Seating Arrangements

Luke 14:1, 7-14
Hebrews 13:1-3, 15-16

My pastor in college used to say that the gospel according to Luke was “just one dinner party after another.” It seems true when you read through it. Jesus is ALWAYS eating with people in Luke. He is always at table with someone, and USUALLY that someone is the wrong person. It isn’t but a few verses past the portion that we read today that the Pharisees and scribes are grumbling and complaining that this Jesus is always sitting and eating with sinners. Apparently they have already forgotten that not too long before he was sitting at table with THEM.

When Jesus tells these parables we have heard he is sitting with all the “right” people, at least, in their own minds and in the social and religious pecking order. For once, he is sitting down with some “respectable” folks for a Sabbath meal. He is, however, anything but a picture perfect guest. Looking around at the people who have gathered, watching their behavior and their attitudes, instead of just sitting down or, more likely, reclining to share a meal among this cultured and learned gathering, Jesus decides to tell a couple of stories, some parables that comment on what he is observing. He holds nothing back – critiquing both about his host and the other guests.

The guests are enacting every dinner party host’s nightmare. Have you ever been to a wedding with a well-thought-out seating arrangement? Maybe you have even been behind that seating arrangement process. It’s not easy, deciding who should sit next to whom. Will it be a table of people who have known each other for years or a table of people who share the same interests? Will husbands sit next to wives or will couples be scattered around the table? It’s never an easy process setting up the seating arrangement for a party, and it seems that there’s always at least one person at every party who thinks he or she has a better idea, and the place cards start shuffling. The seating arrangement is knocked out of order.

Jesus sees these people already at work at the Sabbath meal. He notices that the guests are beginning to jockey for position at the table, rearranging the seats trying to make sure they are next to the right person, and, even more, importantly in the right position. Seating arrangements were very particular in Jesus’ time. The host or the honored guest had a particular place of honor, and everyone present knew the status of everyone else present based on their location at the table in relationship to the guest of honor. The closer you were seated to this guest, the more respect you deserved. As soon as they arrived at the party the Sabbath guests begin to try to rearrange the placecards to get themselves seated in the right place, a place of high honor, may be higher than they deserve Jesus warns.

Humility, Jesus’ story tells these guests, is far more important than honor in the sight of others. It’s better to put yourself at the bottom of the pile than to make assumptions about your worth over others. It’s better to show honor, show love really, to all others than to try to take that honor for yourself. The best seating arrangement is the one where you place yourself in service to others, thinking of their needs before your own, holding them in highest honor.

Jesus’ next comments are for the hosts of the party. The guest list, he says, is a bit off. “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.” Extending kindness to our friends is all well and good and enjoying the fellowship of those we know and love is wonderful in its right time, but true HOSPITALITY comes when it is extended well beyond our usual range of comfort, well beyond those whom we can expect to extend it back.

An introduction to the Canadian people by Tom Brokaw that aired during the Olympic coverage this week recounts a story of just this kind of hospitality. It caught my eye in particular because a close friend of mine was the recipient of the amazing hospitality and grace that was the subject of the story. On September 11, 2001, my friend, a seminary classmate, and his family were in the air somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean on their way back to the US when the Twin Towers in New York City were attacked. Like hundreds of other flights, theirs was forced to land in Canada when US airspace was closed.

This family found themselves, along with passengers and crews from 39 other flights, temporarily grounded in Gander, Newfoundland, a rural town of about 10,000 people. The story of welcome and hospitality my friend told was just as Brokaw reported it. This small town opened itself whole-heartedly to their unexpected guests, 6,600 unexpected guests. Passengers were housed in the school, and when that didn’t seem to be enough local residents showed up to take individuals and families home with them, not just for warm showers and hot meals, but even to stay in their own beds instead of on mats on the gymnasium floor.

Back in September of last year, when Tom Brokaw was in Gander gathering information for the story that just aired the mayor of Gander, Claude Elliott, commented on why this story was so interesting in his country and ours. He said, accurately I think, “American people are not used to people helping them and not want to get paid for it. They find this unusual.” I also believe the flip side is true. We aren’t used to offering help to others without wondering or asking “What’s in it for me?”

There was nothing in it for the people of Gander. They didn’t open their town and their homes because they expected financial reimbursement or even a chance for the same hospitality to be offered back to them. Their guests were from all over the country, all over the world, even, so they certainly weren’t expecting an invitation back to dinner from those whom they served. They offered their hospitality warmly, selflessly, and sacrificially with no regard for when or how they might be repaid, when or how the invitation might be returned.

