that he may enter in fullness into our lives.

God desires is our stories, in all their messiness. He desires our des ire to seek Him as we find meaning beyond ourselves. When we sin, He is there to forgive and to help make right. He is there helping to construct the meaning in all that we do and say.

I believe that the men and women who have died fighting for our country, wrote stories that were about more than just themselves.

For many, they could have lived a life story that was nothing more than their own desires. But they did not. They looked upward and knew that they had been given freedom by God to pursue and defend His truths.

We remember them today and on each Memorial Day in part out of gratitude for their willingness to give their lives to a greater cause.

But we also remember them, to help us realize that we too have the freedom to live lives for a greater cause as well.

The challenge for us today is what have we written so far and what are we willing to write in the future. It is a challenge the psalmist asked centuries ago when he wrote: ³Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place?

Finishing the Course

2009-04-18T13:01:00.009-04:00

As I have referenced before, for many years I was a competitive sailboat racer. And for a large part of those years I crewed for a single skipper, who along with his wife became good friends of Grady and me. Bill and I raced up and down the southeast coast and traveled each year to the National championships, where although we never one, were always in the top third of the championship group, often taking home some silver.

And it was a joy racing with Bill because after a while we could anticipate each other moves around the race course. I knew to automatically change the sails as Bill would point the boat up or down, and we could tack in perfect synchronicity as we went around the race course. And because we didn’t have to think about what we were doing, it gave us a lot of time to discuss strategy on how we were going to finish the race course.

When Grady and I moved to Florida, I still raced with Bill for another year, but it was apparent that he would need to find a new crew, and I a new skipper. So through some friends I did find a new skipper living in Melbourne. We met and got along fine, so we decided to try to race together. That first regatta, was a mess for both of us. We were sailing out of Melbourne, and luckily the weather was fine. But we couldn’t get our efforts synchronized. He assumed that when he changed course, that I would pull in the sail to a certain point, but I assumed the exact opposite. Poor Bob almost did make it that regatta, I will never forget when I beaned him in the head with the spinnaker pole because he was not standing where Bill always stood!

The next regatta was in Sarasota and when we got there, early Saturday morning it was blowing stink. Which means that the winds were ripping! It was one of those kind of days, that even getting the small 21 foot boat launched in the water was difficult. And the minute the sails went up you could not hear above the roar of the flapping wind and you would just have to take off, white knuckled and pray that you wouldn’t capsize. It was a kind of wind that I loved racing with Bill in. When you are perfectly synchronized it can be a true test of skill and knowledge to finish the course without capsizing or seriously injuring yourself.

But that day, I wanted no part of racing, because I knew that my new skipper and I were not yet practiced enough together to weather such a challenge. I truly doubted that we could make it around the course, even though both of us had done it before in similar winds with different people.

None the less, we did it. Bob threw me a life jacket and off we went. Was it scary? You bet? Did we almost not finish? Several times – but we did. Were we as competitive as before? No, but there was hope that the two of us would come to get to know each other well enough that soon we would be in competitive racing form. And by Sunday, as we pulled the boat out of the water, we were satisfied with our efforts and for finishing the course.

Now I start with this story because Paul in our scripture reading today, is worried about the Ephesians finishing the course. Paul has been with the Ephesians for 3 years and Luke tells us that many miracles and healings were done by Paul, in the name of Christ. Even in the midst of quite a few challenges , Paul’s ministry amongst the Ephesians was probably the most productive seasons of his ministry in any other place and time, and the hope, probably of both Paul and the Ephesians was that Paul would remain there for a long time, using Ephesus as kind of a base for his missionary work in the area.

But then God steps in, in that pesky way that God has and challenges Paul to change course. The Holy Spirit calls Paul to go to Jerusalem and then onward to Rome. So he calls the Ephesian leaders together to say goodbye and give them parting instructions.

And that is where our scripture reading begins today. Reading from Acts chapter 20, verses 24-27.

But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may accomplish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. And now, behold, I know that all you among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom will see my face no more. Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.

Paul emphasizes to the Ephesians that his ministry is to testify to God, and this Paul has done faithfully in the midst of the Ephesian community. He never shirked his duty and he always testified and witnessed to the marvelous purpose of God. Paul declares what we all should declare, that our value only comes in how our words and actions

point to Christ and the cross.

And even though it might sound cold to us, Paul tells the Ephesians that he is not responsible for how the Word of God is received, but that our responsibility is only to share the hope and promise with others.

But Paul does not end his goodbyes there, for although he is not responsible for the Ephesians, he

wants to help them finish the course that God has set for them.

And so he gives them four words of advice:

1). Watch out – Beware the wolves.

Acts 20:28-31 Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God which he obtained with the blood of his own Son. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears.

Paul did not have to get an MBA from Harvard Business School to know that when a leader leaves, there often is a vacuum that Satan uses to exploit a community. And he gets real specific in saying that the attack can often come from within, as people grab and scheme for power and distort the truth. Paul cautions the Ephesians to be alert to this and to be on guard. His tears are a reference to the how this type of activity can tear apart God’s work and God’s church which has been built on the blood of Christ.

2). So to guard against such an attack, Paul encourages the Ephesians to remain in the word.

Acts 20:32 And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

God’s message of grace, God’s self-emptying love as revealed in Christ’s life, death and resurrection. Remain in God’s word, in order to receive and be reminded of God’s promises and hope. This prepares a community to receive a new leader, in order to finish the course. Because it reminds us that God uses people in seasons to tend to his flock and to lead them.

When the going is good, sometimes easy to stop staying in the word. But when hard times fall, it is the practices we have done that helps us remember whose we are.

Marianna McKinney recently had surgery for a brain tumor. She had to undergo many tests before and after the surgery including multiple MRIs. She told me how she got through them, with all the humming and the claustrophobia was to sing all the old familiar hymns.

Another parishioner on her deathbed in hospice, had her family surround her as they recited scriptures that they knew by heart. She passed from this world to the next with the word of God as her escort.

But it is more than just personal comfort. When we read scriptures as a community, we understand whose we are, and how we are to follow the cross of Christ.

3). Another way to Guard against attack, is to follow Paul’s example.

Paul makes this point in verses 33-35. I coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel. You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities, and to those who were with me. In all things I have shown you that by so toiling one must help the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, `It is more blessed to give than to receive.'"

Not because Paul’s example should be idolized, but because it pointed to the cross of Christ. When a leader leaves, it is important to celebrate their ministry and to the ways that they pointed to the cross of Christ. Their examples help us to imagine how we ourselves are leaders and point to the goodness of Christ, without it all being about ourselves.

Our leaders help us to understand our calling, both personally and as a church. We see their example, and it helps us to believe that we too may be faithful to our calling to follow Christ. Newbigin wrote “The deed and the word do not always have to go together. But they must both be seen to be part of the same reality – the reality of a new power, a new reign which has broken this world." We can't say we believe one thing and act another way.

4). Finally, Paul prays with the Ephesian leaders in their grief.

Acts 20:36 - 21:1 And when he had spoken thus, he knelt down and prayed with them all. And they all wept and embraced Paul and kissed him, sorrowing most of all because of the word he had spoken, that they should see his face no more. And they brought him to the ship.

Paul does not ignore their grief, does not tell them to buckle up and get over it. No, Paul knows that the answer to our grief is prayer. That when we pray together, we have a stronger sense that Jesus in our midst and that he is equipping us to continue the course so that we may complete it.

Our tears remind us of the tears Christ shed on the Cross And we know that our tears are not for naught. Rather as we surrender our tears in prayer to Christ, He gathers them up and redeems them. And this act of Jesus gives us hope and strength to move onward and forward with Him to the cross.

So we see, that whenever there is a change in leadership, whether in sports, or at work or even in the church, it is important to keep four things in mind:

1). Be watchful for evil in our midst and beware the wolves.

2). Guard against evil by faithfully staying in the Word and message of Christ.

3). Celebrate the ministry of the outgoing leadership. Their example taught us a lot what it means in concrete terms to take up the cross of Christ and claim it as our foundation.

4). Pray, pray, pray, and not just alone but with each other and with our leaders, acknowledging our grief even as we claim the Cross of Christ as our past, present and future hope.

Easter Sunrise

2009-04-14T22:55:00.013-04:00

Romans 6:3-11 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For he who has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

For a brief while Jesus who was with God since the beginning and who had created the heavens and the earth, emptied himself and in obedience to God came to earth in the form of a human man, so that he could save the world, not condemn it.

And while he was here on earth he healed many, gave hope to the poor, loved the children and the widows, brought the marginalized into his community, ate with the lowest of the lows and challenged all of us to look at our sin and the way we use power to hurt others. All the while he was scorned by those who should have embraced him and misunderstood by many.

All this he did as a gift for us.

When his time here on earth came near to an end, he endured being betrayed by a friend, one of his inner circle. His trial by the authorities was a sham.

The guards beat him and stripped him, mocked him and spit at him. They dragged him to Golgotha where they lay him on a cross with two common criminals on each side. The guards were joined by a large crowd and the elders and chief priests and scribes. Their hatred and disbelief lead them to mock Jesus and taunt him calling him the King of Jews.

Jesus in his love for us, brought them and us, and all of our sin and evil to the foot of the cross, and then he gave his final self up for us. He emptied himself completely up to his Father for us. And then he died.

All this he did as a gift for us.

And at the moment on Good Friday when Jesus died, it must have seemed to the world that evil and sin had won over goodness. The world would stay in darkness and we would scratch out our existence in hatred and sin.

Yet a lone centurion witnessed to the truth. He said, Surely this man was the Son of God. Truth and goodness had prevailed. Jesus has brought us to the cross so that our sins could be forgiven and so that evil could reign no more on earth.

But it was a lone light in the darkness. It was just a flicker and the world had little hope that the light of the goodness of Jesus was for us, that we could claim it. It was a distant light, like the light we see now in the trees. Flickering, illuminating just a little bit, but still leaving us to grope hesitantly in the darkness and in the shadows.

He had died for us, but was it a gift we could receive and claim for our lives?

Three days the world lived in twilight. They took Jesus down from the cross and buried him in a tomb. They put a large boulder at the entrance of the tomb and then they went home and waited.
The last time I was in the Keys, I got up early to see the sunrise. I bundled up in a blanket, just as some of you are bundled here today and I went and sat on the beach and waited. With each passing second the sky changed, colors were introduced, rays of the yet as unseen sun danced off the clouds on the horizon. Twilight was so much better than the darkness, there was so much expectancy and so much hope of something to come that was better than the dark. But still there were shadows and uncertainty.

The ocean remained dark and menacing. The trees moved in the breeze and seemed to loom around me. There was a chill in the air that I could not avoid. There was beauty and goodness but there still was a threat or a potential that darkness would swallow up the light and we would be plunged right back into the chaos of the night.

And just right before the sun indeed peeked over the horizon, there was a pause. Probably not a long one in the span of time of creation, yet a hesitation, that was palpable. It made me hold my breath. It was if the suspension of time was meant to draw me to the promise to come…was preparing me to accept its promise…was inviting me into the new day…I leaned forward as I sat on the beach…

And then the sun in all its brightness came over the horizon and lit up the ocean and the land and my face. Sunrise…The promise of a new day…was indeed there for me to enter into. It had been given to me as a gift that morning and I took it with all its promise and hope.

So the new morning, when the women came to the tomb and found it empty. Jesus had risen. He now sat at the right hand of his father. The heavens were alive with the sounds of praise and halleluiahs, that Jesus, who had emptied himself and came to earth to save us, had indeed brought salvation to the world. A new day had come to earth and to heaven and Jesus was and is Lord of it all. Death, evil and sin would not have the final say. Light would prevail. We would not have to grope around anymore, but we could enter into the new day that the Lord had made.

All this he did as a gift for us.

And the light revealed that Jesus had taken all that was ordinary, all that was familiar to us and made it new. And he did this because he loved us with a love that was stronger than death, stronger than evil, stronger than sin..

When the sun rises and overcomes the darkness, the ocean is still the ocean, the trees still the trees, I am still who I am.

But everything is different now. There has been a change. The light has illuminated everything in the world in a new and fantastic way. By coming to the cross, our sins have been forgiven, we have been liberated and in response we give ourselves up to Christ as an offering to him.

And Jesus takes us in all of our ordinariness and he reshapes us so that we may become extraordinary. Unified with Jesus’ we too become a gift for the world.

In communion we see this. We offer up to Jesus ordinary bread and juice and through the work of the Holy Spirit it becomes a gift to us from Jesus. What is ordinary, becomes extraordinary, life giving, becomes something that points to the goodness of Christ.

All this he did as a gift for us.

But how often do we think of ourselves as extraordinary as a gift for the world. Now I know that sometimes we will say about an egotistical person that they think that they are God’s gift to the world.

But how often do we really understand that in the resurrection Jesus offers to us the gift of a sacred life. A life lived for Jesus, a life that points to Jesus. A life poured out for others, a life of humility and obedience to Jesus. A life of giftedness that is to be shared not hoarded.

Paul in our scripture this morning sees the work of Christ this way. As a gift. He then challenges us to make a decision. We can’t have it both ways. We can’t stay in twilight and live in the darkness while also having one step in the light. Our liberation is not about us having our own way, living as we want to live. The pregnant pause of twilight has occurred. We will either live for Christ or we will live for ourselves.

Jesus has offered us his life, his death and his resurrection. He has offered us the freedom of a sacred life lived as a gift from God to be shared with the world. Will we be slaves to the twilight, to the security of the shadows that hide our shame and guilt, to the darkness where we can gain power and use fear and intimidation for our own gain?

We will either live lives of sacred worth or we will live lives of waste and sin.

Will we turn our backs to the light, or will we seek it for our lives? Will we in response to Christ’s actions, offer ourselves up to Christ so that he can re-form all that we are into his goodness, or will we deny Christ and live according to our needs and our desires?

Scrimmage v. Pilgrimage

2009-03-25T19:53:00.008-04:00

Mark 1:21-28 And they went into Capernaum; and immediately on the sabbath he entered the synagogue and taught. And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes. And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God." But Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be silent, and come out of him!" And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, "What is this? A new teaching! With authority he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him." And at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee.

Right before our scripture reading, Jesus has battled Satan in the wilderness and has exited the victor of this the first battle of many. Immediately he calls four men to his side to continue his battle against Satan and immediately they enter a synagogue where Jesus teaches. Mark does not tell us what Jesus teaches. But obviously his words are met with confusion and amazement.

In Mark’s scripture people react differently to the teachings of Jesus. While most seemed to be amazed by Jesus, they seem also not ready to follow him. There questioning seems to indicate that they choose to say to Jesus, we’ll get to you Later. And so Jesus leaves them behind as he continues onward in his journey, leaving those behind who are unable or unwilling to make the pilgrimage with him.

Most of the hearers in the synagogue that day seem paralyzed, not ready to hear Jesus’ words. Many question what they have heard. Obviously they are not prepared to hear what Jesus has to say to them. They might be amazed but they are not ready for action.

