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.

Thy Kingdom Come

Psalm 25:1-10
Luke 11:1-4

I find it interesting where Luke places the Lord's Prayer. This form of prayer that we have come to know and love and memorize and repeat weekly when we gather for worship (or at least a sort of a version of it) appears only in the gospels according to Matthew and Luke, and on top of that they are slightly different in each gospel. I debated which to include as today's reading for a while, because they each have unique aspects to bring to the conversation about prayer. In the end I chose Luke's version for a couple of reasons, its context being one of them.

The chapter and verse numbers that have been imposed on the text after Luke's writing make this less obvious to us now, but the Lord's Prayer is taught in this gospel immediately following the famous story of Mary and Martha. Mary and Martha are sisters who are receiving Jesus in their home. Culture, good manners, and a love for Jesus dictate that they show him hospitality when he is a guest. Martha, who was the one who actually invited Jesus in, gets herself busy quickly making preparations, we assume she's bustling around in the kitchen, fetching water to make Jesus comfortable, or other things like that. Mary isn't bothered by all these usual tasks and instead sits undistracted at the feet of Jesus listening to what he is saying. Famously, Jesus compliments Mary for her choice saying, "Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her."

From there Luke launches into the story of his disciples asking him to teach them to pray. I don't think this is by accident, and for that reason I think the two stories teach us together. Mary is complimented for her decision to just be with Jesus. She is complimented for her lack of distraction by many other things. She is complimented, I think, for nurturing her relationship with Jesus and not letting her busy-ness get in the way. When the disciples recognize for what she has been complimented, they want to know how to do it, too. The closest thing they know to ask for is a way to pray.

Prayer is not a big divine help button, although, I know I often treat it that way. Prayer is not a divine "Phone-a-friend" where we look for a quick answer to a tough a question then move right along to the next. Prayer is not a place to list out our pleases, thank you, I'm sorrys, and what abouts like a big long grocery list, on tumbling after another with no space to breathe or listen. And most of all, prayer is not a one way street.

In our adult education last week, those who gathered heard Marcus Borg talking about spiritual practices in general and prayer more specifically at times. Borg related his own recollection that seemed to resonate with a number of us. He talked about how as a child prayer was a "supposed to," something you just did because you had to, almost a requirement even. He said he prayed without a thought to the purpose of prayer. As a child, for him, and I imagine for many of us, prayer was primarily about asking for things. I'd add that it wasn't even always the self-centered things of childhood - a new toy, a puppy, and less annoying sibling - but even prayers asking for good health for others, help with a difficult situation at school, a friend.

As he grew, though, Borg told us that prayer has become something different. Jesus lifted up Mary's example of focus, attention, and presence. Jesus praised her for her lack of distraction and her gift of time to their relationship. Like any human relationship a relationship with God can only develop by paying attention to it. A relationship with God can only strengthen when it is given focus and attention and presence. A relationship with God can only grow deeper by spending time in it.

This is what prayer is all about, spending time in relationship with God. Too often we worry about whether the words we have said were just right. Too often we stress about whether we started correctly, got it all in the right order, or asked for the right things. Especially when we are praying out loud before others or on their behalf we want to make sure we say everything in just the perfect way, but in reality our prayers are not our words to each other, our prayers are our time spent in relationship with God.

Prayer is the practice of opening our lives and our hearts and our minds before God. Prayer is the practice of being present with God. Prayer is the practice of so aligning our spirit's with the Spirit of God, so aligning our lives with the life of Christ, so aligning our creativity with the Creator of all, that nothing else can happen, but the kingdom of God of on earth. Prayer is the words we utter aloud or in silence, the words written or sung, the words moaned or even the words unformed, but prayer goes beyond any words we can imagine and even those we can't, because prayer is the act of Mary, sitting and listening and being present with Jesus. Prayer is the act of the psalmist, trusting in God, waiting with God, walking with God, being led in what is right, what is love, what is faithfulness.

Prayer is the act of making time for God and time with God so that our relationship with God is cultivated and" nurtured and strengthened. And when that happens, oh, then we see what our prayer can do. The whole of the Lord's Prayer, the words we find in Luke, an expanded version in Matthew, and the even longer version we pray most weeks in worship, can, I believe be summarized in the very first petition - - "Thy kingdom come."

"Your kingdom come," God's kingdom, we invite, not our own. God's kingdom we ask for, not the kingdoms of this world. God's kingdom, God's purposes, God's will, God's grace, God's forgiveness, God's provision, God's guidance, we ask for, not the wisdom of this world that is foolishness. "Your kingdom come" should be the center of all our prayers spoken and unspoken, and at the same time it is also the answer to each of these prayers. When we make request the center of our lives before God, the focus of our relationship with God, we find this request is granted IN the lives we live.

When we are open to God, when our relationship with God grows deeper and wider as we pay attention to it we find ourselves agents of God's kingdom, offering daily bread to those who lack it, asking for grace and forgiveness in our relationships where we need it, offering it when it is ours share. We find ourselves impelled to speak the truth in love, work for justice in unrighteous situations, and side with the outcast, the lonely, and the forgotten. When we dwell in the presence of God, when attention is paid to the most important relationship in our lives, we find God's presence and opportunities to exhibit God's kingdom of love and grace and mercy in our work, in our homes, in our families, and our community. We find that God's kingdom does indeed come in us.

This is what prayer is all about. It's not the words we heap on words. It's not the verses we have memorized. It's not anything more or anything less then opening our lives, our hearts, and our spirits to God's presence, so that God's kingdom, God's realm, God's will and God's purpose can be accomplished for us, and in us, and through us. This simple phrase, "your kingdom come," is the most powerful, most subversive, and most life altering prayer we will ever utter or embody. Your kingdom, we pray, not mine, not my family's, not my pastor's, not my government's, not my political party's, not my friend's, not my employer's kingdoms and will and purpose be accomplished, but God's kingdom is what we pray will come and reign and have authority in the world. When we open ourselves to God's kingdom, God's presence, then we have truly prayed. When we open ourselves to God's kingdom, God's presence, then God's prayers are answered through us. Then God's kingdom comes.

The practice of prayer is about so much more than the words we put together beside or in our bed at night. The practice of prayer is about so much more than the routine verse we recite around the dinner table alone or with others. The practice of prayer is about so much more than the words that we offer in unison when we gather to worship God each week. It's even more than the words Jesus us taught us to guide our prayers together. The practice of prayer includes all these things and more, but it is not held in only these things. The practice of prayer is, above all, the practice of being present with God, attentive to God, and open to God's movement and leading in our lives, so that ultimately God's kingdom will come - for us, in us, and through us.

Whether we pray by singing, by writing, by speaking, by chanting, by drawing, by dancing, by meditating, by building, by sculpting, by painting, by driving, by gardening, by laughing, by crying and especially when we pray by listening, may our relationship with God grow deeper this day and always.

Catch the Vision

Luke 6:17-26
When I was in college I participated in a mission program of the Presbyterian Church called a Global Internship. The program existed to send 19-30 year olds around the world to our church mission partners in many different countries. Interns worked in a variety of settings - - from geriatric hospitals in Cairo, Egypt, to Waldensian cooperative farms in Italy, to ministries with street children in Zimbabwe. When I was accepted into the program I was assigned to work with youth in the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, in West Africa.

There was just one problem. The intense cultural focus on hospitality in Ghana prohibited me, a guest, from working. So much for an internship or mission trip, I thought in my first few days in the country. I didn’t understand what the problem was. I didn’t know why they couldn’t use me or didn’t want me. I was there to work. I was there to help, and they just kept bringing me to meeting after meeting with church leaders and members, village and tribal chiefs. I heard a lot of stories and told a lot of stories, but didn’t feel very useful as a “Global Intern.”

My internship, for the most part, consisted of traveling around from church to church, presbytery to presbytery, outreach ministry to outreach ministry watching and listening and learning about what Christians were doing in their community. It was frustrating at times because I didn’t get to “do” anything, but I sure did learn a lot.

I had come into the whole experience with a very Western attitude. Even just at twenty years old I was sure I had something that they all needed. I was certain that I could somehow do something to make their lives better, as if I even knew what better would mean for them. What I didn’t understand at all was that in order to do my job, in order for me to work with the ministries of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, I had to learn from them. I had to listen to those stories, talk to those ministers and believers. I had to learn about the culture, the church, the history and the mission of the Body of Christ in that place before I could ever serve people within their present. I had to learn the vision of church by visiting the church in action and hearing her testimonies before I could ever dream of carrying it out myself.