This is the way Jesus calls for hospitality to be extended. In fact, Jesus and even as far back as the Torah, the Old Testament law, calls for hospitality that is even MORE radical than this. Not only are the people of God called to welcome travelers who are stranded at their doorsteps, but they are to go out and seek those who are outside of any usual positions of power, those who are purposely EXcluded from usual society, those who are injured, broken, shunned, and disconnected. These are the people God’s people are called to welcome. These are the people we are told to invite into our homes, our church, and our lives.

Hospitality, Jesus teaches, is not the Martha Stewart cooking, organizing, bed sheet ironing industry we often imagine. Hospitality is not about a mint on a pillow or a “free” pair of slippers when you walk into the room for which you have paid. Hospitality is about being open to the friendless, welcoming the stranger, making room for those who are different from us, and not trying to turn them into us, but letting them find out who they are in our midst, giving them space to be who God called them to be without threat of judgment or pressure for repayment.

Not only does Jesus teach this, but it is part of the ancient laws even as far back as Leviticus. “You shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God,” it is written (Lev. 19:34). It’s just that Jesus took this hospitality to a whole different level in his ministry. Besides the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind, Jesus associated with all sorts of unsuitable people. In Luke he sits with tax collectors who cheat the public. In John he spends an inappropriate amount of time with a Samaritan woman with more than her share of male companions. Jesus lets another questionable woman anoint his feet. He makes himself ritually impure by touching lepers and the dead.

And apparently, he expects the same from us. He says as much in these parables. When we are the hosts, when we the church are opening our doors to the community and the world, our list of invitees isn’t supposed to look just like our membership roster. When we, his disciples are trying to serve others, our scheduled visits shouldn’t come from our Christmas card address list. Those we seek to serve in the name of Christ, should be those who are on no other lists, those who are forgotten, ignored, or even purposely shunned. That is the unique and challenging call of Christ.

And likewise, when we are invited to be the guests, we should never find ourselves to be like those guests at a wedding who presume to have a better idea than the host. We shouldn’t show up and try to change the seating arrangements to make ourselves look better. We should never be so mistaken about who we are or what honor we bring that we try to place ourselves in a higher position than another. The call to humility is the call to place others above ourselves.

Granted neither of these has ever been easy. Christians have been struggling with them from the origins of our faith. The believers in Rome, even just fifty years after Jesus death, were struggling with this as they waited for what they thought would be Jesus’ imminent return. In the letter to the Hebrews, the community is reminded to be strong and faithful in following Jesus’ example. Even they are already having trouble as they tried to figure out what it means to be the true community of Christ. Yet, the wise elder sends them this advice, “Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing so some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

Let mutual love continue. Remember you are in this community, this church, together. No one person is any higher or better or more exalted than another. No one deserves more honor or respect. No one is more right or more holy or more important than any other, but instead each should humble himself or herself to the other. Don’t mess with the seating arrangement by trying to put yourself above others. Accept your seat. Even choose one below another and serve someone else for a while. Each should regard the others with such dignity and respect and love and honor that your love for all will grow and be sustained.

Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers. Send your invitations far and wide. Welcome those you don’t know, those who need the company and the meal more than any others you may usually choose. Invite the people who will never invite you back, so that when you serve it is out of love for God and for others, not because you hope or know you will be served in return. Let some new guests in to the table. Guests who have never tasted a feast like this before. Let them eat and be filled and know the goodness of God through your welcome and invitation without judgment.

St. Benedict lived in the 6th century and founded a monastic order whose monasteries and abbeys are still thriving today. Guests are ALWAYS welcome at Benedictine communities, with or without a reservation, with or without an explanation. Benedict, in his rule says, “A monastery is never without guests” and goes on to pose this challenged: “All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ.” Presbyterian writer Kathleen Norris, who has made several stays with the Benedictines, writes that “if it regularly exercises enough hospitality so as to attract guests, it is a monastery. If it doesn’t, it is not.” (Amazing Grace, p. 263-264)

Could this not also be a description of a REAL church? “If it regularly exercises enough hospitality so as to attract guests, it is a church. If it doesn’t, it isn’t.” In the vision it discerned for this congregation, the session described our church at its best, as God is calling us to be, as a welcoming garden. In coming up with this description they reflected on the gifts we have been given, the things we do well and with a Spirit-inspired passion.

