Sunday, December 4, 2011

Comfort and Camel Hair

Isaiah 40:1-11
Mark 1:1-8

I was extremely grateful when Shelley popped in my office a couple of weeks ago to recommend that our congregation use some Advent material that she had found. I hope you have found it in the weekly e-mails, and you’ll see it in the newsletter that is available in the mailboxes this morning. There is a series of devotions for each week of Advent centered on Scripture each week. The Scripture is the same we are reading in worship and using at our candle lighting. The artwork for the materials is what appears at the start of our worship. The materials tie everything together in worship and at home, making our Advent season of waiting and preparation more than beautiful decorations in the sanctuary.

This morning the theme from the Advent materials and the words to our first hymn (one of my FAVORITE Advent hymns) was taken straight from the prophecy of Isaiah that we just heard. “Comfort, O comfort my people.”

“Comfort” was the promise of God to the people of Jerusalem and Judah, a promise that was actually surprising in its original context. Jerusalem and Judah are not exactly sympathetic characters throughout the prophecy of Isaiah. Personified here and earlier, the city and the nation are again and again recipients of the judgment of God, victims of the captivity of Babylon because again and again their disobedience to God left them vulnerable to outside forces. They didn’t heed God’s call, so God allowed what one parenting strategy calls “natural consequences” to occur. The enemy comes in, destroys the nation, and sends her people into exile.

Retributive justice. It was not only the going theory of criminal justice of the day; it was the going theology of the day. You get what you ask for and then maybe you get some more to make sure you never do it again. Punishment. Anger. Payback. What goes around comes around, but in a divine manner.

But here comes Isaiah speaking for God, “Comfort, O comfort my people.” In the face of cultures and theologies that operate on methods of retributive justice, a word of comfort spoken by God is completely unexpected, completely unheard of, completely gracious. A word of comfort spoken in a season that seems hopeless, seems empty, seems overwhelmed by things going from bad to worse. A word of comfort spoken to people who so desperately need it, but who can’t promise to always deserve it. “The grass withers, the flower fades…surely the people are grass.”

Comfort, comfort is a promise of the season of Advent. Comfort, God promises to people who sit in darkness. Comfort, God promises to those who are overwhelmed by bills. Comfort, God promises to those who grieve. Comfort, God promises to those who are lonely. Comfort, God promises to those who are imprisoned by their actions, their attitudes, their anger. Comfort, God promises to those who are so far over their heads they can’t even imagine a way out. Comfort, O comfort, God promises to bring on a highway cut straight through the wilderness of despair. Comfort and tenderness and gentleness. Grace…

And there’s this voice that also comes crying. Just like Isaiah said a voice would cry, “Prepare the way of the Lord!” There’s the other voice that comes crying out in the wilderness the voice of John the Baptist. When Mark begins his gospel he doesn’t have time for a narrative of Jesus’ birth. Mark is writing quickly, the earliest gospel after Jesus’ resurrection. He is getting the story down on paper as soon as he can after he heard it, and for WHATEVER reason, he doesn’t have time for a story of angels appearing to Mary and Joseph, shepherds in a field, or wise men from the east. He has to get to the meat of what’s going on, and the only preparation he offers to this story of good news that he has to tell, is the preparation of John the Baptist, a man who exudes feelings of anything BUT comfort.

His place of work is the Judean countryside. He doesn’t walk from city to city, town to town, or village to village. He wanders around in the wilderness where resources are scarce and comforts even scarcer. He wears clothes made of camel hair. My experience with camels is limited, but what I can tell you is this. If you find yourself riding a camel in the Israeli desert, make sure there is a saddle or blanket. That hair is dry, and prickly, and itchy. It is NOT good shirt material. He eats the bugs he finds in grass – locust, the bugs of the Egyptian plagues. Comfort is not his lifestyle, and really, as much as we want to hear it, comfort is not his message.

“Repent!” he cries out in the wilderness. “Repent!” he calls to those who are waiting for a savior, waiting for the Lord. “Repent, turn around, change your ways,” he calls to us so that we will be ready for Jesus.

This is about that time in my family’s preparations for the OTHER part of our Christmas celebration that we start to make our lists and check them once, twice, three or four times. Have we put up whatever decorations will make it up this year? Have we baked whatever we can in advance? Have we taken a family photo, bought cards, even thought about writing a letter (knowing that for the most part this section of the list will never actually get completed)? Have we bought presents for the kids, parents, nieces and nephews? What has been done to prepare us for the day that that is coming and what is left still to be done?

Hearing the ministry of John the Baptist in Mark’s gospel, really HEARING it and taking it to heart, forces us to check in on our other preparations for the coming of Christmas, the coming and re-coming of Jesus our Christ in our lives. What is missing in our relationship with God? What commitments and disciplines haven’t we made or have we let slide? Is prayer a part of our daily lives or is it something we just do when we gather on Sunday? Is serving others something we make time for not just at Christmas when the needs of the world are ringing in front of our faces at the entrance to every store in town? Are Scriptures more than just a tag line on the beautiful cards we selected or are they are part of our family’s conversations?

Are there too many other things in our lives, crowding out the necessary time and attention a REAL relationship with God requires? Is too much time spend clicking on the phone or computer, too little spent in study and prayer? Is too much energy given to attending to our own comforts, too little lifting up others who can’t even worry about comfort when they’re just worrying about survival? Is too much money being spent on extravagant gifts, too little spent making a faith statement about the causes of Jesus’ kingdom - - the poor, the outcast, those treated without grace and mercy?

“Repent!” John’s baptism proclaimed. Turn around, turn away, come back in the other direction. “Repent!” his preparation declared. Come out of the bustle of the city and town that you know into the blessed wilderness of life with Christ. Life that is unknown. Life that is dangerous. Life that is lacking the creature comforts and luxuries, but life that is dripping with the Spirit and presence of God. “Repent!”

Comfort! and Repent!

They seem like contradictory messages leaving us wondering how exactly we are to approach this season of Advent. The answer is one we probably each need to discover for ourselves. The answer is that our God has the grace and the mercy to come to us with both messages knowing that depending on where we are in our lives we may need either one or both. This may be a year where you are feeling the exile. This may be a year when you feel isolated, cast out, cast aside. This may be a year when the Lord’s presence has felt so far it feels more like the Lord’s absence and you are craving it to return and return soon. And to you, the prophet Isaiah says “’Comfort, O comfort my people,’ says your God…. The glory of the LORD shall be revealed…. Here is your God!”

Or this year may be another year for you. It maybe be the other side of the same coin, the reason John the Baptist quotes from this same passage in Isaiah, but in a different way. This may be a year when you are feeling a bit too comfortable. This maybe a year when things have been going too smoothly. This may be a year when the focus has been inside all the time, not outward to God and God’s kingdom and purposes in the world. This may be a year when the direction has been moving away from the divine, away from the Word, away from Christ who comes to guide our lives, save us from ourselves, send us out in his name. For us, the prophet John proclaims repentance, another direction, a time to turn to God, and for the very same reason, “The one who is more powerful…is coming….” Jesus is coming. Jesus is near.

Prepare the way this Advent. The God of comfort and the God of new beginnings is coming in Jesus. Prepare your way for the Lord.

Monday, November 14, 2011

It's Almost Here!

Dear friends,

It seems hard to believe it's almost the season of Advent once again! I still am remembering all those warm days in July and August and am wondering why I didn't take advantage of the long summer when I had the opportunity!

Is it just me, or do we sometimes get so involved in the "doing" of the season that we miss the "what" of the season. You can't tell me that many of you have not thought about the many things that need to be done in the next month. You know, the cleaning and baking and shopping and decorating and entertaining and wrapping and card writting and the recitals and concerts and programs and all the rest! This is one of the most blessed times of year but it is in many ways one of the most stressful times of the year.

This year, I'd like you to make a promise to yourself and your family. Each day I want you to try to just for one minute...STOP. Sit for a minute, maybe at the beginning of the day, maybe at the end of the day! Think about all the blessings God has given you. Think about your children, or your husband, or your wife. Remember to thank God for your parents, your friends, your pets. At the end of the minute thank God for Jesus, your teacher, your friend, your Messiah.

It may not seem like a difficult thing, but when we are in the middle of the busyness of this season at times we forget the reason for the season.

I pray you all celebrate the peace and love of the Advent season that is to come.

Shelley Lyksett
Director of Youth and Family Ministries

Monday, November 7, 2011

Show and Tell

Mark 10:13-16
Psalm 78:1-7

Despite the morning scramble it sometimes produces, "Show and Tell" is a favorite day at our house. For William it comes every other week, and for Karoline every Tuesday, so you'd think we would have gotten the schedule down by now, but anyway. We don't.

But even with the extra time spent in the morning running around the house trying to find just the right thing to bring to school to show their friends and tell good stories about, Show and Tell is a favorite for my kids. Like Mark in that picture, both Karoline and William got the chance to tell their daycare classes about the day Margaret was born, and show her picture even before they got to meet her. We haven't been brave enough to send a real pet to school like Eric, but pictures of Sophie and even our cat that died years before either child had a good memory of him, has slipped into a turn or two. Show and tell, at least for our children, is more than just a time to talk in front of the class and share your "stuff." It is an important place where they make sense of their lives. It know it sounds like I'm inflating this little classroom activity, but I think it’s true. It's where they get to choose what is important to them and stand up in front of their teachers and peers and declare it. They get to tell their stories, share what they know, remember what they have experienced, and in the telling, in a way, experience it all over again.

