John 4:5-15
Exodus 17:1-7
The Sinai peninsula was dry like no other dry I had experienced. Before my trip to the Middle East back in 2001 I had spent precious little time in deserts - a few trips to Arizona to visit my grandmother were my only reference points for the kind of climate I would experience, but really not even they could prepare me for the desert of the Sinai peninsula. Not even the previous 10 days of travel through the deserts of Syria and Jordan could.
Those deserts had been dry, sandy and dry, but Sinai was, to me, even worse. It wasn't sandy-dry; it was dusty-dry, and dusty-dry is a dry that sneaks into everything. It's a dry that permeates every barrier. Even our hired motor coach bus couldn't protect us from the dust that hung in the air, tickled our noses, and burnt our throats. The landscape we saw just mocked us through the window; the wadis, the dry riverbeds taunted us with the idea of water, but there was none to be found.
Well, except for the water in our water bottles, a luxury we had in 2001, that obviously the Israelites did NOT have several millennia before. They had nothing. They left Egypt just as the Lord had commanded with great haste and no luggage, and therefore relied completely on the land, their leader, and their Lord to get them through the dry, desperation of traveling through the desert of Sinai.
So, sure they grumbled. Sure they started to voice their complaints when they got thirsty. Who couldn't and who wouldn't? We all know that water is the most important things for our bodies. We can live for a while without food, but a lack of water is deadly. They weren't just complaining about missing an afternoon snack, or begging for a luxury; they were crying out for a necessity. They were begging for something as simple, but as crucial for their lives as water!
The woman at the well was thirsty, too. I mean, she was coming to the well for water at the middle of the day. I wonder how long she had been out of water. Did she spill her jar doing the morning wash and was now craving something to drink when the sun was highest in the sky and her thirst was deepest? Or did she always come at that time of day, as many have suggested, because she was ashamed of her own life? Was she avoiding the crowds that gathered in the morning to fill the jars with water and their minds and mouths with gossip? She came to the well thirsty, oh so thirsty, for water that would cool her body and refresh her soul.
Are you thirsty? Are you thirsty? Are your jars just about empty? Is the dry air getting to your throat? Are your hands cracking like the dusty, dry earth? Is your soul parched, on the verge of grumbling, complaining, crying out to God and anyone else who will hear, "Give us water to drink! Give me water to drink!?" Are you thirsty for water that runs clearer and flows deeper than your deepest longing?
I believe we are thirsty. We grumble as we walk in dry places in our lives. We are thirsty for reassurance. We are thirsty for guidance. We are thirsty for compassion. We are thirsty for community. We are thirsty for wisdom. We are thirsty for renewal. We are thirsty for justice. We are thirsty for forgiveness. Prone to wander about in the wilderness of our making we are thirsty for God, but we don't even realize it.
We go looking in a million other places, drinking from a million other cups for satisfaction. We drink from the news for information, when wisdom is what our souls cry out for. We gather on computers for friends and followers when communion is what we need. We dip our buckets into wells of self-help, when the Word of God is what gives life. We crave in the deepest corners of our being to be known as the woman is known - to be known and accepted and forgiven.
I'm not sure we always recognize it, but we are thirsty for God. We are thirsty for the Living Water that cleans, that refreshes, that nourishes, and restores. We are thirsty for Living Water that never runs dry, but sustains us, heals us, and reinvigorates us for life in a parched land.
The grumbling may have frustrated Moses, but if it frustrated God we'll never know. If anything it gave God another chance to prove faithfulness, to show willingness to be with God's people in each and every need, each and every time they hunger and thirst, each and every time they cry out for salvation, for mercy, for love. The people of God were thirsty for God's attention and God's compassion and in the most unlikely of circumstances, in the middle of the dry, cracked earth of the desert, from a solid chunk of dry, heavy rock, God's grace flowed for them. God's provision came pouring out. God's presence ran freely for all to drink in.
The women who encountered Jesus was thirsty for water from the well, but it became apparent quickly that she was thirsty for something else, too. She was thirsty beyond her physical needs; she was thirsty like we are, in her soul. And like it happened for the Israelites, the water of life came flowing from an unexpected place, a place she went everyday, but a place where she encountered someone completely new.
The water of life, Living Water, came flowing from a stranger who knew her as well as she knew herself, better even. It came from a man who probably shouldn't have been speaking to her. It came when she left the safety and comfort of her shelter and risked conversation, risked relationship with Jesus.
This is the water Jesus offers. This is the water that comes gushing forth from the very wellspring of his life, a well that is right in front of us, but it is also, for some reason, where we least expect it, where we last look. It is here, right in the midst of us and around us and over us and under us. It is here when the church is the beloved community, caring for one another, serving one another, forgiving one another. It is here when we dive into the Scriptures for study, for prayer, for sustenance for our souls. It is here when we worship the living and loving God. It is here when we don't even notice it, when we aren't looking for it, but when it finds us, offering a drink that brings us peace we didn't even know we were missing.
This is the water Jesus gives. It is the water we are blessed to drink in long, drawn out gulps that fill our thirsty souls. It is the water that fills us up and sends us out into the world with energy and excitement and passion, telling others where to find this well of Living Water.
When the woman met Jesus at the well she was thirsty, oh so thirsty. She came for water that would quench her thirst and in Jesus she found water that satisfies even more. Recognizing the blessing she found, she left, she left immediately, even leaving the very jar she came to fill, and went back to the city to tell what had happened. "Come," she said to anyone who would listen. "Come," she said in her home, in the shops, to her neighbors, to strangers!
Come to the living water! Come!
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Holy Disruptions
Psalm 121
Genesis 12:1-9
The summer between my junior and senior years of college I decided, so I thought, to forgo the usual tradition of getting an internship in one's major field of study in order to help the job search process a year down the road, and instead I spent my last summer before "real life" began as a camp counselor at a Presbyterian camp. At the end of our 2 weeks training that included lifeguard certification for me and a WONDERFUL 3 day staff canoe trip for all of us, we received our first assignments. My first two week assignment would include being the trip leader and lifeguard on a 4day middle school canoe trip. Uh oh.
This was the kind of camping I may have overstated in the interview process. I was familiar with CAMP, but not necessarily CAMPING, the kind where the van takes you to one point on the river, watches you drop your canoes and gear in the water, and then waves goodbye. The only other plan for the trip is that the van will pick you up at a designated meeting point somewhere farther down the river, 4 days and 3 nights later. There are no state or county parks along the way. (Hear me say in that, there are no bathrooms along the way.) There are no designated campsites. The only consolation I had as a VERY inexperienced river camper is that the second portion of our trip was the same trip we had taken as a staff. Eventually, there would be signs that I had led the group on the right path. Eventually.
I panicked a bit when I got the assignment. What happens if someone gets hurt? You received first aid training, the director told me. What happens if we take a wrong turn? There are no forks in the river, the trip director told me. What happens if we can't find a campsite? There's always SOMEWHERE, an experienced counselor told me. When will I get my cell phone? You won't, they all replied. I was sure I was not ready for this assignment and this responsibility.