Hospitality is a call from God to each and every Christian, and it is one of our calls from God as a congregation - - to open our doors, our hearts, our minds, our lives to any and all who walk through them. It is a call to go out and seek those who are welcome in no other place to make sure they have a place at the table. Once they are here, once they are at the table, then we must remember that all of us are actually the guests. All of us are hosted by someone far more important, far more honorable, far more loving. Taking our seats as servants of one another, then and only then, can we worship and serve the living Christ among us.

May God’s gift and challenge of humility and hospitality be ever visible and obvious in our life together. Amen.

Fresh Visions

Isaiah 40:18-23
Luke 13:18-19

At each meeting of our session this year, we have spent time studying at least one of the confessions, or creedal statements, of the Presbyterian Church. Last week the Westminster Confession and Catechisms were up. Westminster was written in the mid-17th century in England. It has all the hallmarks of a document written by a culture on the cusp of the Enlightenment – the age of reason. Listen to this question and answer from the Westminster Larger Catechism (question 7, from the section called “What Man Ought to Believe Concerning God”):

Q. 7. What is God?
A. God is a Spirit, in and of himself infinite in being, glory, blessedness, and perfection; all-sufficient, eternal, unchangeable, incomprehensible, everywhere present, almighty; knowing all things, mos twise, most holy, most just, most merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.

Well, that just clears it all up for you, doesn’t it? After that bit of inspiration why don’t I just take my seat and we’ll call it a sermon? (Don’t get excited, I actually have a little more here to share.) The Westminster authors, God bless them for the work they did for the church, did more than write one of the most defining documents of American Presbyterian history. It could also be said that they left us with a beautiful example of why words aren’t everything. Or at least, some uses of words aren’t everything for inspiring faith and action.

The endless galleries and churches, and even volumes upon volumes of books, filled with sacred art, the innumerable compositions of music that have flourished through the ages tell us that theological tomes and philosophical descriptions haven’t cut it alone in sharing the faith within or outside of the body of Christ. Sometimes a picture is needed, or a musical experience, to get a different kind of idea about what God is like, or how the Spirit is guiding God’s people. Sometimes an image is needed to catch the visions of Christ’s ministry in a way that an academic dissertation would NEVER be able to do. And sometimes even just a different kind of writing or telling, sort of painting a picture with words, can even do the trick.

Jesus told MANY parables. The gospels are dripping with them, and for some that is exciting because the descriptive and sometimes even cryptic language excites them with endless possibilities. Others hear another parable coming and groan like the disciples occasionally did, “Why, Jesus, do you teach in parables?” Deciphering the message isn’t always easy. Yet somehow it seems like you get more in the long run because of this. In fact, I think you can get a new and fresh meaning just about every time you come to a parable where a little (or a lot) more is left to the imagination.

Jesus’ parables are quite often about the kingdom of God, instead of simply God, the divine being. In talking about the world under God’s reign, instead of just describing divinity, he gives us plenty of opportunity to find ourselves in the vision. Jesus’ kingdom parables are a snapshot of the divine reality, or better yet an active movie clip, a short depiction of how the world would operate if everything was moving along according to God’s divine will and purpose. The WHOLE PICTURE gives us our fresh vision, how people or animals or plants interact, not just what individual parts of the story are doing, and usually this comes with a twist or something unexpected to help make the point. Also, as parables about God’s kingdom, Jesus’ parables can often set up a mission statement for God’s kingdom bearer on earth – the church.

The kingdom of God, Jesus says, is like a mustard seed. The twist comes right up front. The kingdom of God, the realm of the almighty, the same God about whom Isaiah spoke as so big that people look like grasshoppers from the heavenly throne, is like a mustard seed. Not only that, but the kingdom of God is something that is buried in the ground, sowed in a garden. It isn’t set on a pedestal overlaid with gold and dripping with silver jewelry. The seed is sowed in a garden, in the ground.

It is placed deliberately in a designated place. It was planted for a purpose. It was planted to grow, and it was planted to grow in that very place. There is great intentionality in this particular vision of God’s kingdom. It isn’t haphazard. It isn’t an accident. The tree does not grow by chance. The seed was taken by someone and sowed in a garden, a place where things are expected to change and nurtured and cared for while they grow.

