More Than a Feeling

  

1 John 5:1-6
John 15:9-17

Mildred and Richard were in love. They had known each other since childhood, but as they grew up they fell in love. In 1958, when Mildred was 18, the left their small, nurturing hometown in Caroline County, Virginia to be married in Washington, DC. Having returned home, five weeks later, in the middle of the night, the newlyweds were abruptly awoken, handcuffed, and taken in jail. Their crime? Being in love.

Richard and Mildred Loving (really, that was their last name) were in love with each other in a time when their love was prohibited because Richard was white and Mildred was black. They lived in Virginia under the Racial Integrity Act of 1924 which not only prohibited interracial marriage in Virginia, but it prohibited Virginia interracial couples from circumventing the law by legally marrying elsewhere and returning to Virginia to live. They were charged, pled guilty, and sentenced to a year in prison that was suspended for 25 years on the condition that they leave the state. The Lovings left Virginia again and moved to the District of Columbia.

In 1964, frustrated by the fact that they couldn’t visit their family in Virginia they were referred to the ACLU for legal help by then Attorney General Robert Kennedy. Three long years later, after their case made its way to the United States Supreme Court, the Lovings won the right to be in love and be married. Their sentence was overruled and the Virginia law was struck down as a violation of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Richard, Mildred, and their three children returned home to Virginia.

Love can’t really be legislated. Can it? We can’t tell people who NOT to love. Can we? And, for me at least, knowing that we can’t tell people who not to love, it’s hard to heard Jesus’ commandment TO love. Commandments about love are counter-intuitive to how I usually think about love.

Love as our culture commonly talks about it is something we possess. Love is a thing we try to get or a feeling we fall into. It’s butterflies in the stomach. It’s an aching, a longing, a desire. It’s a cure for an ailing heart, the key to happiness, an elusive prize waiting to be found, won, or given away.

But here in John’s gospel love seems to be something different - -something that can be commanded. Love seems to be more than a feeling for which we hope, or an impulse that flows from desire. Love is something we MUST do.

Last week we heard in the first letter of John the simple, yet profound statement at the core of the gospel, “God is love.” If we cut to the chase about all of this, about faith, about life, about our call as the church, we get to this message, “God is love.” I even said it was simple. Ha! It’s simple as in singular. It’s simple as in an argument with few points or counter-points, but let’s not be so naïve as to think it’s simple in living

The love we talked about last week was certainly more than a dizzying or warming feeling at the sound of a voice or the sight of a face. It is, in the words of John, abiding love, and abiding love is the love of Jesus. It is intruding, disruptive, difficult to offer, and maybe just as difficult to receive. Abiding is the act of dwelling with another, even a stranger wherever she is found. It is a willingness to go the distance, descend to the depths of pain and suffering, and stay there with him in darkness until the glimmer of light appears on the horizon. Abiding love is the love of hospitality, the love for the stranger that is just as strong as the love for family, friends, for self. It is love that is open to a change of plans, love that that is given without judgment, without convenience, without checking the calendar or plans for the day, or for the life. It’s the love of Jesus’ command.

It isn’t easy, is it? It isn’t easy to open our lives, ourselves to the deepest needs of others. It’s not like the things on our “to do” lists are optional. It’s not that we are TRYING to ignore the people in front of us who are aching for friendship, companionship, a good word, a hot meal. It’s just that there are all these other things we need to do first. It’s just that abiding with someone takes time, it takes an energy of the spirit that we just don’t think we have right now. Maybe once my finances are in order, I can help someone else with theirs. Maybe once I feel calm and refreshed, I can offer refreshment to another. Maybe once I have experienced the abiding love of another, I can abide with a stranger. Maybe once I have felt loved, I’ll know how to love others.

But then there comes this commandment again. “Love one another as I have loved you.” It’s not even “love one another when you feel my love for you.” Jesus doesn’t give us time to get it, to feel it, or to understand it. He doesn’t give us the excuse to wait until we have found love before we share it. He commands us to do right here, right now, because he knows love is more than a feeling. He also knows we may never get up and do it if it’s dependent on our experience or knowledge or feelings of preparedness. So, having loved us from the beginning, Jesus tells us to go out and love others. Actually, he doesn’t just tell us to do it, he tells us what it looks like and even shows us.