If he had known about them, I'm convinced Abram would have asked where his cell phone was, too. This trip God announced was not his trip originally; it was his father's trip. Abram was "Abram of Ur of the Chaldeans;" Ur was in modern day Iraq. God called Abram from "his country," but when he leaves he doesn't leave from Ur; he leaves from Haran. In modern day Turkey, not Iraq. Haran was "his country," and had been for some time since his father had died leading his family on a journey toward Canaan.
The trip to Canaan had been his father's trip, not Abram's. Apparently when they passed into Haran along the way, not really right along the way, they decided to stay for a little while. Unfortunately, while they were there Abram's dad died, and Abram decided to just stay at least long enough for Haran to become, in the Lord's words, "his country."
Abram's life had been disrupted once before when his father felt the need to move the family from Ur to Haran on the way to Canaan. Here it was getting disrupted again when the Lord came calling to an older, settled Abram. Here it was getting disrupted by the Lord telling Abram to finish the trip he started with his father and make his way from Haran on down to Canaan. Late in his life, God called Abram out of retirement to move his family, all the possessions they had gathered, all the people associated with their household and move to a new and different place.
The excuses could have been innumerable. But we're old, God. We've settled here, and we're happy. We have all these new employees who will be uprooted from their lives and their families. Where will we sleep along the way, no matter when we get there? What if someone gets hurt? What if I get hurt? What will happen to my wife? What if I don't know the right way? Can I have a cell phone?
Like Abram, no matter what our age, no matter how settled we are in our lives, God calls us to new and different places. God calls us to make changes in our lives, our thinking, our routines. God disrupts our comfortable, settled lives and asks us to do new things, meet new people, go new places, even if not physically, than in our thinking, our believing, our relationships, our activities and involvements. God breaks in just when we think we are settled and have everything in order, knowing what we like to do and how we life to do, and calls us to try something new, serve in a different way, follow to places we haven't even imagined going. It's a disruption, but it's a holy disruption.
This morning, of course, we are highlighting some possible disruptions, some place God might be calling you or your family. Camp is getting a lot of attention, of course, but there are other holy disruptions out there, other unfamiliar lands to which God may be calling any of us. Synod School isn't as exotic as Canaan, but driving through Buena Vista, Iowa during the great bike ride across Iowa can seem like a epic biblical journey. It's not far, but it's away. It's not what we usually do. It's not a part of our routine for the summer, and we don't know exactly what to expect.
Working with our Bridge friends in the new garden we are building for them doesn't involve a journey hundred or thousands of miles away, but the setting is new. The people and the conditions they live with are different than what many of us are used to. It can seem like an intimidating call. It's unknown, unfamiliar, a little bit scary.
Sending our children to camp or going on the Mishpack mission trip isn't the same as moving forever to a new land, but it means traveling to a different place, a different culture even within the bounds of the same country. They do things in a different way in these places, play different games, eat different favorite meals, order their lives into different routines. It can be frightening to be the new person, the uninitiated, the foreigner in an established country.
Volunteering to provide our local day camp ministries might not be on our calendar or we may think we have "done our time," serving this way before, but God keeps calling. God's time is not our time. God's expectations are not our expectations. There is room and a purpose for all of God's people in the ministry God intends to accomplish. Abram and Sarai, seventy-five years old, are only just getting started when God uproots them from their country, their settled lives and calls them to continue down to Canaan.
The excuses we can make are all familiar. I don't have time. I'm not equipped to help. I'm not the right age - - too old, too young, too busy somewhere in the middle. I don't know enough about it to lead my family that direction. I don't know enough about it to accomplish the task correctly. I'm happily settled in my life and my routine; I don't need to mess it all up with something new. I just don't see the point.
God anticipated all the excuses right up front with Abram. Before he even got a chance to lay them all out before God, the Lord stated the case for the call. Abram, the Lord promised, will be blessed in making the journey. Abram and his family after him will be blessed, changed in ways they never would have imagined or experienced if they stayed put in Haran, if they resisted the new and unknown. He would know the unique blessing of those who look to the hills and mountains and trust that God is their help. He would know and experience the blessing of being united with God in purpose and mission. He would live with the blessing of comfort and peace of mind knowing his family and descendants (another unexpected blessings) could call to mind their memories of his faithfulness long, very long after he would be gone from this earth.
And on top of all that is the promise that he would also be a blessing to others. Through Abram God built a personal relationship with humankind. In Abram God picked a family through which God would work as an example to all creation. The general relationship with all of creation didn't seem to be getting through to people. As humanity was spreading, so was the sinful desire to be in charge, to be gods. Creation got so corrupt that it had to be restarted with a flood. People got so ambitious they built a tower to try to reach the Lord.
In Abram God decided to work through a particular family to bless creation with a specific example of what grace and obedience, faithfulness and forgiveness, second and third and fourth and fifth chances look like. In Abram and through his human and flawed family, God decided to establish a pattern for personal relationships with humankind. God decided to show us all how God works in unexpected ways to bless us and the lives we live. It all started with a call, a disruption, a holy disruption. It all started with an invitation to go with God somewhere new - to a new place, to new people, to new experiences with God as his keeper.
Here in our church this week we're highlighting summer ministries - - camps, conferences, and missions away from Hudson, and mission and worship opportunities here close to home. There are all sorts of opportunities for all ages, stages of faith, and abilities. Many of them, if not MOST of them are new to MOST of us. They may be outside of our comfort zones, but none of them are outside the reach of the Lord our God who keeps our going our and our coming in forever. They might be outside of our usual routine, but they aren't outside the watch of our Lord who neither slumbers nor sleeps. Some might even be a disruption to our plans and our ideas, but none are beyond the imagination of God who keeps and creates heaven and earth. They might just be holy disruptions.
I encourage you to look at the opportunities. Imagine what you might do different with your time, your energy, your faith this summer. Listen to where God might be calling you to step out in faith on a new journey to something completely new and completely different. Ultimately, that's what this is all about. Ultimately that's what the life of faith is all about. It's about listen to where God is calling us to go for God's own purpose. And when we trust and when we follow, we too can be blessed and a blessing to others.
Genesis 12:1-9
The summer between my junior and senior years of college I decided, so I thought, to forgo the usual tradition of getting an internship in one's major field of study in order to help the job search process a year down the road, and instead I spent my last summer before "real life" began as a camp counselor at a Presbyterian camp. At the end of our 2 weeks training that included lifeguard certification for me and a WONDERFUL 3 day staff canoe trip for all of us, we received our first assignments. My first two week assignment would include being the trip leader and lifeguard on a 4day middle school canoe trip. Uh oh.
This was the kind of camping I may have overstated in the interview process. I was familiar with CAMP, but not necessarily CAMPING, the kind where the van takes you to one point on the river, watches you drop your canoes and gear in the water, and then waves goodbye. The only other plan for the trip is that the van will pick you up at a designated meeting point somewhere farther down the river, 4 days and 3 nights later. There are no state or county parks along the way. (Hear me say in that, there are no bathrooms along the way.) There are no designated campsites. The only consolation I had as a VERY inexperienced river camper is that the second portion of our trip was the same trip we had taken as a staff. Eventually, there would be signs that I had led the group on the right path. Eventually.
I panicked a bit when I got the assignment. What happens if someone gets hurt? You received first aid training, the director told me. What happens if we take a wrong turn? There are no forks in the river, the trip director told me. What happens if we can't find a campsite? There's always SOMEWHERE, an experienced counselor told me. When will I get my cell phone? You won't, they all replied. I was sure I was not ready for this assignment and this responsibility.