And grow it did – not a small plant from a small seed, but a huge plant, a tree even came from that tiny little brown ball pushed down into the earth’s soil. The tree’s branches spread invitingly into the air, attracting birds who made their nests among them. The tree is more than something beautiful to look at. The tree does more than just produce the seeds it needs to perpetuate itself. The tree exists so that others will come to it, find rest and shelter, build their homes among it, and become a part of the picture and activity of the garden. The diversity and life in the garden expanded to include others because of the transformation of the seed.

This is the kingdom of God, Jesus says. This fresh vision, this picture of activity and growth and nurture and attention and intentionality -- This scenario of taking care of one another, of growing beyond what seems possible in order to serve in ways that seem natural -- This description of purpose and surprise and service -- Even this understanding that development and movement forward, transformation from the tiny seed to the welcoming tree, takes time (that tree didn’t grow in day) -- This is the kingdom of God, Jesus says, and this is the kingdom of which we are a part.

Back in September, the leadership of this congregation took a retreat to begin to define what our next set of congregational goals will be. It has been a longer process than I first anticipated, but at the same time I think it has been a more challenging process, too. There are stages in life when goal setting seems easy either because the goals are more obvious or because the pressure is higher to make a decision. When this congregation was housed in an older building, where bats joined choir practice and stairs made accessibility an issue, the decision, while certainly not a quick one, was probably a little clearer. The options, at least, were probably a little more obvious, even if the final decision was not.

When a young person graduates from high school, again the choice may not be easy, but at least the opportunities are somewhat well-defined: education can continue formally through some sort of additional schooling, entering the workforce can be the next step. When our backs are against a wall, decision-making time and the definition of choices often becomes clearer, and the need to act seems more crucial.
However, when in life, there is no immediate crisis, when there is no major discernable fork in the road, clarification of new goals becomes a bit trickier, it seems even more challenging because the sense of urgency just isn’t as high. Why rock the boat, we may ask. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?

But the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in a garden. The garden existed. I assume that means something was growing. It doesn’t sound like it was an empty plot of land just begging to be filled. There was something there, growing, going along just fine without one more seed to be sowed. But someone took that seed anyway, and planted it in the garden. Someone decided that something new needed to be done to add to the garden, enhance it, develop it, give it a new and continuing purpose no matter how “just fine” things seemed to be going. The kingdom needs transformation to continue being the kingdom of God.

As the body of leaders in this church, back in September, the session took on the task of writing a sort of “kingdom parable” for our congregation. Pulling from the image of a garden, based somewhat on the biblical bend toward things of nature and based a LOT on the beauty of a number of gardens on this property, the guiding vision and setting for the parable is a garden. Hear the parable, try even to close your eyes and see the fresh vision, the purpose and call from God that our leaders discerned for this congregation:

“In the kingdom of God, our community of faith is called to be a welcoming garden planted and sustained by the Spirit of God. Many hands work as one to plan, sow, nurture, and harvest. Inviting diversity, we bloom in all season of life. With compassion for those who are weary, we provide continuous shelter, healing, support, and growth. From the abundance of blessings we receive, we celebrate and share with those close and far the nourishing and life-giving love of our Lord.”

The parable came after we worshiped and studied together, after we celebrated the ministries of our present and past and dreamed of ministries for our future. It is a vision of our congregation as one that has been purposely put in this place and is fed and nurtured and tended to by the Spirit of God. It is a place where many are called to the variety of tasks that it takes to maintain a garden, each with a job in any season or stage of life. The vision of our ministry takes note of God’s particular call to reach out with compassionate care for others, offer welcoming hospitality to all who come our way, and worship God with thanksgiving and celebration for the abundance we are blessed to share.

It is a rich and faithful vision of what this part of God’s kingdom is called specifically to do in this time and place. There is room for the diversity of our members and friends, but also a unifying purpose to provide a place of rest, a place of growth, and a place of engagement with God and with the world in which we live. This is our fresh vision for First Presbyterian Church in Hudson, Wisconsin. Where within it do you see yourself?

Yesterday there was a gathering here in the church to begin answering that very question. Members of the congregation who attended and even those who sent their ideas, but couldn’t attend in person, shared ministries about which they are passionate, items they couldn’t imagine NOT being in our garden. They also shared new ministries toward which they feel a tug or call from God, new ways to engage our congregation in faithful ministries that will help us follow God’s call as it has been captured in our fresh garden vision.