The disciples were less than excited about the “Show and Tell” that was taking place around Jesus in the gospel of Mark. People were bringing their children to Jesus to receive his touch, probably for the healing or exorcism that Jesus had been demonstrating, but the disciples wanted none of it. It wouldn’t have been abnormal at the time. Thoughts and feelings about children were much less positive and sentimental at the time than they are now. Children weren’t even better seen than heard; children were better fetching water, watching animals, or working in fields than anywhere else. Children were a commodity more than a blessing, so their presence around Jesus, in the minds of the disciples and many others would have been superfluous, unnecessary, a distraction from the real ministry that needed to be done.

But Jesus had a little bit of show and tell to do himself. “Let them come,” he said. Against all common wisdom, against all accepted understandings, he welcomed the children to him. In fact, he was indignant that they come. He was insistent that his welcome be for all people, young and old, male and female, Jew and Gentile, sinner and saint, wise and ignorant, rich and poor, free and imprisoned. He was adamant that the boundaries the rest of society insisted upon had no authority in his faith, in his family, among the people of God. “Let the children come to me; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.”

“Let them come,” our sacrament of baptism says. Let them come whether they know about God’s love or not. Let them come when they can’t yet choose for themselves. Let the children come and be washed in God’s grace, God’s mercy, and God’s love - - the grace and mercy and love God has showered upon them from the first moment of their existence. Let them come to these waters that remind us of so many other waters that have come before. Let them come to the waters of creation, the waters God tamed bringing order out of chaos. Let them come to the waters of the exodus, the water that God parted in order to bring the children of Israel out of slavery to freedom. Let them come to the waters of justice that roll down like a mighty stream washing away inequality with compassion. Let them come to the water where Jesus was baptized, commissioning him for his ministry and us for ours. Let them come to the water, the river the flows through the city of heaven, bringing life and nourishment to all who dwell there. Let them come to this water that welcomes them into our family of faith, that joins them to Christ and his body on earth, the Church. Let them come.

Let them come, let ALL of God’s children come to table of our Lord. Let us come to this table where our host is also the one who nourishes us. Let us hear and respond to Jesus’ invitation to feast with him here and in glory with a resounding, “Yes!” Let us come to the table remembering the manna that came from heaven, feeding and strengthening the Israelites days by day as they wandered in weary times. Let us come to the table that Esther set before her husband the king where she could speak truth and work for compassion before one in power. Let us come to the table where Jesus eats with sinners. Let us come to the heavenly banquet table God is preparing for us even now where we will feast with all the saints someday.

Don’t you see? These sacraments, these special celebrations and remembrances, these are our show and tell. These are the way we remind one another, the way we tell the children and the generations yet to come, the way we demonstrate to the world who we are, what is important to us, what we believe. We believe in God who welcomes all from the youngest and weakest, to the oldest and strongest. We believe in Jesus who knows our faults and sits with us anyway, who by his acceptance forgives our wrongs. We believe in the Spirit who joins us together with one another and with all people who have shown and told their faith through these sacraments before us, and even those who will come after us. These sacraments that are open not to those who know enough or believe enough or who understand enough, but these sacraments that are open to ALL who have even a mustard seed of faith, these are our show and tell when we utter the things we have heard and known, when we display the glorious deeds of the LORD, when we remember what we have experienced of God’s grace and love. In our telling today and every time we share them, may we experience that grace all over again.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

The Opposite of Fear

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Thursday, September 1, 2011

The Typeface of Discipleship

A few weeks ago I watched a documentary entitled, simply enough, Helvetica. The subject of the film was a typeface. Unfortunately, Blogger doesn't have Helvetica as a typeface choice, but I chose the closest one I could find for this post, Arial. Helvetica was developed in 1957 and quickly rose to be one of the most used typefaces in design.
In a sense it became the "poster child" for modern design. You've seen it, probably without even knowing it. Helvetica is the typeface of the American Airlines logo, the New York City subway signs, Target, Panasonic, and 3M. It is even the typeface used on federal income tax forms and formerly on the side of space shuttle orbiters. One of the intentions of the design was to create a typeface that said so little that it could be used anywhere. The goal of the design was to get out of the way and let the message speak for itself.

In the documentary, modern designers and post-modern designers ended up in a mostly respectful debate over that exact goal. In the post-modern era, the time in which we now live, many designers see the typeface as important as the words they carry. The typeface is not just a vehicle to carry a message, but is instead part of the message itself.

I started to think about this dichotomy in relationship to our lives of faith. The first one sounds like someone who says all the "right" things, agrees to all the "right" things, believes all the "right" things, but who doesn't seem to understand that a relationship with God is about more than what we believe in our heads or even speak with our lips. I know people like that. Sometimes I probably am "people like that."

There are times, many more times than I'd like to admit, when my life gets a little sloppy. My spiritual practices of prayer, service, and stewardship start to slip. The way I treat people isn't Christ-like. I'm snippy, rude, and unempathetic. My needs come first and there's no way I want to "lay down [my] life for [my] friends." My beliefs haven't changed. The message I would speak isn't any different, but the vessel carrying it doesn't match. The typeface isn't delivering the same message as my words.

Like it or not, the typeface can't just get out of the way. Even in its original day Helvetica had a message. The message was one of modernity, style, and forward progression. The message today seems to be more corporate, but still the product or service of "everyman."
Similarly, our lives can't just get out of the way. What we say with our words and believe in our heads, like it or not, aren't the only message's we deliver. The way we live our lives delivers a message, too, and a very important one at that. The way we treat other people, the activities that fill our time, the way we spend our money -- all of these are just as much a part of our spirituality and our relationship with God as the words we say and the thoughts that we think. They deliver a message to God and to others about what we believe and who worship.

Are you delivering a consistent message? As we begin a new ministry year, I plan to take some time to make sure my typeface matches the Word I want to proclaim. Won't you join me, too?

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Stirring Up Trouble

Acts 2:1-21



Last week I was talking to a colleague of mine who has stepped in to be the supply preacher for a congregation that is without a regular pastor this summer. Her first sermon there was a last week, which you may know, was Ascension Sunday, the day we remember Jesus ascension into heaven after his resurrection. My friend, Susan, learned as soon as she started at this church that they had scheduled Youth Sunday for this week, June 12, which is Pentecost. The youth, of course, were not forced to follow a specific calendar, so, as she said it, the church had “cancelled Pentecost.”

I wonder at what point in the day the apostles wanted to cancel Pentecost, because I think they probably did, at least at first. As soon as they were gathered all together in one house there came from heaven the sound of a rushing wind. It blew among them violently. This was no spirit, spirit of gentleness. This was a wind storm that came up out of nowhere, and came up right in the middle of the room where they were sitting. It filled the house where they were, and, I bet, it terrified them like the people we have seen in shaky home movies that were shot in the recent tornadoes. This wind was no calm breeze stirring the grasses on a beautiful day; this was the powerful Spirit of God who was stirring up trouble!

The violent wind and the divided tongues of fire that accompanied them were signs both wonderful and terrible at the same time. They were so dramatic that they brought to mind in those who experienced them to prophecy of Joel who spoke of what it would be like when the Lord would come with blood and fire and smoky mist. This was more than a simple puff of the wind and a tiny flickering light. This was enough to be compared to a day when the sun would turn to darkness and the moon to blood. This, this…was trouble.

The Spirit of God descended on the apostles of Jesus, those who were commissioned and sent out to speak for him and minister in his name. The Spirit of God came into their very room and dramatically equipped them for a very important ministry, a very specific ministry. The Spirit of God blew violently among them, knocking the old wind out of them and filling them with a new wind, a new breath, with new words in a new language so that they could go out of that place and speak to anyone and everyone about the grace and love of God in Jesus Christ their Lord. The Spirit of God joined with them that day, so that they could open their circle to include others.

And that’s why people thought they were drunk. The Spirit of God, she can stir up trouble. The reaction from the crowd that witnessed what was going on was mixed. There were Jews from nations all over the known world who could suddenly hear these Galileans speaking in their native tongues. Some were amazed at what they heard, but others were less than impressed. “They’re DRUNK!” they accuse, sneering and mocking the apostles.

They dismissed what they heard, apparently confusing it with babble, nonsense, the slurred, indistinguishable speech of those who have indulged themselves beyond their limit. They disregarded the apostles’ words and uninhibited behavior as those of people who had no control over what they were saying or what they were doing. If they weren’t wishing they had cancelled Pentecost before, I bet they were wishing it now. Moses got the gift of laws on stone tablets on the day they gathered to remember, but the apostles got the gift of trouble.

The gift of the Holy Spirit, the sign of God’s presence in the world that moves God’s people to action and to ministry, apparently, brings trouble. Those who are “blessed” in receiving the Holy Spirit are blessed with this holy trouble. It’s not an easy gift. It’s not a gift you get, you smile at, and you stick on your shelf to look at every once in a while. It’s a gift that is counter-cultural. It’s a gift that demands action. It’s a gift that causes you, forces you, drives you to do something that looks irrational, sloppy, and completely, unabashedly uninhibited. It makes you include others.