Now maybe we should be kind to the assembled crowd that day. It had been ages since a prophet had been in their midst. Malachi had promised so much but those promises seemed to have faded with each passing day. Yes, the assembled were there to prepare themselves to receive a Messiah, but let’s face it, the daily grind, the pressure to conform to Roman ways, probably had dulled their expectation for a Messiah. Complacency had taught them to guard their faith and their community and to be suspicious of anyone who would challenge their traditions and ways. And so when an uninvited Jesus pops in and begins to teach with authority it is hard for those in the synagogue to immediately respond to his teachings with anything but amazement and questioning.

But at least one person in the synagogue hears the words of Jesus and responds. The man with the unclean spirit, isn’t even supposed to be in the synagogue, maybe he has sneaked in, after the service had started. Who knows how far he has come to see Jesus and to hear his words. And immediately the unclean spirit who has possessed the man begins to battle with Jesus, sparring with words. But Jesus rebukes the unclean spirit and commands it to be silent and to come out of the man.

In the midst of the seemingly paralyzed congregation, the power of Jesus to heal and save the world continues onward.

The question then becomes for the rest of the Gospel of Mark, will we follow Jesus. Will give up all of ourselves to make the pilgrimage with Jesus, to claim with authority the authority that He, Jesus has been given by the Father? Will we venture out with Jesus into the unknown wilderness and do battle with evil or will we remain behind in the safety of our own created security? Will we rest in on the sidelines, saying we will get back to you Jesus later, and in the process lose our ability to recognize Jesus’ victory over sin and death and his healing presence that brings wholeness?

Now as most of you are aware, it is Super Bowl Sunday. So I want to bring in some imagery from the sport to help illustrate my point.

In football the play is continuously on and off. I wonder if the creators did this to make room for 1 million dollar ads, but I don’t think so, since football, at least college football came long before the invention of television. This on and off play, marked by long periods of time outs, huddles and inertia, is punctuated by short outbursts of energy and motion.

And I wonder if sometimes we treat our faith like a football game, something to grapple with periodically, and then we huddle, take a time out, or switch sides. Now granted in all this, the periods of no activity are preparing for the activity. But what if the whole point of our faith is to possess Jesus like a team possesses a football?

Something to be possessed or tossed about, all in an effort to “Win” or score points?

Do we spend our efforts and time wanting to possess Jesus, rather than let Jesus possess us? And in our efforts to possess Jesus do we miss out on seeing Jesus in our midst?

During these outbursts of play there is a line of scrimmage, an imaginary line beyond which an opposing team cannot cross. That imaginary line is heavily defended and if it moves then it is assumed that the opposing forces are winning, and that the defenses are weak and breaking down to the offensive force.

That was the line that the scribes drew in the synagogue that day. A line that was meant to shore up the defenses against unclean spirits, against outcasts, against false prophets who would tear apart the world of faith of the Pharisees. A line, granted drawn out of fear and self-preservation. But in drawing that line, those in the synagogue could not recognize Jesus as their Messiah. Yes they were amazed, but they also questioned and when Jesus left, Mark does not record that they followed, as others had and would through out Jesus’ ministry. In fact in Mark, there seemed to be a rather distinct scrimmage line between those who followed Jesus and those who could not or would not.

And I wonder if we create such line of scrimmages today in our world. It’s been almost 2000 years and Jesus has not come back yet. In the meantime, we have tried to keep our faith alive. Yes we have been given the Holy Spirit, but let’s face it, some of the ways that we live out our faith would make it very hard to recognize Jesus come back into our midst. Would we be like the people in the synagogue, if a stranger walked into midst right now, uninvited and began to teach with authority? Would we question the stranger? Would we even recognize the authority of the teacher? Would we get annoyed that following the stranger into our midst would be the chaotic mess of someone who was consumed in sin wanting healing?

And those scrimmage lines might extend even beyond the realm of the church. Maybe we have personal scrimmage lines. Do we say “Jesus you can have all of me up to a point, up to this imaginary line.” Do not cross that line, or I will have to defend with all my might, or worse even deny you and your power for my life.

I believe the man with the demons, had no such line. He was so consumed with the unclean spirit, that he had no hope other than Jesus. He could not rely on his own defenses, he had to give all of himself to Jesus in order to be healed.

So instead of these outbursts of faith meant to possess Jesus, marked by scrimmage lines to defend what if instead we lived our faith as a pilgrimage.

A pilgrimage is a journey to a sacred place.

One where we all start on different paths, but we have the same goal. And like the pilgrims of old, as we start out on our treks we are guided by the Holy Spirit, by Scripture, by those who went before us and told us of the many things they encountered and saw.

In Italy, where my stepmother is from, there is a church, between Rome and Florence, outside the ancient walled city of Lucca, where pilgrims would converge and rest as the made their pilgrimage to the Holy Land. And there, they would try to communicate with each other in their unfamiliar languages and they would tell stories about Jesus and share their faith stories. All the while they were inspiring each other to move onward toward the Holy Land, their final destination.

Curran is going to the Holy Land. Many of us won’t have that opportunity.

But it doesn’t mean that we aren’t on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. That Holy Land is a physical place, but it is also a spiritual place where we let Jesus guide us on our journey through this life. A place where Wesley says we will eventually rest in the will of God and be united forever with Jesus. A place few arrive permanently before they die, but still a place we yearn to travel to each and every day of our lives as Christians.

In our scripture today, I imagine that the scribes and Pharisees, sitting in their synagogue, thought they had arrived.

They were safe, they were confident in their faith. They were the keepers, the protectors of the faith. They had no need for a travel plan, they had already arrived.

When they encountered Jesus, they could not recognize him for who he was, because they had not prepared themselves to know Him.

But someone in the congregation did recognize him. An outcast, a man with a demon. And man who needed healing, who had been trapped and enslaved by evil forces. He recognized Jesus. He called out to him.

So do we live our lives as if we are on a pilgrimage to find Jesus? Do we allow the Holy Spirit to guide us ? Do we rely on the resurrection of the Jesus to be our compass? Do we bring with us the Holy Scriptures, the Old and New Testaments for sustenance? Do we travel alone, or do we rely on our fellow travelers in the church to strengthen and encourage us when we are tired or when we stumble?

Mark repeatedly tells us in his gospel that Jesus disturbs and distabilizes the established. What do we do when that happens on our pilgrimage? Do we retreat to our fortressed walls of security, or do we press onward, allowing Jesus to change or correct our course? Do we walk clothed in our baptism, taking sustenance from our communion meal? Do we continuously seek to encounter the risen Lord Jesus and his hope for healing, redemption and peace?

In the year 433, Saint Patrick was a pilgrim journeying to the King’s court. En route, he and his men prayed a special prayer of protection, later known as the Lorica or Deer’s Cry. At one point St. Patrick and his men were surrounded on both sides by Druids who lay in hiding, ready to kill. The druids however only saw a gentle doe followed by twenty fawns as St. Patrick and men passed by. There was no slaughter that day.

I believe this was the prayer or something just like it that brought the man with the unclean spirits to Jesus that day in the synagogue.

May this prayer bless you on your pilgrimage with Jesus as it has all who have ever prayed it on their journey.

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ in breadth, Christ in length, Christ in height, Christ in the heart of every person who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of every person who speaks of me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me.

Honor

2008-12-02T18:41:00.005-05:00

Last Wednesday, a 51 year old husband, father, son, church and community leader lost his valiant battle to recover from complications from open heart surgery. Rob was one of those leaders that was always present at any event, providing his quiet leadership and assistance. He never drew attention to himself, but always did things for others with an earnestness and humility. Therefore, we were amazed today to see the sanctuary of our church, overflowing with those who came to celebrate his life at his memorial. There were well over 450 people, the largest memorial the church could remember. It really should not have surprised us, that was just the kind of guy Rob was.

At the reception to follow, the line snaked around the church campus, with people wanting to express their condolences to Rob's widow Sherrie. For two hours they came, sharing hugs and stories with Sherrie. You could see that Sherrie received so much comfort from their words and actions.

During those two hours, I stood near Sherrie, dressed still in my robe and stole from the memorial service. I did it partially because I was worried if she could make it through; so I was there to give her brief and occasional respites with a drink of water. But I also did it for another reason.

In all the church committee meetings that I have attended over the past year and a half, Rob was the only person, who would stand up when I walked in the room. It was a way for him to show me respect and honor. At first I was embarrassed, after all I was not used to such kindness, but then I came to draw strength from it. So on the day of his memorial, I stood next too his widow, in my robe and stole, in honor and respect to Rob.

In the church we often talk about how much better the world would be if we just showed more of Christ's love to others. I wonder what kind of world it would be if we just showed each other a little more love in the form of honoring each other as made in the image of Christ? I think that is what Rob taught me, and I think the world is a better place because of him, I know I am a better person.

Sisters

2008-12-01T12:48:00.009-05:00

Advent Watching

2008-11-29T19:45:00.032-05:00

Isaiah 64:1-9 O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence-- as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil-- to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence! When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence. From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him. You meet those who gladly do right, those who remember you in your ways. But you were angry, and we sinned; because you hid yourself we transgressed. We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity. Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people.

Isaiah challeges us to ask: What do you keep watch out for?

Recently, with the serious downtown the world economy has taken and the looming threat that my husband Grady was going to loose his job, I began to watch out for deals. I now comb grocery weekly ads and coupons on the internet to find deals and reduce our family’s spending.

Some are watching the stock market closely to see if we are going to have any savings to retire on, or whether we are going to have to work longer or take on a part time job.

Some might be watching signs in our bodies or the bodies of friends or family, to see if an illness is getting worse or better. Watching for fever spikes, or new symptoms that indicate a treatment is working or not.

Others watch over their children, looking for signs that they are growing up well adjusted, or whether they are succumbing to the myriad of temptations that the world throws at them.

All of these things we watch over have something in common, we are looking for hope in the midst of sometimes what seems a chaotic and changing world. Hope does not live in a vacuum but comes out of a deep felt human need.

As we end our Thanksgiving celebrations, we enter into a season in the Christian year called Advent. It is a time of hope and watchfulness. As we approach one of the most sacred days of our year, Christmas. It is a time, that we spend in reflection, pondering what hope does Christmas bring?. We know that Christ has come, so why do we need to keep watching and anticipating? Can’t we just get on with it all? What are we watching for as Christmas approaches if Christ came over 2000 years ago?

We are watching for God’s activity in our lives. For his presence. We are anticipating Christ’s return and until that time we are hopeful to catch glimpses for God’s will for our lives.

It is very easy to get lost in all the rush toward Christmas that our country has made as a tradition, to lose the meaning of Christmas. To lose what we as Christians anticipate with the joyful tidings of Christ’s birth. So the church almost over two thousand years ago, maybe in anticipation of our business, established a season to pause and reflect on what the birth of Christ means.

Over the four Sundays of Advent we learn and talk about hope, peace, joy, and love… We learn what the activity of Christ, born as a human, brings all these things to our world.

Today we especially talk about hope.

But to understand hope, it is important to know what we kind of hope we are watching for. Is it the hope of a newborn baby in a stable who is the embodiment of God’s love for us, is it for a shepherd, is it for a political Messiah, is it for a personal Savior?

As the birth of Jesus approached, we read in the NT scriptures about Mary and her hope for a Lord and Savior that would, as Luke records, “(Luke 1:52) bring down the powerful from their thrones, and lift up the lowly;. This was Mary’s hope.

Meanwhile the shepherds waited in their fields, Luke 2:8 keeping watch over their flock by night. Now it is easy to imagine these shepherds as something out of an idyllic hallmark card. But it was dark, and it was cold and there were coyotes and all kinds of dangers around them.

Perhaps what the shepherds were watching for was something in the maze of all the stars in the sky, that would bring good tidings of comfort and joy.

And then there were the people of Israel, waiting and anticipating, hoping, but for what?

Our Scripture for today, helps us to understand the hopes of the ancient Israelites, but also sheds light on our hope today.

Isaiah 64:1 O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence-- as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil-- to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence! When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.

The people of Israel were seeking God to come down. They saw God who was distant and withdrawn. They missed God’s presence in their lives. They wanted him back.

Many of us experience God this way. As some grand figure, that has created us, and then stepped away to watch us live out our lives. This God is awesome and mighty, but also distant and cold. A God who is like a watchmaker, who creates us, winds us up and then sets us down in the midst of creation to run our course.

This is a God that we hope will tear open the heavens and come down the mountain to save us from the chaos of our lives.

We want God to be our Father. A loving parent who will do irrational things to save his children. Who will love His children and give His life for them.

We want God to be with us - to be connected with us.

Abraham Lincoln once wrote: "...I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side." The Inner Life of Abraham Lincoln: Six Months at the White House by Francis B. Carpenter (Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 1995), p. 282. Also, Recollections of Abraham Lincoln by Ward Hill Lamon (Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 1994), p. 91. and By REV. MATTHEW SIMPSON, D.D., Sermon at the burial of Abraham Lincoln.

Federal dead on the field of battle of first day, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

Library of Congress

God is on the side of right, but for us to see that right, to know it confidently is something that requires more than a simple wish or disposition. It requires a commitment to follow God, to seek His will in all things and a humility to know that we rarely have the ability to understand it all.

For, we constantly sin, and we stop seeking the presence of God in our lives. We get distracted by the things of the worlds, by power and ambition, by pride and vanity, by so many things and we fail to seek the presence of God within our lives. And it is easy to blame God, to claim that He has hidden his face from us.

Isaiah tells us There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.

It seems such a small thing to get distracted, but the consequences are huge. When we fail to seek God, when we sin and do not ask forgiveness, when we become distracted we lose the hope of God in our lives. The hope is there, available to us, but we forget, out of our own neglect we no longer have the bond of relationship with our creator. God did not sever it, we did.

And because of this, the prophet Isaiah weeps and proclaims that "We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away."

No longer rooted to our creator, we are at the whim of our sinfulness and worldly evil.

But all is not lost, and the prophet Isaiah in a bold assertion makes his claim on God.

"Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people."

You made us, you own us, you are responsible for us, we belong to you, that is what Isaiah boldly asserts.

And that is the Advent claim we can make as well. We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We have all turned our eyes away from God at some point in this past year. But, the story does not, cannot, will not end there. For God sent his only Son Jesus Christ so that we may be forgiven.

God sent Jesus to us, so that we may always know with full assurance, that God is with us, Emmanuel. Two ancient Hebrew words, for God (El) and with us (Emmanu). God is with us yesterday, today and tomorrow.

He will not forsake us, he will not abandon us, for he has created us, and He has sent his only son

to claim his family relationship with us. He will forever be with us, to help mold us, his creation, not so that we all become identical jars of clay, but that we would become jars of clay filled with hope, peace, comfort and joy.

Water Vessel from the William Itter Collection

Paul tells us that He, God, who started a good work in you, will be faithful to complete it until the day of Jesus Christ comes again. God is with us, and His bond with us is not broken by time or space, and He will continue to mold us, and form us, until the day when his work will be completed in Christ. Until then God remains with us..