Many of us thought this would be one of the final steps in the process of understanding the new goals God is setting before us, but I think, in the end, while it moved us forward, the specifics of those new goals are still a couple of months away. We did begin to identify specific gardens or ministries that will help us follow God’s call, that will give our family of faith the opportunity to get involved in the vision in specific areas of passion and energy. We determined there are multiple areas of ministry that will help us answer God’s call to be a compassionate, hospitable, and worshipful congregation, and now the next step is in the hands of the session.

In the coming weeks the session will be working diligently (and immediately, our first meeting since Saturday will be coming up on Tuesday!) to reorganize our structure to fit the needs of our new vision, prioritize some of the on-going and developing ministries of the church, and plan how they will best communicate the specifics of our goals with the rest of the congregation. Please hold the session of this church in your prayers. Please lift them up into the light of God that they may seek God’s direction for this church and no one else’s. Please encourage them with your words and your support as they take the task before them seriously and spiritually.

Please also be prayerfully preparing yourselves for the exciting future that is coming. There are some amazing faithful ideas on the table that will tap into expressed interests to serve our community and our world in new ways. There are ideas that will help us grow closer to God and one another. The difficult part will come, however, as we decide which seeds we will plant in our garden and which seeds will have to wait or which existing plants will have to be thinned. Our garden cannot be sustained by just throwing seeds on top of seeds on top of seeds. We will have to be careful to use those plants that can live alongside each other, not competing for important resources of time, energy, and talent, but complementing each other with the right balance from among our members and friends. Be prayerful in the coming weeks and months as we are all engaged in discerning God’s leading for First Presbyterian Church.

In worship for most of Lent, we will dig around a bit in the dirt of this garden. Using more parables from Luke’s gospel we will explore the three aspects of God’s call that the session discerned in September – compassion, hospitality, and worship. Again, those who were here yesterday discovered that it takes a variety of ministries in different areas for us to follow that call, but when they listened to the places where our congregation’s greatest passions seemed to meet our world’s deep hunger this is the call that they heard. Each week we will look at one of these portions of our call that as a united congregation we can see and follow the fresh vision before us.

May God’s grace surround us, Christ’s passion inspire, and the Spirit’s presence lead us as we tend to God’s garden in our midst.

In the Middle of All This

Luke 9:28-43

Anytime a passage begins with a reference to some other event, it clues me in that these two might be connected in some way. Maybe the first informs how I will read the second or the second explains the first further. Either way, when a passage starts “Now about eight days after these sayings,” as today’s does, I think we just have to go back and see what “these sayings” are before we can go forward to see what was so important that took place eight days later.

In this case, it turns out, they weren’t easy sayings. Eight days before Jesus was asking his disciples who the crowds say that he is. Eight days before Jesus posed the question to them, “Who do you say that I am?” Eight days before Peter declared “The Messiah of God” and Jesus explained “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” Eight days ago the conversations were difficult and confusing and sounding very un-divine, if there even were such a word. Eight days ago violence was the topic of the day.

Another thing that helps when reading a passage like this one, with a story that comes up again and again, year after year, in the life cycle of the church, is to read a little farther than you usually do to see what comes next. The story of the Transfiguration is always the story on the Sunday right before Lent starts, if we choose to follow the ecumencial lectionary. It works sort of as a transition story – one last epiphany revelation of this Jesus who is also the Christ before we move toward the season of Lent, Jesus’ journey to the cross. On this Sunday, we usually read the story of how that happened on a mountain top.

However, this morning we read a little further. We heard about what happened when Jesus, Peter, John, and James came down from the mountain. Immediately when they get down from this mountaintop experience, they are thrown back into the middle of real life. The crowds are all over them as usual. And, as they have probably come to expect, in the crowd is at least one very needy person. A man, a father, yells out for Jesus to come take a look at his tragically sick, demon-possessed son.

Hard times never wait, do they? The sick, the cursed, the poor, the aching, those gripped by demons and spirits, they are always there and always pressing for healing, freedom, release from captivity. On the mountain top the disciples and Jesus may have experienced a moment of divine other-worldliness and revelation, but as they came down the mountain they ran face-to-face right back into the real world and the life they had left behind, if only for the night.

It’s a world we know well. A world where, like before the experience on the mountain, violence is always a topic of concern. A world where an elementary school teacher shoots a principal and vice-principal, a biology professor opens fire in the middle of a faculty meeting. A world where bombs blast in bakeries. A world where military operations against difficult to define opponents are a part of our everyday news and concern.