If he had known about them, I'm convinced Abram would have asked where his cell phone was, too. This trip God announced was not his trip originally; it was his father's trip. Abram was "Abram of Ur of the Chaldeans;" Ur was in modern day Iraq. God called Abram from "his country," but when he leaves he doesn't leave from Ur; he leaves from Haran. In modern day Turkey, not Iraq. Haran was "his country," and had been for some time since his father had died leading his family on a journey toward Canaan.
The trip to Canaan had been his father's trip, not Abram's. Apparently when they passed into Haran along the way, not really right along the way, they decided to stay for a little while. Unfortunately, while they were there Abram's dad died, and Abram decided to just stay at least long enough for Haran to become, in the Lord's words, "his country."
Abram's life had been disrupted once before when his father felt the need to move the family from Ur to Haran on the way to Canaan. Here it was getting disrupted again when the Lord came calling to an older, settled Abram. Here it was getting disrupted by the Lord telling Abram to finish the trip he started with his father and make his way from Haran on down to Canaan. Late in his life, God called Abram out of retirement to move his family, all the possessions they had gathered, all the people associated with their household and move to a new and different place.
The excuses could have been innumerable. But we're old, God. We've settled here, and we're happy. We have all these new employees who will be uprooted from their lives and their families. Where will we sleep along the way, no matter when we get there? What if someone gets hurt? What if I get hurt? What will happen to my wife? What if I don't know the right way? Can I have a cell phone?
Like Abram, no matter what our age, no matter how settled we are in our lives, God calls us to new and different places. God calls us to make changes in our lives, our thinking, our routines. God disrupts our comfortable, settled lives and asks us to do new things, meet new people, go new places, even if not physically, than in our thinking, our believing, our relationships, our activities and involvements. God breaks in just when we think we are settled and have everything in order, knowing what we like to do and how we life to do, and calls us to try something new, serve in a different way, follow to places we haven't even imagined going. It's a disruption, but it's a holy disruption.
This morning, of course, we are highlighting some possible disruptions, some place God might be calling you or your family. Camp is getting a lot of attention, of course, but there are other holy disruptions out there, other unfamiliar lands to which God may be calling any of us. Synod School isn't as exotic as Canaan, but driving through Buena Vista, Iowa during the great bike ride across Iowa can seem like a epic biblical journey. It's not far, but it's away. It's not what we usually do. It's not a part of our routine for the summer, and we don't know exactly what to expect.
Working with our Bridge friends in the new garden we are building for them doesn't involve a journey hundred or thousands of miles away, but the setting is new. The people and the conditions they live with are different than what many of us are used to. It can seem like an intimidating call. It's unknown, unfamiliar, a little bit scary.
Sending our children to camp or going on the Mishpack mission trip isn't the same as moving forever to a new land, but it means traveling to a different place, a different culture even within the bounds of the same country. They do things in a different way in these places, play different games, eat different favorite meals, order their lives into different routines. It can be frightening to be the new person, the uninitiated, the foreigner in an established country.
Volunteering to provide our local day camp ministries might not be on our calendar or we may think we have "done our time," serving this way before, but God keeps calling. God's time is not our time. God's expectations are not our expectations. There is room and a purpose for all of God's people in the ministry God intends to accomplish. Abram and Sarai, seventy-five years old, are only just getting started when God uproots them from their country, their settled lives and calls them to continue down to Canaan.
The excuses we can make are all familiar. I don't have time. I'm not equipped to help. I'm not the right age - - too old, too young, too busy somewhere in the middle. I don't know enough about it to lead my family that direction. I don't know enough about it to accomplish the task correctly. I'm happily settled in my life and my routine; I don't need to mess it all up with something new. I just don't see the point.
God anticipated all the excuses right up front with Abram. Before he even got a chance to lay them all out before God, the Lord stated the case for the call. Abram, the Lord promised, will be blessed in making the journey. Abram and his family after him will be blessed, changed in ways they never would have imagined or experienced if they stayed put in Haran, if they resisted the new and unknown. He would know the unique blessing of those who look to the hills and mountains and trust that God is their help. He would know and experience the blessing of being united with God in purpose and mission. He would live with the blessing of comfort and peace of mind knowing his family and descendants (another unexpected blessings) could call to mind their memories of his faithfulness long, very long after he would be gone from this earth.
And on top of all that is the promise that he would also be a blessing to others. Through Abram God built a personal relationship with humankind. In Abram God picked a family through which God would work as an example to all creation. The general relationship with all of creation didn't seem to be getting through to people. As humanity was spreading, so was the sinful desire to be in charge, to be gods. Creation got so corrupt that it had to be restarted with a flood. People got so ambitious they built a tower to try to reach the Lord.
In Abram God decided to work through a particular family to bless creation with a specific example of what grace and obedience, faithfulness and forgiveness, second and third and fourth and fifth chances look like. In Abram and through his human and flawed family, God decided to establish a pattern for personal relationships with humankind. God decided to show us all how God works in unexpected ways to bless us and the lives we live. It all started with a call, a disruption, a holy disruption. It all started with an invitation to go with God somewhere new - to a new place, to new people, to new experiences with God as his keeper.
Here in our church this week we're highlighting summer ministries - - camps, conferences, and missions away from Hudson, and mission and worship opportunities here close to home. There are all sorts of opportunities for all ages, stages of faith, and abilities. Many of them, if not MOST of them are new to MOST of us. They may be outside of our comfort zones, but none of them are outside the reach of the Lord our God who keeps our going our and our coming in forever. They might be outside of our usual routine, but they aren't outside the watch of our Lord who neither slumbers nor sleeps. Some might even be a disruption to our plans and our ideas, but none are beyond the imagination of God who keeps and creates heaven and earth. They might just be holy disruptions.
I encourage you to look at the opportunities. Imagine what you might do different with your time, your energy, your faith this summer. Listen to where God might be calling you to step out in faith on a new journey to something completely new and completely different. Ultimately, that's what this is all about. Ultimately that's what the life of faith is all about. It's about listen to where God is calling us to go for God's own purpose. And when we trust and when we follow, we too can be blessed and a blessing to others.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
In the wilderness
Matthew 4:1-11
After just a quick survey of fine art resources on the web, I think I can say that the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness is one of the most depicted events in the life of Jesus. An art search engine I use found art pieces created from the 9th through the 21st century, many of them from the 16th and 17th centuries with a serene Jesus, rosy-cheeked even as he faced the tempter, a halo still glowing over his head.
However, this week we found a more recent depiction of the temptation that we just had to share with you. British artist Simon Smith was experiencing what he described as a wilderness period in his creative life. He says he felt like he "was on some sort of unending treadmill." His work was getting "stale" and "unadventurous." He decided to stop and pray, and what he prayed for was wilderness - in his words, "Time to stop, to be still and to breathe and to dream a bit, and to be refreshed."
One of the things that came out of that time was his own depiction of Jesus' wilderness time. The idea came from another artist, Stanley Spencer, who created 40 pictures, one for each day of Lent, of Christ in the Wilderness. Si Smith did the same thing, creating 40 images, in a way almost a cartoon strip, but somehow unexpectedly powerful. Open your eyes and your hearts to this understanding of Jesus' wilderness experience.