Here in the gospel according to Luke Jesus’ followers are getting a similar sort of internship lesson. Teaching is what the next few chapters of Luke are all about, and it makes perfect sense. Jesus has just chosen his 12 apostles, those men whom he has appointed to represent him throughout the land. Yet, before they can be sent out to work on their own, they must learn the vision and the purpose of their work from the master. Jesus taught much in the same way my teachers in Ghana did. Or I should say, my teachers in Ghana, taught much in the same way as Jesus. By combining his actions with his words, Jesus shows that his vision does not just impact the intangible spiritual life, but gets down and dirty in the nitty gritty, physical life of humanity.

One of the attributes of Jesus that Luke focuses on throughout the whole gospel is his compassion. It is important that we understand that compassion is not the same as pity. Pity is superficial, and actually it can even be condescending. When I feel pity for you I am accepting the fact that I have something that you don’t have, and that you probably won’t get. Or if you do get it, my wealth or my friendship or my time, it’s not because you deserve it, but because I’ll feel guilty if I walk away without giving it. With pity I’m willing to live with the fact that things are unequal, and I feel no call or cause to do anything to change that reality.

What Jesus feels for these crowds and the people he meets throughout his ministry, is not pity, but compassion. Compassion is a much deeper feeling that comes from the belief that all human life is equal and worthy of the same love, the same blessings, and the same privilege. As Jesus looked at the multitude surrounding him, he was filled with compassion for them; for all of them, the rich, as well as the poor. At first glance, it sounds like he’s chastising the rich when he says “woe to you who are rich…”, but really I think he is warning them from a heart of compassion; a heart that sees what they are lacking inside and wants the best for them.

So, Jesus walks among them all and, I imagine that He touches some gently and looks into their eyes as He says, “Blessed are you who are poor…. Blessed are you who are hungry now…. Blessed are you who weep now…. Oh, blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you….” “Blessed are you!” he says to this crowd of people who are used to being called anything but blessed.
Some of the crowd was probably laughing and scoffing as Jesus said these things.
After all, the cultural wisdom of they day said that wealth was a sign of God’s blessing and poverty was a sign of God’s punishment, that health and wholeness to proof of God’s love and grace, while disease and infirmity prove God’s condemnation. Who was this nut who was saying just the opposite of what they believed to be the truth?!

Only the rich would have laughed at that, though; the poor, the outcast, the lonely, those excluded and left on the fringes of society through no fault of their own would have received Jesus words of blessing like water after a walk in the desert. It would have been food for their souls and they would have received it eagerly.

Next, I imagine that Jesus turned to those in the crowd who had been laughing as he blessed the poor. And with the same compassion and love in his eyes, “Woe to you” he says to these. It’s not a condemnation, but an expression of grief. I believe he touched them as he said, “What sorrows await you who are rich, for you have your only happiness now. What sorrows await you who are satisfied and prosperous now, for a time of hunger is before you all. What sorrows await you who laugh carelessly, for your laughing will turn to mourning and sorrow. What sorrows await you who are praised by the crowds, for their ancestors also praised false prophets.”

It’s extremely important to hear that Jesus was not condemning the rich here. It is easy to reduce this whole passage to a set of moral precepts, but the bottom line is so much more to that. These blessings and woes announce a truth about the divine vision Jesus has for the world and for his ministry, rather than a mandate for human morality.

Jesus wasn’t condemning the rich for the fact that they were rich. He grieved over their status, so he was warning them, encouraging them to change before it was too late. And their being rich wasn’t the problem; it was their attitude. It was thinking that they had an “in” with God simply because they were rich. He wanted them to think differently – to think like God.

God’s vision for the world is set out in this passage for the apostles of Jesus’ time and the apostles of our time, for us, to catch a hold of. In the culture of Jesus’ day, it was thought that there was a limited supply of everything: grain, livestock, love, honor, friendship, reputation, power. Everything was distributed as God saw fit and if you didn’t have it that was because God didn’t want you to have it, because you didn’t deserve it. It was thought that God gave more to those who were worthy and less to those who weren’t. Therefore, you could see exactly where God’s favor rested by seeing who had more stuff.

The vision Jesus is passing on to his interns is a reversal of this sort of thinking. He is heralding a new order in which the patterns of wealth, privilege, and well-being are broken open, and even reversed. Jesus wanted the people to realize that there was enough of everything for everybody. God has enough love for everybody, enough grace for everybody, enough compassion for everybody. And if the people who have more grain will share with those who have less, there will be enough. If those who have more power will share with those who have less, everyone will feel valued and have input into decisions made for the community.

Jesus’ vision calls for a radical reversal of the way we usually think about wealth and our systems of privilege. Instead of going to extremes to insure our status, power, and comfort as Jesus’ apostles today, we are called to go to the opposite extremes to insure the equality of all people. Those who are poor can have the riches of a kingdom. Those who are hungry can be filled. Those who weep can be filled with joy and laughter. Those who are hated, excluded, reviled, and defamed can feel the love and acceptance of community.

But, talking about blessings for the poor on the side of a mountain isn’t good enough. Jesus walked among the crowd, teaching with what he did as well as what he said. His healing actions and his words are closely interrelated. Jesus’ work and ministry was about declaring the value of all people not just through words, but especially through actions. His compassion that is to be our compassion is not something just to speak about in sermons or to pray for in prayers. It is something we must participate in with our actions where we live, study, work, and play.

It means looking at who we choose to talk to and who we choose to ignore. Who do we include in our circle of friends and who do we leave on the outside? It involves examining at the places we work to see that all workers are treated fairly and humanely. It means thinking about our fields and courses of study not just with academic minds, but with minds and hearts of faith. How does what I am learning relate to my life of faith? How can I use the knowledge I am gaining to further Jesus’ vision and God’s kingdom in the world? It means structuring our priorities and our energy around activities that empower and benefit others. What can I do with my free time that will help show those who feel insignificant, that they are truly valuable in God’s eyes and to the world?

As those carrying his vision into the world, we must reach out to others with touch. Jesus’ vision for the world is one in which each human life is valued infinitely. It is one in which the unclean are touched, and hugged, and healed, and cure. It is one in which the outsiders are brought in, the reviled are called blessed, the broken are made whole. It is one in which the hungry are filled and those who have stockpiled share with the world, one in which those who weep find joy, and those who are joyful turn to suffer with those who mourn. This is the vision we much catch and live as Jesus’ apostles today.

In the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Mary's Song, Mary's Sermon

Luke 1:39-55

Our kids love playing with the Little People nativity set that my parents gave them during Advent a couple of years ago. Unlike the Little People farm and castle and even the Little People Noah's ark, the figurines and the stable for the nativity set can't be found littering our house year round. They are kept packed away in boxes with other Christmas items, not just the ornaments and decorations, but many of the children's Christmas books and music, pulled out only for a special 6 weeks of the year. When the stable and figures come out there is hardly a day that goes by when the story isn't told and the people aren't moved around into another tableau depicting the birth of Jesus.

But some of those tableaus aren't your traditional arrangements. Sometimes characters from other of the world's favorite stories show up to see the baby in the manger. You shouldn't be surprised to see Cinderella or Spiderman at the Anthony family creche. A few Nebraska football players have even lined up, leading us, one year, to snap this ironic picture of Lord visiting the Lord.

Earlier this month, though, this was the picture I took of the nativity set. The pieces weren't gathered in their usual spot, in the stable topped with the angel. Instead they were fixed around another favorite toy in our house, the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, which gave a stage-like setting to the whole picture. Karoline saw me looking at what was apparently her creation, taking pictures of it, and told me what was going on here.

"That's Mary preaching, Mom," she said. (Only a pastor's daughter, right?) "That's Mary preaching, Mom, and Baby Jesus helping when she's telling them all why Jesus was born." Out of the mouths of babes, right? Mary probably never imagined herself "preaching," but in the beautiful song she sings to her cousin Elizabeth she proclaims the good news of God's salvation as passionately, joyfully, and graciously as any of the world's greatest preachers past, present, or future.

We heard a couple of weeks ago about Joseph, and I shared how I totally understand why he was afraid about the news he received concerning Mary. Afraid, and I imagine and understand, also angry. Well, if Joseph's fear is understandable, even more would we expect fear from Mary. Joseph had his future to worry about; Mary's LIFE was at stake. She could have been left on her own without the protection of a husband or father at best, or at worst stoned to death, because of her pregnancy.