We know other kinds of tragedy, too. A young athlete killed chasing his dreams. A artist in his prime takes his own life. The citizens of one of the poorest nations in the world are paralyzed under the weight of rubble from their destroyed cities and villages. Diagnoses are received and cancer has returned with little hope for successful treatment. The world we face, the life we live, at the bottom of the mountain might leave many of us wishing we could turn and run back to the top to remember and relish in the glory that was revealed. The world we face living at the bottom of the mountain is messy, tragic, and earthy. It can feel un-divine and as if it is spiraling out of control.

It’s everything the Transfiguration isn’t. Up on that mountain, it’s as if they have left the world behind. Up on that mountain, as Jesus is praying, the divine mingles with creation. It becomes what Celtic Christians call a “thin place,” a place where heaven and earth touch, where God seems more readily present, more easily accessed than in the day-to-day. Up on that mountain, the heroes of years gone by come to offer support and testimony to God's faithfulness; they provide a link to the promises and miracles of the past and speak of the future that is still yet to come. Up on that mountain, even if only for a little while, the veil is lifted and the glory of God shines brighter than the sun. The incarnation, God in human flesh, Emmanuel, God with us, is revealed and the divine voice is heard loud and clear, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”

There is no doubt who is in control. There is no doubt that the Holy One is present and in charge. There seems in that moment so little need to worry about anything that Peter rushes to find a way to make it last forever. There is something eternal about the experience, ethereal, mystical, revealing, and comforting. The veil has been lifted and, as terrifying as it is at the same time, everything seems right with the world.

Who wouldn’t want to stay? Who wouldn’t want to pitch a tent, build a booth, and just camp out up there forever where God is obvious, Jesus is within arms’ reach, and the beacon of the Spirit’s radiance is blinding? Who wouldn’t want to stay when the only talk of what will happen down there is talk of departure, a second exodus, what Jesus has already said would be a violent end? Who wouldn’t be like Peter wanting to stay in this thin place forever?

Going back down the mountain means going back to the reality of what waits, masses of suffering people without reliable healthcare, endless political arguments that seem to only divide the public more instead of bring them closer to understanding and mutual purpose, the starving and the near starving waiting at the fringe for someone to notice them and help them fill their bowls, the threat of violence that might break out at an unexpected turn in the road. Going back down the mountain means going back down into the middle of all this where the signs of God’s presence aren’t as obvious as the sudden appearance of dazzling white clothes, a face that shines like the sun, and heavenly conferences with Moses and Elijah. It means re-entering a messy, needy, tragic, and broken world where it seems, at least, there are few obvious signs of the presence and glory of God…

…which is exactly why Jesus does it. Reality hits as soon as they descend. A crowd hits them first, and rising above the din of the crowd comes the shout of an anxious and desperate father. His son is suffering at the hands of a spirit that squeezes him and shakes him and causes him to shriek uncontrollably. The father, like any father would, tried everything and even brought his boy to the disciples of the one about whom he had heard so much. Yet, when the Teacher wasn’t around the students seemed incompetent, and it’s to them that I believe Jesus addresses his frustration.

He isn’t going to be around forever. He made that clear in the week before. His physical presence in the middle of this hurting world is limited and seems to be drawing closer and closer to an end. He isn’t always going to be the one who is here in the middle of the suffering and the pain, and his worry seems to be that after this departure he discussed with Moses and Elijah no one will be there to carry out his ministry of compassion, his mission to release those held captive by evil spirits and systems.

The disciples don’t seem to get it yet that this is their job. They don’t seem to get that by the power of their relationship with Jesus, by their proximity to him, they have the ability to do his work in the world. They have MORE than the ability, they have the responsibility, the mandate to act as he would act, to heal as he would heal, to serve as he would serve, to love as he would love. They have the call and apparently, whether they know it or not, whether they have trust and faith in it or not, they have the power to make changes in the lives of those who are suffering and struggling.

At that moment they don’t seem to have that trust and faith. They don’t have the whole picture yet. The predictions of Jesus’ death are still just predications, not the foretelling we know them to be. The foreshadowing of the glorious radiance of the resurrected Jesus glowing in dazzling white clothes is just an image in their minds, not a connection to what we know will come again in the future. They don’t have the luxury of knowing what we do – that this one who stands before them and trusts them with his work and his word truly is the one who can free the world from endless cycles of despair – so it’s understandable that they are slow to act in his absence.