Forty days and forty nights without other human contact. Forty days and forty nights without food to nourish the body and mind. Forty days and forty nights of extreme temperatures and exposure to the elements. Forty days and forty nights for intense prayer and intimate exposure to God. The desert weighed on Jesus over the course of the 40 days and 40 nights. He weakened as his body and spirit were battered by what they experienced.
Our congregational prayer list tells me that desert times aren't impossible for us to imagine. Whether in our own lives or the lives of those we know and love, we have seen desert times. Times when the elements of disease, the economy, and tragedy have weighed heavy on our lives. We have seen times when spiritual food was scarce; some of us have even experienced times when physical food was hard to come by and stomachs growled nervously and hungrily. We have known loneliness brought on by the isolation of diminishing physical capacities, death in our families, or even the solitude of our singular experiences to which we imagine no one else can relate. Likewise, as the news reports, videos, and images continue to roll in from Japan, we can only imagine the kinds of hunger, isolation, emptiness, and devastation that people are living with after the natural disasters they have lived through.
The wilderness weighs us down. The wilderness piles up on our backs like heavy loads we are forced to carry for an unimaginable, unknown length of time. By day 30 or 31, maybe even earlier, our lips and spirits understandably dry out and start to crack. Our backs bend over. Our bodies get tired. We are famished.
And when we get tired and hungry, when we feel isolated and alone, when we are in spiritual and emotional deserts, parched, craving anything life-giving, we are tempted by any little thing at all that seems to offer a solution to the immediate problems. We look for the winning lottery ticket, the easy (but truthfully non-existent) quick fix. We are tempted to deny the wisdom of God, tempted to abandon our faith in God our creator, tempted to abandon God who we have been tricked to believe has abandoned us. We are tempted to trust other paths, other voices, instead of trusting God who formed us from the dust of the ground, who placed us in the garden of life, who provides out of abundance for our every need.
Jesus comes to the desert with the waters of his baptism still wet on on his forehead. He comes to the desert having just heard the very voice of God declare, "This is my Son," but the first words he hears aloud when he is weakened in body, mind, and probably even Spirit, is "If you are the Son of God." It would not be hard to fall prey to the tempter's trap. A desert experience doesn't FEEL like we dream the life of a son or daughter of God will feel.
The biggest temptation of all is not to magically make food appear, or call down angels to save him, or even to gather all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. The biggest temptation of all is really for Jesus to ignore what God has said is true, for us to deny what we have been told by our creator, to let the tempter steal our very identity as children of God, by tempting us to question the truth of God's love based on our experiences in the desert.
Until now I have assumed the tempter is someone outside of ourselves, but Si Smith's artwork shed some new light on the story for me. Did you notice the image of the tempter in his pictures? Did you notice anything about him? The traditional color of red for the devil was used, first in a lightly tinted apple hanging from an otherwise barren tree on day 24, alluding back to the fruit that the first man and woman were tempted to eat in the Garden of Eden. Next the color comes back in snake that crawls across days 27 and 28. Lastly, the color red is used for the image of the tempter because otherwise you couldn't distinguish him from Jesus himself.
The tempter is identical to the one being tempted. While it is our first impulse to identify with Jesus in the wilderness in the story, Si Smith points out in his art what a few others have pointed out in writing. If there is anyone with whom we should identify in this story, it is probably not the one being tempted; it is the one doing the tempting. The tempter in the desert questioned Jesus' very identity by questioning the way he exercised (or didn't exercise) his divine power. The tempter tried to steal Jesus' identity and turn him into the kind of God he expected instead of the kind of God he was sent to be.
Do we not try to tempt Jesus in these same ways all too often? Do we not question his identity based on our understanding of what he should be doing?
If you really are the Son of God, why do bad things still happen?
If you really are the Son of God, the object of my faith, why do my friends die?
If you really are the Son of God, why is disease taking over my body?
If you really are the Son of God, why is their suffering in this world?
If you really are the Son of God, why didn't you stop the earthquake, the tsunami?
If you really are the Son of God, why don't you just stop it all, stop the suffering, stop the pain? Why don't you stop the bickering and the fighting? Why don't you step in, intervene, step up and be the ruler we think you should be?
No, even more than we are the tempted, we are probably the tempters, trying to push and pull and bargain with Jesus until he fits our understanding of what it means to be the Son of God, what it means to be relevant, to be spectacular, to be powerful. (I've been told these three are Henri Nouwen's descriptions of the temptations) We try to make his life, his response to our lives, fit our understanding of his identity, instead of trusting what he heard at his baptism, and what we were told at our own.
Because ultimately, trusting who he is and understanding who are is all wrapped up together in our baptisms. The declaration of God as Jesus rose through the water is the declaration that is made true when the same element is dropped, poured, sprinkled, or drenched on our own heads. You are a child of God. You are a child of God. What the tempter tries to do more than anything else, what we try to do when we are in that role, is steal Jesus' identity. He tries to tell him what he thinks being the Son of God is really about. He tempts Jesus to forget who he is, because really who he is, is completely dependent upon WHOSE he is.
Jesus' survival in the wilderness isn't dependent on his own ability to turn stones into bread. He isn't tempted to find an easy way out, calling down angels to carry him away from a deadly situation. He doesn't claim for himself powers that would turn the favor of the world in his direction. Jesus survives the wilderness by remembering the very words of God. Jesus survives the wilderness by remembering to whom he belongs. He is the son of God.
We are the children of God. This is the good news for us as both the tempted and the tempter. This is the good news that both convicts and comforts us. We are not in charge. We are not the authors of God's identity, but we are the subject of God's creativity. We are the book God is writing. We are the children of God. We are beloved and cared for, nurtured and forgiven even in the deserts of our lives, even when we tempt Jesus to do it all our way.
We are not God; we are the children of God. Our way through the wildernesses we face is to remember this key to our identity, to not let it be stolen by others, to not let it be distorted by our own dreams of grandeur. Who we are is completely dependent upon whose we are. We are children of God.
After just a quick survey of fine art resources on the web, I think I can say that the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness is one of the most depicted events in the life of Jesus. An art search engine I use found art pieces created from the 9th through the 21st century, many of them from the 16th and 17th centuries with a serene Jesus, rosy-cheeked even as he faced the tempter, a halo still glowing over his head.
However, this week we found a more recent depiction of the temptation that we just had to share with you. British artist Simon Smith was experiencing what he described as a wilderness period in his creative life. He says he felt like he "was on some sort of unending treadmill." His work was getting "stale" and "unadventurous." He decided to stop and pray, and what he prayed for was wilderness - in his words, "Time to stop, to be still and to breathe and to dream a bit, and to be refreshed."
One of the things that came out of that time was his own depiction of Jesus' wilderness time. The idea came from another artist, Stanley Spencer, who created 40 pictures, one for each day of Lent, of Christ in the Wilderness. Si Smith did the same thing, creating 40 images, in a way almost a cartoon strip, but somehow unexpectedly powerful. Open your eyes and your hearts to this understanding of Jesus' wilderness experience.