But as all of you know, we can take for granted our family ties and relationships. We can choose to break the bonds and turn away from our loved ones. We can choose to journey alone or with others who think and act like us. We can choose to turn a blind eye to God’s presence in the world,

Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote,

“Earth’s crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God;

And only he who sees it takes off his shoes;

The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.”

We can choose this advent season to stay wrapped up in the busyness of commercialism. We can pluck up possessions rather than take time to spend in quiet contemplation and prayer, missing the many ways that God surprises us daily in small acts of the sacred.

We can opt to remain in the gloom of your circumstances, failing to experience the peace of Christ, that comes from knowing Him.

We can decide to watch signs of the times and become lost in our own self made desperation, bypassing the hope of God in Jesus Christ to redeem the good out of any situation we might find ourselves in.

Or like the prophet Isaiah, we can ask for forgiveness for the sins of the past, and we can share stories of God’s presence in your lives this past year. And when we do this we free ourselves to turn towards the rising star in the East and become watchful for the hope and promise of Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, God with us for this upcoming year.

How will God, the Potter, shape us this upcoming year? What promises does he hold for us? What hope will he bring to this world? So that on Christmas day, we may join creation in singing praises to our God, who did not abandon us, even when we sinned, but chose to send his only Son to us, to tie the binds that unite us forever in solidarity with Him.

So what are you going to watch for this Advent season?

Come to the Waters

2008-10-15T12:30:00.000-04:00

Another Challenge

2008-05-24T08:53:00.003-04:00

A stone in the exterior wall of the church in Barga Italy. What does the inscription mean?

Speak for Your Servant is Listening

2008-05-21T06:51:00.002-04:00

1 Samuel 3:1-10 Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the LORD under Eli. The word of the LORD was rare in those days; visions were not widespread. At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was. Then the LORD called, "Samuel! Samuel!" and he said, "Here I am!" and ran to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." But he said, "I did not call; lie down again." So he went and lay down. The LORD called again, "Samuel!" Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." But he said, "I did not call, my son; lie down again." Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, and the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him. The LORD called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." Then Eli perceived that the LORD was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, "Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, 'Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.'" So Samuel went and lay down in his place. Now the LORD came and stood there, calling as before, "Samuel! Samuel!" And Samuel said, "Speak, for your servant is listening."

What is happening in our story today is truly a strange event. Samuel has been raised by his mother, Hannah, a deeply devout woman of God. She has nurtured him and prepared him to be a faithful servant of God. When Samuel was the proper age, she went to the house of the Lord in Shiloh and gave her only son to the priest Eli to be raised by him. And over the years Samuel has been a faithful servant, ministering to the Lord under Eli. So when God calls Samuel three times, and three times Samuel thinks mistakenly that it is Eli the priest calling him it seems to be remarkable that he would not know it was God. Now the Scripture tells us that the word of the Lord was rare in those days, ! but come on! It’s God after all! Wouldn’t you know if God was calling you? Wouldn’t you recognize God’s voice? And after all Samuel had been prepared for this calling, he had been not only a regular attendee at the house of the Lord, but a servant as well! Certainly we would respond to God’s call! I mean if God thundered down, right here and right now, Church! Church! We would stop what we were doing, and say “Speak, Lord for your servant is listening.” Wouldn’t we?

This is the question that I think this story asks us to reflect on today. And to help us process it, I would like to talk about the wind.

I am an avid sailor. I grew up sailing off the New England coast since I was ten years old. And early on I discovered sailboat racing. Sailing gave me the opportunity to not only to be out on the water, enjoying God’s beautiful creativity in the waves, and the silence of the wind, but I could also be with friends and also beat the heck out of my competition.

But winning did not come easy for me in sailing. You see in sailboat racing you have to do something called read the wind. Now maybe for some of you navy pilots or golfers you can see and read the wind. But for me, the wind is this invisible force, that I only really sense is present, when it messes my hair or I have to walk against it or when a cool breeze gives me relief. In other words, I can only experience the wind when it is blowing hard. But I don’t see it!

And this is problematic in sailing. Because you have to know where the wind is to get anywhere! If you don’t know where the wind is, then you tend to end up all over the course. The boat becomes subject to what appears to be random shifts in the wind and also to strong currents that lead you where you do not want to go. There has been many a race where I threw my hands up in despair exclaiming,
“I have no idea what to do!”

Over the years I tried to learn to read the wind. At first I emulated top sailors trying to learn their secrets. I read their books; I crewed for them, but to no avail. I still could not see the wind, let alone read it. Then one day, when there was barely a hint of breeze on the water. I saw it. Coming across the lake, I saw a dark shadow on the water, and as it approached, I could see that the wind was pointed in a different direction than the wind that barely filled our sails. And as I waited with anticipation, I could count the seconds as it approached us. When it hit us, the sails flapped for a moment and then filled, our boat gently tilted and we took off. “Puff” I exclaimed, as we, the only boat in the wind, took off and passed our competitors.

After that, I began to look for the wind. “Over there!” I would cry, and off we would go, headed for the darker water. As time went on, I could also see the wind when the weather was stormy. You see in storms, the wind is very unpredictable and is rarely constant. And you can see all of its vagaries as it breezes over the water. So in sailing, you learn to look for the dangerous winds that can not only fill your sails but knock the boat over.

But try as I might, I could not figure out how to see the wind, on a steady air day. Where there were no large puffs of wind to signal a change in direction.

This all changed when I watched the America’s Cup several years ago. For those of you who don’t know, the America’s Cup is an international competition between the best sailboat racers in the world that is held once every four years or so. It’s never covered on the big network channels, because frankly watching sailboat racing is akin to watching paint dry for most: Even more boring than golf or bowling and the rules more incomprehensible than hockey or cricket.

But there I was, in 1995, watching a New Zealand team compete against the American, Dennis Conner. On board the Kiwi boat was an awesome tactician named Brad Butterworth who was acclaimed for his ability to read the wind. So when I first started to watch the coverage I expected to find Brad sitting alone at an upward key advantage spot, reverently reading the wind, and making the strategic calls downward to the skipper and crew. But that is not what I saw; instead, he stood by the skipper and several other people and engaged in a conversation with them, during the whole race! It seemed that Brad’s giftedness for reading the wind had more to do with his ability to process what he saw with others rather than just giving out prophetic directions.

And after watching Brad, I began to try this. I began to talk with my skipper about the wind. I admitted to him that I could not read it on my own. He admitted that he struggled with this too, and together we began to enter into a dialogue about the wind throughout each leg of the race. And low and behold, we began to see the wind! We began to understand what direction we needed to point our boat. We began to understand how to adjust our sails.

I think that God’s calling in our lives is like the wind. We expect it to be like a giant puff moving across the water, that we can anticipate and measure. So we prepare ourselves. We like Samuel, go to church every Sunday and faithfully serve in various positions in the church. And Sunday after Sunday, we look for a puff. We look for God to fill our souls and move us boldly forward. We expect a mountain top experience like Moses and we look for signs like a burning bush. Or we anticipate God’s blinding grace to bring us to our knees as it did Paul on the road to Damascus.

And more often than not, we think that this will be a deeply private and personal moment that we will know and understand all by ourselves. But while God’s call on Moses and Paul did come in isolation, they both had others to help them understand and discern God’s calling. Moses had Aaron and Paul had Ananais.

And like the wind, I believe that God does act in this way sometimes. God’s calling can be like a blast of wind that literally knocks us over. And it is a marvelous thing to see this happen to someone. They truly are on fire and filled with a passion that is contagious.

But for some of us, perhaps many of us, God seems to work more like the wind on a steady air day. God is like a warm gentle breeze that is more like a whisper than a bold hurricane like noise. Remember Elijah’s call in 1 Kings? He went up to the mountain to hear the Lord, but the Lord was not in the loud wind, nor in the earthquake, but in the sheer silence. The wind on a steady air day, you cannot see, you cannot hear, and yet it presses you forward.

We come to church and worship, we serve, we pray, we stay in the word. In this we are very much like the young Samuel, tending the house of the Lord in Shiloh, very much like the young Samuel prepared by his mother to be a faithful servant to the priest Eli and very much like the young Samuel worshipping God as he has been taught. Our preparation and faithful servant hood allows us to steer the waters, even when they are shallow even when as we are told by the narrator in 1 Samuel, that the word of the Lord is rare. And so with our faithful preparation we are content to rest in the shallow waters, convinced that God is helping us to keep course. Yet as Samuel’s story reveals it is very easy, to get off course and to miss God’s call on our lives.

The problem is even with God helping us keep course, we can still become victim to the shifting winds and currents of our lives. You see, when we aren’t experiencing God’s call in our lives, we can mistake other calls not of God and follow them until we are fatally off course. Our modern world is a deep and swift current that at surface level seems calm and harmless, but at its core is powerful enough to sweep us right off the race course where we become in danger of being sucked under or shipwrecked.

And maybe some of you today are sitting out in the pews wandering what God is doing in your life or wandering when God is going to call you. Maybe you have just started coming or maybe you have been coming for years, but if you had to be brutally honest you would have to admit that either you have never heard God’s call or somewhere along the way you stopped hearing God’s call. You are adrift, some more comfortably than others.

But God realizes our dilemma; he knows how hard it is to read the wind, to hear his call. So he gives us each other where we can share his word, where we can pray for each other, where we can discern that call with each other. For Samuel that was Eli, for the church today, we have small groups and Bible studies, and programs like Alpha. I am not sure why, but Alpha is so often promoted as something people new to faith should attend. Now don’t get me wrong, Alpha is an excellent way, if you are a seeker, to learn about God the Father and Jesus and the Holy Spirit and to begin to be in fellowship with others with questions and with people deeply rooted in faith.

But Alpha is also a wonderful ministry for those of you, who are drifting, who are still in the boat, but sense that you have lost the ability to read the wind. Because in Alpha it is not about someone with all the answers imparting them from on high to you, but a group experience, where you come together and learn to read the wind together. Over the years, I occasionally have returned to Alpha when I feel that I have stopped hearing God’s call in my life. I have also turned to faithful friends who have mentored me, prayed with me and helped me once again learn to set my boat on course and to faithfully hear and follow God’s call.

Maybe the reason Alpha stays a seeker course is that we, who claim our identities as Christians, are so ashamed to admit when we get off course and to be honest about it. That somehow we fear that we will be judged as not being Christian enough or being weak and falling victim to the deep currents of the world.

To address this concern, I have a story to share with you. There was a man, who was born over 300 years ago who was raised in a faithful Christian household. His mother nurtured him and his brothers and sisters with a firm and spirited Christian education. His father was a pastor and taught his children the value of tradition and loyalty to the church. For this young man, all his young life he dreamed of serving God. So in his early thirties, he and his brother set out to a newly discovered and developed foreign land to work with the indigenous population. Despite all of the two men’s hard work, the ministry failed and the two brothers returned home, dejected and dispirited. Still they continued to faithfully attend church and serve the Lord, even though they both had lost a sense of God’s calling in their lives.

The young man and his brother continued to drift for almost a year. Fortunately, a friend had invited them to attend a series of prayer meetings. At these prayer meetings the young man spoke of his struggles and wrestled honestly with his faith. And then one May evening, as the gentle winds blew outside, the young man’s heart was strangely warmed and he exclaimed to all present, “I believe!”

That man went on to be the founder of Methodism. He was no other than John Wesley.

People, we have to get honest with one another. We have to share with each other what is going on in our lives. If we do not, we are just isolated ships, drifting on a sea that will eventually shipwreck us and leave us drowning in the dangerous currents of life.

We need each other. God’s gentle winds are blowing on all of us gathered here today but we can’t read that wind, can’t respond to it, unless we join together in honest conversation and prayer. Like Samuel we need Eli’s to help us discern God’s call and to be able to finally respond to God, “Speak for your servant is listening.” And if you cannot hear God, or don’t recognize that God is calling you, if you are a drift, or if you have gotten off course, you are not in the boat alone. For we gathered here today will not make the journey without you. We have been called to this ship we call the church, as brothers and sisters in Christ and we cannot set sail without you. Come join us for the most wonderful voyage of our lives!

Samaritan Woman at the Well

2008-05-20T06:43:00.004-04:00

We all are aware of the natural disasters occurring almost half a globe away in Myanmar and China. Myanmar has been devastated not only by a cyclone and major flooding, but also by a ruling junta who will not allow aid workers into the country. So many of thousands will die needlessly, simply because of the circumstances of their birth.

In China, officials have confirmed deaths in the 20,000s and expect many more. The other day I heard a reporter on NPR relate what he saw in a remote mountainous village. What stuck out to me in his report is that he said the town had a well, but the people were dying of thirst because they dared not drink from the well, because they feared that death had contaminated the water.

So close to the living source of water, hundreds if not thousands of people will die. Many within feet or yards of a well.

The Gospel of John has a story involving a well - a well that has a different life outcome than the well in China.

John 4:5-29 So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?" Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water." Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back." The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!" The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem." Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us." Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you." Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you want?" or, "Why are you speaking with her?" Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?"

Jesus comes to the well thirsty. The theme of thirst is central to John’s Gospel.

After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), "I am thirsty." John 19:28

One of the final words that Jesus cries out on the cross is that he is thirsty. Thirsty for water? No. Thirsty for us.

Mother Theresa wrote this about God speaking to us:

I thirst for you. Yes, that is the only way to even begin to describe My love for you: I THIRST FOR YOU. I thirst to love you and to be loved by you - that is how precious you are to Me. I THIRST FOR YOU. Come to Me, and I will fill your heart and heal your wounds. I will make you a new creation, and give you peace, even in all your trials. I THIRST FOR YOU. You must never doubt My mercy, My acceptance of you, My desire to forgive, My longing to bless you and live My life in you. I THIRST FOR YOU. If you feel unimportant in the eyes of the world, that matters not at all. For Me, there is no one any more important in the entire world than you. I THIRST FOR YOU. Open to me, come to Me, thirst for Me, give Me your life - and I will prove to you how important you are to My Heart.

I know you, through and through. I know everything about you, the very hairs I have numbered, nothing in your life is unimportant to me. I have followed you through the years, and I have always loved you even in your wanderings. I know every one of your problems. I know your needs and worries, and yes I know all your sins, but I tell you again I love you. Not for what you have or haven’t done, I love you for you. For the beauty and dignity my father gave you by creating you in his image.

Dignity that you have often forgotten. Beauty that you have tarnished by sin. But I love you as you are, and I have shed my blood to win you back. If only you ask me with faith, my grace will touch all that needs changing in your life. I will give you the strength to free you from sin and all its destructive power., I thirst for you. That is the only way to describe my love for you. I thirst to love and to be loved by you.