Love is what we do. Love is an action. Love is more than a feeling; it’s a sacrifice. Love is laying aside our schedules, our priorities, our preferences. Loving is putting down our comfort and our security to love other people. Love is active. Love is setting aside, but in setting aside it is also taking up, taking up the causes, the burdens, the pains, the injustices of others. Love is what we do with who we are.

The gospels don’t tell us very much about what Jesus was feeling. Here and there we get a few snippets of his emotions – anger, frustration, tears and sorrow occasionally – but for the most part time isn’t spent reporting or speculating about what Jesus felt about what he encountered and experienced. The bulk of the time in the gospels is spent telling us what he said and what he did. The bulk of the time in the gospels is spent showing how Jesus shared the good news with the people he met, how he healed them of their injuries and ailments, how he included the people who were left out, how he fed the people who were hungry, how he gave living water to the people who were thirsty. We don’t know how Jesus felt while he was doing what he was doing, but we know by what he did that he loved.

Today in the United States is the day that has been set aside for honoring mothers. It’s a day of flowers and gifts and brunches and pampering for many, but it can also be a day of longing, confusion, and sorrow for others. Historically speaking, the latter is more appropriate to the founding of the holiday than the former.

Mother’s Day has varied roots throughout the world. Many different cultures and religions have a day set aside to honor and give thanks for those who bring forth life. In earlier Christian understandings Mother’s Day wasn’t even about human mothers, but about the Mother Church. In US religious history this understanding was dismissed by the Puritans who barely even celebrated with obvious joy Christmas and Easter, much less a holiday that celebrated the institution of the Church.

No, our modern US Mother’s Day has its roots in the Mother’s Day Proclamation written by Julia Ward Howe, better known for penning the words to the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” In 1870, deeply saddened by the carnage of the Civil and Franco-Prussian Wars, disturbed that the sons of one family could be responsible for the death of the sons of another family, Howe called on mothers and all women actually to shape their societies, to work for peace on all levels, not just in their homes, but in their nations, and in the world. 

"Arise, then, women of this day! 

Arise, all women who have hearts, Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs." (1870 Mother's Day Proclamation)

Howe’s call to women was a call to love. All the “feelings” in the world won’t do anything unless they are applied. All the compassion, all the heartache for the loss of life that we hear about, all the sadness over what we see on the streets of the city, in shacks of forgotten villages, in the slums of the world, all the concern we can muster when we hear about the young who are abused, the elderly neglected, men, women, and children who hunger for a bite to eat - - all of it won’t do a THING if we don’t love with our actions.

Jesus hasn't just commanded us to love each other, he has shown us how to love each other, and he has given us what we need in order to do it, and he promised us joy and victory over despair when we love with actions like his.

The good news in Jesus is that he did not sit by the wayside and watch a world in pain waiting for the perfect status, the perfect checkbook, the perfect platform from which to love. He loved from where he was. He loved the people he was with. He loved with everything he was and everything he did. And now he has sent us to love in the same way – by acting on it, by healing and helping and wiping away tears, by calling injustices unjust, by working for peace not discord, by forgiving and welcoming and listening, by judging a whole lot less and serving a whole lot more. And, thankfully, he has promised to be with us, the source and shape and strength of love in the world.

Cut to the Chase

Psalm 133

1 John 4:7-21

Do you remember when billboards like these began to pop up?  Pithy little notes, apparently written by God.  

 

Life is short.  Eternity isn’t.  (One of the newer ones.)

Well, you did ask for a sign.

I miss how you used to talk to me when you were a kid.

What part o “Thou shalt…” didn’t you understand?

Keep using my name in vain, I’ll make rush hour longer.

Have you read my #1 bestseller?  (There will be a test.)

We need to talk.

I understand that the billboards began in south Florida in 1998 when an anonymous donor decided to create andad campaign, not for a business, not for a particular church, not for anything else, but to try to create a spiritual climate and get people thinking about a daily relationship with a loving and relevant God. (www.godspeaks.com)

My favorite is this next one from the original campaign in 1998 - - 

“That ‘Love thy neighbor’ thing… I meant that.”