Before the Holy Spirit blew through the apostles on the Pentecost after Jesus’ resurrection his followers and his apostles were a relatively homogenous bunch. Sure some were fisherman and at least one was a tax collector. Among the wider circle, those whose names we don’t necessarily know, there were men and women, but for the most part they were the same. They were all from Galilee. They were all Jewish. They all spoke Aramaic. They had the same or at least similar experiences and expectations. They ate their food with the same spices. They played the same games. They wore the same fashions. They valued the same things. They worshiped God the same way. Birds of a feather, they flocked together.

We can’t help it, right? It’s just the way it happens. I like this one kind of music so I naturally gravitate towards others who do, too. I enjoy these kinds of sports so I tend to find others who do, too. I speak this way, value these things, believe those, worship like this, therefore I naturally want to get together with people just like me. It’s not on purpose; it’s just the way it happens. It’s not because I think other ways are wrong; it’s just that those ways don’t appeal to me. They just don’t make me comfortable. I just don’t feel myself, at home, if we’re not doing things the way I’m used to doing them.

But from what I can tell, from the very beginning the Spirit had precious little to do with making the people of God feel comfortable. The Spirit of God led the Israelites around a DESERT. Not so comfortable. The Spirit of God went with people who were exile. Not so comfortable. The Spirit of God brought a baby to an unwed teenage mother. DEFINITELY not comfortable. The Spirit of God has a lot more to do with stretching our understanding of what it means to be the people of God, with leading the people of God into difficult situations, with expanding the circles of our community beyond those who look just like us and speak our same language than making us feel comfortable. The Spirit of God sure can stir up trouble.

For the apostles gathered in a house on Pentecost that meant they spoke new languages to include those who weren’t among their numbers. For us may mean something different. Look around. No really. Look around. Who is missing among our community? Who do we block from being a part of God’s community in this way, even unintentionally? Who can’t hear the good news because we only speak it in the language WE know? Who is left out because we set up spoken or unspoken expectations that bar them from speaking their own language? Who doesn’t even drive, bike, walk , crawl, run, or wheel up to our front doors on Sunday morning because they see our hesitancy or fear in including them? Who do we hesitate to go out and invite in because we fear that our ways will be changed if we let them in?

I see in this church an impulse toward shaking some of these hesitancies. I see the Holy Spirit little by little being allowed to blow through and among us. We may not yet be at gale force winds or anything, but our windows are opening, the breeze is coming through. Our mission with the Bridge for Youth with Disabilities is moving from the fundraising stage to the action stage. Things are getting visible. Our mission can be seen as the land has been leveled, the path has been laid, the garden boxes have been built. Soon our children will be over their working with our Bridge friends to dig in the dirt, work side-by-side and get plants in the ground, speaking the language of growth and cooperation and learning and nurture.

We are also changing the way we work together even within the church, so that we can include as many as possible in our mission and fellowship. It may be a bumpy road at times, but we are opening up opportunities for new people to serve however they are able in our outreach and our fellowship activities. We are learning a new language, a new way to express God’s grace, and new way to include all who are called as disciples and apostles in the name of Christ.

But at the same time, we still have work to do. The neighbors haven’t yet wondered what has gotten into us. People aren’t peering into our windows disbelieving what they’re seeing, hearing a message of love and welcome so dramatic that they think we’re out of minds. There are still times that we cringe when kids are playing on the grass we care for so meticulously. We wonder if the paint that got on the sidewalk will clean up. There are times we get frustrated about doing things a new way. We hesitate speak privately in our friendships and our relationships about God’s grace in Jesus, and don’t even think about doing it publically in our community. We miss opportunities to welcome those who are shunned in society and especially by the Christian community because we are scared to speak a new language and be judged by people watching us.

But this is what Pentecost is about - - letting the Holy Spirit so dramatically cover us, so dangerously fill this room and our lives that we can’t HELP but let people, any people, ALL people, know about God’s love. Pentecost is about reaching out with the languages of the world around us - - the language of children playing on the grass, the language of food for families that are hungry, the language of volunteerism for people who want to serve, the language of accessibility for those who are differently-abled, the language of exuberance for those who interest and excitement can’t be contained. Pentecost is about speaking the message of God’s grace and inclusion in languages that may be new to us to people who may be different from us, which may just be uncomfortable for us. It may even earn us a raised eyebrow from the neighbors who watch us. Are they drunk? Are they serious? Do they really mean what they are doing?

But the Spirit of God, if the Spirit does ANYTHING, the Spirit of God stirs up trouble. The Spirit of God raises more than eyebrows. The Spirit of God raises up missionaries, evangelists, and prophets; servants, disciples, and apostles from among the people of God, even from among us to speak recklessly of God’s power, to dream without inhibitions dreams of God’s justice, to see without blinders visions of God’s welcome. The Spirit of God stirs up trouble, and by the grace of God we should find ourselves right in the middle of it.

Come, Holy Spirit, come!

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Are we there yet?

Acts 1:1-11

So, here in Hudson, the schools are getting out this week. I guess that means summer is just about officially here. Thankfully, the weather is cooperating so far. Summer means a lot of things to a lot of people, and to many of us, those with kids and without, it means we’re going to log some miles in our cars. The season of road trips is upon us.

In our family road trips tend to be to one of two place - - back to Nebraska to visit Phil’s family on the farm or down to Iowa for Synod School. The summer trip is usually to Synod School.

Synod School, if you haven’t heard one of my raves about it, is an intergenerational conference put on by the Synod of Lakes and Prairies, our upper Midwest region of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Each year a FANTASTIC speaker is brought in from around the country to lead morning keynote addresses, kids learn and have fun in Vacation Bible School-like classes, and adults can take classes ranging from cake decorating to website design to God in the movies to African drumming to home electrical repair to introduction to the New Testament. Truly if you can think of it, it has probably been taught Synod School, and if it hasn’t, feel free to teach it next year.
Commercial ended.

Anyway, Synod School is often our summer road trip, and I love Synod School. (Could you tell?) I start talking about our trip to Synod School as soon as June rolls in even though it doesn’t happen until the last week of July. (There’s still time to register, if you’re interested.) I get excited about my classes. We usually get a letter from the kids’ teachers. We’re in touch with our roommates for the week and deciding who is going to sleep where with whom. The excitement builds rather dramatically.

When the day of the trip finally comes, we pack up the car early in the morning so that we can change our clothes in the church restrooms and hit the road pretty soon after worship. Dinner is served at 5:00 p.m. on campus in Storm Lake, Iowa, and we like to have a little time to get settled in our room and find our friends. When worship is over and we have said our goodbyes here, eating a little bit more of the fellowship treats than usual so we don’t have to stop for lunch too soon, the kids and I (and Phil if he gets to come) load up in the car and hit road.

I love pulling onto the interstate and knowing we are on our way until, of course, that inevitable question comes. Can you ask it with me? “Are we there yet?”

“Are we there yet?” the disciples asked their risen Lord. “Are we there YET?” OK, so they really asked, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” but it means the same thing. They had been hanging on for a long time. They had been called and they followed. They learned and they listened. They were sent out and the taught. They healed and were rebuked. They were mocked and shunned. They had been fed and walked a lot. They had walked a whole heck of a lot, following this Jesus, the Messiah. They had lived through all sorts of preparations and it seemed the time had finally come. “NOW are you going to do it, Jesus? Now will you restore the kingdom?”

The disciples were like my kids in the car. For more than just the three years with Jesus, for all of their conscious lives really, they have been waiting for the Messiah to come and do this one thing - - restore the kingdom to Israel. They had been waiting for the Messiah who would come and set the kingdom of Israel back on top in the eyes of her people, in the eyes of the world. They had been waiting like their parents and grandparents and generations even before had been waiting for the kingdom David sang about in the Psalms, the kingdom of prosperity and power and good fortune, the political kingdom that was a sure sign of God’s favor and presence on earth

They had been with him since he called them to follow, the ones who had dropped their nets, left the tax collectors’ office, walked away from family and friends. They had endured the roller coaster of emotions as they celebrated healings, grumbled about crowds, worried about his arrest, agonized over his crucifixion, and celebrated his resurrection. They had stayed in Jerusalem waiting for the promise of their heavenly parent, thinking, “Surely it’s almost time now.” So when they had come together, of course, they asked him, “Jesus, are we there yet?”

Now, when my kids ask I want to shout, “Yes! Yes! We’re there. We have been waiting for months and months. We have made all our plans. We have washed and packed and loaded. We have worshiped and fellowshipped and changed our clothes. We have used the bathroom one last time and buckled into the carseats. Yes! We’re there. We’re on vacation!”

But apparently that’s not what they mean. So, somehow we are at the same time “there yet” and “not yet there.” We have gotten to the time when the vacation has started. We have come to the day we have all be waiting for, but it is not yet completed. It is, as we like to say in theological language, already and not yet.