No matter how far you may wander, no matter how often you forget Me, no matter how many crosses you may bear in this life; there is one thing I want you to always remember, one thing that will never change: I THIRST FOR YOU -just as you are. You don't need to change to believe in My love, for it will be your belief in My love that will change you. You forget Me, and yet I am seeking you every moment of the day - standing at the door of your heart, and knocking. Do you find this hard to believe? Then look at the cross, look at My Heart that was pierced for you. Have you not understood My cross? Then listen again to the words I spoke there - for they tell you clearly why I endured all this for you: I THIRST...).Yes, I thirst for you- as the rest of the psalm-verse I was praying says of MeI looked for love, and I found none... All your life I have been looking for your love - I have never stopped seeking to love you and be loved by you. You have tried many other things in your search for happiness; why not try opening your heart to Me, right now, more than you ever have before.

Whenever you do open the door of your heart, whenever you come close enough, you will hear Me say to you again and again, not in mere human words but in spirit: No matter what you have done, I love you for your own sake. Come to Me with your misery and your sins, with your troubles and needs, and with all your longing to be loved. I stand at the door of your heart and knock ... Open to-Me, for I THIRST FOR YOU.

We hear these words, but do we know in our heart of hearts that God in Christ knows us completely AND, not despite, AND loves us completely. How much do we hide from God? How much do we try to conceal in shame or hurt, in embarrassment or in vanity? How many of us try to earn that love from God? How much do we try to be good or productive, or loving or nice so that we can be loved by God? But do we have it backwards?

John often speaks of this thirst of Christ as a groom wooing his bride. Already in John before we get to our story for the day, Christ has attended a wedding feast at Cana where he turns water into wine. And John the Baptist has described his role as the friend of the bridegroom.

And listen to John’s words, “The bride belongs to the bridegroom.” John 3:29. We already belong to Christ. We are already betrothed to Christ, and he has come to earth to woo us, and to claim us as his bride.

The setting for John’s story of the Samaritan woman picks up this theme of betrothal, wooing and marriage. Stories of the beginning of the families of Isaac, Jacob and Moses all begin at wells. Resting at wells equates in the Old Testament as a place for God’s chosen to be nourished, and refreshed. It is the starting point of the next chapter in their lives, which always involve being connected to a woman and her family, through a courtship process.

At Jacob’s well, deep in the heart of Samaria, it is not a patriarch, like Isaac, Jacob or Moses, but a lone woman who comes to the well for water in the heat of the afternoon sun. How will God woo her? How will God begin her new journey?

Well, it starts strangely, for it is Jesus who asks a drink from her. It would almost be like you or I asking a homeless person for a bite of their burger that they have just taken out of the dumpster at McDonalds. Why would we possibly want anything from a homeless person? What could they possibly offer us, that wouldn’t contaminate or kill us?

But Jesus, who already knows the Samaritan woman, thirsts to come into relationship with her. He already loves her. Jesus begins the courtship process by asking her for a drink of water. Jesus, who knows that she is living with a man outside of marriage, could have condemned her, could have named her a sinner, could have demanded that she repent and ask forgiveness before he would have anything to do with her, but he does not. Instead he humbly tells her that he is thirsty.

The woman resists, after all she knows how others have judged her, how others have ignored her, how others have condemned her. She has most possibly experienced the rejection of courtiers and husbands before, after all she has had five husbands. Did she bury them all? She couldn’t have divorced them, only men could divorce womaen.

She wonders how Jesus could ask her for water. Doesn’t he realize that by receiving water from her that he could become contaminated? That by sharing water with her, they would be in a relationship that would be deadly?

Jesus responds to her by offering her living water. Jesus bends forward in conversation with her, resisting her attempts to distance herself with artificial boundaries set up by human beings.

Jesus does so in a riddle, just as he has answered Nicodemus the Pharisee in an encounter that has happened just before Jesus comes to Samaria. The riddle engages the woman, just as it did Nicodemus. It draws both Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman into a relationship with Jesus, it causes them to pause and examine all that they know and all that they value and hold dear and to begin to receive Jesus into their lives.

Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that she has already been given a gift by God of living water and that all she has to do is ask for it. Jesus is telling her that he already knows her and loves her. That she is already his, if only she would ask Him into her life.

But the woman resists. Commentators since the reformation argue that this demonstrates the willful and bold nature of her sinfulness. They say she is taunting Jesus out of her wickedness and immorality, that at this point she is unaware that she is a desperate sinner. Her sick and injured soul speaks rashly to Jesus, they say, because she does not feel guilty for living with a man outside of marriage, therefore Jesus has to point this out so that she can feel guilty and thus thirst for the water of life. But the problem with this approach is that Jesus never calls her a sinner, never asks her to repent.

The early church saw the woman’s response differently. They see her as confused woman who is willing to try to understand what Jesus is offering her. She is trying to understand Jesus’ riddle through the religious structure of her time. First and foremost she is concerned that her water would contaminate Jesus, that it would bring Him shame and condemnation.

For years I knew there was a God. I would look at nature and see all His glorious work and I would be in awe of such a creator God. And then I would look at myself. I grew up in a household with a lot of verbal abuse. I can’t repeat the name my mother called me and my siblings. I thought I was contaminated, polluted, little more than pond scum. For years, I wondered, how could such a creator God ever love me, someone so worthless? How could God ever want me to draw near? Wouldn’t I just contaminate all that was good?

If I ever was going to get near to God, I thought that I had to make myself clean. I had to become better, I had to scrub hard to get the slime off of me. But the more I tried to be better, the worse I seemed to become. It became a vicious cycle; one I think that the Samaritan woman knew well. We both did not need condemnation; we had enough of that to go around. What we needed was love and truth. We needed someone to know us and to thirst for us. No wonder the Samaritan woman was wary about responding to Jesus’ offer of water, I was wary too.

Then the Samaritan woman takes Jesus’ offer of living waters literally, as something that springs forth from an earthly well that she must draw from. Here the woman might be testing Jesus, but not out of unconfessed guilt, but out of woundedness. Too many had come before offering promised potions of love, that too often were just shallow pits of mud. What the woman needs is a deep eternal well of love to sustain all who she is.

For many, when we don’t feel love, when we don’t experience the thirst of God for us, we go in search for it in the shallow offerings of earthly love. We seek meaning in imaginary relationships based on sex, or we take drugs, or we acquire things or claim status. Anything to fill the emptiness. But what happens is we end up drowning in the random meaninglessness of life from the rising waters of our amoral sensual constructs.

Jesus knows this about me. He also knows this about the Samaritan woman, so he helps her to understand that the living waters are not from earthly wells that condemn us to death, which only lead us to more thirst. The living waters he offers are ones that quench our thirst because they will be an eternal spring of water that lead to life. They are living waters that allow us to worship in spirit and in truth.

And there is no part of her, no place of shame that she can hide from Jesus. Jesus knows her and he loves her. He knows what is true. His love for her is so deep, that nothing about her or her circumstances can change his thirst and love for her. And because of this, his waters can bring truth to the woman who came to the well and experienced God’s thirst for her.

And this promise is for us as well. We too can draw near to the well and receive God’s thirst for us. We can experience his love and truth for us. Truth that is life giving. Truth that allows us to see ourselves for who we are, to see ourselves as God sees us, as his beloved bride, whom God desires to woo, and wed.

I will never forget when I came to Christ almost nine years ago. I walk my dogs every morning, and during that time, I walked with Christ and each day he told me about my life and who I was. Deep personal truths stripped of the falsehoods I or the world had constructed. He told me who I was, and where I had been. He revealed how much he had always been by my side thirsting for me, wooing me, knowing me and loving me. Continuously offering life to me.

The Samaritan woman has only known husbands who leave her for dead, Jesus is offering her a different marriage proposal, one that will leave her with the promise of life eternal, because Jesus will eternally thirst for her.

And boldly the woman asks for this water, and with this request she receives the water.

Now the conversation goes deeper. The wedding is soon to take place, vows exchanged. The woman says her vows, “I know that the Messiah (called Christ) is coming. “ John 4:25

And Jesus responds, with his vow “I am”.

We are fond of saying traditionally in weddings, I do, but Jesus responds with “I am.” His words echo his Father’s love for the people of Israel: God said to Moses, “I AM” WHO I AM" He said further, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.'"Exodus 3:14

The greatest words of love ever heard by anyone is not I love you, but “I AM”. For it is God’s declaration of love for his people. A love that is an action word that will bring deliverance and salvation first extended to God’s people, the Israelites, and now offered to all in Jesus.

The wedding is finished. Jesus has declared his love for his bride. He chose to make his declaration of love, not to the Pharisees, not to the disciples, not to John the Baptist, not Nicodemus, but to the Samaritan woman. A woman who was open to the thirst of God in Christ for her.

The time of celebration has begun. The woman, liberated, gets up and leaves her water jar behind. She is no longer in need of water that leaves her thirsty, she has been wedded to the living waters and she will thirst no more, for her groom will thirst for her eternally. She has become the vessel unto which she can receive the living waters of Christ. And because of she has become this vessel she in turn can worship in spirit and in truth. A miracle has happened and out of it comes the Samaritan woman’s worhsip that God eternally thirsts and desires, for it is in her worship that she gives all to God through Christ. For ours is a jealous God who seeks nothing less than all of us in union with him.

What if we stopped trying to convince people that they are thirsty? What if instead, we turned our attention to God’s thirst, for us and for others? What if we carried that message to the world? What would it look like?

What would it mean to put down our vessels that we use to quench our thirsts, and take time to enter into God’s thirst for us? What if we allowed ourselves to become vessels that quench God’s thirst?

What if we knew, not just with our minds, but with our hearts, that there is nothing about us or our circumstances that could ever bring contamination or death to Christ’s deep well of living water?

Maybe it would look like this.

One summer, I worked as an interim pastor in a small rural church in the Midwest. During that time I met Dan, a fifty-two year old man scheduled to have a quadruple bypass heart surgery. His parents, Pearl and Ed, were parishioners, whom I had visited regularly. In Pearl and Ed’s small cluttered but clean parlor I had shared refreshments and heard stories of their family. Back in the early 1930’s James was a fieldworker. He first saw Pearl on the back of a covered wagon as her family moved all they had into town. They soon married, but life was hard, and they barely eaked out a living in the harsh climate of the dusty plains. When the depression hit, they lost everything and had to start over. Pearl and Ed had five children, two who died as infants. Ed and his two brothers dropped out of school so they could work the fields next to their parents. Eventually the family prospered and owned thousands of acres of land, and several businesses.

One of the things that the small framed but wiry Ed would almost proudly tell me was that when he would need to discipline his boys, both who grew to be strong giants compared to their father, he would stand on a footstool and pummel them. And Ed was proud, not necessarily of the violence per se, but that he had raised his boys to know the difference between right and wrong. All of his boys lived in their own homes on the land that Ed owned, but I never saw them or their families at church.

Pearl called me one day and asked that I visit her son Dan in the hospital before his surgery. She was worried about Dan and the state of his soul, she said. At the hospital, I encountered an overweight but strong man, sitting alone in his hospital gown, vulnerable in the darkness of his single bed hospital room. I told him who I was and that his mother asked me to visit him; he was not glad to see me. I am sure that he thought at some point I would either try to convert him or pray for his lost soul. He must have decided that the best way to get rid of me would be to tell me scandalous things about him. “I have two wives,” he began. He then recounted portions of his life story, one of much pain and sorrow. He described how at one point his business failed, which led to bankruptcy and the end his first marriage. Dan wanted to divorce, but his parents would not let him because it was against their faith. Dan had to leave the family church, one that had shaped his faith since a child. He set up the first wife in a new house, and then after ten years met another woman and common law married her. For over fifteen years, he had taken care of both of them and his children.

When Dan realized he had not scared me off, we told some funny stories that made us laugh. As I was preparing to leave, Dan shared with me how he was worried about his surgery and if he did not make it what would happen to his wives. I asked him if he wanted me to sit with his wives the next day during the surgery and he nodded. He tried to speak again, his head downcast; I could tell that he was worried about what would happen to him. He had had a faith that abandoned him when he was down, would it be there for him now? I told him that he was a child of God and that God loved him very much. He looked up, a tear forming, and nodded. I asked if I could say a prayer for him and he said yes. The next day I sat with Dan’s wives. They were anxious but not distraught. I did not say much and they seemed to be a comfort to each other. When the news came, that Dan made it through the surgery; they both broke down in tears. I left them as they went to visit him in post-op.

The truth that needed to be spoken that day to Dan, was that he was much loved by God. That God still thirsted for him over all these years and that God could still draw close to Dan and his family. God knew Dan so intimately that He named him as His child. It was in that naming, in that claiming of God’s thirst for Jim that healing occurred.

Dan did not return to our church, but over the next couple of years, reconciliation between Dan and his father did occur. When his father died just last year, Dan and his wives attended the funeral.

In the beginning, God made creation and saw that it was good. There was no hunger, there was abundance for all.

John tells us that in the end God will prepare a final heavenly banquet, a wedding feast where the living waters will turn to wine, and all will come to the table and thirst will be no more.

Until then we live in the in between times where we can catch glimpses of God’s love for us and hope that one day, we may hunger and thirst no more.

Revelation 21:1-6 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away." And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true." Then he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.

Maundy Thursday

2008-05-19T07:45:00.000-04:00

On Easter we will gather together in praise and worship to God our Father who lovingly sent his only son so that we may have life. We will celebrate with Halleluhahs that death no longer imprisons us but that we have been given eternal life. And we will also rejoice that our life here on earth has been radically changed. We have moved out of darkness into light and we have been given the gift of abundant life in God, even in our lifetime. But what does this abundant life look like? How do we dare to dream and to see it as God would have us see it? How do we live it out? How do we know with assurance that we are living as Christ’s followers and not just his admirers?

This is why I think Holy Week and especially Maundy Thursday and Good Friday are so important. If we skip too quickly from Jesus’ triumphant march into Jerusalem straight to Easter we might remain as bystanders to the miracle that Christ shapes in our lives and in the life of our community.

We may remain content to stand at the side of the road shouting Hosanna as Christ passes us by on his way to the cross. We may be too faint hearted to journey with Him to the cross. We may not hear his final seven words, words full of promise for us, and we might not be able to claim and live the commandment he gives us in our scripture passage today, to love others limitlessly, as Christ himself has loved us.

We gather on Maundy Thursday to prepare ourselves for Easter, to ready ourselves for the abundant life that Christ gives to us and with which we will celebrate on Easter.

We spend time with Jesus and we listen to his words and we reflect on his example, all so that when Easter comes we will be ready to be not just admires but followers. Ready not only to claim the promises on that Easter day, but every day onward, even when we are confronted, challenged, discouraged or tired.

We pause on Maundy Thursday so that we may know with full confidence what that abundant life looks like. “Every believer knows that Christ went the way of the cross for our sakes. But it is not enough just to know this. Each of us must find the cross and take it up.”

In Scriptures Jesus describes the abundant life we receive at Easter.