It just cuts to the chase, doesn’t it? It gets right on down to the heart of the gospel, the core of Jesus’ preaching, teaching, healing, disturbing, dying, rising, and living. “Beloved, let us love one another.”


Sometimes short and simple is best. (I know, a dangerous statement to make from the pulpit…while preaching…what is usually a less than short message…but certainly not the longest in town!)

Sometimes short and simple is what is needed to get the message across in a way that jars someone just enough to hear it in a new way, but not so much that they are thrown completely off course.

Sometimes short and simple is what it takes to guide a mission, set a vision, and move a community forward.  “Beloved, let us love one another…. God is love….”

This is what it is all about.
This is what our faith is all about.

This is what our church is all about. 

This is what our life is all about. 

This is what our God is all about.

LOVE!  It’s short.  It’s simple.  It’s love.

Yet over and over and over again we make our faith and our life together about so much more.  We make it so much more complex.  We add layers upon layers of rules and expectations and understandings and policies, oh the policies. 

Our fear of the unknown,

our fear of losing control,

our fear of where love might take us,

our fear of what we might be asked to do,

our fear of what we might have to give up takes over

and then before we know it,

without even noticing we have completely clouded what it’s all about,

what following Jesus is supposed to be all about. 

It’s not about fear. 

It’s not about judgment. 

It’s not about setting up rules. 

It’s not about deciding who is in and who is out. 

It’s not about protecting the carpet. 

It’s not about perfecting the music. 

It’s not about coming up the most elaborate craft. 

It’s not about the tastiest snack (no matter how much we love those tasty snacks). 

It’s supposed to be about love,

·         love that looks like a father sending his only son to show the world what life is really about,

·         love that looks like the one who is divine coming to abide with us, dwell with us, live with us,

·         love that looks likes self-giving and self-sacrifice

·         love that looks like the holy one entering the experience of the profane,

·         love that looks like boundaries of gender, ethnicity, religious party, political leanings, class, all being broken down,

·         love that looks like touching the untouchable, speaking to the forgotten, feeding the hungry, praying for the hurtful.

It’s about love because God is Love, and Love chose to live among us. 

Love chose to walk in our experience,

to live in our skin,

to see with our eyes,

to face our temptations,

to hunger our hunger,

to cry our tears,

to laugh with our joy. 

Love chose to dwell with and love chooses to dwell in us, showing us how we can love each other. 

Everything we do as people of God, as people of Love, then should be about doing this same thing.  Everything we do should be about living with our brothers and sisters, those people who have been born into the same human family as we have been born even if they live in this family in very different ways. 

Everything we do as people of Love should be about dwelling in each others’ experiences –

seeing through another’s eyes,

facing another’s temptations,

hungering another’s hungers,

rejoicing in another’s laughter. 

Everything we do as people of Love should be about breaking down boundaries and giving ourselves in love to our brothers and sisters around us, to the world around us.

In just a little bit we are going to ordain and install new officers in our church, ruling elders and deacons who have been called by God through the voice of this congregation to lead us through their service.  On behalf of the whole church I’m going to ask them to affirm a whole lot of different things in ten different questions about their faith, their understanding of their call to leadership, and how they will be guided as they guide this church.  And as much as a I love our tradition and understand, at least a little bit, why we ask all those questions, on a day like today, in light of a Scripture like this one, I wish we could ask just one simple question - - “Do you accept the call to lead with God’s love in this church and the world?”  That’s what it’s all about – for the officers of the church, for the members, for the friends, for the people of God and God’s love everywhere.  When we cut to the chase, it’s all about showing love.

In Joy and Disbelief

Luke 24:36-48

During my second year of seminary I was selected to participate in the Middle East Travel Seminar, a three week study tour of biblical and archaeological sites in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Israel, the occupied territories of Palestine and Greece. The application and interview process was rigorous as sixty seminary students from five schools were chosen for this almost fully funded trip of a lifetime. One thing that was reiterated over and over again throughout the process, in the way that only happens when someone has previously complained about their own experience, this was NOT going to be a spiritual pilgrimage.