That’s Jesus’ final message as he ascends into heaven. “Yes! Yes! We’re there. We have been waiting for months, for years, for centuries, for millennia. We have made all our plans. We have taught and washed and healed. We have worshiped and fellowshipped and served. We have met one last time and the Holy Spirit is one her way. Yes! We’re there. The kingdom is on its way!”

But apparently that’s not what they meant either. He said it as they were listening and watching intently. And as he spoke, he left them. He left them staring up into a cloud asking with their gaze and their frozen feet, “Are we there yet?”

It took some angels to break their gaze and thaw their feet, asking them why they were just standing around. Jesus had given them work to do. With the same certainty that he had called “Come, follow me” he had also just commanded “You will be my witnesses.” He didn’t ask, “Please can you take some more time?” He didn’t suggest “You could be, if you wanted…” And actually this time he didn’t even invite, “Come, be my witnesses.”

Jesus just stated it as the truth. You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and you will be empowered, you will tell my story with your words and with your lives starting right here where you are in Jerusalem, when you move out into Judea, even when you go to the place of your enemies in Samaria, and as far as you can imagine throughout the world. You will be my witnesses.

It’s the “not yet” part of his answer. Jesus has come. The kingdom has been ushered in, but it’s not yet here. We can see; it’s not yet here, not because Israel isn’t at peace. Not because a political kingdom has borders that are threatened, although don’t be fooled that is exactly what is behind some Evangelical support for their political agenda in the Middle East. We can see that the kingdom of God is not yet here because there is still pain and sadness, war and rumors of war. There is still homelessness and hurting. There is still addiction and arguing. There is still hatred and bigotry, prejudice and hunger.

We’re not there yet. And we’re not going to get there any faster with our feet stuck in the sand and our eyes tilted up there wondering, “When is he going to get around to fixing all of this?” He told us not to worry about when because we have more important things to do. We have work to do. We must get to work being his witnesses, get to work unveiling his kingdom, get to work bringing the places of “not yet” in line with the vision of his kingdom that is already here.

Are we there yet? Yes, we are. We are here, and we have felt and known the love of God. We have seen what Jesus can do in our lives and in the world. We trust in his promise of forgiveness and wholeness and new life.

Are we there yet? Well, not quite, but as his witnesses we can help bring his kingdom one step closer. We must engage our minds, move our feet, open our mouths, and work with our hands and get to work witnessing. We must get to work feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, freeing the captives; remembering the forgotten, encouraging the disheartened, comforting those who mourn; praying for those who mourn, teaching the young, listening to the old. We must be Christ’s witnesses…We ARE Christ’s witnesses here and to the ends of the earth.

Why are we standing around looking up toward heaven? We’ve got somewhere to go!

Sunday, May 15, 2011

The Truth About Sheep

John 10:1-10

It is, as I said earlier, Good Shepherd Sunday. I searched long and hard to try to figure out why the 4th Sunday of Easter is designated as Good Shepherd Sunday, but I just couldn’t find a reason. Each year on this week, three weeks after the festival of Easter begins, the designated gospel reading is from Jesus’ teaching about sheep and shepherds. The psalm is the 23rd psalm; the gospel in John 10 (the beginning, the middle, or the end of the chapter). It’s one of those themes that comes around and around again each year in such a way that it sometimes makes a preacher just want to skip it, especially a preacher raised completely in Suburbia.

The thing is when most of us think of the Good Shepherd, if we think of the Good Shepherd at all, we think of the kinds of scenes that have thus far, illustrated our worship service. We think of a soft, smiling Jesus, sitting under a tree, feeding a lamb out of his hand. Or maybe it’s a tall authoritative, but gentle Jesus, staff in hand, flock staring up at him adoringly. Or still another Jesus, just from the chest up with a sheep around his neck yet not one of his perfect brown curls out of place and his clear blue eyes staring deep into ours. These are the images on which we were raised.

But even a preacher raised in Suburbia, even this preacher, knows that isn’t what life is like for a shepherd. At least one member of our family who knows better has been heard to declare, “Sheep are the stupidest animals alive.” Friends of mine confirmed this when they decided to go into the wool business. First they bought alpacas and then they decided to buy sheep. Within months they were trying to get rid of the sheep. Alpacas, it seems, know better than to, shall we say, turn their living room into their bathroom. Sheep don’t seem to know the difference. Any room is a bathroom!

Another friend of mine who grew up helping on her grandparents’ sheep farm gave me a few more interesting tidbits about sheep, some of which will (and some of which won’t) inform our reading and hearing of Jesus’ comparison in John 10. Teri told me this, the truth about sheep:
1. Sheep smell bad.
2. Sheep are not soft and cuddly, though they look that way.
3. Sheep are not mean. They are very sweet unless you are holding food, in which case they will eat your hand to get it.
4. Purposely bringing a whole group of sheep together is impossible. This is why dogs are used to round them up. Pushing from behind, as you do cattle is even more impossible. Sheep have to see the leader before they’ll go anywhere.
5. Sheep will eat ALL the greenery in a given area to the point where they have to be moved regularly if penned, in order for the grass to continue to grow. Otherwise they’ll eat it down to the dirt and then look around lacking any understanding as to why there’s no more grass.
6. If unpenned, sheep will just keep wandering outward, completely absorbed in eating, but never seeming to learn to turn around. They will keep walking in the same direction, farther and farther from the flock and from help. Another friend related a story about sheep grazing in the mountains of Utah in this manner. The sheep had no regard even for their own safety or survival as they wondered into a two lane mountain road, stopping traffic for over an hour.
7. If they know you, sheep will follow you anywhere. If they do not know you or if you have proved untrustworthy, they will not follow you anywhere, they’ll just stare at you like you’re an alien.
8. Sheep, just like your house pets, respond to their names if they are taught them.

Although the traditional Western pictures of the Good Shepherd seem to imply the Jesus knows nothing about real sheep, he isn’t the slightest bit dirty as they would be and he doesn’t seem at all repulsed by their bad smell, his words sound an awful lot like the testimonies of my more knowledgeable friends at least when it comes to how they respond to the shepherd. As Jesus says “the sheep follow him because they know his voice.” I don’t much about sheep and I have never tried to wrangle them with anything, much less my voice. However, I feel like I have experienced the frustration of trying to gather sheep together - - sheep who would much rather be doing their own thing, wandering in their own direction, as far as they would like, without paying attention. I feel like I have just a hint of knowledge of what a shepherd goes through, because I have helped in a kindergarten classroom.

It’s not a bad a comparison. The children start all together in one place, working on the project that has been handed out at their desks or sitting on the carpet listening to the story. But then one of them, just slightly distracted starts to look around. She wanders just a tiny bit away, to look at the book cover that caught her attention. Then another realizes he needs to go to the bathroom and another she needs to get a drink. Some finish the project quicker than others and start to head to the book corner. Little by little the sheep, I mean the children, start to wander away, spread out in every direction, finding their own way to go in the room.

I have tried to gather them back together. I have raised my hand. I have done the counting game. I have done the whispering game (“If you can hear my voice, clap three times.”). I have sung the quiet down and listen up song, but it has rarely worked. It’s like I’m not even trying. But when Mrs. Meincke speaks up, when she says all the same things, it’s like their ears are tuned in just for her. It’s like somehow above the low din of conversation and laughter they can pick out her voice above all the others. Like sheep who know their shepherd they hear and follow her.

If it were only that easy for us. Jesus’ teaching of the good shepherd and the sheep is the entire tenth chapter of John. We get only about a third of it this Sunday, but even in what we have we hear several different metaphors at play for Jesus. He is the gate, the gatekeeper, and the shepherd. There are even more metaphors for him throughout the rest of the chapter. The one to which I am drawn in this section, though, is the one where we are the sheep and he is the shepherd. Maybe I’m just feeling more sheep-like lately. Maybe the fact that sheep are prone to wander hits sort of close to home.

It feels that way in the life of faith sometimes. It feels like I’m just wandering around looking for anything to eat, anything to feed me. I’ll wander a little bit this way, nibbling at this grass, a “Read the Bible in a Year” program, or wander a little bit that way, trying out a patch of the “Write your prayers to God for 40 Days” grass. Maybe you do it, too - - nibbling a some of “These Days,” tasting an on-line devotional, munching on volunteering with the food shelf, chewing on teaching Sunday School. Like sheep who wander away while eating, while filling themselves with good and needed food, we, too, can sort of wander around any which way through the fields and pastures of faith. We wander around looking for the right words to pray, the right Scriptures to read, the right deeds to perform. None of which are bad things, but our approach could possibly use some guidance.

Yes the truth about kindergarteners, and people of faith, and even sheep is that we need to be led. On our own we wander. On our own we walk with our heads down looking for the next patch of grass right in front of our noses. On our own we will move farther and farther away from fold of the shepherd even when we have the best of intentions, even when we are looking for good things to eat. On our own we can end up in the middle of a highway, in the dark shadows of death, in the middle of a picked over pasture wondering where in the world all the good grass went.

The truth about sheep is they need a shepherd; we need the shepherd to lead us the way that we should go. We need the shepherd who will call us by name and lead us into green pastures, beside still waters, into and out of pastures that we may have life and have it abundantly. We need the shepherd whose voice makes our ears perk up, our hearts stir, and our feet move in the direction he is calling, because if this abundant life Jesus speaks of is ANYTHING, it's moving. It's active. It's dynamic.