Forty days and forty nights without other human contact. Forty days and forty nights without food to nourish the body and mind. Forty days and forty nights of extreme temperatures and exposure to the elements. Forty days and forty nights for intense prayer and intimate exposure to God. The desert weighed on Jesus over the course of the 40 days and 40 nights. He weakened as his body and spirit were battered by what they experienced.
Our congregational prayer list tells me that desert times aren't impossible for us to imagine. Whether in our own lives or the lives of those we know and love, we have seen desert times. Times when the elements of disease, the economy, and tragedy have weighed heavy on our lives. We have seen times when spiritual food was scarce; some of us have even experienced times when physical food was hard to come by and stomachs growled nervously and hungrily. We have known loneliness brought on by the isolation of diminishing physical capacities, death in our families, or even the solitude of our singular experiences to which we imagine no one else can relate. Likewise, as the news reports, videos, and images continue to roll in from Japan, we can only imagine the kinds of hunger, isolation, emptiness, and devastation that people are living with after the natural disasters they have lived through.
The wilderness weighs us down. The wilderness piles up on our backs like heavy loads we are forced to carry for an unimaginable, unknown length of time. By day 30 or 31, maybe even earlier, our lips and spirits understandably dry out and start to crack. Our backs bend over. Our bodies get tired. We are famished.
And when we get tired and hungry, when we feel isolated and alone, when we are in spiritual and emotional deserts, parched, craving anything life-giving, we are tempted by any little thing at all that seems to offer a solution to the immediate problems. We look for the winning lottery ticket, the easy (but truthfully non-existent) quick fix. We are tempted to deny the wisdom of God, tempted to abandon our faith in God our creator, tempted to abandon God who we have been tricked to believe has abandoned us. We are tempted to trust other paths, other voices, instead of trusting God who formed us from the dust of the ground, who placed us in the garden of life, who provides out of abundance for our every need.
Jesus comes to the desert with the waters of his baptism still wet on on his forehead. He comes to the desert having just heard the very voice of God declare, "This is my Son," but the first words he hears aloud when he is weakened in body, mind, and probably even Spirit, is "If you are the Son of God." It would not be hard to fall prey to the tempter's trap. A desert experience doesn't FEEL like we dream the life of a son or daughter of God will feel.
The biggest temptation of all is not to magically make food appear, or call down angels to save him, or even to gather all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. The biggest temptation of all is really for Jesus to ignore what God has said is true, for us to deny what we have been told by our creator, to let the tempter steal our very identity as children of God, by tempting us to question the truth of God's love based on our experiences in the desert.
Until now I have assumed the tempter is someone outside of ourselves, but Si Smith's artwork shed some new light on the story for me. Did you notice the image of the tempter in his pictures? Did you notice anything about him? The traditional color of red for the devil was used, first in a lightly tinted apple hanging from an otherwise barren tree on day 24, alluding back to the fruit that the first man and woman were tempted to eat in the Garden of Eden. Next the color comes back in snake that crawls across days 27 and 28. Lastly, the color red is used for the image of the tempter because otherwise you couldn't distinguish him from Jesus himself.
The tempter is identical to the one being tempted. While it is our first impulse to identify with Jesus in the wilderness in the story, Si Smith points out in his art what a few others have pointed out in writing. If there is anyone with whom we should identify in this story, it is probably not the one being tempted; it is the one doing the tempting. The tempter in the desert questioned Jesus' very identity by questioning the way he exercised (or didn't exercise) his divine power. The tempter tried to steal Jesus' identity and turn him into the kind of God he expected instead of the kind of God he was sent to be.
Do we not try to tempt Jesus in these same ways all too often? Do we not question his identity based on our understanding of what he should be doing?
If you really are the Son of God, why do bad things still happen?
If you really are the Son of God, the object of my faith, why do my friends die?
If you really are the Son of God, why is disease taking over my body?
If you really are the Son of God, why is their suffering in this world?
If you really are the Son of God, why didn't you stop the earthquake, the tsunami?
If you really are the Son of God, why don't you just stop it all, stop the suffering, stop the pain? Why don't you stop the bickering and the fighting? Why don't you step in, intervene, step up and be the ruler we think you should be?
No, even more than we are the tempted, we are probably the tempters, trying to push and pull and bargain with Jesus until he fits our understanding of what it means to be the Son of God, what it means to be relevant, to be spectacular, to be powerful. (I've been told these three are Henri Nouwen's descriptions of the temptations) We try to make his life, his response to our lives, fit our understanding of his identity, instead of trusting what he heard at his baptism, and what we were told at our own.
Because ultimately, trusting who he is and understanding who are is all wrapped up together in our baptisms. The declaration of God as Jesus rose through the water is the declaration that is made true when the same element is dropped, poured, sprinkled, or drenched on our own heads. You are a child of God. You are a child of God. What the tempter tries to do more than anything else, what we try to do when we are in that role, is steal Jesus' identity. He tries to tell him what he thinks being the Son of God is really about. He tempts Jesus to forget who he is, because really who he is, is completely dependent upon WHOSE he is.
Jesus' survival in the wilderness isn't dependent on his own ability to turn stones into bread. He isn't tempted to find an easy way out, calling down angels to carry him away from a deadly situation. He doesn't claim for himself powers that would turn the favor of the world in his direction. Jesus survives the wilderness by remembering the very words of God. Jesus survives the wilderness by remembering to whom he belongs. He is the son of God.
We are the children of God. This is the good news for us as both the tempted and the tempter. This is the good news that both convicts and comforts us. We are not in charge. We are not the authors of God's identity, but we are the subject of God's creativity. We are the book God is writing. We are the children of God. We are beloved and cared for, nurtured and forgiven even in the deserts of our lives, even when we tempt Jesus to do it all our way.
We are not God; we are the children of God. Our way through the wildernesses we face is to remember this key to our identity, to not let it be stolen by others, to not let it be distorted by our own dreams of grandeur. Who we are is completely dependent upon whose we are. We are children of God.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Growing Disciples a Vision Statement
Recently the Christian Education Committee approved a Vision Statement for Children, Youth, and Family Educational Ministry at FPC. I would like to share this vision statement with you as well as some of my reflections about it.
The Vision of Christian Education ministry at FPC is to grow disciples; by providing experiences and tools that support the Spiritual growth with in families as well as offering experiences for enriching faith within the FPC community.
In recent years FPC has seen an influx of children and young families and we as a congregation feel God is calling us to grow this aspect of our ministry. With this in mind I thought it would be helpful for the Christian Education Committee and the congregation to have a Vision Statement that will guide us as we evaluate current ministries as well as discern new ministries for our children, youth and families. Along with much prayer and guidance from the Holy Spirit this Vision Statement will be the foundation for which we make decisions for educational ministries.
The core of this Vision Statement is the phrase “grow disciples.” Everything else is how we do this. So what does it mean to “grow disciples”? A disciple is someone who is a follower and believer of their chosen leader. As Christians we are called to be disciples of Jesus Christ. Not only are we called to follow and believe in Jesus Christ but God also calls us into a relationship with the Triune God.
As part of the Baptismal vows that we as a congregation proclaim at a child’s baptism we promise in essence to “grow disciples.” In other words we promise to nurture the child’s relationship and belief in God in hopes that discipleship will be a way of life for them throughout their lives. This is the foundation of this Vision Statement of which the rest of the statement grows out of.