All around the land we call the “Holy Land,” for thousands of years, people have been making pilgrimages. There are churches and chapels and monuments scattered everywhere, some of them 15- and 16-hundred years old, marking THE mountain Moses climbed in order to receive the tablets of the ten commandments from God, THE mountain on the east side of the Jordan where Moses died, the underground cave-like stable where Jesus was born, even THE very rock that served as a table for the fish breakfast that Jesus shared with his disciples in another resurrection account from the gospels. There are plenty of places to which someone could make a pilgrimage, but it didn’t take long to figure out why our trip organizers warned us that is not what we would be doing.

My leader, Dr. Jerry Mattingly, was kind of a character. As a local, state-required tour guide would be making her speech about the holy site we were seeing, Jerry would hold up fingers in the back row. Five, ten, fifteen. We thought at first he was grading her tour guide skills, but eventually we discovered he was correcting her assertions.

“This is the site where Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law.” Or according to Jerry, somewhere within 10 miles.

“This is the site where Jesus’ body was buried” Or according to Jerry, somewhere within 500 yards.

“This is the site where Jesus was baptized.” Or according to Jerry, 15 miles up or down the river. Give or take.

This is why they warned us. Instead of developing in us a sense of awe at the innate holiness of each site we saw, Jerry put questions into our minds about the accuracy of the claims of the churches which were built on top of the holy ground on which Mary delivered Jesus. He let doubts creep into our minds about the HUGE STORMS that supposedly threatened the lives of the fishermen on the mere lake the Scriptures call the Sea of Galilee. Obviously, this could not have been a spiritual pilgrimage, because doubts are not very spiritual right?

The story we heard this morning took place on Easter evening or maybe the day after. In Luke’s gospel the resurrection is discovered by the women, then confirmed by Peter when their account is thought to be an “idle tale.” But two disciples, Cleopas and his companion didn't stick around for Peter’s confirmation. After the women discovered Jesus’ missing body and heard the witness of angels at the tomb, these two hit the road out of town. They aren't present when Peter shares his apparently NOT-so-idle tale, but instead they get an up-close-and-personal encounter with Jesus as they are walking to Emmaus, a town seven miles from Jerusalem. After eating dinner with Jesus they turn around and head back to Jerusalem, even in the middle of the night, to tell the rest of the disciples what has happened.

When they arrived, they told their story. Presumably they also heard about Peter’s trip to the empty tomb and then right in the middle of all this story-telling and confusion, Jesus finally appears! Not stolen, not lost, not buried, but resurrected. Whatever THAT means. Right in the middle of them.

They've all been talking about resurrection for a while, but obviously this is their first experience with it. The Pharisees and Sadducees, the dominant religious “parties” of the day, fought about it all the time – would there be a resurrection or not? Would it be bodily or just spiritually? Is it going to be when the Messiah comes or at the end of time? Who will be included? People were used to talking about when, how, and who will be resurrected, but really, when it came down to it, nobody REALLY knew what it would look like, what it would be like when someone actually WAS resurrected. So here was Jesus, right in the middle of them, and as if he could hear their questions running a mile a minute through their heads - - “Is he real? Is he a ghost? Can we touch him? Can we see through him? Does he sleep? Can he fly?” - -

He interrupts them, offering them his hands and feet as proof that he is real. He invites them to touch him and feel his skin and bones so they can know that he isn’t a ghost. And then while they are still caught between both rejoicing and wondering, he asks them what seems like a really ridiculous question, “Does anyone have anything to eat?”

It answers some questions (Yes, he has a body and it needs nourishment. No, he isn’t a ghost. Yes we can touch him. No, I sure HOPE we can’t see through him to see what eating looks like on the inside.). And joy, what joy it brings! But at the exact same time this simple act of eating also leads to so many more questions, doubts, even disbelief. (The dead don’t walk around. Bodies don’t just stand up after dying. What is the end if being killed and sealed in tomb isn’t the end? What in the world does any of this have to do with what God is doing?) So yes, his presence brings joy in their midst, but just like Luke said, it brings confusion, doubts, and even disbelief.

But this can’t be right, can it? Because everyone knows that doubts are not very spiritual, right?