In the second part of his teaching, the part Jesus proclaims after his audience stares at him dumbfounded by the metaphor, Jesus calls himself the gate for the sheep. He is, essentially the doorway into the pen where the sheep are collected. However, what I notice in this teaching is that Jesus recognizes that the sheep don't stay in the pen. The sheep are not gathered up, passed through his gate, and then locked in there away from it all. Instead, the truth about sheep, the truth about us as we strive to follow Jesus, is that we are called into and out of herd.

We are called to gather with one another. We are called to come close together to the church and to Christ, to places of holiness and acts of righteousness, but we are also called to go out. The same shepherd that leads us back to the pen also leads us out into the world, out to the edges, out to the margins of society where acts of justice and mercy are needed. The voice of the shepherd calls us to us, leading by his own example, to minister at the farthest reaches of the landscape. And the voice of the shepherd calls us back to the center of all being, the center of the beloved community, where we find comfort and peace and safety before the next journey.

The difficult part, of course, is listening for and recognizing the shepherd's voice. There is all sorts of noise going on around us. There are authors and speakers and politicians and even pastors clammering for us to listen and follow. There are books and lectures and interviews and sermons calling for us to trust and obey. But there is one voice that should rise above them, there is one call that should turn our heads and pique our interest above all the others. To those who are in places of comfort and stability it is the call to go out - - to follow the shepherd who leads us through the gate and out into pastures, to the edges of pastures, to serve and share his grace. To those who are at the margins, who look up and wonder how in the world we go here, alone, and eating dirt, it is the call to come in - - to find rest and refreshment and nourishment for our bodies and souls.

Called in or called out, we are called to move. We are called by his voice be it the still small voice of prayer or the loud crying voice of those who are suffering, we are called by Jesus and led into life with him. He came that we may have life, and have it abundantly. Listen and follow the voice of the Good Shepherd.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Stories We Tell

Luke 24:13-35

Wednesday night at the Networks senior high youth group meeting I participated in an "Ask the Pastor" question & answer night. Questions submitted ahead of time ranged from "Was Jesus Caucasian?" and "Why don't people in the Bible have last names" to "How do I know I have a soul?" The pastors helping out at the middle school meeting and I received these about a week in advance to start formulating our answers which was helpful. On Monday, though, Elliott Krizek, our Networks youth director, very wisely sent out an additional question that was timely in the face of the news we were all processing from the night before. Elliott asked, "What should be the Christian response to the death of Osama bin Laden?"

It was a great question and so incredibly important for us all to consider. Our conversation on Wednesday night made me think, in fact, of the scripture I was pondering for worship today. It felt like in a way we were re-enacting the walk to Emmaus. The disciples had experienced something life-rattling. Reactions in the different gospels include great joy and exuberance, fear and comfort-seeking, even silence in the face of confusion over the missing body and the empty tomb.

The two disciples here in Luke's gospel, Cleopas and another who is unnamed do something completely different. They do pretty much what we did at youth group. They did what literally millions of people, including quite a few in the Christian community, did on Facebook or Twitter or other social media outlets. They got together to tell the story of what had happened. They got out and walked and while they walked they talked, about all that had happened. And hopefully you noticed that when they did just that Jesus showed up among them, blessing them with his presence, comforting them through their conversation together.

This is exactly what I want us to spend some time doing together here this morning; walking together on a road after something life-rattling for some of us individually, but for many or most of us collectively, I want us to talk about the things that happened. I believe that as we do so, Jesus will walk with us and join with us in our conversation.

As soon as the question was posed to me on "Ask the Pastor" night, "What should be the Christian response to the death of Osama bin Laden?" I answered how any other pastor would in the same situation. I immediately threw a question back to the youth! It's the same question I put before you here today, "What reactions to the news did you have or did you see?" There is no right or wrong answer here. This is a time of sharing without judgement. Just what did you see or hear or feel yourself as the news was broken and the story unfolded.

Why do you think people reacted the way they did? What feelings or emotions or experiences were behind such a diversity of responses?

One thing of which I was reminded this week as I reacted and as I watched the reactions of others in person, on the internet, and throughout the news media is that everyone has a story. Behind every reaction and feeling and response is a story, and behind many of our feelings about what took place this week is often a story about what happened on September 11, 2001 or maybe even a story of what happened on December 7, 1941, or maybe a story about a loved one who has served in the military in the last 10 years, or maybe some other story that was brought back to the raw and tender surface as soon as the news was heard. Everyone has a story, and our stories are usually behind our responses.

People of faith are people of stories. Our shared stories are what we have to connect us to one other. The first this Cleopas and a fellow disciple did when they heard the life-changing news of Jesus' resurrection was get together and tell stories. They first thing they did when they found a stranger who didn't seem to know anything about what had happened was tell him the story. The first thing Jesus did when he got a word in edgewise was to place himself in the midst of the story of God's redemption of the world. He claimed the story of how God called and worked through Moses as his own story. He jumped right in the work of the prophets who called God's people back to faithfulness and showed how he was part of that story.

We are a people of stories and the way we experience things, the way we react to news and events all depends on the stories that have priority in our lives. In the hours and first few days that followed the announcement of the death of Osama bin Laden we saw a diversity of reactions. Many of us FELT in in our own bodies, minds and souls a diversity of feelings - - comfort of a threat removed, sorrow at a human death, frustration with our common human corruption, pride in the bravery of soldiers, confidence the leadership of our government, thankfulness at justice served.

As I watched reactions and feelings come pouring in where I was, connected to what was going on only by a computer screen, I saw each of these and more, and then I also saw something very disheartening. I saw brothers and sisters in Christ turn on one another, attacking and debating whose response was was the right response to the news we all received, the news none of us were prepared to receive.

Good people of faith forgot the biblical response of celebration, of release of emotions like Miriam's after the Israelite slaves crossed the Red Sea safely. She sang aloud with joy and exuberance, “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider God has thrown into the sea." They attacked people whose first reaction was joy and release. Other good people of faith forgot the wisdom of scripture that warns against feelings of triumphalism and joy at the expense of others' pain, "Do not rejoice when your enemies fall, and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble."(Proverbs 24:17) They attacked those who called for peace and restraint.

A colleague of mine, Tripp Hudgins, an American Baptist pastor in the suburbs of Chicago, among several others pointed me this week towards and editorial about this international news written by an American rabbi, Rabbi Menachem Creditor. "He reminded the rest of us that Jews were [in the midst of their annual remembrance of] the Holocaust when the news came across the wires. Story upon story upon story…. He wrote of the confusion of emotions available to all of us. Some of us remembered 9-11 with great fear. Some rejoiced in the streets. He asked,

'How do we respond when the architect of enormous evil is brought to justice? What does it mean for us, as Jesus, as Americans, that Osama Bin Laden has been killed?'

According to a Midrash [a Jewish teaching story that expands on the words of scripture], when the angels rejoiced at the victory of God and the deliverance of the Children of Israel at the Red Sea, they invited God to join in their celebration. God declined, saying, 'How can I rejoice when my children are drowning?' God's response, as intuited by our tradition, teaches us that the very people who enslaved and tortured us were still human beings when viewed through sacred eyes.'

The diverse witness in Scripture to how we human beings respond to death and victory mirrors the responses we have witnessed even this week. The stories that are behind our own responses are not new stories - - stories of pain and loss, of family pride, of national tragedy and fear of our common enemies. Yet as people of faith, particularly people of the CHRISTIAN faith we share yet another story that needs to inform our response to this and any news we receive. It is the Easter story.

"Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who do not know the things that have take place there in these days? The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed an sword before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive."

He is alive! The Lord has risen! He has risen indeed! This is our story. This is our core story as people of Christ, as Christian people. This story above all stories, all stories in Scripture, all stories in our own lives, all stories that come across our screens and over the radio, and in our newspapers, is the story that defines who we are and ultimately how we react. Death is not to be taken lightly. Death is not to be laughed about or skipped over as unimportant. Death is not to be rejoiced or dismissed. Death is solemn. Death is holy. Death is so final that God got involved with it, God experienced it.

The sacred eyes of Jesus looked at his enemies from the cross and loved them. The sacred eyes of Jesus turned to those who did him harm and begged for their forgiveness when they never asked for it. And the sacred eyes of Jesus look even at us who experience complicated emotions of anger and vengeance and satisfaction and grief at the death of another, and those eyes gaze on us with a longing for peace. Because death is so serious that God decided to conquer it. Death is so serious that God decided to intervene and redeem it.

Jesus our Lord, Jesus our teacher, Jesus our brother, Jesus our God, experienced death, but death could not hold him. This is the story out of which all of our responses must flow. This is the story which we must tell, "The Lord is risen! He is risen indeed."

The power of God is stronger than the power of death. This is our story.
The power of life is stronger than the power of death.
This is what we believe.
This is what we celebrate, not that another human being,
no matter how hurtful,
no matter how dangerous,
no matter how cold-blooded in his calculations against individuals and nations, was put to death.
We celebrate that
in the resurrection of Jesus there is new life.
In the resurrection of Jesus there is new hope.
In the resurrection of Jesus is comfort and joy and especially peace.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Growing Disciples

In the March Newsletter I introduced and wrote about the Vision Statement for Children, Youth, and Family Educational Ministry at FPC. Because I believe it is important to the ministry of this congregation I would like to put it in front of you again.