I believe it also worth noting that within this Vision Statement there are two distinct but strongly connected avenues through which discipleship growth occurs. The first is the family. Study after study has shown that the most powerful and meaningful spiritual nurture and growth occurs within the family structure. Thus it is family that has the most impact on a child’s growth as a disciple. The congregation is the second avenue through which discipleship growth occurs. God calls us to be in community-worshipping, learning, and fellowshipping with one another. The FPC community plays an important role in the spiritual nurture of our children, youth and families!
As the weeks and months progress please pray for the children, youth and families of FPC and pray for ways you might help us grow disciples for Jesus!
The Vision of Christian Education ministry at FPC is to grow disciples; by providing experiences and tools that support the Spiritual growth with in families as well as offering experiences for enriching faith within the FPC community.
In recent years FPC has seen an influx of children and young families and we as a congregation feel God is calling us to grow this aspect of our ministry. With this in mind I thought it would be helpful for the Christian Education Committee and the congregation to have a Vision Statement that will guide us as we evaluate current ministries as well as discern new ministries for our children, youth and families. Along with much prayer and guidance from the Holy Spirit this Vision Statement will be the foundation for which we make decisions for educational ministries.
The core of this Vision Statement is the phrase “grow disciples.” Everything else is how we do this. So what does it mean to “grow disciples”? A disciple is someone who is a follower and believer of their chosen leader. As Christians we are called to be disciples of Jesus Christ. Not only are we called to follow and believe in Jesus Christ but God also calls us into a relationship with the Triune God.
As part of the Baptismal vows that we as a congregation proclaim at a child’s baptism we promise in essence to “grow disciples.” In other words we promise to nurture the child’s relationship and belief in God in hopes that discipleship will be a way of life for them throughout their lives. This is the foundation of this Vision Statement of which the rest of the statement grows out of.
I believe it also worth noting that within this Vision Statement there are two distinct but strongly connected avenues through which discipleship growth occurs. The first is the family. Study after study has shown that the most powerful and meaningful spiritual nurture and growth occurs within the family structure. Thus it is family that has the most impact on a child’s growth as a disciple. The congregation is the second avenue through which discipleship growth occurs. God calls us to be in community-worshipping, learning, and fellowshipping with one another. The FPC community plays an important role in the spiritual nurture of our children, youth and families!
As the weeks and months progress please pray for the children, youth and families of FPC and pray for ways you might help us grow disciples for Jesus!
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Choosing Life 101: You are not a doormat
Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18
Matthew 5:38-48
I am going to break the rule of one of the most influential people in my life. Maria von Trapp, at least as played by Julie Andrews, sings, "Let's start at the very beginning," but today I am not. In fact, I'm going to start at the very end, because if you're anything like me, when I heard the end, I couldn't even go back to the beginning to think about what it said. "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."
All I can imagine is a Bill Cosby-esque, "Riiiiiiiiiiight." Perfection is impossible. Or at least perfection achieved by human beings is certainly impossible. If we know anything to be true, it is this, that we are imperfect creatures. From the very beginning of creation, in our relationships with God and with others, even in our relationships with ourselves, we experience on a daily basis our complete imperfection. So why does Jesus say this? Is he challenging us so that we'll achieve some level of goodness, even if it's not perfection? Or is he just setting us up for failure?
No. To all of it. This is a case not of Jesus asking us to do what we can't, but a case of the English language, or at least the traditional translation of Greek to the English language, failing us. I don't often spend a lot of my sermon time playing around in ancient languages, but this time it seems worth it. The perfection Jesus is talking about here is not perfection like an A+ grade on a test. It isn't like making it all the way through a hymn without missing a note. It isn't like saying exactly the right thing to exactly the right person every single time.
It isn't perfection meaning never making any mistakes and never doing one single thing wrong. That perfection is impossible and attempting to live into it would be a life lived in vain. Last week we heard the command from Moses in Deuteronomy telling us to "choose life," but chasing after an unattainable perfection in the tasks of daily living sounds about as life-draining as things can get. It's a good thing this isn't what Jesus is talking about.
A better way to think of this might be "Live your purpose, therefore, as your heavenly Father lives his purpose." The word perfection is not so much about living without mistakes as it is about living the life to which we are called, living with integrity the life God as prepared for us to live, living fully, choosing life and life-giving ways, as opposed to copping out, dumbing things down, or just squeaking by. Being perfect means, to borrow from the old Army commercial, "Being all that you can be" or even better being all that you have been created and blessed to be. This has echoes of the words from earlier in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount the words from the Beatitudes that we summarized, "You are blessed. Act like it."
Be perfect, Jesus commands, Jesus challenges us, no Jesus commissions us. Be exactly who you are created to be, no more, no less. Be who God has called you to be and gifted you to be and blessed you to be, be the best you God has made you to be in whatever situation you find yourself. This perfection we seek, this perfection we strive to live into, it doesn't come from our own ideas of what is flawless; it comes from God's idea of our potential, and that's what's described in the first part of the passage.
In these earlier verses we have another case of often misunderstood translation at play, and it is from this misunderstanding that my sermon title comes. You are not a doormat. We are not doormats. Being a Christian does not mean letting the world trample all over us while they determine what is right and what is wrong, what is valuable, what is worthy of time and attention and money. And just as importantly being a Christian does not mean letting people in power misuse and abuse us or anyone else while we sit in silence, letting them hit us from one side and the other.
Unfortunately and shamefully, that is how this passage has been used even by those within the church. A colleague of mine tells the story of participating in a community workshop meant to educate leaders about the realities of domestic violence. After a particularly disturbing presentation from a women who had escaped an abusive marriage the pastor asked, "What can the church do?" The woman simply responded, "Stop telling women they have to stay and get beaten."
They do not. Turning the other cheek does not mean accepting abuse in what is supposed to be a loving relationship. If you hear nothing else this morning, hear me say that Jesus does NOT desire, Jesus does NOT command that those who are being abused in any way must keep their mouths shut and stay in dangerous, abusive situations of ANY kind. The church must end its silence about domestic abuse and by that silence its participation in the continuation of the sin of abuse.
Being a Christian does not mean you are a doormat. Being a person of faith does NOT mean you must let people walk all over you. This verse about not resisting evildoers doesn't mean we should sit idle while evil is enacted around us; it means we should not stop evil with the ways of evil. Jesus isn't advocating non-resistance all together; he is just telling us what kind of resistance to use.
The people of Jesus' time and the early church who first received Matthew's gospel lived in a very different world than most of us in 21st century America. The residents of Judea lived under the occupation of Rome, under the thumb of Roman soldiers and Roman officials. The relationship was tense and could even be dangerous. It was an oppressive and brutal occupation. It was perfectly legal for a soldier to do what is described in Jesus' sermon, force an ordinary citizen to carry his pack a mile down the road.
Imagine if that were you. Imagine the humiliation that would boil up at being ordered by another human being to do something as infuriating as carrying the pack of the soldier who oppresses you. Imagine the anger that would rise step after step, step after step as you were burdened down physically by a representative of the emperor who was burdening you and your country financially, socially, and religiously. Imagine how you would want to throw the pack back at him, how you might even want to strike out at the soldier, spit in his face, return to him all the evil and pain you have experienced.