Doubts have a bad name in the version of Christianity that seems dominant in our culture. Doubts are dismissed by some of our traditions as unfaithful, disrespectful, disingenuous. People who ask questions about how things happened in Scripture, people who are willing to say Scripture tells us less about “how” the world was made and more about “why” the world was made, people who wonder about the need to believe every detail written down between the covers of the Bible are literally and factually true are put down by many of the Christians who are holding the microphones on television and the radio, who are typing what is in print and on the internet. Thinking for ourselves is encouraged in pockets of faith, but the loudest voices, the ones way too many of our non-Christian neighbors can hear are the ones who say this is a take or leave it faith. You’re all in or you’re not in at all. Doubts are not very spiritual.

But guess what - - That’s not the viewpoint Jesus holds in this story. I love, love, LOVE the way this resurrection appearance takes place. I love, love, LOVE the way joy and disbelief are held right next to each other. I love, love, LOVE the way the disciples who were closest to Jesus still can’t quite figure out what’s going on. And I love, love, LOVE that Jesus doesn’t abandon them because of it.

Jesus doesn’t turn right around and walk out the door when the disciples can’t wrap their minds and hearts around what has taken place. He doesn’t give up on them and go find the Roman soldier who was able to declare with full faith and conviction in Luke’s gospel “He was innocent” and in Mark’s gospel, “Truly this man was God’s son!” He doesn’t stop them in their tracks and demand that they choose sides, that they sign on the dotted line, that they affirm a set of specific beliefs and understandings about every little thing that happened. Jesus doesn’t do it!

Jesus goes to great lengths – even COMICAL lengths – to show them his body is real because it’s so unbelievable, but even when they still don’t believe he doesn’t stop believing in them. Jesus doesn’t give up on his disciples. He doesn’t chastise them. He doesn’t get angry with them. He sits down, he eats with them, and he teaches them, in the middle of their joy and their disbelief. In the middle of their excitement and their wondering. In the middle of their celebration and their confusion.

We forget sometimes, that THIS is what the church is about. We forget sometimes that the questions are as welcome as answers. We forget that there isn't any one tradition or denomination or theological leaning that has it all right all the time. We see church marketing plans that ask us "Have you found Jesus?" because they claim they have a hold of him. Well, I'd love to start a different kind of campaign, one that puts signs out in front of churches saying "Got questions? We do, too." I'd love to start a different kind of campaign in which we don't have to pretend we know it all, that we understand it all, that we believe every last thing, but a campaign that is bold enough to say we gather with joy and disbelief, with reverence and wonder, with excitement and questions to see Jesus, eat with him, hear the Scriptures and how they tell of God's working in the world, and to be his witnesses in the world. That's a campaign I can get behind.

They told us before we went on the Middle East Travel Seminar that we weren't going on a spiritual pilgrimage, or more accurately, that they weren't leading a spiritual pilgrimage. They must have assumed like so many others that we might think questioning the tradition wasn't very spiritual. For me it was the exact opposite. For me the questions led me to think about what I was learning, what I was hearing, what I had heard for years and years in the church. For me the questions forced me to decide whether it mattered if I knew exactly where Jesus' feet had touched the ground, exactly where Moses encountered God, exactly where words of blessing and beatitude were spoken. For me the questions, the doubts invited me to enter into a relationship with God that wasn't based on geography and historical fact, but was based on the witness of people of faith who have gone before me, the witness of people of faith who struggled just as much as I do with what it means to follow this resurrected Jesus.

Here’s the thing - - Jesus isn’t scared of our questions. Jesus isn’t scared of our doubts, our disbelief, our confusion, and our wondering. He doesn’t get mad at them, he doesn’t look down on us for them, he doesn’t tell us they have to be wiped away before we are loved. And he definitely doesn’t tell us we have to have them all worked out before we can work in his name. The same disciples who stood there in disbelief are the same disciples who are equipped and sent as witnesses. The same disciples who are tentative about jumping into the pool of faith with both feet are the same disciples who are called to the ends of the earth to tell the story.

And thankfully they didn't wait until they totally get it all, until all their questions are answered and they know and believe and trust in exactly what's going on. They jumped in with their questions and doubts and disbelief, too, and apparently that's OK with Jesus. He came to where they were and commissioned them to serve with all their joy AND their disbelief. And he comes and commissions us to witness in the same way.