The Vision of Christian Education ministry at FPC is to grow disciples; by providing experiences and tools that support the Spiritual growth with in families as well as offering experiences for enriching faith within the FPC community.
While this Vision Statement focuses on ministries of Christian Education I believe the concept of “growing disciples” is not limited to Christian Education ministries. In fact I believe that “growing disciples” can and should take place in all areas of church life including but not limited to ministries of mission and worship. Children and youth need to be involved in worship and mission opportunities. Children and youth learn by watching and participating. Thus, it is important that they not only feel welcomed by adults in worship and mission opportunities but are able to participate fully in these ministries. As adults we can make children and youth feel welcome by speaking directly to them, including them in our conversations, listening to them, and smiling at them. We can help them more fully participate by helping them follow along in worship, answering their questions, and working with them to complete a project. Pray and watch for more ways you can help our children and youth feel welcome and participate in the life of this congregation.

They also need, when appropriate, to be given leadership roles these ministries. In the coming months you will begin to see more of our children and youth taking leadership roles in worship. They are already singing and playing with New Spirit as well as providing special music. They will also be ushering, taking offering, and running the PowerPoint slides. It is my hope that we will provide more leadership opportunities for our children and youth in all areas of our church life.

I believe it is vital to our congregation and to the growth of our children and youth that are fully integrated into and engaged in the life of this congregation! I pray we can continue to find ways to make this happen.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Looking for Proof

John 20:19-31

"Christianity has an image problem." That's the opening line from a book released in 2007 called unChristian. "Christianity has an image problem." The book discusses research that involved polling youth and young adults from inside and outside of the church to find out just what this segment of Americans thinks about Christians. That line sums up the author's feelings upon analyzing the research. "Christianity has an image problem."

I should probably say before going too much further that I disagree with a good number of the action points the author suggests, but the research he presents and shares is invaluable. Whether we want to hear it or not, it is good for us in the church to know that those who don't come through our doors, particularly young people, think we are hypocritical, salvation-oriented rather than relationship-oriented, anti-homosexual, sheltered, too political, and judgmental. Whew. What a report card!

But this is what people are saying about us. This is what people, particularly young people, think about who and what the church is. This is what people, who have heard a little about the Jesus we worship, Christ whose name we claim, think about those of us who call ourselves Christians, and it's something to which we need to pay attention. The good news in all of this is that even if they think we're doing a poor job of mimicking him, they seem to have the right idea about Jesus. If these are their complaints about the church than at least they see that Jesus is steadfast, loving, inclusive, and forgiving. At least they can see past the way the church messes up his image. Now we just need to work on bringing ourselves in line with that image.

People are watching us. People are wondering if what we say is true, and right now anyway, people are doubting that we are who we say we are, followers of the risen Christ. They are doubting and questioning and looking for proof that the resurrection is real and that the body of Christ really is here, on earth, now. There are a lot of Thomases out there.

Thomas wasn't in the house with the rest of the disciples when Jesus came in on the evening of the resurrection. He missed the big reunion, the showing of Jesus' hands and side, the breathing of the Holy Spirit on Jesus' disciples. Thomas wasn't in that room when the proof was made visible, when Jesus spoke to them and showed them the wounds on his hands and his side. He missed seeing it with his own eyes, experiencing it with his own life.

He's gotten a bad reputation over the years. Ordinarily people don't mean it as a compliment when they call him "Doubting Thomas," but his doubting seems to me to be perfectly normal. What he heard when he returned to the disciples from wherever he was just didn't make sense. The resurrection didn't make sense. Even if he had had some kind of hint that it was coming, it is pretty unbelievable. I'd say Thomas wasn't so much of a "Doubting Thomas," but a "Questioning Thomas," a "Just want to be sure Thomas," a "I need a little proof Thomas."

That's what the people around us need, too. A lot of them are doubting, but I think the doubting starts with questioning. They need to see a little proof that these followers of Jesus are serious, that we followers of Jesus are for real. They have heard about Jesus, one way or another. They seem to understand, one way or another, that his message and his life is about love, acceptance, and forgiveness. They just need to see something that lets them know that we are about what he was about. They just need to see a little proof that Jesus is alive, that the resurrection really does mean there is new life, that his body is really real, really here, really at work in the world.

There's a pithy little statement that goes around. I haven't really discovered it's origins. It's been attributed to some famous world religious leaders, but I can't find anything to back that up. However, it is still a telling and challenging statement to Christians. "I like Jesus; it's his followers I can stand." Is that not an important thing to hear? Does that not tell us volumes about how we are perceived, how we are reflecting on ourselves and our God? There are people out there watching, waiting, looking for proof, but we don't seem to be showing them the resurrection. We don't seem to be demonstrating new life in any way that looks like good news.

Eventually, a week after the resurrection, the disciples are back in the house together. Thomas is with them this time, and even though the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them. His response to Thomas' request from the week before is one of my favorite parts of the whole story. His response is NOT one of his "Ye of little faith" moments. Jesus doesn't berate the disciple who missed his first appearance. and needed to see for himself. He doesn't chastise the one who needed a little more proof, something to see and to touch to be able to believe the resurrection is true.

That apparently is what we in the church are perceived, among other things, as doing. The people who doubt the connection of the church to Jesus are used to a kind of Christianity that yells at people who don't believe. They are used to seeing a side of the church full of deceit and false prophets, judges and overly pious, but completely disengaged "believers" They are used to being told that their questions aren't going to get them into heaven, and "ye of little faith" are in eternal trouble.

But this is NOT what Jesus says to the one who questions him, the one who doubts that he is alive. This is NOT what Jesus says to Thomas who just wants a little more proof that what everyone is saying is true. Jesus says, "Peace." Jesus invites Thomas to touch what he needs to touch, to see what he needs to see to believe. Jesus shows up ready to give Thomas whatever he can in order that Thomas will believe what is true. Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed.

Earlier in this worship service, as we prepared to ordain and install new leaders in this congregation, we heard the witness of Scripture from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. The church in Corinth was a troubled church. There was bickering inside of it, debates about all sorts of things, including whose gifts for service were the best. Paul tries to impress upon the church that no one gift is more spiritual or more necessary than another.

He compares the church to a body, one body, with many different members. The foot is not any less a part of the body because it is not the hand. The ear is not less of the body because it is not an eye. The church is, Paul declares to us, the body of Christ and each of us are members of it. We are the body of Christ.

Later today we will hear New Spirit sing a song that asked "If we are the body?" The song talks about two people who come to worship who are left out for some reason or another. One is teased and mocked and she slips into a pew. Another person sinks into the back row beneath judgmental glances. "If we are the body," the song asks, "Why aren't His arms reaching, why aren't his hand healing, why aren't his words teaching?" "If we are the Body why aren't His feet going? Why is His love not showing them there is a way?"

The world, this town, even our neighborhood is full of Thomases, not who have rejected that Jesus is loving, compassionate, and forgiving, but who haven't seen proof that the church is his body. The world, this town, even our neighborhood doesn't need to hear from us or any other church that calls itself Christian, "Ye of little faith." Instead we need to show them with the works of our hands, with the walk of our feet, with the love of our hearts that Jesus is alive, that his life is our life, that his love is our love. The world, this town, even our neighborhood is waiting to see the body of Christ and the evidence of his welcoming love. Let's make it our goal to fix Christianity's image problem, even just here on our little spot on the globe, by walking with his feet, healing with his hands, reaching with his arms, and offering peace with his words and ours. Amen.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Living the Resurrection

beach shadows in touch on isla canela, spainphoto © 2007 fester_franz | more info (via: Wylio)
Matthew 28:1-10
Jeremiah 31:1-6
Colossians 3:1-4

Last Sunday when we were leaving church Karoline, my 5 year old daughter, was walking in front of me, a little too close in front of me. She has this habit of walking right in front of me, and it's sort of cute and sort of annoying. I try to remember it's cute when I'm feeling mostly annoyed by it. It's like she wants to be independent and walk not right next to me, but at the same time there's some kind of tether that pulls her to walk closer because she also doesn't want to get too far. She ends up walking right in front of me, criss-crossing across my path really just about 3/4 of a step in front of me. See the annoying part?

Well, she was doing it last Sunday as we were walking across the parking lot of the church to our car, but not only was she walking annoying closely in front of me, she was also bopping her head up and down, starting and stopping, and generally just driving me nuts with it. With the baby in my arms and simply trying not to fall over her, the cute part had definitely left a while ago. I begged her to stop and just walk when she told me, "But we have two heads! I want us to just have one head!”

Uhhhhh…what? I didn’t get it. “We have one body, but two heads!!!” she insisted, pointing to the parking lot pavement in front of us. She was right. On our combined shadow in front of us we had one body, as my shadow engulfed hers, but we had two heads. “I want to hide my shadow in yours,” she said.