Yet it’s less understandable when we mimic their pace. Our world, we can see, isn’t all that different. The technology has changed. The worldview is larger, but around us there is still poverty and violence, unnamed fathers and mothers crying out on behalf of children who are being choked and shaken by the circumstances that grip their lives. And still Jesus is expecting his followers to do something about it. Still Jesus is anticipating and mandating that those who bear his name in the world, bear it with his same passion for healing and serving those who need it most. Still Jesus is calling the Church to step up in faith to use the gifts we have been given not to perpetuate an institution, but to share his love, his glory, his presence with those around us who need it the most.

The Transfiguration doesn’t occur in a vacuum. It isn’t an event isolated from the story and the world around it. It is a miraculous glimpse of hope in world that can seem hopeless. It is the lifting of a veil, a revelation that even in the middle of all of this God is still in charge. It is at demonstration of the power that is inside and behind this Jesus we claim to follow, the power that is inside and behind the community of believers who follow in his name and his steps. For just a moment, in this thin place at the top of a mountain the glory of God was revealed, but that doesn’t have to be the end of revelation.

It happened again and again in the gospel accounts. It can and should be happening again and again today. Every time a son or daughter was healed by his word or touch, the glory and will of God was revealed. Every time a starving belly was filled with the bread from his hands, the glory and will of God was revealed. Every time a word of challenge was or IS spoken to authorities who oppress and belittle the people they serve, the glory and will of God is revealed. Every time a person in poverty or on its brink is given the tools she needs to live a fulfilling life, the glory and will of God is revealed.

This is our call as his followers. This is our mission as the ones who trust in his life and his name. We have been changed and empowered by the same Spirit that changed his face before the eyes of Peter, John, and James. May our words and actions reflect that change, and reveal his love and compassion as brightly in middle of all we see.

Planning the Garden: A Congregational Work Day

The congregation of First Presbyterian Church will be gathering on Saturday, February 20, - 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. (please note time extension) to actively listen for God’s leading as we make ministry plans for our future. Will you join us? Please e-mail Pastor Stephanie, fpcstephanie (at)sbcglobal (dot) net, if you plan to attend, and the number from your household who will be there. Childcare requests for children younger than 6th grade are due by Thursday Feb. 11. Youth in 6th grade and higher are encouraged to participate in the planning.

If you are unable to attend, you are still able to send 2 “seeds” for our ministry together – one that is an on-going ministry or mission you would like to see continued, the other a new ministry or mission you think God may be placing before us.

All are welcome to begin the discussion in the comments of this blog post. What seeds would you like to plant?

Cleansing and Calling

Isaiah 6:1-8

I like to imagine this scene the way it might be directed in a film. The opening seems so familiar to me. A young man, looking a little tired, a little lost, mostly just aimless and disinterested walks into a cavernous, empty cathedral. The camera is high and way at the back, so really he enters the picture from the bottom. He kneels before he enters a pew, revealing his history with religion, even if his present status is more ambiguous. The young man slips into a pew, simply looking for anonymous place to pray, a place to be with himself, a place to be with God.

The scene doesn’t stay empty for long, though, at least not in the telling of Isaiah’s encounter with God. A sudden awareness of another presence forces Isaiah to look up where he sees the Lord sitting on a high and lofty throne. Actually, he doesn’t see the Lord, because the Lord is too big and too dangerous to see. Even the seraphs, the six-winged angelic creatures attending to God, had to cover their faces with their wings in the presence of God’s glory.

God is so big, in this vision physically and as a divine presence, that Isaiah can only see the hem of his robe which completely fills the temple. The temple fills with smoke, the accumulation of offerings made to God for centuries, and as the seraphs call to one another “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory,” the thresholds shook violently. Isaiah knows he is in the presence of majesty and power, holiness and perfection, righteousness and purity.

And suddenly, in the presence of that purity, Isaiah is acutely and shamefully aware of his own imperfection, his own impurity. He cries out in confession, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips!” He realizes the incongruity of a sinful, imperfect human being dwelling in the presence of the King, the Lord of hosts. Seeing the righteousness of God, Isaiah becomes much more aware of his own unrighteousness. Standing in the presence of perfection, knowing God’s desire for him to serve, he sees even more clearly is own imperfection.