Fear and confusion, and because she was a much stronger woman than I would ever be in that situation, gratitude carry her to the house of Zechariah and Elizabeth. She is pregnant, apparently by the grace and blessing of God, but she is unmarried. She has been allowed to live, but her life most likely came with ridicule and bullying. It's a situation that begs for an escape to the hill country, but even in the middle of all this, somehow Mary can sing, and somehow Mary can preach.

She preaches as one who has been made lowly by her life situation. She preaches from her experience as one who is at the bottom of the social ladder. She preaches as one who is unjustly poor. She preaches as one who hungers for companionship and protection. She preaches as one who needs help, has begged for mercy, and whose life depends on the very promises of God that she recites to the rest of us, the promises she knows God will keep even in her own lifetime.

And for that reason while her preaching is on the one hand passionate and joyful and grace-filled, it is on the other hand utterly subversive, even revolutionary. That's not the image we usually have of Mary, a revolutionary, because often we spiritualize what she sang. We take the wind out of her sails by softening her song. We turn her declaration of her own lowliness into a statement about her spiritual humility, but it is nothing of the sort. It is an honest assessment of her political and social humiliation. We make the meaning of her words match the popular images of her, a delicate porcelain-skinned, blue draped figurine, soft and gentle, passive and subtle.

But there is nothing passive or subtle about what Mary says to Elizabeth. From her experience and her memory she tells us that God has a heart for those who have nothing. God's way is to lift up those who have been cast aside by society and scatter those who think too highly of themselves over other. God feeds those who are empty and sends away those who come greedily seeking more of what they already have while others are lacking. God pulls powerful oppressors out of power, and supports and empowers those who are weak.

Mary declares in full voice that God has biases. God is on the side of the poor. That's why this is so revolutionary. The reigning theory that material wealth is a sign of extra blessing from God, a closer relationship to the divine is not a 21st century curse. It was the usual understanding even in Mary's time. The idea was and too often still is that God rewards with money and protects those whom God loves the most. But Mary sings and preaches the complete opposite. She sings of revolution.

It was the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer who stated, before he was killed by the Nazis, "The song of Mary is the oldest Advent hymn. It is at once the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung. This is not the gentle, tender, dreamy, Mary whom we sometimes see in paintings....This song is not one of the sweet, nostalgic, or even playful tones of some of our Christmas carols. It is instead a hard, strong, inexorable song about collapsing thrones and humbled lords of this world, about the power of God and the powerlessness of humankind." (quoted in the sermon "Mary: Prophet of the Poor" by Rev. Dr. Byron E. Shafer preached Dec. 21, 2003 www.rutgerschurch.com/sermons/sermon122103.html; referencing an article by Elizabeth A. Johnson, C. S. J., "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary" in U. S. Catholic, Dec. 2003)

Mary's words are not tender and mild words from a sedate and compliant expectant mother. These are words of challenge, words of engagement; these are words of revolution intended to bolster those who are pushed down, ignored, and tossed aside. They are words meant to rally sentiment and support, words meant to inspire action to change the world. It's no wonder, then, that in the 1980s the government of Guatemala prohibited the public reading of the subversive Magnificat.

They understood the power of Mary's words. They understood the threat of her ideas and preaching to their position of authority. Her words and God's bias are against them, powerful oppressors. If Jesus is Lord, and that's the Christmas message, then the kings and emperors of this world are not. Merciless and greedy governments and leaders of this and any day and age are not the final authority. According to Mary, God is NOT on their side.

Like Karoline said, Mary preaches to tell us why Jesus came. Mary testifies to what God has done for her in her child Jesus, and she magnifies that, she expands that to tell us that what God has done for her, God will do for the world in her child Jesus. In Jesus God will lift up those who are considered lowly. In Jesus God will bring down the powerful, the oppressors, those who lord their authority over others. In Jesus God will show us that true authority comes not from power that is misused and abused, but from service and love and freedom. In Jesus God will fill up the hungry with food that is long overdue and send away those who have kept it from them. In Jesus God will free the people of this earth that are bound up and gagged and silenced by culture expectations and ungodly prejudices. In Jesus, Mary sings, God has done this for her. In Jesus, Mary sings, God will do this for the world.

What we have done when we have softened Mary's words, toned them down to fit our image of the round yon virgin, is that we have taken away their call to action. We have taken away there sense of urgency that is meant to push us into the service of THIS God, God who lifts up the poor and helpless, God who fills the hungry, God who crashes down authorities who don't do the same. What we have done when we have softened Mary's words is give ourselves an excuse not to get involved, when really what Mary is singing about, what Mary is preaching about and God is calling us to is complete involvement.

The Guatemalan government realized something important. They realized Mary's words had power. They realized the poor of their naition might hear these words and believe what is true, believe what seems impossible - - that God is on their side, God has come to save them. And in realizing this the Guatemalan government realized that the converse must also be true. They were the ones God would bring down from their powerful thrones. When we soften Mary's words, when we spiritualize them and strip them of their revolutionary power, it's my guess that we do it because deep inside we have figured out on what side of this we are find ourselves.

Most of us are not hungry with the kind and depth of hunger about which Mary sings. Most of us are not poor to the extent she was. Most of us are not so oppressed that laws have to be repealed in order for us to live and serve openly and freely before one another. No most of us here today are not on THAT side of Mary's song, and so Mary's sermon becomes particularly important for us.

It becomes for us a wake-up call. It becomes for us a call to action, a call to transformation, even a call to repentance. It becomes a sermon in the style of that better known Advent preacher, John the Baptist. Repent, he says, for the kingdom of God is near. Make straight your paths. The Lord is coming. The Lord is coming and he is on the other side. Jesus is coming and Mary is urging us to get on the right side - - the side of the hungry, the side of the oppressed, the side of those who are pushed aside and ignored and imprisoned.

Later in our service we're going to sing a hymn about "Gentle Mary." I had my reservations about picking that hymn, or any of our hymns about Mary. They stylize her in way that is very different from the words she sang to Elizabeth. Instead of showing her as a fearless advocate of the poor and oppressed, they depict her as a subdued, pious mother, doting on her newborn son. But in the end I think the paradox of these two images is appropriate. For the God who has brought down the powerful from their thrones and filled the hungry with food is the God who was born of a human woman, the God who came to earth as a helpless child. If it can be true about God whom she worships and magnifies, it can also be true about Mary. Out of the same love and passion she bore for her baby, she sang with love and compassion for the helpless of the world. Gentle Mary who lovingly and tenderly cared for her infant son, is also the bold and revolutionary Mary who calls for justice, true justice, and righteousness, for the up-ending of world systems and the lifting up of the poor. This is the Mary who preaches to us, sings to us, and invites us to share in her prayers and actions for the world.

So, yes, I debated about whether we should sing about "Gentle Mary," since I think the word she preaches is anything, but gentle. However, we will sing it because before we sing it, we will sing Mary's not-so-gentle words. We will sing her words of power, her words of revolution, her words of a world that will be changed and turned upside down by the child she carries in her womb. We will sing her sermon and in singing it we will magnify her words, we will magnify her God and our God, and preach along with her what God does in Jesus, our Christ, Jesus our Lord.

Together let's make Mary's song our own. As you are able, please stand and sing Hymn #600, the Song of Mary.

In the Large and Small

Luke 13:10-13
Isaiah 40, selected verses

Twenty-one years ago Robert Fulghum’s collection of essays, All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, was published and pretty much immediately rose to the top of the national best-seller lists. It lived there at #1 for just about all of 1989 and much of 1990. The title essay spoke truth to so many of us, about how the simplest lessons we learn as children are really at the core of the lessons we need to master even as adults.

Well, our vacation this last week left me pondering a similar essay, “All I Really Need to Know about Human Nature I Learned By Watching 3 Year Olds.” We returned from our annual pilgrimage to the Anthony farm late Friday night. It was a great week of tractor riding, combine driving, corn picking, and Bobcat cruising, with gorgeous weather and even better company. Both of the big kids spent hours at Dad or Grandpa’s sides bumping along the rows and taking breaks to eat dusty sandwiches in the shade. A wonderful fall vacation.