John 13:1-17 NRS Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" Jesus answered, "You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand." Peter said to him, "You will never wash my feet." Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no share with me." Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!" Jesus said to him, "One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you." For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, "Not all of you are clean." After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord-- and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

John 13:31b-35 Jesus said, "Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, 'Where I am going, you cannot come.' I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

The word Maundy is derived from the ancient French and it means a new commandment. And in our scripture reading today we receive this new commandment that shapes our abundant life in Christ that we celebrate on Easter morning. This new commandment is none other than love one another, just as Jesus has loved us. And the example of Jesus’ footwashing gives form to that love. For when Jesus’ washes the feet of his disciples he defies worldly assumptions of love rooted in false notions of power.

After all our Lord and Savior is the one that we glorify with Hosanna’s as he entered Jerusalem on a donkey. This teacher, this master, is one that bows down and washes the feet of his disciples, and in doing so demonstrates that love is both a giving and a receiving, an action of humbling self-emptying that invites others to empty so that they too may receive and share God’s greatest gift of all…love. It is this love that will empower us to follow Jesus to the cross and to be present at the empty tomb on Sunday. All so that we may receive God’s cleansing love for us and share it with others.

The cleansing act of footwashing, humanizes Peter and the disciples. Peter and the disciples may have bathed that day, but they were covered in sin. They needed to be made holy, to be cleansed of their sins, so that they could know the love of God in Christ for them.

Jesus in washing their feet emptied himself so that the disciples could be made clean, so that they could receive God’s love for them. But it was not just a gift given to be hoarded by the disciples. For the ultimate meaning of being made human, of being cleansed and transformed into holiness, is that God’s love restores and reconciles us with the other. To be fully human is to love others as God in Christ loves us. It is to be connected with each other in a way that both simultaneously empties of sin and fills us with God’s love that humanizes the other.

Think of all the ways that we dehumanize each other, both in word and action. We use sharp words, we lie, we ignore, we judge, we condemn, we strip people of power, we beat them, imprison them, we kill them. We treat others as disposable. We make them into something not someone that can be easily discarded. We treat them as animals rather than as humans created in the image of God. In all of these actions we are washing our hands of others, just as Pilate washed his hands of Jesus.

Pilate, motivated not by love but by fear, dehumanizes Jesus. In John 19 we read that Pilate: has Jesus flogged, places a crown of thorns on his head, dresses Jesus in a purple robe to mock him as the king of Jews, allows Jesus to be struck in the face, ridicules him to the mob and then ultimately hands him over to the mob for crucifixion. All are ways Pilate, washes his hands of Jesus.

Joel Marcus writes, “It is precisely this sort of dehumanization that Jesus experienced on the cross – for our benefit. He was flushed away in the ancient Roman sewage disposal system….” Jesus truly becomes as Psalm 22 prophesies “a worm, not human” Paul in Galatians tells us that Christ became a curse for us. In 2 Corinthians Paul writes, “God made him, who did not know sin, to become sin, in order that we might become the righteousness of God in him. “Paul does not say that Christ became a cursed person but that he became a curse; he does not say that God turned him into a sinful human being, but that he turned him into sin. Christ becomes a thing for us – a bad thing.

When we feel, therefore, that the negative opinion of other people, or their indifference, or our own failings have robbed us of our most precious possession, our image of ourselves as worthwhile human beings, we are not undergoing an experience that is alien to Christ. And it is precisely in this ability to identify ourselves with Jesus, or rather in his self- identification with our dehumanized state, that our humanity is returned to us.
Christ becomes sin, so that we become the righteousness of God in him; Jesus through his cleansing both in his life and in his death gives us the ability to be fully human.

Pilate’s washing of his hands of Jesus is in sharp contrast to Jesus’ actions at the last supper when he washes the feet of his disciples. Jesus does not wash his hands of the disciples. Rather he washes them so that they may receive His love and His promise for their lives, so that they may go out and share Jesus’ life giving promise with others. And in doing so, Jesus sets in motion the life giving redemption of the world, one soul at a time. You see when Jesus humanizes us, he gives us a wholeness that is not just an individual wholeness, but a wholeness that is experienced as connectedness with others. This is the nature of his love for us, it is meant to restore and reconcile us with others, that is how we experience love.

There is a small town in France, called Le Chambon that I believe demonstrated Jesus’ footwashing during World War II. The villagers, mostly Christian farmers living in the mountain town, were isolated from the dehumanizing reign of Nazi Germany. They were not aware of the extent that Hitler and his men went to dehumanize whole groups of people, by placing them in ghettoes, by herding them on trains to extermination camps, by stripping them bare and ordering them to dig their own graves and then shooting them or gassing them. All these actions meant to strip people of their humanity and make them into things. Pilate and his dehumanizing ways were alive and well in the Nazi regime.

The villagers of Le Chambon were aware however, that they had been ordered by the occupying government not to take in Jews, under penalty of death. When Jews began to show up in their town and on their doorsteps, the Christians of Le Chambon decided to ignore their government’s orders and they took the Jews in at great possible risk to their own safety as well as the safety of their families.

When interviewed many years later why they did it, many shrugged and said that it made sense to do it. That they did not see themselves as heroic, that they did not feel any sentimental love for the Jewish strangers that came to their door. They just did it because it was the right thing to do. Many testified though, to a wonderful thing that happened. As they sheltered the Jewish refugees, as they welcomed them into their lives and their homes and their community, relationships formed and bonds of friendship were made that still live on in the ancestors of the villagers. And the blessing received was that many during that time and even to this day encountered and still encounter the risen Christ through the relationships formed. The actions of the villagers of Le Chambon, rooted in Christ’s self-emptying love, transformed strangers into brothers and sisters, into friends and neighbors.

No where is this more evident than when we come together as a community to share communion. Long ago, after Jesus self-emptied himself and cleansed the disciples, he was betrayed by one of them, Judas, who set in motion the dehumanization of Jesus. As Christians we come to the table repenting of our actions and words and beliefs that have dehumanized others, and we seek the wholeness that comes from the transforming power of the Holy Spirit to make us one with God and one with each other.

The meal we share is life changing. It is restorative. It is a place where we encounter Christ risen through our relationships with each other.

As Methodists we share our table with the other, with the stranger, with anyone who genuinely seeks this cleansing in Christ that brings wholeness and oneness with others, and who repents of that which dehumanizes the other.

No where is Christ’s example made plainer, than when we approach the table, with outstretched hands: our hands symbolizing our willingness to be cleansed, to be emptied of all that is not Christ like, and our eagerness to receive all the promises of our Lord and Savior. But often another thing happens when we receive communion. For one moment in time, the person sharing the bread and the cup, and the person receiving it, exchange a glance.

And in that naked moment, when eyes meet, we know the dehumanized Christ on the cross, humanizes us all as a community into the loving purposes of God. At that moment, our humanity becomes cleansed of all that is sinful, all that is death, all that is evil, as we are washed in the body and blood of Christ and transformed anew into someone that is more than just a one, more than stranger encountering stranger. When we give and receive the bread and the cup we are now one of many joined in love.

It is at that moment that we know God’s love for us and we know that we are changed in God’s cleansing blood.

It is at that moment that we know that we truly are Easter people, prepared to live Christ’s new commandment and share the loving promises of God in Christ with others.

We are prepared to empty ourselves and to follow Christ all the way to the cross on Friday, through the darkness of Saturday, onward into the dawning light of Sunday, where we will encounter the empty tomb and will know the joy and peace that our Lord and Savior has risen, and that we now have been given his cross to take up and share with a dehumanized world in need of God’s reconciling love.

Too Much Not to Share

2008-05-17T06:07:00.007-04:00

Justo Gonzalez in his book Manana states: “Spirituality is first of all living in the gospel-making faith the foundation for life. And it is also living out the gospel-making faith the foundation of actions and structure…The early church is spiritual not because it spends all its time in prayer and meditation but because it is a church seeking to live out of the future that the Spirit makes present…It is future oriented. It is life lived out of an expectation, out of hope and a goal. And that goal is the coming Reign of God. To have the Spirit is to have a foot up on the stirrup of the eschatological future and to live now as those who expect a new reality, the coming of the Reign of God.”

The Methodists I have met on two visits to Cuba amazed me by their depth of spirituality, where their actions reflected that they are living in the future Kingdom of God. Their actions do not make sense in the present day of Castro’s Cuba nor do they make sense in the current day reality of the United States. However, they do make sense in the context that with Christ the Kingdom of God has come. Even though this Kingdom has not come in full glory, we are now participants with Christ in the building of God’s kingdom through the Holy Spirit.

In Cuba, I met a young missionary named Edward. Edward bicycles 37 kilometers twice a week to a village in order to share the gospel. Edward shared his testimony with us. He had been an angry teenager, who felt he had no future in Castro’s Cuba, so he turned to alcohol and women for comfort. This made sense to Edward in the reality of present day Cuba, where people struggle for a limited piece of the future. Then, Christ touched his heart and he was born again into a new being. This new being was able to shed the old and begin to live in the reality of not Castro’s Cuba but the reality of God’s kingdom. His bicycling 37 kilometers did not make him spiritual, instead his living in the reality of God’s kingdom where this effort makes sense is the key to Edward’s spirituality. Edward’s actions are consistent with his beliefs. Another missionary, a woman, was a nurse. Although not a highly paid position in Cuba, it is still a good career. However, this nurse gave up her career to become a missionary. She now lives in a small house in a
very poor neighborhood. She uses her house for a church. Her actions only make sense when they are viewed as part of the building of God’s future kingdom in the present.

Gonzalez writes, “So long as we proclaim the Reign but make little effort to speak even a few words of ‘Reignese’ our witness will hardly be credible. If, by the power of the Holy
Spirit, we are a pilgrim people looking forward to the coming Reign of God, we had better begin practicing the love of that Reign – we had better begin organizing our lives according to the new order that we know is coming and that we proclaim.”
The Cuban Methodists are spiritual because they have organized their lives according to the new order. What may be considered a great sacrifice in our reality takes on new meaning in the Kingdom. Luke in Acts 4:31-35 states: “After this prayer, the building where they were meeting shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. And they preached God’s message with boldness. All the believers were of one heart and mind, and they felt that what they owned was not their own; they shared everything they had. And the apostles gave powerful witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and God’s great favor was upon them all. There was no poverty among them, because people who owned land and houses sold them and brought the money to the apostles for those in need.”

But why would those who received the Holy Spirit, sell everything? Does this make sense in our reality? Not in present day Cuba or the United States, but it does in the reality of the Kingdom of God. The Cuban Methodists never bragged about their work to us. They honestly and forthrightly told us of their work. To them, what they were doing made sense. They shared all they had with others, as if they had more than an abundance of goods. In many of the villages that we visited, converts opened their homes so that the gospel could be shared in their village. These homes were often very small, but the little space they had they shared with others. Where I saw too little to share, they saw too much not to share.

There was nothing sacrificial aboutworking or sharing. Their actions reflected that the future has arrived in the present, through the power of the Holy Spirit. Jurgen Moltmann writes in The Source of Life, “There is enough for everyone! That is the incredible message of the story. We are not being told some historical tale about the golden age of the first Christians long ago. This is the disclosure of real, possible ways of living for us today. We can have this experience ourselves. The experience of the community of the Holy Spirit.”

Spirituality has nothing to do with how much we pray or fast or worship. Spirituality has everything to do with the Spirit, who empowers us to live out a life that is consistent with the message that with Christ, God’s future kingdom has come to the present. The faith of the Cuban Methodists is spiritual but it is also orthopathic in nature. We are all familiar with orthodoxy (right belief) and orthopraxy (right practice). In fact in the United States we probably excel at these. However, Wesley also talked about orthopathy (right feelings/experience) as part of our faith response.

Theodore Runyon, in his book, The New Creation, comments on Wesley’s theology, “Creation is to be restored and perfected. God is the God who declares, ‘Behold I make all things new.’ The transformation of human lives is the foretaste of that which is to come. He is already renewing the face of the earth. Our justification, regeneration and sanctification link us therefore to this divine work of cosmic transformation…In orthopathic faith our experience is incorporated into the unfolding history of salvation and we are given a goal and direction that includes both personal renewal and a participation in the first fruits of the kingdom.”

With the goal and direction that comes from their orthopathic faith, Cuban Methodists claim the power of their new lives in Christ. “So you should not be like cowering, fearful slaves. You should behave instead like God’s very own children, adopted into his family-calling him ‘Father, dear Father.’ For his Holy Spirit speaks to us deep in our hearts and tells us that we are God’s children.” ( Romans 8:15-16).

There is a boldness in the Cuban Methodist preaching, in their singing, in their praying and in their witnessing. When Omar witnessed to a non-believer in the village of San Pablo and asked him if he wanted to accept Christ in his life, there was boldness. When we prayed for healing for a mentally ill man in the Amigo Ven a Cristo house church there was no timidity. When Ernesto, Danilo or Victor preached with conviction and power, it was not a pastoral power, but a power that comes from God. All of us in Cuba were claiming our authority in God, through the Holy Spirit. What we experienced was not only the potential but the reality of the new creation. The Cubans are not going to settle for heaven when they die, they are claiming it for themselves now and in the present.

Orthopathic faith, however, must also incorporate orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Runyon building on Wesley comments, “Orthopathic faith is thus the kind of faith relationship that is open to reason and willing to be corrected and reshaped in its self-understanding by normative experience and the counsel of the community of faith.”

The Cuban Methodist church has had to struggle with this issue as it reshaped itself during the Castro years. Many Cubans either have grown up with no religious background or in the Santeria faith. If just left to experience their new faith in Christ, Cuban Christianity might have strayed into a synchretic form of religion. However, the Cuban Methodist church has been able to answer this challenge by structuring the church and its practices after the primitive church and John Wesley’s subsequent model.

Amazing Grace - Empowerment or Cultural Artifact?