I wonder if that’s what the women were trying to do when they went to the tomb early in the morning on the day after the Sabbath. It wouldn’t have been right for them to go any earlier. They couldn’t travel, especially not to the place where the dead are buried, on the Sabbath. But as soon as there was light on the next day, they made their way to the tomb, not in Matthew’s gospel to take care of his body, but just to see, to know with their own eyes, their own minds, their own experiences where Jesus’ body lay, just to lose themselves in him.

But on the way there, the earth shook, the stone rolled, and everything in the world, everything they had ever known or believed or trusted was changed. “He is not here; for he has been raised,” they were told by the angel they saw instead of Jesus. “He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.” Go, the angel told the women. Go and tell the rest of the disciples. Go, all of you, to Galilee and be with him. Hide your shadow in his.

Eugene Peterson, a Presbyterian pastor and author of the Bible version called The Message, likes to tell how this passage, these words from the angel, helped him get over his anxiety whenever he was thrust into a difficult situation. It reminded him that no matter how fast he could get to the hospital when word came that a church member was ill, Christ was already there. When I worked as a chaplain in an Atlanta hospital we talked about how even as ministers it wasn’t up to us to bring God into a patient’s room. God was already there. Our job was just to seek where God was already working in the room and join God in the ministry taking place.

Jesus went ahead of them to Galilee. He was alive and already there. They just had to join him. They just had to find him, what he was doing, and hide themselves in him.

This is what Easter is about. Or at least this is what the resurrection is about according to Paul’s letter to the Colossians, and the resurrection is what Easter is about. We all know it’s not about bunnies and eggs and chocolate and jelly beans, although, who was sad to get any of those this morning? We know that Easter isn’t about all of those things, and we probably even know it’s about the resurrection, but then that’s where we get tripped up sometimes.

We get caught up in thinking that the resurrection is a story to believe (or even disbelieve). We get caught up in trying to work out the historical details, so that we can know what really did (or didn’t) happen. We debate whether it was physical or spiritual, whether it was literal or metaphorical. We get stuck in the details of the resurrection event itself, of Easter day itself, and completely forget or never even realize that even more than one event on one day, the resurrection is about life.

It is about a life-altering, transformative way of life. It’s not just something that happened to Jesus. According to Matthew’s telling, according to Paul’s letter, it’s a whole new way of being, a way of being with Jesus who is alive and in the world and calling us to join him. Resurrection is for us even today!

When we gathered for worship with First Baptist Church on Good Friday the scriptures we heard and the word I was called to preach reminded us that in Jesus of Nazareth God became human. Willingly and loving, Jesus emptied himself, gave up some of what it meant to be God to also be human. He submitted himself to the limitations of our life even to the point of death, death on a cross. By joining us on earth, by taking on our flesh and living our bodily life, Jesus joined himself to us.

What Paul tells the Colossians and even tells us is that just as Jesus joined himself to us, made himself more like us and brought us closer to him, by dying like we will die, at the same time he also lifted us up with him when he was raised again to new life. Our lives are tied to his life, so as he died we will die and as he lives again, so do we. Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, Jesus’ new life after the grave is our assurance that death does not win, that hope is not lost, that God’s promises are not forgotten. Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is the fulfillment of the promise that God is still active. God is still here. God will not abandon us, not in the life to come and not in the life we live today.

Yet it doesn’t always seem that way. It’s no secret, and it’s not unfaithful to talk about it. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like God is still here. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like God is transforming life. Sometimes it feels like we have been abandoned. The earth that quaked when Jesus rose from the dead, quakes again, bringing death, distruction, and fear. Bodies that have been well cared for and healthy for years are suddenly stuck with disease and illness. Nations are at odds with nations; innocent people are caught in the middle. Health care is unattainable and those on the margins are left suffering. Human beings are caught in the bondage of slavery, and God’s creation is at the mercy of irresponsible and devastating hands. No, it doesn’t always feel like the resurrection has made any bit of a difference. It doesn’t always feel like anything has changed at all.

And it probably didn’t for the women at the tomb either, or the disciples when they first heard the news. Simply hearing about what had happened wasn’t what they all needed; simply believing it is true doesn’t change the world. They had to step out and do something about what they heard. They had to go and see Jesus, meet him where he was waiting for them in the world. They had to go out and get involved in his resurrection life.

The resurrection becomes real when we set our minds on the things from above, the things that are from God. The resurrection becomes real when look for the signs of new life where God is active in the world and then we join God in that resurrection life. Resurrection life is happening wherever the old is being made new again, wherever people are rebuilding what had been knocked down, wherever vineyards that had been trampled are being replanted. Resurrection life is happening wherever God is bringing life out of death, and THERE we must join in and be a part of Christ’s new life in the world.

Seek the things that are above, Paul writes, where Christ is. Seek out what God desires, what Christ is already doing, where Christ is already going ahead of us. Seek out the places in this world where God is already active, waiting like Jesus waited in Galilee for the disciples to come and join him. Seek out the places in our community where Jesus is blessing others, serving the poor, tending to the sick, bringing comfort to the lonely, and go, hide your life in his. Join his resurrection life bringing hope into a world over-shadowed by death. Join him in revealing God’s glory!

The resurrection isn’t an incident to be remembered, it’s a life to be lived.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Cross Promises

The Old Rugged Crossphoto © 2008 abcdz2000 | more info (via: Wylio)
Philippians 2:5-11
Matthew 27:31-50

As I was talking to my older children, who are 3 and 5 years old, about the things we do to get ready for Easter, Palm Sunday, Passion narratives, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, I ended up with a lot of explaining to do. Palm Sunday is pretty obvious from the story and tradition, but words like passion and maundy aren’t as intuitive. And then we have Good Friday. I told them we would have Good Friday worship, and they immediately got excited. “Yea! Good Friday!” Just the name got them happy and excited, but when I told them what happened on Good Friday their joy slipped away.

“Well, that’s not a good Friday,” my 3 year old said to me. And he’s right. It’s not. It's not a good day at all. Good Friday is the day that the corruption of the human spirit seems to win. Good Friday is the day when innocence is punished, when blamelessness is struck, when holiness is knocked over, to the ground, and even spat upon. Good Friday is the day when evil seemed to overshadow good and God ended up on a cross. What’s so good about Good Friday?

I’ve heard different answers, different explanations about why we call this day “good.” Most popular is the understanding that good just doesn't mean what we usually think it does. It means pious or holy. Others say that the day is good because although what happened is terrible, horrific even, it is ultimately good because of what was accomplished. Sure Jesus was beaten, tortured, mocked, and killed, but ultimately that's all good because by all of that our sinful lives were redeemed (hint of sarcasm, anyone?). Taking that understanding too far can be on the one hand dismissive of the very real experience of Jesus and on the other self-centered.

While they aren't in and of themselves bad explanations, I have never been completely satisfied with the answers I have heard, until this year. I heard a new one that helps to round the others out. It doesn't replace them, but adds to them, and at least for me, speaks a truth that is extremely relevant today. The explanation is a linguistic one, similar to the reason we use the word "maundy" for Maundy Thursday; it's an older Anglicized word that relates back to the word mandatum, commandment in Latin. The Good in Good Friday, according to this reasoning, may have come about in modern English from an older name for this holy day, "God's Friday."

God's Friday. Even this can seem a little counter-intuitive because if anything it seems like God hardly shows up on Friday. We hear that accusation in the voices of the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders, "If HE is God he could just get himself right down from that cross. If he really is the Son of God, where is God now? Where is the God he trusts so much? God sure isn't showing up for Jesus who hangs on a cross." God's Friday? But where is God?

Where is God when Jesus appears before councils and governors who accuse him out of fear? Where is God when Jesus hears the crowds shout for the release of Barrabbas and chant for his crucifixion? Where is God when Jesus is bound and marched up the hill to the place of his crucifixion? Where is God when Jesus is nailed to the cross and in his agony challenged and mocked and taunted?

Where is God when the doctor says cancer? Where is God when the boss hands over a pink slip? Where is God when a phone call comes in the middle of the night? Where is God when our children are hurting? Where is God when depression descends like a heavy fog? Where is God when the bully comes around the corner again? When the bank account is close to empty? When our faith is challenged by those who question, who mock, "Where is your God now? Why won't your God deliver?"

The people who surrounded Jesus while he was hanging on the cross, the religious authorities who made sure the execution was carried out, the centurions who hammered the nails and raised the cross, even the other bandits hanging on crosses next to him, all of them expected some kind of superhero God. All of them were looking for some mighty sign of God's presence in an act of power and dominion. They looked for a dynamic miracle, a flash of angels' wings, a supernatural intervention, to prove that God was present, that God could save Jesus from this very human, very tragic death. They thought, we think, that God's power only comes in dramatic flashes and epic rescues.

But this day, God's Friday, begs us to ask not that tempting question, that taunting and sneering challenge, "Where is God?" but it begs us to ask "Who is this God?" It's the question we asked in our congregation's worship on Palm Sunday - - Who is this Jesus? Who is this king who comes riding in on a humble donkey? Who is this master who washes the feet of his disciples? Who is this one who says he is this Son of God, yet he hangs on a cross? If this is Good Friday, GOD'S Friday, who is this God?