The vacation also allowed the kids to play with their only cousin on Phil’s side of the family, Andersen, the son of Phil’s sister Kirsten. Andersen and William are only about 2 months apart in age, and we had a blast watching those 3 year olds finally really interacting with one another. Or at least most of the time we did. In watching these two little guys, both in their interactions with each other, and as they responded to the adults in their lives, I noticed some things they do that taught me a lot about what grown-ups do, too.

For example, if a 3 year old is being beckoned by an adult, like with that curling finger, an international sign for “Get. Here. Now.” and he does not want to be here, he simply closes his eyes or turns his back, or for a more dramatic effect, does both. If he can’t see it, it must not exist, therefore, he doesn’t have to follow it.

Likewise, when a 3 year old is being called by an adult to come do something he does not want to do, say maybe get his hands washed after eating a particularly sloppy Sloppy Joe, he will simply stick his fingers in his ears to block out the sound waves carrying that message to his brain. If he can’t hear it, it must not exist, therefore, he doesn’t have to follow it. To a 3 year old, shutting down the paths of communication is the same as running outside the realm of her parents’ control.
It’s that whole idea that if I can’t see them, then certainly they can’t see me.

Another thing 3 year olds try to do is to hide from the adults who are called to care for them. Sometimes it’s because they don’t want to do what it coming, like go to bed. Sometimes it’s because they have done something they should not have, like taken a jelly bean from Grandma’s jar without asking. Sometimes it’s just because they want to do something ALL. BY. MYSELF.

You see these 3 year olds, full of human nature, like to test out their independence. Three year olds, full of human nature, have a tendency, just like the rest of us, to want to push the limits of authority. We have a tendency to want to live our lives beyond the reach of those who are in authority over us - - even when it is a loving, caring, providing, nurturing, challenging, encouraging, forgiving, authority, even when it’s the authority of a parent, even when it’s the authority of God.

We human beings, for whatever reason, from the very beginning, have this curiosity and this independent streak that drives us to try to live outside the reach of even God. Intentionally or unintentionally, we do it all the time. We close our eyes to avoid seeing the way the systems that are in place to protect our good fortune are the same systems that keep others down. We choose not to follow when God beckons us to make a difference on behalf of the poor in our own community. We put our fingers in our ears so we can’t hear God’s preference for peace over war, love over fear and hatred, mercy over revenge. We ignore the wisdom of Scripture, of saints of the past, of friends and loved one who speak for God in our lives today.

We even try to just run from God. We try to hide out in our jobs, our hobbies, our destructive habits, trying to live our day to day lives on our own power, our own authority. We try to work out our rocky relationships, raise our children win battles over our neighbors, and find meaning in our day to day lives all outside of and beyond the realm of God our Creator, our Redeemer, and our Sustainer. Like the Prodigal Son we believe we can make better choices with what we have been given when we are away from God than we can in the presence of our divine Parent.

Three year olds try to do it. Teenagers get pretty good at getting close to doing it. Adult attempt it and even applaud when they see it in others, admiring this characteristic they call self-sufficiency. Even the ancient kingdoms tried to live without God; they thought collectively, like us, that they could operate beyond the reach of God, saying “My way is hidden from the Lord.”

But the reality is that they couldn’t. We can’t. Like the psalmist in Psalm 139 says, “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I feel from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in the realm of the dead, you are there.” No matter where we go, no matter how far we try to run, no matter how hard we work to ignore God’s leading and God’s authority in our lives, God is there. Who measured the waters in the hollow of a hand? Who enclosed the dust of the earth and measure the mountains on a kitchen scale?

God knows the ins and outs of every bit of creation, the physical land, the flowing water, the heavens stretched out above, and there is nowhere in this creation that we can step that is outside the realm of God’s love and God’s grace and God’s authority. If we put our fingers in our ears God can speak louder than they can block. If we close our eyes God can paint visions on the insides of our eyelids. If we run and hide in the best spot in the world, God will find us because God created that hiding spot and knows its very existence. The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth, and the Lord’s care is for the large and the small of it.

The same God who folded the mountains and filled the seas is the same God who was present in Jesus, the same God who walked into towns and synagogues claiming the Scriptures for himself, healing the sick in body and spirit, restoring them to wholeness. With the spirit of God working in him and through him, Jesus sought out those who either tried to live apart from God or who felt their conditions left them separated from the divine presence. His presence on earth demonstrated God’s sovereignty, God’s authority, God’s interest not over just the big picture of it all, but God’s interest in the very details of our lives. While God is so majestic that foundations of the earth were put into place by the divine hands and we look like grasshoppers to the divine eye, in Jesus we discover that God’s care is for even the very intimate, very personal circumstances of our lives. There is no place we can go, no worry we can hide, no step we can take that is outside the love and the care of our God.

Armed with this knowledge, trusting in the constant presence and attention of God, our best response should not be to run away from God who seeks us, but to follow the lead of the woman healed by Jesus. Feeling his touch on her body, experiencing his presence in ALL of her life, she didn’t run to hide from his majesty and power, she didn’t close her eyes to his persisting presence. She responded immediately with joy and praise. She stood and worshiped God.

Ultimately that is what’s asked of each of us. We get caught up in a lot of shoulds and coulds in the life of faith, but ultimately all we are asked to do is worship God who surrounds us with love and mercy and forgiveness, who formed us and the dust of the earth we walk on, who provides for our needs, who heals us from all those things that keep us bent over, weighed down, burdened in this life. All God asks of us is that we worship the one who has this kind of love for us – worship God when the community is gathered, hearing Scriptures that teaches us, confessing sins that divide us, praying for healing to bless us, sharing concerns that plague us, celebrating joys that delight us, all so that we may delight in God who calls us together, giving praise and thanksgiving in all of it for God, who is above all and through all and in all.

We don’t gather here to fill up our spiritual tanks for another week on the road. And although it is a blessing when it happens, we aren’t called here just to fix our lives and spirits when we sense they are broken. We are called here, not to watch as others demonstrate faith and speak about its goodness in our presence. We are called here to work… together… all of us. We are called here to worship and give praise, to honor and celebrate, to recognize and show our delight in God from whom we can’t run, God whose care is for our whole lives. This is what we do when we gather to worship our sovereign God. Worship is NOT about us, our likes, our dislikes, our preferences, our tastes. Worship is about giving God, who is worthy of all praise, glory upon glory, praise upon praise. When we gather as a diverse community it is our responsibility and honor to make sure that all who are gathered can find avenues by which they can do just that with integrity and passion.

And just as God is attentive to our whole lives, we are also called to worship with our whole lives, even when we are away from this place. Worship isn’t the order we follow on Sunday morning or Wednesday night or any other time we gather as the people of God. Worship is what happens anytime and every time we please God by living wholly and completely as the children we have been called to be. Worship is when we tell God and show God our gratitude for the grace we have been given, not just with the words that come from our lips, but with the actions that come from our lives. Worship is when we praise God for an abundance of blessings by using those blessings for purposes God desires.

Living as the best parent or child we can be is worshiping God. Using the talents we have been given to their fullest is worshiping God. Enjoying the creation around us, caring for it with love and attention, working to heal it and protect as agents of Christ is worshiping God. Delighting in the care and company of others is worshiping God. Being attentive to the whispering of the Spirit in times of solitude and quiet is worshiping God.

Worship, for the people of God, is at the heart of what we do, both inside these walls and beyond them. Worship is our number one call in life. May all that we do and all that we say be our worship of God, our way of giving thanks for God’s sovereign grace and mercy.

Divine Extravagance

I found it rather ironic mid-week when I was struggling over and deeply worrying about my sermon for this week. People often ask about what the process is for writing sermons, and I can tell you that it’s different for every preacher. But for me some weeks the words seem to come easily and some weeks, like Jacob who wrestled with an angel deep in the night, so do I wrestle with the Word of God. This was one of those wrestling weeks.

The passage that’s listed there is not what I will read, or actually it’s just a portion of what I will read. It’s one that was very familiar to me, maybe to you, too, and one of heard preached countless times. Sometimes that actually makes writing a new sermon harder. It feels like everything that could be said has, and gets me worrying if I am finding a message that maybe hasn’t been said. Maybe I’m getting it all wrong. Hence the worrying about a sermon on a passage that seems on the surface to be all about not worrying.

But, I struggled with God’s word this week because that surface reading just wasn’t working for me, especially because of where this familiar passage comes in the gospel according to Luke. One little word in the beginning of this reading just kept tripping me up. That word? “Therefore.”