2008-05-16T08:46:00.000-04:00

Wintley Phipp’s video at first glance is emotionally charged and dramatic. However, his performance which includes a discussion of Negro spirituals and John Newton’s Amazing Grace demonstrates the de-politicization of a marginal cultural practice. Modern social scientists and folklorists “borrow” a political marginal practice from the original producer, and classify and tame it into an authentic sensibility that crosses cultural spheres. The cultural practice becomes a cultural artifact that can be marketed to the dominant culture. The taming begins with the assumption that the noise made by slaves was “spiritual” (and by this I mean Christian spiritual not indigenous spiritual) rather than political or social or a mixture of any of the three. This erases any meaning that the producers themselves had ascribed to the music. It also erases the cultural practices that might have shaped the meaning, for example slave owners forcing their slaves to sing an upbeat tune while working. While the religious and abolitionist causes spiritualizing black noise helps to politically challenge society’s then existing mores on the issue of whether slaves have souls, the move is one that brings the dialogue into the modern sphere. The consequence is that the modern propensity for scientific classification makes the political challenge vulnerable to social scientific classification and its propensity to ascribe what is the acceptable aesthetic. This classification and aestheticism robs cultural practices of their political efficacy and reifies them into cultural artifacts. The negro spiritual, no longer occupies the margins where it once had political power, but has been centralized into an ideal westernized black expression that can be produced separate from the realities of the black community itself. This move robs the black community of politically determining what it means to have a black soul in a modern westernized context because any cultural production is measured against the culturally acceptable artifact, which is now produced under the watchful eyes of the dominant white culture. Phipps demonstrates the taming or confining of the political meaning of the cultural practice of black noise when he points out that all Negro spirituals could be played on the black keys. Phipps wants to ascribe a hidden significance to this. Perhaps as abolitionists began to assemble Negro spirituals for their own grievances, it was important to take the noises they heard and order them to the black keys as symbolic. Given that slaves did not have access to piano, by ordering the noise to the black keys of the piano, a whole range of black noise was ignored. Phipps by humming the noises to the tune of Amazing Grace ignores the production of the Negro Spiritual into a formal and westernized musical construct. In doing so, it is aesthetically pleasing as well as understandable to his predominately white crowd. Here we have again the notion that the authentic black soul is one that produces a westernized aesthetic sound recognizable and acceptable to whites. The video shows the consequence. The idealized negro spiritual, robbed of its political power to challenge and speak to current racial issues, becomes a romanticized performance that leaves the audience in tears. Tears and pathos however are dangerous because now this white audience has a firm picture in their mind of the ideal black man, rooted in a sentimentalized version of a black slave, noble and deeply spiritual, quietly enduring the violence of slavery. This idealized black soul becomes for the audience the power that transformed John Newton and abolished slavery. But in reality this ideal black soul has only limited political agency, because his or her expression is kept centralized so as not to be too disruptive of the status quo. Removed from the margins, what does this ideal black man have to do with our current racial issues? How might this depiction reify the white audience’s reaction to other productions of black political agency? Amazingly the ideal black soul seems to become a border that demarcates centralized acceptability and marginalizes radicalism.

Existentialism

2008-05-15T04:52:00.014-04:00

A man thrown into the sea can only thrash about. He may discover by his very thrashing that he supports himself. Atheistic existentialism inclines to that opinion. Or his thrashing arms may hit upon some more substantial hope outside himself. Metaphysical and theistic existentialism follows this suggestion.

Carl Michalson, What is Existentialism

Mustard Seed Kingdom

2008-05-14T05:06:00.001-04:00

In Mark’s gospel the crucifixion of Christ comes with the crowd’s loud and frantic shouts of “Crucify him!” And Jesus’ despairing cry of "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

Strangely, Mark tells us immediately following Jesus’ death that the centurion who witnesses Jesus’ death says, "Truly this man was the Son of God!" The witness of the world begun anew does not come with the triumphant fanfare of trumpets. The centurion seems humbled and with all his implied armor vulnerable. It does not come with crowds. Rather, the kingdom of God comes in the wonderment of a single centurion facing the crucified Christ. The centurion’s simple statement gives evidence that at the moment of Jesus’ death the light extinguished is not permanently gone. New life has begun. The kingdom of God is at hand. At the very point of Jesus’ death on the cross, comes life for all creation. But not exactly as we would have pictured it happening and this is the mystery. In the midst of the chaos and noise of evil, God’s creative force brings new life.

Mark’s gospel is all about this mystery of life hidden in death and revealed only slowly. It is about the hidden nature of the kingdom of God and its slow but ongoing revelation in the midst of a broken world still dominated but no longer ruled by evil.

When Jesus begins his teaching, he has already begun his ministry…In Mark, there are different reactions to Jesus’ ministry. There are crowds that continue to get bigger and bigger.

All this happens in Mark before we get the teachings of Jesus in chapter 4. His first parable is one that is probably familiar to you. It is the parable of the sower of the seeds….. It is important for us to take two themes from this parable because they will shed light on our reading for today. First, Jesus uses the seed as a metaphor for his teaching, or the “word”. The seed is Jesus’ message recounted in Chapter 1 v. 15, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel." The second point is Jesus gives three responses to the word that are adverse and only one that is a positive response. The responses are not sequential either, they occur at the same time.

What follows Jesus’ public parable are two other seed parables that he recounts to his disciples in private. Contrasted to the first seed parable, these parables only have seeds that grow. These parables demonstrate how the positive response to the word happens and what it looks like.

In the first parable, a sower plants the seed. This sower is both Jesus, the disciples and even us today. What is important in this parable is not the sower, but the seed itself and how it grows. Mark 4:26-27 Notice that the man’s only direct action is to sow the seed. After sowing the seed, he sleeps and rises only to find that seed has grown. The man does not know how the seed grows; it is a mystery to the man and to us as well.

Jesus explains this mystery in Mark 4:28 “The earth produces of itself” is a reference to God’s creative power that is a mystery to humankind. Through Mark’s use of imagery we hear the words of Isaiah in chapter 55, verses 8-11

When we share the word, we sow a seed. We are only the planters of the word. We carry no authority of our own; we hold no life giving power. When we preach the word, it is all God working creatively to accomplish the purposes of God in revealing the mystery of the kingdom of God

The second parable that Jesus recounts privately to the disciples is the Mustard seed parable...

In this parable, Jesus turns from the how the hiddenness of the kingdom of God is revealed to the contrast between the relative smallness of the preached word symbolized by the mustard seed to the greatness of the kingdom of God, which is likened to the mustard plant. The contrast is key to explaining the mystery of the kingdom of God, which comes in weakness and in power. Power and greatness is hidden in the smallness and insignificance of the mustard seed.

To the world, the word may be small and insignificant. To the world, the word in its vulnerability and weakness cannot defeat the powers of evil. To the world, God’s kingdom will only come in victory with loud fanfare. To the world, refuge will come in the shade of trees like the great cedar that lifts to the sky. Interestingly Mark avoids the imagery of the cedar tree and sticks with a mustard shrub with large branches. It is hard for us to imagine a mustard shrub being great or large. It is not so hard for us to imagine the cedar tree being great and tall, reaching to the sky. But the height of the cedar tree is problematic. If we turn to Daniel chapter 4, verses 20-24, we can listen to Daniel’s interpretation of King Neb’s dream.

We like the shade of that which is mighty and great. We like big and find our own greatness and security in the shade of that which is bigger than us. Think about it. From the tallest buildings, to the biggest SUV’s, from homes with five bathrooms, to megachurches, from double sized burgers, to people who in general are 15 pounds heavier than they used to be, from to wealth to average work weeks of 60 hours, from wide screen tvs to shopping malls the size of a town; from a Bush who sees himself as mighty cedar tree, protector of the free world to bigger bombs and four hundred mile long walls to keep us in and others out. We seem to be a culture consumed with size, and not just any size. We have adopted the Texan motto, Bigger is better. But does bigger, support life?

Jesus tells us that the kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade." From smallness comes greatness but in a way that we probably do not expect. …….hiking in CA….We can see all too easily how rising to the heights of God is often mistaken for being God. Remember the Lord’s warning in Isaiah 55: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

In comparison, the mighty mustard shrub, even in its greatness and ability to sustain, remains vulnerable and lowly. The mustard shrub can only spread outward and not upward. As the mustard shrub branches spread outwards so the revelation of the kingdom of God spreads through out the land, touching and bringing refuge to most lowliest of the lows.

The mystery of the kingdom of God, therefore, is not just that Jesus chooses the mustard shrub over a cedar or redwood tree to represent it, but that even the mustard shrub begins as a small seed. Jesus, in his teaching, reveals that the mystery of the kingdom of God is that its power is revealed in its weakness. The tiny mustard seed holds the promise of the greatness of the kingdom of God. When we preach the word, the world may ignore us, may scorn us, may laugh at us, and may humor us. However, when we preach the word, God’s creative powers are bringing life out of death. God’s creative powers are vanquishing the evil represented by the tall tree that would be God and replacing it with the greatness of the mustard plant, where life flourishes in the shade of its lowly branches.

My father raised me to be “great” and as I entered into ministry I expected great things from myself, however, I had a problem. This past year has been a personal torment for me as I try to deal with my lack of “greatness”. Until a couple of days ago, this was still a big struggle for me. However, what I realize now, I never understood the meaning of “greatness”. I was wrapped up in the world’s view of “greatness” and in my busyness; I had totally missed the real meaning of “great”. I had substituted life for death, evil for good, and left no room for God’s creative power to renew me. I was not living in the kingdom of God but in a kingdom that I had partially constructed myself. Even when my mother gave me the mustard seed charm, I still did not understand. I still did not see that living in the time of post-Easter, means that the word as proclaimed by Jesus, the disciples and all the preachers over the centuries is the ongoing revelation of the kingdom of God’s greatness. My responsibility is to share this word in a world, to sow the seed. I am not responsible for the success of my preaching or any other aspect of my ministry. It is up to God to create new life from the seed sown and in so doing reveal the mystery of the kingdom of God.

“Greatness” is not created by hard work. “Greatness” is not found in the tall cedar trees that reach to the sky. To be great is to be the smallest mustard seed that God miraculously changes into the mustard shrub. To be “great” is to be the centurion, standing at the foot of the cross, saying, “"Truly this man was the Son of God!"

Wisdom from Above

2008-05-13T09:21:00.001-04:00

Scripture is not meant to be something that is mined for the one right interpretation, but is given to us by God to guide us in our communal conversations and life on who God is and how are we to live out faithful lives as a response to that God.

One of my strong convictions that I have about faith, is that God through the redeeming grace of Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit has given us the church so that we can come together to explore his Word, and not to just shape our beliefs but our actions as well. Through out Scriptures we have stories and statements about God and God’s activity, but we also have stories about how people responded to God. Remember the Israelites after being liberated from the Egyptians and sustained in the wilderness by the manna provided by God, only to rebel against God?

In Exodus 16:4 the Lord says to Moses, “ I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day…” And Moses tells the people exactly what God told him, and sure enough they receive the manna as God said, and then we are told in verse 17: “The Israelites did as they were told…” so all looks good until verse 20 “However, some of them paid no attention to Moses, they kept part of it until morning.”

We also see this challenge in Mark 10:17-22 with the rich young man who is excited to hear the teachings and even boldly asserts that he follows these teachings. Only to have to leave dejected because he can’t follow the teachings to sell all that he has.” Once again beliefs and actions could not connect.

Now the dilemma of the Israelites in the wilderness and the young rich man is the same dilemma we share today. It is a dilemma not only of faith but of actions or ethics as well. In other words, how does what I believe shape how I live? What do I believe in God and how far am I willing to have that belief influence my life?

Is my belief in God restricted to my life in church? Or does it have implications in my daily life? Do I act one way in church and with my church friends and another way when I am out in the world?

Now some of us have got this down into an art form. We have constructed boxes that neatly hold our church identities and our worldly identities separate. We have no problem shifting from one world to the other. From one reality to the other.

But I don’t care how neatly constructed we have these boxes, there is going to be a crisis at some point. And when there is, either our faith box will collapse or our world box will collapse, or both with collapse leaving us with no meaning and no hope.

The folk singer Todd Snider captures this dilemma in a song that he sings about teenagers who end up committing some type of violence. In the song some adults wonder how kids today could get so messed up and they say it is the music they listen to. Must be satanic. But Snider thinks it is something else. He sees the problem as that we act one way at church and then another way at home and at school and in our business. In the church world, we teach peace and love, and to serve the least of these, but in our other worlds, we learn to be competitive and successful and to climb corporate ladders and to ignore or even persecute the least of these.

Now you may or may not agree with Snider, but he highlights the difficulty of navigating two ethical worlds. It often leads to a lostness or hopelessness that allows for violence and other meanings to take hold.

So much of Scriptures are stories of this human dilemma. How do we as people who believe in God, live out our faith in our daily lives? How do we connect our story with God’s story and stay connected so that our actions reflect that story? How do we not mix God’s story with worldly stories that are at odds with God’s story, but seem to nonetheless benefit us? In other words how do we live life well?

James attacks this issue straight on in his Epistle. James writing in the early years of the church, sets out to instruct its faithful how to live out their faith. In probably one of the most famous and controversial lines of James we hear, James 2:17 So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

Faith if confined to just our beliefs, held separate from our actions is not faith at all, but some mental exercise that we practice for probably selfish reasons. To be clearer, the only reason we would say we have faith, yet not let it permeate our actions is that this faith divorced of action must benefit us somehow, perhaps with status or club membership or something that is not Scriptural at all.

James holds back no punches. If we are going to be faithful Christ followers, then our actions must reflect our faith. And so he goes at length to give us some actions that he feels are Christian. But he never strays far as to what is the source of our actions, and that at last brings me to our Scripture reading today,

James 3:17-18 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.

James roots our ethics, the way we structure our lives, our actions, our relationships and speech in the wisdom that comes from above. In other words, from the wisdom that comes from God.

But what is this wisdom from above? If I were to ask you what is the wisdom literature of the Old Testament, what books would you list? Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Eccl. Song of Solomon and if we were using a Catholic Bible we would also have Sirach and Wisdom. What makes these books wisdom books is that they address how God’s wisdom is lived out in the world. They are teachings based on discernment and reflection about the character and mystery of life.

One way we can think about Wisdom is that it is what structures or gives form to facts. Facts are facts, but how we order facts is wisdom. In other words how we understand truth is how we bundle facts together to form a story that in turn guides our actions, emotions etc. Now this might be confusing, because some people think that facts in themselves are truths. How many of you remember or perhaps have heard the parody of Joe Friday, the detective from back in the old black and white tv days, who would whip out his detective notepad, grab his pencil from his hats and with a piercing and stern look say to the rambling witness, “Just the facts, mam!”

But, FACTS ≠ TRUTH

A fact may or may not be truth. What do I mean by that? Facts in themselves are neutral, but when collected and sorted, filtered and ordered, they are not neutral for they always are assigned some type of value according to how we perceive truth. A chair is a fact and is relatively neutral, in other words it really does not in itself have any bearing on truth. Is it here truthfully in this room? Yes, but close your eyes for a minute. What is truthfully in this room in the back right hand corner? No peeking!

Facts are those things that we have to use our senses to experience. We see a chair, we hear a bird, we touch a wall, we taste an apple, we smell a rose. But truth is that which orders facts in a way that they are understandable, in a way that makes sense to our senses. Truth both uses our senses while rising above them, therefore it is unseen, unheard, untouched, etc. Truth is a reflection on facts. Let me alter my chair example to see if I can make my point.

An electric chair is a fact. It is a chair that has electricity wired to it. That is the fact. What we do with the electric is when truth comes in. For some the truth of the electric chair is that it is an instrument of justice, for others an instrument of injustice. What is the difference? How the parties understand the truth of justice. And from this understanding of truth, actions or ethics arise. If I believe – in other words if I hold what is true that God’s justice is accomplished when we put to death a violent offender, then I will use the electric chair as an instrument of justice, I will use it to end the life of a violent offender. But if I believe that only God can end the life of someone, even a violent offender, in other words if I do not believe that God’s justice is ever accomplished in the death of another person, then it would be very strange indeed if I supported the use of the electric chair to end the life, even the life of a violent offender.