The Anatomy of a Joke

Ecclesiastes 3:1-4

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

Blue Collar Comedy Tour comedian Bill Engvall tells stories about going to church as a family when he was a child. He and his siblings were less than attentive to the preacher, he admits, sometimes, just sometimes, causing a bit of a ruckus in the pews. When things would start to get out of hand, he remembers how his dad used to stretch his arms out over the back of the pew, turning to smile knowingly at the kids, and looking like he was just hugging and loving on the whole family. But Bill says he knew that wasn't what the stretch was for because just as his dad would work with stealth to lay a little "plunk" on the side of his head, he would also lean in to whisper, "God don't think stuff's funny!"

That's the unfortunate reputation that God has, isn't it? At the very least it's the reputation God's followers often have. I can remember in seminary the LENGTHS my classmates and I would go to in order to avoid telling strangers what school we attended and what we studies. Upon meeting someone at a coffee shop, or (gasp) a local beverage establishment, the grocery store, or EVEN a CHURCH the conversation would go something like this - - -

"So, do you work?"   "Well, not fulltime right now." 

"Oh. Well, what do you do?"  "I...uh... work with youth."

"So, you're a teacher?"  "No."

"You're a tutor?"  "No."

"You're a nanny?"  "No."

"Well, what do you do?"  "I work for an organization that tries to instill values in young people."

"OK.... So what do you do when you're not working."  "I read."

"For school."  "Yep."

"What school do you go to?"  "One over in Decatur."

"Is that one of the universities?"  "Nope."

"Well, what do you study?"  "Religion."

"What do you want to do when you graduate?"  "Find a job."

"Doing what?"  "Well, teaching, and helping people, and ...."

Talking to us was like PULLING TEETH, because we figured out pretty quickly that the conversation would be even shorter than that annoying exchange if we told a stranger what we studied and what we felt called to do after graduation. Sitting next to a future pastor at a beverage drinking establishment (or even CHURCH) was apparently a buzzkill, because as we all know, "God don't think stuff's funny" and so follows, neither do God's people. Or at least that's the unfortunate reputation.

I talked to a friend of mine this week, Dorie Griggs, who last year did her part to try to change this reputation. Dorie was a seminary classmate of mine, and she still lives in the Atlanta area where she is a member of a Presbyterian congregation, not serving as an ordained pastor. A year ago in March Dorie graduated from the Jeff Justice Comedy Class at The Punchline Comedy Club in Atlanta. She's the most qualified person I could think of, having studied both theology and comedy, to help me confirm my hunch. Books upon books, as we can see and imagine, have been written about how to write a good joke, so there must be something that can be taught, something that is common to many, if not all, jokes. I asked Dorie about the structure of a good joke. She said it all boils down to the idea that "1+1 doesn't equal 2. Leading people down a road with a story and reversing expectations is the core of joke writing."

Reversing expectations. That's what it's all about. That's where the joy is, the laughter. Telling the story of the duel between the priest and the rabbi, thinking it's all about biblical interpretation, only to have the train of thought reversed, one of them thinking something completely different, something utterly human and earthly not lofty and divine. Sarah believing she is well beyond her child-bearing years only to find out she carries laughter in her womb. Hearing the old favorite worship songs and hymns with just one key piece pointedly reversed. It's funny, and it points out something maybe painfully true. "How Great I Am" Ouch. We resemble that remark sometimes don't we? But hearing it that way, with the humor of the reversal, it makes its point while bringing us laughter and joy at the same time. Laughter at our own foolishness.

...Which brings us right to the gospel of Jesus. The good news of Jesus our Christ. The joy of the resurrection. The laughter at the greatest reversal of all times. It seems completely ridiculous this story we have heard and told. It makes absolutely no sense at all. We've been led down one road in this story of a Savior, one who will change the world, one who will show the religious establishment just where they are going road. We've been led down this road that shows him going up against every possible enemy and we start to see that it's not going to end well, that he's upsetting as many powerful people as he's healing ones who are powerless. 1+1 even equals 2 as it all comes to it's logical conclusion, and he's put to death for stirring up trouble, killed for preaching that there is another way.

The story of God on a cross...it's absolute foolishness. While it's exactly where the gospels are leading, it flies in the face of what every good person of faith knows about his or her god. It's not what any of us want to think will happen to the one in whom we are putting all our trust, our God, our Creator, our Redeemer, our Sustainer, our God, powerful, compassionate, healer, teacher, peacemaker, forgiving, all-loving, all-welcoming, all-accepting. He's put to death on a cross; it's ridiculous Paul tells the Corinthians knowing how hard it is for them to hold onto this embarrassing faith in front of others.