But Jesus says don't. Don't stand against the soldier with the same tactics the soldier used to stand against you. Don't resist him with the kinds of actions he uses against you. Jesus says we are called not to lay ourselves down and take whatever is coming to us, but we are called to rise above the violence and oppression and fight violence with peace, counter evil with love. Do not resist the way others resist, with hits and slaps and shots fired back. Resist with courageous strength in the face of power. Resist even with love.
Jesus' preaching is not an advocacy for non-resistance all together. It's an advocacy for the right kind of resistance, the kind of resistance that is life giving, even if in its danger it is not life saving. This kind of resistance has been powerful and effective around the world even as it has put its practitioners in danger. This kind of resistance is the kind of Martin Luther King, Jr and the Civil Rights Movement. It is the kind of resistance often used in central and eastern Europe in 1989. It is the kind of resistance that helped topple apartheid in South Africa.
And albeit on a totally different scale, it is the resistance we can use, we are called to use in conflicts each and every day. It would be easy to simply read these words from Jesus' sermon on the mount and tuck them away, promising to pull them out someday when they apply, when we find ourselves oppressed by an evil regime. It would be easy to discount them as antiquated and unrealistic, inapplicable to our daily living in a relatively peaceful community.
But rarely are Jesus' words really that easy to receive. They apply to us even here and even now. They are for us to follow as we seek to follow him today. Ultimately what Jesus is asking for is for his followers to live as he lives, to love as he loves. His love is not sugar-coated. His love is not passive or wishy-washy or anything that resembles being a doormat. His love allows for reaction, but it calls for a completely different kind of reaction than we may ordinarily choose because his love is not limited. Jesus doesn't love only those who are in his family, only those who are of a like mind, only those who follow the rules, only those who return love to him. Jesus loves everyone, even the one who turned him over to the authorities, even the ones who mocked him and crucified him, even the ones who left him alone in his deepest hour of need.
He loved them and he loves us so much that he gives us a new way to choose life in the middle of disagreement and conflict. He gives us another option. Aggressiveness can end with us. Ugliness can end with us. The insistence on getting my way can end with us, because Jesus has given us grace. Jesus has shown us how to offer grace in the face of aggression. Jesus has shown us how to choose life, choose love, choose a different way of resisting the temptation to lash out even in the middle of mundane day-to-day life.
When somebody tailgates you all the way to the store, you can show them a choice sign with your hand OR you can stop the irritation and give them the front row parking spot even when you saw it first. When someone tosses their trash on your yard, you can package it up and deliver it back to theirs, or you can just clean it up. When someone writes a scathing and judgmental letter to the editor you can slam words back at them or offer thanks for the freedom to disagree and invite them over to supper to talk about things face to face.
There is another way. There is a way out of the cycles of violence and aggression and basic disregard for the life of others that we so greatly cherish for ourselves. It is the way that uses peace as an answer to violence, love to conquer evil, and friendship to overcome enemies. There is another way, and it is the way of grace. It is the way of Jesus.
Matthew 5:38-48
I am going to break the rule of one of the most influential people in my life. Maria von Trapp, at least as played by Julie Andrews, sings, "Let's start at the very beginning," but today I am not. In fact, I'm going to start at the very end, because if you're anything like me, when I heard the end, I couldn't even go back to the beginning to think about what it said. "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."
All I can imagine is a Bill Cosby-esque, "Riiiiiiiiiiight." Perfection is impossible. Or at least perfection achieved by human beings is certainly impossible. If we know anything to be true, it is this, that we are imperfect creatures. From the very beginning of creation, in our relationships with God and with others, even in our relationships with ourselves, we experience on a daily basis our complete imperfection. So why does Jesus say this? Is he challenging us so that we'll achieve some level of goodness, even if it's not perfection? Or is he just setting us up for failure?
No. To all of it. This is a case not of Jesus asking us to do what we can't, but a case of the English language, or at least the traditional translation of Greek to the English language, failing us. I don't often spend a lot of my sermon time playing around in ancient languages, but this time it seems worth it. The perfection Jesus is talking about here is not perfection like an A+ grade on a test. It isn't like making it all the way through a hymn without missing a note. It isn't like saying exactly the right thing to exactly the right person every single time.
It isn't perfection meaning never making any mistakes and never doing one single thing wrong. That perfection is impossible and attempting to live into it would be a life lived in vain. Last week we heard the command from Moses in Deuteronomy telling us to "choose life," but chasing after an unattainable perfection in the tasks of daily living sounds about as life-draining as things can get. It's a good thing this isn't what Jesus is talking about.
A better way to think of this might be "Live your purpose, therefore, as your heavenly Father lives his purpose." The word perfection is not so much about living without mistakes as it is about living the life to which we are called, living with integrity the life God as prepared for us to live, living fully, choosing life and life-giving ways, as opposed to copping out, dumbing things down, or just squeaking by. Being perfect means, to borrow from the old Army commercial, "Being all that you can be" or even better being all that you have been created and blessed to be. This has echoes of the words from earlier in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount the words from the Beatitudes that we summarized, "You are blessed. Act like it."
Be perfect, Jesus commands, Jesus challenges us, no Jesus commissions us. Be exactly who you are created to be, no more, no less. Be who God has called you to be and gifted you to be and blessed you to be, be the best you God has made you to be in whatever situation you find yourself. This perfection we seek, this perfection we strive to live into, it doesn't come from our own ideas of what is flawless; it comes from God's idea of our potential, and that's what's described in the first part of the passage.
In these earlier verses we have another case of often misunderstood translation at play, and it is from this misunderstanding that my sermon title comes. You are not a doormat. We are not doormats. Being a Christian does not mean letting the world trample all over us while they determine what is right and what is wrong, what is valuable, what is worthy of time and attention and money. And just as importantly being a Christian does not mean letting people in power misuse and abuse us or anyone else while we sit in silence, letting them hit us from one side and the other.
Unfortunately and shamefully, that is how this passage has been used even by those within the church. A colleague of mine tells the story of participating in a community workshop meant to educate leaders about the realities of domestic violence. After a particularly disturbing presentation from a women who had escaped an abusive marriage the pastor asked, "What can the church do?" The woman simply responded, "Stop telling women they have to stay and get beaten."
They do not. Turning the other cheek does not mean accepting abuse in what is supposed to be a loving relationship. If you hear nothing else this morning, hear me say that Jesus does NOT desire, Jesus does NOT command that those who are being abused in any way must keep their mouths shut and stay in dangerous, abusive situations of ANY kind. The church must end its silence about domestic abuse and by that silence its participation in the continuation of the sin of abuse.
Being a Christian does not mean you are a doormat. Being a person of faith does NOT mean you must let people walk all over you. This verse about not resisting evildoers doesn't mean we should sit idle while evil is enacted around us; it means we should not stop evil with the ways of evil. Jesus isn't advocating non-resistance all together; he is just telling us what kind of resistance to use.
The people of Jesus' time and the early church who first received Matthew's gospel lived in a very different world than most of us in 21st century America. The residents of Judea lived under the occupation of Rome, under the thumb of Roman soldiers and Roman officials. The relationship was tense and could even be dangerous. It was an oppressive and brutal occupation. It was perfectly legal for a soldier to do what is described in Jesus' sermon, force an ordinary citizen to carry his pack a mile down the road.