We are in need of truth in order to gather facts and then to use them in some meaningful way. Again truth is something that resides both in our senses as well as above it. And for Christians, truth also has another component. God. Truth resides not just in our constructs, in our reason and in our senses, but as James puts it, it resides above us. It is given to us from above.

Truth or Wisdom has as its ultimate source God. Wisdom, or Truth was present at creation. Psalm 104:24 O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.

In the beginning, God created out of His Wisdom and what did he say after each day of creation? It was good. In the beginning facts, in other words, all that was created had a value because it was directly created and connected to God’s wisdom. But then the fall happened. Humanity sought to have wisdom separate from God and with our broken relationship with God, we no longer had only one source of wisdom, but now we had two.

Now we would have to seek for wisdom, it would not be automatic. Facts became neutral and we had to seek Wisdom from above, or we could seek wisdom from below, in order to try to understand the facts presented to us. In order to assign a value to the facts we encounter. And this is the dilemma that James writes about.

James 3:14-16 But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind.

James tells us that Wisdom not from above but earthly wisdom is also available to us. It is rampant and we have to choose between it and between the wisdom that comes from God.

Now you might ask why would I want earthly wisdom. James gives us a pretty grim picture of earthly wisdom. He tells us that it is false, and leads to disorder and wickedness of every kind. In other words that it leads to death. But he also tells us why we might seek it, for it seems to fuel envy and stimulate selfish ambition. We often seek earthly wisdom because it meets our needs, it gives us a sense of security and it gives us power.

In crisis points in our lives, when we come to a crossroads in our lives, we face the issue of what path we will take. Robert Frost so eloquently put it this way in his poem, The Road Not Taken:

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

In crises, we often are lured to the earthly wisdom’s path because it is familiar to us, because it serves us well, because it does not challenge us, because it gives us a false sense of peace, or perhaps because it makes most sense to us.

But James tells us it is a false sense of truth. It will not provide comfort, it will lead to death. Now before we think that we would never take the wrong path, let me share a story with you, how easy it is to follow an earthly path of wisdom.

My son Stephen is adopted. When we first visited him in the hospital in Russia, Stephen was one month old. As I held him for the first time in the doctor’s office I can’t even begin to describe the overpowering sense of love and joy I had. This was my boy…my beautiful child…a gift given to me and to Grady, who did not deserve such a wonderful miracle. As I held him Stephen began to cry. I tried to rock him, to sing to him. I shifted my arms, held him in different positions, but to no avail. His cries got louder and louder. The doctor came in, looked at him, and told his that he was not due for a feeding but she would see if she could get him a bottle. She came back with a half full baby bottle of milk. Stephen sucked down the milk in a matter of seconds. You see Stephen was starving. Later, we changed his diapers. I did not see it then, because I was overwhelmed, but the pictures show a starving child…extended belly, scrawny arms and legs. My heart still breaks when I look at the pictures.

When we got Stephen home, he was a happy and well fed child. All was well until we decided when he was 3 years old to move from our home in North Carolina to Florida. We carefully prepared Stephen for the move, making sure that he was at his grandmother’s during the hectic days of moving. We thought that Stephen was fine with the change. He expressed joy over his new bedroom and seemed to like the neighborhood pool and new friends. How traumatic after all could a move be for a three year old?

One day I noticed a smell in Stephen’s room, that grew worse with each day. Finally, I investigated and found that my three year old son had stockpiled food in a corner of his room. He had carefully hidden apples, bananas, cookies and cereal. The smell came from the rotting fruit. It was then I realized that Stephen was not all that comfortable with the move. And faced with trauma, he resorted back to a story that gave him comfort. He went back to food to meet his needs for stability and to help make sense of the changing world around him.

Separated from the Wisdom of God, it is very easy to seek earthly wisdom. It doesn’t have to start out as destructive or evil. It can start out as an unmet need. Or in a time of crises when we are struggling to reach out to make some kind of sense of something that to us makes no sense, so we are presented with earthly wisdom and we grab onto it like it is a only hope for life, not realizing that it is a story that will lead us on a path to death.

With Stephen, we had to spend months sharing with him a wisdom that came from God to help him understand, not just as a some kind of abstract belief system, he was after all only a child, but as a core fundamental belief system that made a difference in his life and how he coped with stress. If we had not, then false wisdom would have continued to build up in his life. He would have continued to seek wisdom from earthly things to manage stress and crises situations.

Many of us have stories that we built out of earthly wisdom to help make sense of some type of tragedy, or loss or crises in your life. I struggle with earthly wisdom each and every day of my life. I am not good enough, I am not pretty enough.

We don’t start out desiring earthly wisdom that leads to death, but we will hold onto any story that lessens the pain and helps us to make sense of what is going on in our lives.

But hear the good news. And this is the reason that I think the letter of James is included in the New Testament. James says right at the start of his letter, in verse 5:

James 1:5 If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you.

Ask and it will be given us. God does not hold his wisdom from us, but gives it to us freely and generously. He freely forgives us for seeking wisdom from elsewhere and does not begrudge us. God knows that we are separated from him and he yearns to reconnect with us.

He yearns to share His peace with us. He desires that we should experience his mercy and that we should be made pure and capable of bearing fruit. God wants us to be creative. He wants us to create life, and to live life and to share life with others and with Him, and ultimately to experience the union with God that we had before the fall.

No where do I find in James that we earn this wisdom from God. It is all gift that when we seek it is given to us. In this he echoes the Old Testament.

Proverbs 3:13 Happy are those who find wisdom, and those who get understanding,

And what we receive when we seek God’s wisdom, Proverbs goes on to tell us:

Proverbs 3:14-18 for her income is better than silver, and her revenue better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called happy.

God’s wisdom leads to life! A fullness of life that is rooted in the righteousness of God! The harvest of righteousness that James mentions in 3:18 is none other than our lives lead out in faithful action that is in direct alignment with the wisdom of God. A life lead by God’s wisdom takes us on a path that leads us back to the tree of life, where we can lie down by still waters and experience what we were created to experience, the truth of God’s peace.

Robert Frost ends his Poem with the following words,

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Can we really live with two different wisdoms guiding our lives? One, the Godly wisdom from above for our church life and earthly wisdom for all the other times? I don’t think so. God is calling us to choose. He has lead us to a crossroads and we try to keep our feet on both paths. Or we hesitate wondering if we can make the commitment to take only one path. But here again we hear the words from Proverbs, one of the greatest sources of God’s holy wisdom,

Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

It is time to choose which path you will follow, which truth will guide your thoughts, actions, deeds and speech. Will you follow the false wisdom from below or will you follow God’s wisdom from above. Will you seek life or will you dance with death?

One of the ways that we as a corporate body seek God’s wisdom for our lives is through the sacrament of Holy Communion.

We gather together at the Table to pray and ask forgiveness for earthly paths taken. We receive God’s forgiveness and then share God’s peace with each other, as an action that echoes are beliefs. And then we do a remarkable thing. We give thanks and we remember, in a prayer to God that helps prepare us for receiving His wisdom. And then we ask the Holy Spirit to unite us with God and with each other. In other words we seek His wisdom, His truth to not just enter our minds, but our hearts and our whole beings in a way that it effects a change in us. We are no longer isolated from God’s wisdom, but now we are transformed by it. We claim the harvest of righteousness as being united with God and with each other. It changes us and it changes our actions. And we come forward to take the bread and juice as a sign that points to this ultimate and life giving truth. That we are God’s and He is ours.

Living Stones

2008-05-12T05:58:00.003-04:00

Recently we baptized a young infant girl, welcomed several new people as members of our community and recognized the confirmands as members into the church.

Now if we are playing a numbers game we would be celebrating that once again our church is growing even as many churches are dying. We would celebrate that indeed we are a welcoming church and that we have many vital ministries that are attracting people to our church. But numbers games can be tricky and they don’t always tell the truth.

So perhaps another way of looking at that Sunday and the baptisms, and the confirmands and the new members, is to see these wonderful happenings as a sign that the risen Jesus Christ is our living Lord and Savior, reigning personally in our hearts and drawing us corporately into His living body to worship, praise and serve Him. In other words Christ is alive and well in our midst.

Those coming for baptism, confirmation and new membership along with all of our vital and active ministries testify to this wonderful truth. People want to be a part of the household of God where Christ is present and active in our midst. They see our Risen Lord living in our midst and in our actions and they want to join a household where the truth is not only spoken but lived out so they willingly offer themselves or their children as a spiritual sacrifice to our Lord and Savior as they enter His house. And we, as part of the household welcome them in and promise to surround them with a community of love and forgiveness and to support them with our prayers, presence, gifts and service.

There is a sense of obligation, and a sense of entry into something big and living.

It means not only following Jesus, but being nurtured, molded and shaped into the image of Christ. In other words there is an understanding that when we enter into the church community through baptism, confirmation or membership, we are entering into a living relationship with Christ which builds us up into something bigger than the sum of us individually.

And this sum is Christ uniting our past, present and futures into the body of Christ which is a living household that gives us an identity that is unlike any other; a household that shapes and molds us and grafts us into the actual structure itself.

Peter helps us to understand what it means to be the church this way:

1 Peter 2:4-5 Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God's sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Peter is telling us that Christ, the living stone, calls us to Him to build a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood and to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

There are all kinds of households that we can construct There is a reality show called Big Brother, where CBS calls and invites 12 people to live in a house for 3 months. The house is built on a set and these people are isolated from the outside world. Through a series of competitions and alliances and backstabbing, they vote each other out until only one person is left and they win a lot of money. And during this season, an interesting thing has happened. Three of the male housemates are so bored that they pick up a Bible and they begin to read it! And they become engrossed with all the stories in the scriptures, especially the stories that include war or violence and action.

And I am not sure what to do with this. Should I be excited that they are reading the Bible? Or should I be incensed that they are reading it for entertainment? And I think that in the end, I feel sorry for them, because these are people in need of an identity and they are so close, they have that which could shape and mold them into a new and transformed identity as people of God. But they see Christ and Christ’s word as little more than fleeting entertainment and so being offered faith, in the Word, they will fail to ask it to transform them and their lives.

We can be like those in the Big Brother household. We can reject Christ as mere entertainment or irrelevant faith. I have been guilty in the past at times of picking up my Bible only when I am bored or for entertainment. I have been guilty of picking up Scripture and not asking Christ through the Holy Spirit to transform me.

But I want to argue that when we do this we build a household that is not built on a sure and steady foundation. It is a temporary house, a house built of straw, that will be subject to the elements of time and will not endure. But like the house of straw in the three little pigs, it will fall down when faced with adversity or challenge.

So that is one kind of household. But Peter tells us that as Christians, we are a part of a different kind of household. We are a part of a household where Jesus Christ is our cornerstone. What that means is that Jesus Christ is not our entertainment. He is not given to us to amuse us, or make us feel good about ourselves. Rather Jesus Christ is our living Lord and Savior who is, as Peter tells us our living stone. Peter tells us this living stone has an offer for us, Come to Him, he says, come to Jesus, the living stone and let yourselves be built upon him.

The greek for the word stone in this passage does not mean rock. Peter uses a word for stone that implies that it has been hewn and formed, ready to be used in the construction of a building. Jesus, this same stone hewn and formed wants to form and mold us and incorporate us into God’s household.

When we submit and allow Christ to mold us, not only individually but corporately as well we are truly alive. If we do not, then we are in danger of remaining mere stones and rocks. What is the danger in that you wonder? After all a rock has no life and thus no inherent violence or evil. But a rock, not hewn by Christ, is left to be used by other forces.

In the Christian calendar, this Scripture from 1 Peter is read alongside the Acts story of the stoning of Stephen. I don’t think this was no mere coincidence. A stone not formed into the image of Christ, is left to be used by the forces of evil to destroy and bring death. When we are used and formed by the living Christ, we share Christ’s life giving force with others. We build up and not break down. When we are apart from Christ, we are left to our own devices and are subject to the random and violent efforts of the world, to stone and bring death to hope, love and peace. We can easily become weapons left to the disposal of evil or our own sinful desires and natures.

But is it enough to call Christ our cornerstone or does our house have to be built on something more?

I am from a small historical seaside town outside of Boston Massachussetts whose claim to fame is that it is the birthplace of the American Navy. You know the picture of Washington being rowed across the Delaware? The men rowing him were from my town, Marblehead. Of course, the boat was built in another nearby town, Gloucester, so they too claim to be the birthplace of the American Navy as well, but I digress.

Many of the homes in Marblehead were built way back in the 1600s and 1700’s. In high school one of my friends lived in one of these old houses. I remember the first time I visited her and walked into her living room, located on the second floor. I immediately experienced vertigo. I could not get my balance and it seemed like I was continuously trying to catch myself from falling. When I commented to her about this she laughed and told me many people felt this way in her house. It appears after time, that the house had settled and that now the house was crooked. The strangest this was that my friend did not even recognize that things were out of skew. She had adapted and was comfortable in her crooked environement.

Perhaps that is what happens with us. We settle, whether because we are worn down with age, or worries, or perhaps because we are comfortable in our surroundings, or maybe we even like or are reaping benefits from our situation. But when we settle, we often can loose our balance. And we can stumble and fall. And if we are not careful, as Christians, we can loose our identity and our purpose. We can stop asking Christ to shape and form us, we can stop asking to be a part of His living household. We can take our identity from something else or someone else. We can move.

When a house settles, it takes a lot of money and effort to raise it and bring it back into equilibrium. For us, when we settle the cost can be high as well.

Settling in our faith can take two forms. We can build our spiritual house without the cornerstone. We can build it with other cornerstones, like money, or status or other illusory items, but that is not the kind of settling I am speaking of.

Another form of settling is when we take Christ the cornerstone for granted. In other words when we say we that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior, but we live another way. In this form of settling, we rely on the cornerstone of our faith and identity to be Christ, but we really don’t see the cornerstone as something that forms and shapes us. We do not ask to be molded by the cornerstone.

But what this gets us is a shaky house. A house that is not connected by the living stone of Christ, but just a loose conglomeration of rocks that leaves us with a sense of vertigo and lostness, continuously reaching out for anything or anybody that will give us even a temporary sense of groundedness or stability. Often we settle for a false sense of security EVEN when the true security is right there if we will only ask for Christ to steady us.

You see, Christ offers us a house that is solid and sure. But that does not mean that this house is static. The house metaphor can only go so far. For our understanding of a household with Christ as the Cornerstone is that it is a living and breathing house. The house is continuously in movement, stones are being shaped, altered, moved and added. It is the same house, God’s house, but it cannot look the same as it did yesterday and it will not look the same tomorrow, but it is still God’s house.

God is calling each of us to be a part of his household. To join him in building the body of Christ in wonderous and new ways. Peter tells us that when we join the household we become spiritual sacrifices to God. I like how we ask God in our communion prayer, we vow to offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving as a holy and living sacrifice, in union with Christ’s offering for us.

Here we get a sense that the household is one that is living and breathing, each of us as living stones lifting up to God our praises and sacrifices in a way that brings glory to the cornerstone even as the cornerstone is shaping us.