It’s not even a theological word, but it just kept getting in the way of writing a sermon about worry or not worrying. “Therefore” connects this perfect “Flora and Fauna Sunday” passage about the ravens of the air and the lilies of the field to what comes before. What Jesus is saying about worrying, often a comforting passage for those who feel overworked and overstressed, means something completely different when read back to find out what this passage is answering. So, despite what the order of worship says (something I often complete earlier in the week than my sermon when I end up wrestling like this), I’m going to read more than just the “Flora and Fauna” passage. Today’s gospel reading is Luke 12:13-31. Listen now for God’s word.

Luke 12:13-31

The request from the man in the crowd doesn’t seem too out of order. He just wants things to be fair. He just wants a share of the family’s inheritance, something that may not have been customary at the time, but it doesn’t seem too far-fetched to ask. Yet, Jesus has some pointed words for this man and others, who might be trying to accumulate wealth. He tells the man in the crowd to be careful what he wishes for. Jesus tells him to “Take care!” saying that even this might be a form of greed.

His parable that follows is pretty clear. The rich farmer had barns that were good enough, that were big enough, to hold his already successful harvest, but he wanted more. He wanted bigger barns to hold more crops and more possessions. He was sure he could make his soul happy by gathering grain and goods and holding fast to them. But Jesus is quick to point out that this just doesn’t work. The things he has gathered may make him rich on earth, but they take him nowhere in his relationship with God. His actions are driven by greed and not by a faithful desire to find happiness in God. He tries to accumulate wealth, to gather riches, but the treasures he stores up take him far from what God truly wants.

Wealth and extravagance, in terms of money and material goods that are accumulated and held onto, do not come out on the winning side of that parable. Yet in the next breath, in the directions indicated by the “therefore” Jesus praises the extravagant beauty of the lilies and grasses of the field. The lilies he calls us to consider are apparently clothed more beautifully than the great King Solomon ever was. They don’t have to work. They don’t have to struggle. They are just blessed with this beauty and are praised for the extravagance they stand for. Their rich beauty is praised by Jesus right after he finishes speaking against the man’s riches!

Why is wealth or the appearance of wealth sinful in one case, but a sign of ideal living for God’s creatures in the next? What’s the difference between the man who delights in his riches and the lily that displays its?

The “therefore” gives us our answer. “Therefore, I tell you,” Jesus says, “do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear.” “Do not worry.” Worry here is more than just hand-wringing. It’s sort of like believing in the New Testament. Belief is never just something you agree with in your head or in your heart even. Belief in the New Testament pretty much always implies actions that go with it. Worrying here is not just thinking and wondering what is going to happen; worrying is gathering wealth and stockpiling it. Worrying is pulling down barns that were big enough and building bigger ones that are too big. Worrying is holding back what we have been given for our own use, or even trying to gather more than what we need just to be sure that we’ll have it.

That’s what the rich man in the parable is doing; it’s what the man from the crowd who questions Jesus is trying to get him to bless. The difference in the riches Jesus warns us against and the riches he praises is not so much where they come from. With the rich man in the parable, the wealth in question is wealth which with he has been blessed by God. The crops he gathers, sure have come to him after seasons of hard work and learning the ways of the fields, but the gifts of the land are gifts from God, God who designed the plants to produce seeds that grow, God who sends rains to water the earth and causes the sun to shine on the leaves that grow. And likewise the riches displayed by the flowers of the earth also come from God’s delicate designing hand.

The difference between these two rich examples is not where they come from, but what is done with them. The crops the man harvests are gifts given to him by God, and yet he seeks to gather them for no other purpose than to hoard them away for himself. He stores them up, intends to hold onto them for many years, and he even thinks that in doing so he has found a way to make his soul happy. He holds back the treasures he has been freely given by God for himself and his own enjoyment. His extravagance and riches are self-centered and serve only to bring joy and merriment to one. He is concerned only with himself, his own happiness, his own future, his own needs, and with such single-mindedness his concern turns to active worry and his worry turns quickly to the sin of greed.

Likewise the riches the lily displays have been freely given by God. The flowers of the field are draped by God more beautifully than Solomon was dressed in fine robes and jewels. God has taken care to be sure each flower is rich in color and fragrance, that each blade of grass can dance in the wind, that each lily will dazzle the eye that gazes upon it. God has drenched the creation with extravagant riches and beauty and praises the ones who share that beauty freely given.

Jesus makes a good example not out of the industrious human being who finds a way to stockpile everything that grows in the field, not the farmer who hides away the blessings he has received. Instead Jesus tells us to be like a humble and even temporary flower growing wild. It doesn’t work (it CAN’T work) to accumulate more of what it has received by grace, so it grows strong and proud as the one thing God has created it to be. It can do nothing more than share the beauty it has received only from God.

The wealth of the lily, the richness and extravagance that is praised in this flower of the field doesn’t come from storehouse stockpiled out of worry and greed. That’s what the “therefore” points out to us. Storing up treasures for ourselves can’t make us rich toward God; it can’t bring happiness to our souls or create joy in our lives. The treasures we have been given by God, the grace and forgiveness we have received in Christ, the talents we enjoy, even the money and materials things we possess aren’t meant to be stored away for only our benefit. They are meant to be shared with others. The lily is extravagantly beautiful in the eyes of God, it is adorned in divine splendor, because all it can do is share its riches with the world.

Holding back what we have been given is where we so often go wrong. Holding back the riches with which we have been blessed is where we stray from God’s kingdom. When we hold too tightly to God’s grace, refusing to forgive others as we have been forgiven we are greedy with God’s love. When we hold too tightly to our abilities, refusing to offer our skills and talents in service to God and others, we are greedy with God’s creativity. When we hold too tightly to our money and our possessions, investing only for our own futures and our own interests, we are greedy with God’s wealth.

The gifts of God are for each of us and for the world, and God gives these gifts extravagantly! While our impulse is to gather as many of these gifts as we can and store them away, this isn’t what God intends; these aren’t Jesus’ plans for the grace he secured for us. Forgive my blatant personification, but a lily is rich not because it takes all the beauty God has given and hides it underground, sharing nothing with the rest of us but a colorless, bland stalk. The lily is rich and splendid because it is being the best lily it can be in God’s kingdom.

The world in which God delights is not found when we look only inside ourselves, serving only our own interests and desires. The world in which God delights is discovered when each of us loosens the grip we have on the gifts we have been given and shares our God-blessed unique lives with the world. In doing that we will see God’s riches displayed in each other. We will find the kingdom of God which we seek.

Into the Deep Water

Psalm 104:1-9, 24-26
Luke 5:1-11

I grew up practically across the street from the ocean on the east coast of Florida. Most people who meet me later in life assume that means I was pretty much a beach girl when I was younger. It’s not true, though, not even close. While I actually love snorkeling and swimming in the water when I’m on vacations (and tracking sand into a RENTED car, dragging it into a hotel room, and leaving it behind on THAT shower floor) I wasn’t very into the beach when I lived there.

But when I do get to snorkel over some beautiful reefs it is not just the gorgeous display of color and rich diversity in the reef fish and the coral structures that I enjoy. I love going past the more shallow reefs to what they call “The Drop Off” in Disney’s animated movie Finding Nemo. The drop off is exactly what it sounds like, that place where the ocean floor seems to just drop out from under you. One minute you’re concentrating on following a particular fish and the next you realize the current has pulled you out where you’re floating over water that is much darker and MUCH deeper. If it’s a beautiful day and calm waters the sunlight makes some amazing patterns as it tries to reach down as far as it can in the water that just gets to be a deeper and deeper shade of blue as it sinks. It’s an amazing feeling to be floating there, so tiny in something so big, and for me, it’s one of those times when I finally start to really get the magnitude of our God, and how truly miniscule I am in the scope of all creation.

The Psalmist in today’s and other psalms tries to capture that same wonder and awe for the magnitude and power of God in descriptions of the deep ocean. The oceans, we heard, are a magnificent piece of God’s handiwork. Their size and power, their depth and strength mirror those of God. They are a place of mystery and majesty, holding up the beams of the chambers of God’s household in one line, and likened to a garment that adorns a ruler in another.

I remember learning even as a child that about 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water. A poster I saw at the Minnesota State Fair told me 97% of THAT is salt water in the earth’s oceans and seas. More than half of this oceanic area is 9,800 ft deep. If we think of the 5 oceans we know as one world ocean that continuously flows together we find that the total volume of this body of water is thought to be about 310 million cubic miles. In other words that amount of water could be contained by a cube with an edge length of 690 miles.