And then the reversal. The joy-bringing, laughter-birthing reversal. The tomb is empty. He is not there. All that's left behind is a pile of rags like the cloths left behind in a delivery room, and Jesus has been birthed out of the tomb and into new life again. He has risen, and in the greatest reversal of all time, the greatest joke, the joke pulled over on death itself is told by our God who apparently DOES think stuff is funny, who apparently DOES think life is worth living, who apparently DOES think that our messed up human condition is worth saving, worth redeeming, worth rejoining enough to come back and join it one more time, shattering all expectations, living beyond all hope, laughing through all the tears.

He's not here. He is risen. It's the greatest punchline, the reversal, the "1+1 does NOT equal 2." It's the the resurrection. He predicted it, but we still never expected it. It's the source of our joy, the reason we can laugh again, the greatest joke ever told and somehow we have found a way to dull it down, wrap it up in so much thinking and theologizing and rule-making and judging, that everyone who sees us thinks we believe in the MOST. BORING. GOD. EVER.

Well, hopefully not after today. Sure the whole world isn't watching what's happening in this sanctuary right now, and I'm not so bold as to say in this hour we have fixed ages upon ages of joyless faith, but hopefully after today we all have a little more courage to laugh at ourselves, a little more interest in sharing joy with one another, a little more impulse to enjoy and rejoice in the new life we have because God played the biggest joke on us all. He isn't here. He is risen! Rejoice and be glad!

Everything Is Different

Isaiah 25:6-9

Mark 16:1-8

Coming home in the evening a week or so ago, for just a second, just a split second, I could smell them. An overnight rain had pulled a few more new leaves out of their buds, and while I hadn’t seen any of the flowers yet, I knew, I just KNEW that in that split second, I smelled the lilacs in our backyard. I turned my head and tried to catch them again, but they was gone. I couldn’t find the scent, but it had been there. I swear. And when it was there, I knew. Spring was really here. In a quick sniff of the still night air, everything was different.

I was filled with joy. Filled with it! Sure the calendar and the equinox had signaled the start of spring a few days earlier. The amazingly good weather we have been having brought out the spring bucket of clothes from storage. Even the cat’s increased shedding, because of the increase in daylight I’ve been told, let me know that the season was changing. But none of those signs really meant anything, none of them really signaled to me that spring was really coming the way smelling the lilacs did. In that one moment with the hint of the scent, everything was different, and I was elated.

However, that exact same realization - - that something has drastically and dramatically changed - - doesn’t always bring such a jubilant response. For some people and in some situations it can be downright terrifying.

As soon as they could get there after properly observing the Sabbath, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome rushed to the tomb with spices. He had died on Friday afternoon, just a few hours before the Sabbath began in the evening and strict, STRICT Jewish laws about the burial of the dead before Sabbath and coming into contact with a dead body had prevented them from anointing his body earlier. So as soon as they could, as early in the morning as they could stand to get up, they went quickly to the tomb, wondering aloud to one another how they were even going to get the stone rolled away.

Before they could answer their own questions, though, when they arrived at the tomb, they looked up and saw that it had already been rolled away. I think the fear probably started to settle in at that moment. Who had beat them to the tomb? At the very least it was someone much stronger than they. Was it friend or foe? Was it disciple or dissenter? What it a thief? A soldier? A temple official? A curious gawker? Still committed to their task at hand they entered the tomb and saw a young man, sitting inside. “He has been raised; he is not here. He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.”

In an instant, they knew. Everything is different. Nothing in the world will ever be the same, and while it is easy to dismiss their response of fear and look for a different, more complete, more joyful ending, I think their fear is a perfectly acceptable reaction to the news that someone who was dead, lifeless, sealed in a solid rock tomb, now is NOT. It means, among other things that, all the rules have changed. The dead did not stay dead. And that is downright terrifying!

And then, as suddenly as this strange news came, our account this morning ended. The women fled from the tomb. Terror and amazement had seized them. They couldn’t even tell the disciples closest to Jesus, closest to themselves. They couldn’t tell anyone, for they were afraid. End scene. End gospel of Mark!