The beaches in my hometown are not like the sandy beaches of Florida. The coastline is wild and rough, with huge rock outcroppings that jut out into the untamed ocean. There is a continuous interaction between the rocks and the waves as the ocean careens against the rock and sea spray shoots into the air, leaving the air damp with the smell of salt. Every several miles, there is a break in the rocks and a beach appears. The beach itself is not made up of sand, but of smooth fist size and bigger rocks.

Each rock is unique in shape and color. I know these rocks have come from the bigger rock outcroppings. That over the centuries the living water of the ocean has worked to smooth the jagged edges away and to eventually break them free from their bondage from the outcropping itself. At first glance these smooth rocks look set in their ways, unmoveable, left to their own to occupy the shore. But even in the individuality of each rock, there is a sense that rocks belong to together. And no time is this more evident than when the living waters of the waves rush over the rocks and then recede. As the water trickles through the rocks on its way out back to the ocean, if you listen carefully enough, you can hear the rocks sing as the water continues to shape and shift them.

Each individual rock as it moves against the other rocks, has its own sound, and that sound is joined together with the other rocks by the living water into a harmonious sound that lifts into the air. And when I hear this sound, I know that this grouping of rocks has been singing for thousands of years and will continue to do so for thousands of years to come. Different sounds, granted, for the rocks are changing over time, as more are added others are lost and all are shaped by the living water, but still singing.

I like to think that these rocks are like us here worshipping today. We lift up our voices as spiritual sacrifices to God and we are joined by the living waters of Christ flowing through us and uniting us in song and praise. And our song is joined by all those before us and after us by the living cornerstone of Christ, who is continuously washing over us so that we may be formed in his image and be empowered to build a living household of God here on earth.

So let us take Peter’s words to heart, and let us give ourselves to God in Christ freely and let Christ the living cornerstone mold us and join us not just today but for always. Christ died for us that we may partake of his glory and that we may have the hope and promise that He will form us into His image, both personally and as the body of Christ.

Pentecost

2008-05-10T09:32:00.004-04:00

My faith community of origin does not celebrate Pentecost. I am not sure why but I assume because they do not think it is relevant. Last year for the first time, I went in search of a community that celebrated Pentecost. I found myself at an Episcopal Church. The service began with children parading through the sanctuary with flags and several men following them in skirts playing bagpipes. The priest preached a sermon about Pentecost being the church’s birthday and the church reinforced this message after the service with cake for all in the fellowship hall. The atmosphere in that church was joyous almost to the point of giddiness.

Lent, Good Friday and Easter seemed to be in the distant past in this celebration, if visible at all. I came away wondering if Pentecost was the church’s victorious celebration that some could easily characterize mistakenly as nothing but a drunken celebration that the Church delayed respectfully until the proper amount of time had passed since Good Friday and Easter. But a proper time of what? Mourning? Reflection? Separation? Respect?

Reading Luke’s Acts 2 helps us understand Pentecost as nothing less than the continuation of God’s activity of in breaking kingdom that is announced and inaugurated in the life, death and resurrection of the incarnate Jesus. He helps us see that Pentecost, while a new beginning is really the end of a great 50 day feast we call Easter. This paradox of beginning and ending is made possible through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

Luke opens with the disciples in a house in Jerusalem. Jesus before ascending to heaven, instructs the disciples to remain in Jerusalem until the promise of the Father with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. As they wait, the disciples, lead by Peter, are devoting themselves to prayer and even accomplishing some administrative work, by replacing Judas with Matthias.

When they were all together in one place, Luke tells us “Suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them and a tongue rested on each of them.” Already we have in the description, a sense that the coming of the Holy Spirit is something that not only comes to each of the disciples individually but that comes when they are in a communal setting. This indwelling is not a private ecstatic event, but something that comes when the disciples are together. Closely linked to the idea of community and unity is what happens next. Each of the disciples begins speaking in other languages. The first manifestation of a Spirit empowered human is speech. And not just any speech, but speech in another language. Why is this important? Is it closely linked to the idea of community and unity?

I once was the spiritual and administrative director of a community of faith, called a Mission, made up of men and women enrolled in a 12-step faith based recovery program. The Mission housed the students, sobered them up, fed them, clothed them, met their medical needs and provided spiritual formation through classes, prayer and worship. I was hired because I had the ability to bring resolution to crisis situations. And this community was in crisis due to some long standing corruption which had fostered a great deal of disunity within the Mission. When I started work there, I put in long hours trying to first clean up the administrative and financial mess. I focused on this aspect, because really I had no clue how to bring spiritual unity to the community. Usually I would go down and have lunch in the cafeteria with the students in the program. But no matter how much I tried and they probably tried too, we could not communicate. We spoke the same language but our conversation was awkward because our experiences had shaped us to the point that we could not understand each other at all. We were all devout followers of God but we could not even pretend to share our faith with other. Finally, we all stopped trying to communicate and I often took my meals in my office.

Now is this the problem that the disciples are having with each other? Probably not. Then why the gift to speak in different languages? The answer is found in the very next verse. Luke tells us that in response to the great commotion a crowd of devout Jews living in Jerusalem has assembled. He goes on to list the many places that the Jews have come from signifying the universal nature of the hearers. What else do we know of the crowd? If we look back to Luke’s telling of Jesus’ trial and crucifixion we see the crowds present along with the chief priests and leaders. In these scenes, the crowd does call for Jesus’ death, but they also seem to evidence remorse once the deed is completed. Now in Acts a crowd of devout Jews has gathered. Noticeably absent are the chief priests and leaders. The crowd also seems receptive. They are amazed and perplexed that the disciples are speaking in their different languages. But the miracle is not that the crowd understands, because they ask “What does this mean?” The disciples speak the same languages of the crowd but the crowd still does not understand their message. Still the crowd of devout Jews seems open to the disciples and their message.

We also have another faction in the crowd. Luke just calls them “others”. He does not even give them names. However, he does record their protest. My text says the others were sneering. But the original word also carries a more sinister meaning of jeering or to laugh with scorn. This group has judged the disciples to be drunks, and in so doing, condemned their message as well.

And with the words of judgment, Peter steps forward immediately and responds to the others’ denial and then to the crowd as a whole. Who is this Peter that has stepped forward so boldly to speak? In Luke’s gospel, he is a willing follower of Jesus. Luke downplays Peter’s weaknesses as compared to Mark’s gospel. But we still have instances in Luke of a less than perfect Peter. Peter is part of the group at the last supper who are arguing who will be the greatest, although Luke does not name him specifically. Jesus, upon hearing the argument, however says “Simon, Simon, listen! Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22:31) Shortly after, Luke recounts that in the midst of crisis Peter denies three times his association with Jesus. Still it is Peter that first speaks with Jesus after his resurrection and it is Peter that we see leading the disciples at the beginning of Acts. And it is Peter now speaking to the crowd. What gives him the authority to speak? Some have posited that Peter has been profoundly impacted by the life, death and resurrection of Christ and thus can now claim Christ to others. But can this be case?

I continued my work at the Mission, handling the administrative issues in a way that I am sure would have made the old apostle Peter proud. Then one day a crisis broke out after I had been there for about a month. One midday morning I was called up to one of the men’s dorm rooms. The room was about this size, and poorly lit. There were 8 sets of bunkbeds. Four on each side of the room with a narrow passage down the middle of the room. On each bed, were the neatly arranged possessions of the men who occupied the beds. Mostly an extra shirt and pants, underwear and a dock kit. My eyes strained to get used to the dimness of the room. The men showed me over to the middle of the room, where on a top bunk, lay a young black man that I did not know. He was in obvious distress, covered with sweat and hyperventilating. Back then I did not recognize the typical signs of detox. I had the men call for an ambulance. While we were waiting, I asked the man his name, but he could not speak. Another man told me it was Horace. I took Horace’s hand and told him that I was going to pray for him. Horace’s eyes held the deepest terror that I had ever seen. I began to pray out loud, never taking my eyes off his and his terrified eyes never left mine. I could hear the other men praying too. All of a sudden, four white paramedics clamored into the room, switched the lights on and threw their equipment on the neatly made beds. The lead paramedic asked what was the problem but brushed past me and ignored my summary of the situation. He did not bother to ask Horace’s name. He took some necessary vitals and must have quickly made a diagnosis that Horace was going to be okay. He then began to bark at Horace. “What’s the matter BOY. Don’t you want to work today?” “Trying to get over aren’t you BOY.” The other three paramedics snickered and then began to talk amongst themselves. The lead paramedic kept up his sneering at Horace and with each BOY, I wanted to scream STOP, but could not. I looked around, the other students, just hung their heads low, this was not new to them. I found that in the midst of this very evil presence, I could do nothing, I could say nothing. Pressed against the wall by evil, I denied the power of Christ to redeem the situation. Soon the paramedics left and we all slumped out of the room, leaving Horace to his own isolated misery.

The days passed and the evil that had visited the mission, infected the whole place. My lead counselor came to me and said that I had to do something. Eight men had relapsed, one student had been found having sex with another, there were numerous fights and the men and women were angry and confused. But I just looked up from my desk at the counselor and I thought, how can I do anything? I who in the midst of crisis denied Christ, how could I now proclaim and offer hope and reconciliation to the students? But it was no use, I could not hide. I either had to resign or I had to speak to the students, so I asked the counselor to call a special meeting. I prayed to God to forgive me and to help me claim Jesus as my Lord and Savior of God’s kingdom of goodness and righteousness. But God did not seem to answer my prayers.

As I entered the lunchroom, I hesitated at the door and looked at the crowd of students. I wonder if Peter had similar feelings as he stood in front of the crowd. If he does, Luke gives us no indication of this. Instead, Peter, now full with the power of the Holy Spirit addresses the crowd. He denies their accusations that he is drunk and then begins to proclaim the good news by adapting a passage from Joel. In so doing, he proclaims the new age of God’s kingdom, where all people, men and women, young and old, slave and free, proclaim, see and dream. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus are God’s unexpected great reversal of the earthly kingdom. Through out, Jesus has preached that God’s promises are for the poor, the weak, the sinner and the widow. The crowd urgently awaits the answer to their question, What does this mean? The meaning of the Good Friday and Easter events of Jesus is not only hard for us to understand in a world with competing claims, it is also hard to appropriate for our community. We might understand that the kingdom of God is here and present, but to live in its promise we must speak it, see it and dream it. When we do, Peter promises “All who call on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Our Scripture reading ends with this promise but Peter will go on to recount to the crowds the meaning of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. And the Spirit will cut the hearts of the hearers, and three thousand will be added to the faithful that day. And the faithful will gather together and share all things in common.

As I hesitated at the lunchroom door at the Mission, I still had no idea how to proclaim the promises of God to the students gathered. Horace, saw my hesitation and he stood up and approached me. He extended his hand to me and gently said, “Thank you for praying for me.” At that moment, a violent wind filled the whole room and great tongues of fire rested on each of us. I began to speak in English, but in a way that was hearable and understandable to those gathered. I do not remember what I said that day but I am confident that it was the message of the gospel. The students too began to speak and soon where once there was only brokenness was a unified community that shared all things in common. Our hopes, fears, joys and sorrows. On that day, we became a community that proclaimed, saw and dreamed the kingdom of God. On that day, all who called on the name of the Lord in the Spirit were saved. On that day, we claimed the Good Friday and Easter promises of Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. On that day we celebrated Pentecost.

Holbein's Christ

2008-05-08T16:40:00.001-04:00

When and why would we turn away from the vertical inbreaking of Christ and contain him in the modern constructs of truth and reality that rob us of the miracle and promise of his self-emptying love? Why do we emphasize the horizontal over the vertical? Can't we have both?

Have we forgotten the Christ hymn?

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death-- even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:5-11

The key lies in kenotic theosis, the interruption of the horizontal by the vertical.

Dostoevsky in The Idiot writes:
He remembered among other things that he always had one minute just before the epileptic fit (if it came on while he was awake), when suddenly in the midst of sadness, spiritual darkness and oppression, there seemed at moments a flash of light in his brain, and with extraordinary impetus all his vital forces suddenly began working at their highest sensation. The sense of life, the consciousness of self, were multiplied ten times at these moments which passed like a flash of lightning. His mind and his heart were flooded with extraordinary light; all his uneasiness, all his doubts, all his anxieties were relieved at once; they were all merged in a lofty calm, full of serene, harmonious joy and hope. But these moments, these flashes, were only the prelude of that final second (it was never more than a second) with which the fit began. That second was, of course, unendurable. Thinking of that moment later, when he was all right again, he often said to himself that all these gleams and flashes of the highest sensation of life and self-consciousness, and therefore also of the highest form of existence, were nothing but disease, the interruption of the normal conditions; and if so , it was not at all the highest form of being, but on the contrary must be reckoned the lowest. And yet he came at last to an extremely paradoxical conclusion. ‘What if it is disease?’ he decided at last. ‘What does it matter that it is an abnormal intensity, if the result, if the minute of sensation, remembered and analysed afterwards in health, turns out to be the acme of harmony and beauty, and gives a feeling unknown and undivined till then, of completeness, of proportion, of reconciliation, and of ecstatic devotional merging in the highest synthesis of life? Myshkin describing his epileptic fits, Dostoevsky, The Idiot.

Kenotic theosis is “the interruption of normal conditions,” which is “spiritual darkness and oppression,” with “flashes of light” that bring “paradoxical” “harmony” and “reconciliation”. At the moment of the onset of the epileptic fit or at the moment of kenotic theosis, there is an eschatological apocalyptic interruption of the horizontal normalcy of life by the vertical light of God. This interruption in terms of the normal is absurd because it does not fit the spatial and temporal categories of typical reality. The possibility that a human being can be joined with God and to other humans in a perfect love of the other through the loss of themselves is claimed in the moment of kenotic theosis. This is the annihilation of the “I” Dostoevsky speaks about in his diary when his wife Masha dies, where a person can love another as one’s self. The moment of light filled selfless love is only temporary; it cannot last but an instant and the epileptic, like all humanity, is plunged again into chaotic spiritual darkness.

The question becomes then can we live in the intersections of horizontal and vertical? Can we stand the light and all its challenges and promises, or do we prefer the safety of our horizontal constructs?

Modernity

2008-05-08T13:04:00.000-04:00

Modernity - Euclidean planes of universals, where the divine and the human never meet, creating truths that somehow human progress alone can bring destruction to falsehoods. Along the march, the church seems left behind, stripped of its ability to point to the vertical particularity of the divinity of Christ, that interrupts all human universals and gives pause for reflection on the yet but not yet of our lives. Modernity - a time when a man, one man, Fidel, can tear down the church and write with confidence on a chapel wall, Fidelidad Para Siempre. Foolish man, foolish modernity...truth is fleeting, never para siempre. Christ's eschatological light is always shining, always illuminating and exposing that which is permanent, that which is forever, as nothing more than our futile actions to reify that which cannot be hardened, but ever remains a mystery to be lived.