Jesus wasn't what the people expected. They expected a great and glorious king. They expected a powerful and dominating warrior. They expected someone who would stand up to evil and fight with might and force to win the battle for the chosen ones of God. But that's not w what they got.

They got a slave. They got a humble servant. They got a man who had emptied himself of the divine majesty and submitted himself to the human experience, willingly and obediently choosing every bit of the human experience, even to the point of death, even to the point of death on a cross. They got, no WE got this Jesus whom we call Christ the Lord, whose authority and love and credibility comes not from superhero antics, but from his compassion, literally from his willingness to suffer with us.

Good Friday, God's Friday, is so utterly crucial because it singularly reveals how far God is willing to go for us. It alone reveals how deep Jesus' love is for us. It on its own illumines the path which Jesus took to walk right next to us, right into our hearts and our lives, so that we would know exactly how perfectly he knows our experience. Good Friday, God's Friday reveals the heart of God. It reveals the radical humility of Jesus who goes to the depths of pain to align himself with the very humanity that betrayed him and mocked him, denied him and flogged him, crucified him and taunted him, watched it all from a distance.

He didn't jump down from the cross when obedience got difficult. He didn't call for angels to carry him away. Because God knows, really God knows, he could have. The Son of God who made the blind to see, who healed the sick, who cast our demons, who called Lazarus out of the tomb, out of death three days later, COULD have saved himself from the cross, but he didn't. He could have left this world and missed the agony of the cross altogether, but for some reason he didn't. "Nails were not enough enough to hold God-and-man nailed and fastened on the Cross, had not love held Him there," Catherine of Siena wrote.

Out of love Jesus didn't save himself. Out of love Jesus didn't abandon us. Out of love Jesus remained faithful to his call, faithful to us even to the point of death on a cross. Jesus didn't abandon us in his time of suffering which means he won't abandon us in ours. This is the promise of the cross. It is the promise that Jesus goes with us into our deepest despair. It is the promise that when we are brought to our knees in all manner of suffering the question is not are we strong enough to bear it? Because that answer is easy - - we aren't. No, the promise of the cross is that in the midst of our suffering we can ask with confidence "Who will bear this with us?"

Jesus. Jesus bears our pain with us. Jesus knows our hurts and sorrows. Jesus humbled himself to be one of us. Jesus limited his own divine power to strengthen us, emptying himself that we might have full lives. And in doing so he and the very cross on which he hung announce God's promise to us, "I know you. I love you. And I will carry you through."

Good Friday is God's Friday. It reveals to us the very heart of God who isn't above and removed from the pains and realities of this life we live, but who has joined with us right in the thick of it. Good Friday is God's Friday, and it begs us join every knee that bends and every tongue that confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord.

To the glory of God. Amen.As I was talking to my older children, who are 3 and 5 years old, about the things we do to get ready for Easter, Palm Sunday, Passion narratives, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, I ended up with a lot of explaining to do. Palm Sunday is pretty obvious from the story and tradition, but words like passion and maundy aren’t as intuitive. And then we have Good Friday. I told them we would have Good Friday worship, and they immediately got excited. “Yea! Good Friday!” Just the name got them happy and excited, but when I told them what happened on Good Friday their joy slipped away.

“Well, that’s not a good Friday,” my 3 year old said to me. And he’s right. It’s not. It's not a good day at all. Good Friday is the day that the corruption of the human spirit seems to win. Good Friday is the day when innocence is punished, when blamelessness is struck, when holiness is knocked over, to the ground, and even spat upon. Good Friday is the day when evil seemed to overshadow good and God ended up on a cross. What’s so good about Good Friday?

I’ve heard different answers, different explanations about why we call this day “good.” Most popular is the understanding that good just doesn't mean what we usually think it does. It means pious or holy. Others say that the day is good because although what happened is terrible, horrific even, it is ultimately good because of what was accomplished. Sure Jesus was beaten, tortured, mocked, and killed, but ultimately that's all good because by all of that our sinful lives were redeemed (hint of sarcasm, anyone?). Taking that understanding too far can be on the one hand dismissive of the very real experience of Jesus and on the other self-centered.

While they aren't in and of themselves bad explanations, I have never been completely satisfied with the answers I have heard, until this year. I heard a new one that helps to round the others out. It doesn't replace them, but adds to them, and at least for me, speaks a truth that is extremely relevant today. The explanation is a linguistic one, similar to the reason we use the word "maundy" for Maundy Thursday; it's an older Anglicized word that relates back to the word mandatum, commandment in Latin. The Good in Good Friday, according to this reasoning, may have come about in modern English from an older name for this holy day, "God's Friday."

God's Friday. Even this can seem a little counter-intuitive because if anything it seems like God hardly shows up on Friday. We hear that accusation in the voices of the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders, "If HE is God he could just get himself right down from that cross. If he really is the Son of God, where is God now? Where is the God he trusts so much? God sure isn't showing up for Jesus who hangs on a cross." God's Friday? But where is God?

Where is God when Jesus appears before councils and governors who accuse him out of fear? Where is God when Jesus hears the crowds shout for the release of Barrabbas and chant for his crucifixion? Where is God when Jesus is bound and marched up the hill to the place of his crucifixion? Where is God when Jesus is nailed to the cross and in his agony challenged and mocked and taunted?

Where is God when the doctor says cancer? Where is God when the boss hands over a pink slip? Where is God when a phone call comes in the middle of the night? Where is God when our children are hurting? Where is God when depression descends like a heavy fog? Where is God when the bully comes around the corner again? When the bank account is close to empty? When our faith is challenged by those who question, who mock, "Where is your God now? Why won't your God deliver?"

The people who surrounded Jesus while he was hanging on the cross, the religious authorities who made sure the execution was carried out, the centurions who hammered the nails and raised the cross, even the other bandits hanging on crosses next to him, all of them expected some kind of superhero God. All of them were looking for some mighty sign of God's presence in an act of power and dominion. They looked for a dynamic miracle, a flash of angels' wings, a supernatural intervention, to prove that God was present, that God could save Jesus from this very human, very tragic death. They thought, we think, that God's power only comes in dramatic flashes and epic rescues.

But this day, God's Friday, begs us to ask not that tempting question, that taunting and sneering challenge, "Where is God?" but it begs us to ask "Who is this God?" It's the question we asked in our congregation's worship on Palm Sunday - - Who is this Jesus? Who is this king who comes riding in on a humble donkey? Who is this master who washes the feet of his disciples? Who is this one who says he is this Son of God, yet he hangs on a cross? If this is Good Friday, GOD'S Friday, who is this God?

Jesus wasn't what the people expected. They expected a great and glorious king. They expected a powerful and dominating warrior. They expected someone who would stand up to evil and fight with might and force to win the battle for the chosen ones of God. But that's not w what they got.

They got a slave. They got a humble servant. They got a man who had emptied himself of the divine majesty and submitted himself to the human experience, willingly and obediently choosing every bit of the human experience, even to the point of death, even to the point of death on a cross. They got, no WE got this Jesus whom we call Christ the Lord, whose authority and love and credibility comes not from superhero antics, but from his compassion, literally from his willingness to suffer with us.

Good Friday, God's Friday, is so utterly crucial because it singularly reveals how far God is willing to go for us. It alone reveals how deep Jesus' love is for us. It on its own illumines the path which Jesus took to walk right next to us, right into our hearts and our lives, so that we would know exactly how perfectly he knows our experience. Good Friday, God's Friday reveals the heart of God. It reveals the radical humility of Jesus who goes to the depths of pain to align himself with the very humanity that betrayed him and mocked him, denied him and flogged him, crucified him and taunted him, watched it all from a distance.

He didn't jump down from the cross when obedience got difficult. He didn't call for angels to carry him away. Because God knows, really God knows, he could have. The Son of God who made the blind to see, who healed the sick, who cast our demons, who called Lazarus out of the tomb, out of death three days later, COULD have saved himself from the cross, but he didn't. He could have left this world and missed the agony of the cross altogether, but for some reason he didn't. "Nails were not enough enough to hold God-and-man nailed and fastened on the Cross, had not love held Him there," Catherine of Siena wrote.

Out of love Jesus didn't save himself. Out of love Jesus didn't abandon us. Out of love Jesus remained faithful to his call, faithful to us even to the point of death on a cross. Jesus didn't abandon us in his time of suffering which means he won't abandon us in ours. This is the promise of the cross. It is the promise that Jesus goes with us into our deepest despair. It is the promise that when we are brought to our knees in all manner of suffering the question is not are we strong enough to bear it? Because that answer is easy - - we aren't. No, the promise of the cross is that in the midst of our suffering we can ask with confidence "Who will bear this with us?"

Jesus. Jesus bears our pain with us. Jesus knows our hurts and sorrows. Jesus humbled himself to be one of us. Jesus limited his own divine power to strengthen us, emptying himself that we might have full lives. And in doing so he and the very cross on which he hung announce God's promise to us, "I know you. I love you. And I will carry you through."

Good Friday is God's Friday. It reveals to us the very heart of God who isn't above and removed from the pains and realities of this life we live, but who has joined with us right in the thick of it. Good Friday is God's Friday, and it begs us join every knee that bends and every tongue that confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord.

To the glory of God. Amen.