Get it? I don’t. I can’t even begin to wrap my brain around numbers and distances and volumes of this magnitude, but the Psalmist says that these waters, the deep oceans of the world, they are just as a garment for God who created them. They are the playground of the Leviathan, a mythical sea monster that makes a few appearances in Old Testament poetry. In modern Hebrew the world leviathan simply means whale, but in ancient times it referred to an almost magical creature, a 7 headed serpent in some literature, a water dragon in others. Yet in Psalm 104, the leviathan doesn’t seem to be a creature to be feared. In fact, in this song praising God’s creation the leviathan is almost like a pet for God, another beloved creature God meets in the deep waters for sport, for play, for enjoyment. The ocean is the playground where God delights in the created order. In the sea, leviathan is like God’s beach ball, and God finds great joy in their time together!

Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures there are precious few narratives set in or near the oceans, surprising for a collection of writings from a people whose entire western border is the Mediterranean Sea. However, if we look even briefly at just a couple of those stories that we do have, there is even more to find out about the deep water and especially God who creates it.

The hallmark story of the Hebrew Scriptures is the exodus of the Hebrew people out of Egypt. This happens, of course, through the water by the miraculous parting of the Red Sea. Out of the depths of the sea God’s people are saved while the Egyptians are left floating behind. The sea is where the people are set free from slavery. It is the site and the method of their salvation.

The prophet Jonah, when he is called to the city Ninevah to preach a message of repentance, runs instead to the sea. He jumps aboard a boat to try to sail away from God’s call only to find out that God could find him better than a modern fish finder on a fishing boat can discover a school just waiting to be caught. Jonah is tossed into the rough sea and even swallowed by a creature within it until he at last decides to follow God’s call. In the sea Jonah is corrected, refined by God. He repents, literally, turns around from the direction he was running in order to go in the direction God is sending him. In the depths of the ocean, Jonah is given a second chance; he is shown God’s grace even in the belly of a whale.

These are all stories, traditions, and understandings of the deep that are ingrained in the minds Jesus and those to whom he speaks at the lake of Gennesaret, probably more commonly known as the Sea of Galilee. This is what they know and think of the water when Jesus asks them to go out further and put their nets out in the deep. Certainly, the depth of this inland sea, about 140 feet at the most, is hardly anything when compared with the depths of the world’s oceans, but for a people who rarely venture out of the shallows, any depth is deep!

But really the numbers don’t matter too much in the way we’re looking at the text today. What matters is what the depths stand for, what happens in the depths, both in the history of the Hebrew people and in what Jesus is asking of his disciples both then and now. Cast your nets into the deep water he challenges them. Throw them out into the unknown, the mysterious, the majestic place of God’s creation, and see what you find. He asks the disciples who are familiar with fishing in the shallow water to go deeper to find what they are looking for.

And he does the same with us. He invites us to cast our nets, our faith, our lives in deeper water. He invites us to go beyond the good feeling we get at the surface when we sing together in worship. He invites us to go beyond the casual friendships we make in this congregation. He invites us to go beyond a basic familiarity with the Scriptures from our Sunday School lessons. He invites us to go beyond a rote recitation of familiar prayers. Jesus invites us to go deep in our relationship with him. He invites us out into the deep water where we are challenged to repent of those things that keep us running from God, where we can be showered with grace and forgiveness in Christ. He calls us to deeper waters where we will know what it means to be freed from our slavery to sin. He beckons us to a relationship with the Triune God that is full of joy and delight, playful holiness in the presence of God.

Jesus invites us into the mysterious deep waters, and we follow him there when we give ourselves over to him. We go deeper with Christ when we gather for worship not out of a sense of duty or routine, but expecting to offer God our praise and attention. We go deeper when we care for one another in this community and beyond it with our prayers and with our actions. We go deeper when our prayers are offered from the depths of our hearts, praising God’s majesty, confessing our waywardness, giving thanks for new life in Christ, and seeking the will and guidance of the Spirit. We go deeper when we recognize and celebrate the presence of God in all things that bring us joy and delight.

Jesus guides his disciples out of the shallow water, close to the safe shore, into the risky and mysterious depths. This is how and where he calls each of us. Cast your nets into deep water, Jesus invites, and the blessings you will receive will overflow.

Finding Life

Luke 24:1-12

They had every good reason to go to the garden tomb. They never suspected they’d find anything different from what they expected – the body of Jesus, wrapped in the linen cloth Joseph had brought when he took it down from the cross. They had seen it all with their own eyes, these women who had followed him so faithfully from Galilee.

They had watched Jesus as he died on the cross. They heard his final words as he gave himself over to God. They held their breath as he took his last. They witnessed the Roman centurion who came to belief and praised God when he realized the death of innocence had taken place. And these women were there when his body was laid in the tomb just as it ought to be, so they could return to this place of the dead when it was permissible, after the Sabbath, to finish his proper burial.

They had seen it all with their own eyes. They had no reason to expect to find anything but what they had left behind before their fitful day of rest. And in some strange way, I imagine at least, they looked forward to coming back to that place of the dead where they knew what to expect, where they could DO SOMETHING about what had happened even if it was dressing Jesus’ body for death. They looked forward to coming back to the tomb where they would at least be close to him because figuring out what to do without him was just still too hard that early.

Their world had crumbled around them. A mother they knew was mourning her son, which is never the natural order of things. There were students who had lost their teacher, disciples who had lost their master, people of faith who had lost God in their very midst. Their world was tumbling down around them, because the world had won. The perplexed and terrified establishment had squelched what it did not understand. The oppressive empire had put down the threat of rebellion. The life an innocent man, a good and holy and righteous man, a gracious and loving and compassionate man, a man who walked in the way of God, who loved with the heart of God, who healed with the touch of God, truly a man who was God, had been stolen, and so their world had crumbled around them. The world out there had won.

It’s not hard to imagine what they were feeling. We know about worlds that have crumbled We know about the still-open wounds, tender and hurting wounds, of those who have lost jobs or struggle to make ends meet in this economic climate, of those who have lost loved ones too soon, before the natural order of things has taken place, of those who battle depression or addiction, of those who grieve over relationships that have been strained beyond the breaking point. We know about the indiscriminant nature of earthquakes and floods. We know now that years of ignoring people in poverty can lead to mind-boggling devastation and corruption. We know about abuse, verbal, physical, and sexual, that can leave lives in confused ruins.

And we know that sometimes it feels like the tombs of despair are the only places we belong anymore because it just seems like this hopelessness is all there is anymore. The tombs, the places of death, seem like the only place we can dwell. The mindset and attitude of acceptance seems like the only way we can respond to the world that crumbles around us. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right? If you can’t stave off the grief and the death and the dearth of hope, you might as well just go to the middle of it all, and get yourself ready to exist with it as the norm.

They had every good reason to go to the garden tomb. They never suspected they’d find anything different from what they expected. They had seen it all with their own eyes, but when they arrived they found something completely unexpected, or really the found NOTHING that they expected. They came looking for the evidence of the death they had witnessed. They came to play the hand they had been dealt. They came to do the only thing they could imagine doing, but they discovered what they never imagined to see.

Death was gone! Jesus’ body no longer lay where they had seen it lay before. They went to the place of hopelessness, and somehow hopelessness was no longer there! “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” the two strangers asked the terrified women. “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” Why do you come to this tomb, this place of death, this place of grief as if it were the end of the story? Why do you come to dwell in the midst of what seems like a hopeless situation when he told you it would be different?

Why do we read the newspapers, watch TV, replay our own stories over and over and over again in our heads as if they are the final story that will get told? Why do we return to these experiences of pain and suffering and believe that they hold the ultimate power in our lives or in the world? Why do we believe or at least live as if we believe that all hope is lost, God is dead, and evil has the final word?

He told the women it wouldn’t end like this. He told us. He told them he would rise again, and we have heard that he has. He is not there in the tomb among the dead. He is living. He is living hope. He is alive!

The resurrection promises us we don't have to keep going back to the places of the dead to look for some sort of false comfort there, to harden ourselves to what is happening and just muddle on through the life before us and the world around us. Jesus, the living one, was not among the dead, and the women discovered they didn't need to go back to the tomb. Likewise, we don't need to, and really shouldn't get sucked into hopelessness because he lives, and if he can overcome death and the tomb, then there is hope for all of this, there is hope for all of us.