Except if you were reading along or if you want to flip to the page your Bible quickly even now, you will see it may or may not be the end of the gospel of Mark. There are a few more verses there that follow verse 8, a shorter ending and a longer ending, each with a slightly different, more detailed account of what really happened after the resurrection of Jesus. However, most scholars and people of faith don’t think that these words are original to Mark’s gospel. They don’t appear in the most accurate early versions of Mark’s gospel that have been found, and so most people don’t count them as authentic words of Mark’s gospel.

And so we have it - - Mark’s gospel ends with the women in fear and silence, and for centuries upon centuries, millennia even, that has been SO HARD for us to accept, so hard for us to live with. It didn’t take too long for the earliest scribes and editors to try their hand at gospel writing as they copied Mark’s original account. As some received copies and rewrote them by hand they added words to the end to try to wrap it up into a neater bow, to get the women out of their fear and the good news shared with others. They passed those on to others who kept copying the same words, and soon there were at least three versions of the gospel floating around the ancient church, all to try to prove that the faithful didn’t end in fear.

The attempt to do so is, to me at least, a little ironic and unnecessary. Isn’t there proof enough that the story didn’t end with silence? I mean, isn’t all of THIS, all of us, all of the churches around the world this morning full of rejoicing and singing and alleluias, proof enough that the women didn’t sit on their fearful story forever? Isn’t our own faith, our own impulse to gather on the eighth day, the day of the new creation, of new beginnings, of transformation, of resurrection, isn’t our own need to be here in this place with all these people proof enough that their reaction eventually changed? We know it did because EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT!

We know they got the courage to speak, to proclaim the good news – He is risen – because we are here proclaiming it today! Some day, at some point, Mary Magdalene, Mary, and Salome figured out that they couldn’t stay quiet, that they needn’t be fearful, that everything is indeed different and the world needs to know it! Some day at some point they broke their silence and became the first proclaimers of the best news ever - - “By the grace and loving power of God for all of creation, Jesus is alive and everything is different!”

The thing about some of these moments of realization when we just suddenly KNOW that everything is different, is that the full understanding of what that means isn’t always immediately obvious. Not to everyone everywhere, all at the same time. In our backyard that night a week or so ago, the smell of the lilac was fleeting. Almost as quickly as I noticed it, it was carried away on the night breeze. I caught it again for a moment just as brief on Thursday night, but it’s been gone ever since. Even when I pushed my face deep into the bushes trying to find it again, I couldn’t. I know it is there. I know I have witnessed it, but it’s just hard to find it again.

It can be that way with our experience of the resurrection. It can be hard to see, hard to believe sometimes, hard to remember it is something we know, something we have felt, something we have trusted when stories of death seem more prominent then stories of new life. Violence tearing apart the people and nation of Syria. Persistent threats and stories of modern day slavery in Sudan. Unbelievable accounts of dangerous bounties in professional sports, SPORTS, ENTERTAINMENT. Shootings in schools. Senseless murders based on the color of someone’s skin, even in this day and age. Cancer that strikes, young and old, with or without cause, in higher and higher numbers it seems every year. It just doesn’t always sound like a resurrection world, where everything is different.

But the resurrection is here. We find it in the out-pouring of love and compassion for an anonymous young life at the funeral yesterday in Winona of an unknown baby who was found in the river last year. We find it the way communities and churches and neighbors have rallied around the victims of tornadoes in Texas and Indiana this year. We find it in the relentless passion of peacemaking teams who continually go into dangerous nations and situations to bring the good news of a different way, to free those who are held in physical captivity, to release those who are bound to cycles of violence.

The resurrection is here when each one of us takes up the task of loving more than hating, forgiving more than holding a grudge, giving more than asking, accepting more than judging. The resurrection is here when we proclaim with our words and live with our lives the good news that love wins. The gospel of Mark seems to end in the middle of the story. It seems incomplete, and that’s because it is. Way back in the first verse of the first chapter of Mark’s gospel we are told that this account is “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” The next 16 chapters are just the beginning. The middle of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is still being written today by our faith in the resurrection displayed through our lives, our choices, our love, because now everything is different.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

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!

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.

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.

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.

Living the Resurrection

photo © 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.