I see two possible responses that human beings often have to this realization of imperfection. The first is the response of making excuses. I trust that I am not alone in the making and hearing of these kinds of excuses.

You know this is really not a perfect time to encounter you God, to worship you. It is certainly not a perfect time to serve you. I am really busy with the kids. My career is just beginning to take off, and in a few more years I’ll have the status and position in which I can be more flexible with my time.

Or, the kids are gone and the nest is empty; once we spend a little time re-connecting with one another we’ll re-connect with you, God.

Or I’m too young, God. There isn’t much for me to do in your service at this point, but I promise that I’ll be ready to serve you someday when I’m old enough to do something that counts. The other side of that coin is this -- I’m old God. I have served my time and done my duty. It’s someone else’s turn to pick up the torch of service and carry it for a while.

If “place in life” excuses don’t feel quite right, what about these: I’m not good enough. I’m disorganized. I don’t know enough. I’m not faithful enough, Christian enough, or sinless enough to serve you God.

We make these excuses in the hopes that it will turn the asker away. We hope that will convince God that we can’t possibly serve, and God will move on to ask someone else, at least for now, and maybe for good. We will point out to God all that is imperfect in God’s choice and the burden of the call will be lifted as someone else is tasked with the call that was first made to us.

Sometimes we even make these excuses in full faithfulness because we intend to fix ourselves; we intend to make ourselves perfect and ready for God’s service. New Year’s resolutions are a perfect place to hide our excuses. They are a sign of our wonderful intentions to make ourselves better people so that we can live better lives. Yet even one month later, how many of us are still so resolved to make these changes in our lives?

The problem is that we can’t make ourselves better. We can’t make ourselves perfect and pure and whole and completely ready to serve God and God’s people. We do not have the ability to make ourselves holy and put ourselves in a state that is worthy of receiving and following God’s call. Not one of us will ever be ready on our own accord to dwell in the holy presence of the divine, to serve God’s purposes, to fulfill the Lord’s requests.

Isaiah realizes this. He realizes his own impurity and inability to make himself ready and perfect, and so his response is the one which God desires. Heartfelt and faithful, it is painful and difficult to do in private and even more so in the presence of God and a community. Isaiah confesses his imperfection to God. A man who is called to serve God with his words and his speech confesses that his lips are unclean. The most important tool he has for answering God’s call is the very source of his momentarily crippling imperfection. He confesses his impurity and lays it before the holy one in faith, for despite this impurity, Isaiah proclaims, I am seeing the King, the Lord of hosts!

Notice, though, how when Isaiah confesses his uncleanliness he is not told to come back later when he is clean. God does not send him away to go fix himself and rid himself of this impurity and imperfection. Isaiah is not off the hook because of his confession. God does not respond with a dismissing, “Oh! Well, nevermind. You’re lips are unclean. I’ll go find someone more perfect and more ready to serve for this task.”

Instead God essentially agrees with Isaiah. Without saying a word God tells Isaiah, “You’re right. You’re not clean. You’re right. You’re not holy, not perfect, not ready to serve me.” But with the actions of the seraph God’s full message is delivered. “I will cleanse you. I will make you more holy. I will get rid of your imperfections. I will make you ready to serve me. Only I can do it, and I will because I long for your service and your worship.”

God’s response comes in the form of a cleansing, purifying fire coal taken straight from the altar of God. Touching the coal to Isaiah’s mouth, the seraph declares that Isaiah’s guilt has departed and his sin is blotted out. That which separated him from God’s holiness has been taken away by God’s holiness. It is then, in this momentary experience of holiness that Isaiah fully hears the voice of God, not just the angels, and he hears God calling for one to be sent. Cleansed from his unworthiness and impurity, Isaiah is ready to follow God.

In Isaiah God did not call a perfect man to deliver a divine word. God did not wait for Isaiah to get his life in order and learn more and believe more and understand more and develop his gift more. God did not expect this servant to be the perfect package from the start, but God knew how to use him anyway. God knew how to take an imperfect human, confessing his faults and his impurities, and clean him up, purge his sin from him, and use him for a greater service in God’s own time, not according to his own calendar and sense of preparedness.

Not one of us lives in the perfect condition, worthy of serving God who calls us. But in calling us, imperfect men and women, young and old, God makes us ready for that service – cleansing us and forgiving us when we confess our imperfections, clearing our ears and preparing our hearts to answer the calling willingly and enthusiastically, “Here am I; send me!”