It doesn’t mean we forget these things exist. It doesn’t mean we forget the losses in our lives or ignore suffering in our community and around the world. It doesn’t mean that the tomb never held the beaten and broken body of the innocent man. Those things exist; the pain they cause is real. But because of the resurrection, because he is among the living, we don’t need to go back to the tombs, and live them over and over. We don’t have to dwell in hopelessness, looking for comfort where none is to be found. The empty tomb that the women found means miraculously, graciously, that these places of death and hopelessness aren’t where the story ends.

Why do you look for the living among the dead? Jesus, the light of the world, Jesus the Messiah, the chosen one of God, Jesus, God who came to dwell among us, is not dead in the tomb. He has risen. He is alive. He is hope where we thought there was none. He is life where there was death. He is love and grace and mercy where it seemed that anger and jealousy and suspicion had won out.

And because we know this, because we have heard of his life beyond death, we have a job to do, a call to answer, a call to go find this life. We have a call to go out from the gardens of death and be a part of Jesus’ living, breathing, transforming life in the world. We have a call to point to resurrection moments when we see them, resurrection experiences when we have them, and declare, “He IS here! He has risen!’ We have a call to look at the new green sprouts that are springing up from the dead earth, we have a call to rejoice at every person rescued from the rubble in Haiti, we have a call to point to the faith and commitment of youth who give up their vacation to serve the forgotten in the Gulf, we have a call revel in the beauty of songs sung, hymns played, art and creativity shared and declare with full voice, “He is here! He has risen!”

And we have a call to join this resurrection life ourselves. We have a call to be a part of bringing his life to the world, be a part of God’s work that is going on all around us if we just open our eyes to see it, if we just open our ears to listen for it, if we just open our calendars and our lives to participate in it. We have a call to rise above the terror we face when we find ourselves in the places of death because the good news has already been shared; it has already been let loose in the world – He is not here, but has risen! Let us go find and join his life in the world! Alleluia!

A Scriptural GPS

A friend of mine, while trying to navigate her way to a job interview in rural Vermont plugged in her trusty GPS, Global Positioning System, to help her find her way. It did its job, or so she thought, finding the quickest, most efficient route from her home in Massachusetts. However, as she though she was nearing her final destination at a little church in a village nestled in the mountains, she encountered this road sign on a snow and ice covered road. Apparently she wasn’t the first out-of-towner who naively trusted her GPS to help her find the way.I guess they haven’t programmed those magical little devices for the magic of winter wonderland.

The lawyer Jesus encounters in Luke’s gospel is also looking for an efficient path. Not wanting to waste any time or energy on unnecessary tasks, he asks Jesus for the correct route information. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” “What is the quickest way from here to there?” he wonders. “What is the bare minimum I have to do to get where I want to go? Exactly how many people are my neighbors?”

The priest and the Levite in the parable, however, seem to know exactly where to go. They are trusting whole-heartedly in the GPS they have been given – the accepted rules and traditions of the culture and religions. Seeing the mangled man in the road ahead, their navigational devices immediately recalculate their routes for them, draw for them detours that take them to the other side of the road.

Strict laws against touching the dead, which is what the traveler looked like, would have reasonably prevented them from intervening. A priest presumably on his way to intercede for others in the complex world of ritual and sacrifice would have defiled himself and made himself completely useless to the faithful who depended on his actions if he had touched a corpse along the way. Likewise a Levite, whose job came to him by his bloodline, meaning there are a limited number of men in the world who could do what he did, could not make a similar risk to his ritual status, to his level of purification. The GPS they had been given for living their lives told them to do exactly what they did, avoid this man, dead or close to it, in the road. The expectations of their roles came with certain understandings about what they should and shouldn’t do, and touching an unclean man, even if it could save his life? That just didn’t seem acceptable at the time.

The church gets sucked into the mindset sometimes, too. We get caught up in the trap of trying to act acceptably in our community. At the very least we are tempted by the cultural GPS in the same way. Voices out there speak and try to tell us that our realm of activity and circle of care shouldn’t stretch beyond our walls. They shout that working for social justice and the fair treatment of other is outside the acceptable scope of our ministry. There are those who argue that that church should keep to the church and just care for its own.

There are even those who make that argument within the church. Why should our congregation or our denomination speak up about conflicts in other lands? Why should be engage in the debates about health care or civil rights or human trafficking? Why does the church speak about responsible investments or legislative advocacy? What does the church need to say about fair wages or fair trade? The church, cry voices inside and out, is perfectly suited to care for its own, for our own, so why should the church, why should Christians meddle in affairs beyond our walls? Why should we care beyond our family, beyond ourselves, beyond our local neighbors?

“How much is enough?” these questions are asking, just like the lawyer who tests Jesus. “Is it enough to pray for the people who are hurting in our congregation? Is it enough to pool our resources to try to help each other out of tough financial situations? Is it enough to feed our friends with physical and spiritual food when they are suffering and mourning? Is it enough, Jesus, to care for the people we know, we love, with whom we worship?

Or do we need to go further? How much is enough? Is it enough to serve dinner to our youth and the youth of our neighboring churches? Is it enough to collect food for the struggling families at the school down the road? Is it enough to venture a little further and serve a meal at the homeless shelter? Is that enough, Jesus, to care for the anonymous people we hear about, we pity, with whom we share a community?

Or do we need to go further? How much is enough?

The Samaritan certainly went further. His GPS, both geographical and cultural seems to be completely broken because no Samaritan would EVER have accepted a route that took him through this Jewish territory. It just wasn’t done. Samaritans didn’t like Jews; Jews didn’t like Samaritans. The bad blood between them dated back hundreds of years. There was no reason this Samaritan should have been walking this road against all cultural, all political, all social expectations. These people don’t mix, and any useful Samaritan GPS would have kept this man OFF this road.

It was dangerous for him to be there. He was looking for trouble in a foreign land, traveling through a territory that was culturally, ethnically, and religiously different from everything familiar in his life. The people back home would certainly tell him if they could that this was not wise, not safe, not acceptable by any of their usual standards. He deliberately put himself right in the middle of a setting where he was bound to meet someone very different from himself, and it was likely to be a risky and life-changing encounter. As he travelled that road and approached the half-dead man in his path, what he then chose to do can only be described as an act of compassion.

That much is enough, Jesus says. That much is real compassion. Compassion isn’t about just loving and caring for the people everyone expects you to love and care for. Although that is CERTAINLY a starting point. Caring for our family, caring for our church community, the poor of our city and country, the families that are struggling in our immediate neighborhoods (because they are there and here whether we choose to see them in the road or not) is certainly the beginning of compassion. It just isn’t the end.

Compassion is risky, vulnerable behavior. Compassion is opening ourselves up to the idea that there are people who are very different who we are called to serve, and there are people who are very different who are called to serve us. Compassion is not limiting ourselves to the acceptable, predictable, efficient path of life and faith, but opening ourselves to detours and longer routes. Compassion is about searching for the more difficult journey with hidden opportunities to love others with our actions in Jesus’ name. Compassion isn’t a thought we have or a belief we apply to some theory about who Jesus is and what he wants us to do. Compassion is real life action.

After decades of studying the three monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and especially their struggles to exist with each other, author Karen Armstrong began to see something that seemed off the mark in our contemporary practices of our faith traditions. Armstrong noticed that people of faith spend a lot of time worrying about what we believe with our heads, what the Qu’ran calls zanna, by her definition “the self-indulgent guess work about matter that nobody can be certain of one way or the other, but which makes people quarrelsome and stupidly sectarian.” She argues that while we spend all this time and energy on thinking about our belief in our head religion is really about behaving differently. “Instead of deciding whether or not you believe in God, first you do something. You behave in a committed way, and then you begin to understand the truths of religion. And religious doctrines are meant to be summons to action; you only understand them when you put them into practice.”

This disconnect, she proposes, is part of the reason so many people in the world, particularly so many who claim to be a part of the three Abrahamic faiths, find themselves as odds, even very VIOLENT odds, with one another. At the core of all of our faiths is a call to compassion, a call to loving care for all people on earth. Unfortunately for all of us in all of our faiths, we have gotten really good at saying what we believe about compassion, but really pretty bad at acting that way.

That’s why when Karen Armstrong won the 2008 TEDPrize, an award given annually to an individual or organization with “One Wish to Change the World,” she used her $100,000prize money, corporate support, and a public forum to draft and promote the Charter for Compassion. In the words of the charter project:
“The Charter of Compassion is a cooperative effort to restore not only compassionate thinking but, more importantly, compassionate action to the center of religious, moral and political life. Compassion is the principled determination to put ourselves in the shoes of the other, and lies at the heart of all religious and ethical systems. One of the most urgent tasks of our generation is to build a global community where men and women of all races, nations and ideologies can live together in peace. In our globalized world, everybody has become our neighbor, and the Golden Rule has become an urgent necessity.
“The Charter, crafted by people all over the world and drafted by a multi-faith, multi-national council of thinkers and leaders, seeks to change the conversation so that compassion becomes a key word in public and private discourse, making it clear that any ideology that breeds hatred or contempt ~ be it religious or secular ~ has failed the test of our time. It is not simply a statement of principle; it is above all a summons to creative, practical and sustained action to meet the political, moral, religious, social and cultural problems of our time."
The drafters of this Charter invite the world, individuals and organizations, cities and nations, churches, temples, and mosques, religions and denomination, to adopt it, making a lifelong commitment to live with compassion.

Listen now to the words of this charter.

The website for the Charter for Compassion includes an interactive section where individuals around the world share stories of compassion they have received or offered– ranging from an individual in Vermont who started a low profit company to give away technology to classrooms around the world to a woman in West Virginia who paid for the groceries of a single mother in line in front of her at the grocery store when she overheard that the woman’s food stamps weren’t valid for four more days. These stories and testimonies challenge us to recognize the places we have experienced the compassion of others, and, as Christians, the places we are called to share Christ’s compassion through our lives.

The culture in which we live is constantly trying to guide our steps toward an efficient and comfortable present and future. The GPS of societal norms will never cease attempting to send us on fast-moving highways that avoid all deviations and detours from the acceptable path, roads that keep us segregated into communities, friendships, churches, and families with people just like us. However, if we program ourselves along the GPS of scripture, if we are guided by the route of a Samaritan walking on the completely wrong road, we will find ourselves traveling in the way and footsteps of Christ. Then maybe we can begin to answer through our actions the question Jesus begs us to understand - - “Who ISN’T my neighbor?”

(Karen Armstrong quotes are from her acceptance speech from the 2008 TEDPrize.)

RSVP

Isaiah 55:1-9
Luke 14:16-24It was going to be a GREAT party. It was going to be better than GREAT. It was going to be fantastic! Many had been invited. Not a whole lot of responses were received, but really, people don’t RSVP any more anyway. It was going to be a GREAT party.

The house had been scrubbed top to bottom. The courtyard had been swept and swept again. The ground was free of all those little stone that get stuck between your toes and beneath your feet in sandals. Someone had crawled on hands and knees to make sure they were all removed from the site of the party. The animals that had been fattening for months were back from slaughter, and the choice cuts of meat were prepared. They had already begun to be licked by the flames of the cooking fire as they turned slowly on the spit. The host and his family had been scrubbed from top to bottom, too, clean and shining with excitement over the celebration that was just about to beginning.

At the appointed hour, the time when the guest had been invited to arrive, they went to the door to receive the blessing of their guests come to celebrate and enjoy the party with them. With a grand sweep, the door was opened…and no one was there! Just the bustle of a busy street at the end a of a long day. Servants going to collect the evening’s water, merchants trying to sell the last of their fresh wares, closing up shop for the night, worker of different kinds making their ways home to be with their own families for the night.

Not one invited guest stood waiting for the party to begin. Not one was there to celebrate and enjoy. Imagine the disappointment, the discouragement, frustration and even sadness of the host. The invitation had gone out to MANY. The promise of a GREAT, no, a fantastic party had been made. Hours of preparation had gone into the occasion, but when the time came, no one had arrived to celebrate. Come the invitation had said, but all he got were excuses in response. Celebrate with me! Come and enjoy! Come and rejoice for a while.

“Come”, says our God, “Feast at my table.”
“Come,” says our God, “and listen to me.”
“Come to me all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest.”
“Come and follow me.”
“Come let us sing to the Lord.”
“Come and see what God has done”
“Come and hear the message from God.”
“Come to God’s presence with singing.”

Come, our invitation to worship beckons. Come and celebrate with God and one another, but often we, too, respond with excuses. I’m tired. I can do it alone. It’s too early after a long night. It’s too late for everything I have planned for today. There’s too much to do to get ready for the week. I did too much this weekend. I don’t know enough. I haven’t relaxed enough. I don’t believe enough to show up to worship God. I don’t believe enough to go to that party.

We don’t really think of it that way, but really worship is a party. It’s something we do together, not even just something done up front here by others on our behalf. It’s not a lecture surrounded by some good music. It’s not even a spiritual gas station we frequent to simply fill up our tanks for another week. Worship is a party, a celebration, complete with an invitation from God to come and rejoice, give thanks, sing, even dance if we’re ready for that. Worship is the time we gather as a community to do together what we can and we should also do alone – wonder and marvel at the glory of God, pray and meditate on the gift of God’s Word, offer our lives and ourselves in grateful response, celebrate the grace and mercy of our faithful Savior. And like most parties that I have been to, the more we give of ourselves to the energy of the party, the better it gets for us all.

But we’d never know that if we didn’t show up. The guest who didn’t think they were ready never got to taste the scrumptious food of the great banquet. The timing wasn’t right. Things weren’t in order at home. Schedules conflicted with the gracious invitation of their host. They just weren’t ready.

And who is when lives are busy and calendars are full. Who is when there seems to be so much to learn about God it’s really a bit overwhelming? Who is ready when there are so many questions unanswered? Who really is ready when sometimes the music isn’t the kind of music I like? When sometimes questions are asked that I’m not ready to hear? Who is ready when other things in life seem more pressing, more important, or maybe just more fun, more satisfying than coming to the party that God hosts? Who is ever ready anyway?

Well, in the parable someone was. A whole lot of someone’s were, actually. When the host heard that his guests weren’t coming, when he discovered that his carefully planned festivities, his delicious food, his gracious hospitality weren’t going to be accepted, he didn’t start wrapping everything in plastic wrap, resigned to eating leftovers for weeks, he sent out new invitations. He sent his servants out to find the guests who WERE ready to enjoy what he had to offer. He sent them into the streets and alleys, into the worst neighborhood, to the gates of the city where the poor and destitute lay waiting for something, anything, from the people who passed by. He sent his servants out with an open invitation to anyone who wanted to come, taste, and see. And the revelers came pouring in.

The best guests, it turns out, may not be the ones who are best prepared, whose lives are in perfect order, who think they have the time or ability to get everything ready before they show up to celebrate, because these guests will never actually make it to the party. There will always be one more job to do, one more house to check on, one more task to complete, one thing to learn. We’ll never be ready enough. Our lives will never feel in order enough.

The best guests, it turns out, are the ones who know their imperfections, but respond to the host’s invitation with a resounding, “Yes!” Come, you who are thirsty - - Yes! I will drink of your living water. Come, you who hunger - - Yes! I will eat from your banquet table. Come, you who are tired - - Yes! I will rest in your arms. Come, you with heavy burdens - - Yes! I will share them with you and others. Come, all of you, and rejoice and give thanks - - Yes! Even in my weakness, I will come and celebrate with joy and gratitude for the abundant blessings that are spread before me. Yes! Not just in spite of, but because of our imperfections, we will worship God.

The invitation is all over Scripture. It’s all over our worship service. We come and worship, not because it is our brilliant idea, but because God has laid the perfect spread before us. We come and worship because God has invited us, God calls us to gather here imperfectly. We come and confess all that stands in the way of this worship and our relationship with God, not to beg for our admittance into the party, but because the promise is there, the invitation has already been sent, and God wants to forgive everything that divides us from one another.

We come and worship because by the water of baptism, God welcomes us to the party even before we know what the party is all about, even before we can understand, even when we have tried to understand, but that understanding lays beyond our reach. We come and worship because the blessings of hope, the challenges of discipleship, the comfort of grace are abundant in God’s Word. We come and worship to share in the feast that Christ our Lord spreads before us, to come to the table of welcome, the table of life, the table of salvation, as imperfect and broken people, made whole as we celebrate and rejoice in the blessings that are promised in this spiritual food.