Imagine if that were you. Imagine the humiliation that would boil up at being ordered by another human being to do something as infuriating as carrying the pack of the soldier who oppresses you. Imagine the anger that would rise step after step, step after step as you were burdened down physically by a representative of the emperor who was burdening you and your country financially, socially, and religiously. Imagine how you would want to throw the pack back at him, how you might even want to strike out at the soldier, spit in his face, return to him all the evil and pain you have experienced.
But Jesus says don't. Don't stand against the soldier with the same tactics the soldier used to stand against you. Don't resist him with the kinds of actions he uses against you. Jesus says we are called not to lay ourselves down and take whatever is coming to us, but we are called to rise above the violence and oppression and fight violence with peace, counter evil with love. Do not resist the way others resist, with hits and slaps and shots fired back. Resist with courageous strength in the face of power. Resist even with love.
Jesus' preaching is not an advocacy for non-resistance all together. It's an advocacy for the right kind of resistance, the kind of resistance that is life giving, even if in its danger it is not life saving. This kind of resistance has been powerful and effective around the world even as it has put its practitioners in danger. This kind of resistance is the kind of Martin Luther King, Jr and the Civil Rights Movement. It is the kind of resistance often used in central and eastern Europe in 1989. It is the kind of resistance that helped topple apartheid in South Africa.
And albeit on a totally different scale, it is the resistance we can use, we are called to use in conflicts each and every day. It would be easy to simply read these words from Jesus' sermon on the mount and tuck them away, promising to pull them out someday when they apply, when we find ourselves oppressed by an evil regime. It would be easy to discount them as antiquated and unrealistic, inapplicable to our daily living in a relatively peaceful community.
But rarely are Jesus' words really that easy to receive. They apply to us even here and even now. They are for us to follow as we seek to follow him today. Ultimately what Jesus is asking for is for his followers to live as he lives, to love as he loves. His love is not sugar-coated. His love is not passive or wishy-washy or anything that resembles being a doormat. His love allows for reaction, but it calls for a completely different kind of reaction than we may ordinarily choose because his love is not limited. Jesus doesn't love only those who are in his family, only those who are of a like mind, only those who follow the rules, only those who return love to him. Jesus loves everyone, even the one who turned him over to the authorities, even the ones who mocked him and crucified him, even the ones who left him alone in his deepest hour of need.
He loved them and he loves us so much that he gives us a new way to choose life in the middle of disagreement and conflict. He gives us another option. Aggressiveness can end with us. Ugliness can end with us. The insistence on getting my way can end with us, because Jesus has given us grace. Jesus has shown us how to offer grace in the face of aggression. Jesus has shown us how to choose life, choose love, choose a different way of resisting the temptation to lash out even in the middle of mundane day-to-day life.
When somebody tailgates you all the way to the store, you can show them a choice sign with your hand OR you can stop the irritation and give them the front row parking spot even when you saw it first. When someone tosses their trash on your yard, you can package it up and deliver it back to theirs, or you can just clean it up. When someone writes a scathing and judgmental letter to the editor you can slam words back at them or offer thanks for the freedom to disagree and invite them over to supper to talk about things face to face.
There is another way. There is a way out of the cycles of violence and aggression and basic disregard for the life of others that we so greatly cherish for ourselves. It is the way that uses peace as an answer to violence, love to conquer evil, and friendship to overcome enemies. There is another way, and it is the way of grace. It is the way of Jesus.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Choose Life
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
(with a slight nod to some of the issues of Matthew 5:21-37)
Like many of you and many around the world I have watched the events unfolding in Egypt over the last three weeks with a great deal of wonder, nervousness, excitement, and especially prayer. While I like to think that I keep up with current events, I can admit my ignorance of the intricate details of the political situation as I believe these sorts of situations are always much more complex than most of us realize. However, the passion has been unmistakeable. The technological aids have been unbelievable. The revolution was, we now see, unstoppable.
The people of Egypt are free from an oppressive ruler and they now stand on the cusp, on the edge of a new day, a new life. After a few days of expressive celebrations the time is coming to move forward. One reporter for NPR related how the people she had interviewed were wondering now, not so much with fear, but with eager anticipation, just where this revolution had really taken them.
It's the kind of question the Hebrew people asked Moses several times throughout their journey out of Egypt. Why did you take us out of that land? At least in Egypt, they were heard saying more than once, we had food to eat! As they wandered in the wilderness for forty years they wondered if they had really made the right choice by following this leader. They wondered when they were going to get to the Promised Land, and when they got there, IF they got there, what it was going to be like.
That picture up there is one view they had. It's a view of Israel from the top of Mt. Nebo, the place of Moses' death, in the modern state of Jordan. The Jordan River, the border between the two countries, is straight below the steep slope of the mountain on which the photographer is standing. The Dead Sea is directly in front of her, and all of Israel, the Promised Land is before her. On a clear day she can see Jericho, about 15 miles away.
It's from this point, Scripture claims, that Moses delivered his final words to the people he had led for over forty years. It's from this point that he led them through a final recitation of all of the laws and commandments of God. Before they could enter the land God had promised, they had to hear God's plan for how they would live there, the commandments, decrees, and ordinances that would instruct and guide every aspect of their daily lives. It's from this point that he gave them the final message, the final word from God, before he died, never entering the Promised Land himself. "Choose life," he said.
To us it sounds contradictory. On the one hand, for twenty-nine chapters, Moses speaks on and on about all the things the Hebrew people can and can't do. The exact way to organize their courts, the particular way to make offerings on an altar, what food to eat, what festivals to celebrate. Reading them all with the intent to obey can seem tedious, restrictive, repressive, maybe even deadening to our modern ears. It seems to us, especially people of a culture that so highly values independence and freedom, that every choice in life that brings variety and diversity is taken away.
Yet on the other hand Moses insists, GOD insists, it's not mind numbing or deadening. It's not a way to make uncreative, mindless robots out of God's good creation. In fact, God insists it's the exact opposite. Appropriately enough for this Valentine's Day weekend, apparently, following the law, choosing life, is a matter of the heart. Choosing life is about loving God. Choosing life is about turning our hearts to God and in doing so making the many choices that are laid before us in a life-giving, God directed way.
The law, God insists, exists to help us love God. It frees us to give our whole lives, body, soul, and spirit, our hearts to God. It frees us to some extent from wondering, guessing what it is that God wants from a loving and obedient people. The law, in our Reformed understanding, is what we are free to follow in gratitude for the new life we are given in Jesus our Christ. Choose life, God offers, choose me, as I have already chosen you.
The problem is that we get caught up in the details. Much ink was spilled in the days of the early church about how much of the law we need to follow. Do Gentile converts to the faith need to be circumcised? Do Jewish believers need to continue to keep the food laws? Even before the early church controversies, Jesus was also weighing in on the subject. "I came not to abolish the law," he insisted "but to fulfill it."
He takes away the temptation to say that the laws are gone, unnecessary, no longer useful to believers in him. But he also takes away the temptation to just slip through life doing the bare minimum. He teaches the law, expands it even, for a people who sometimes like to use the law to define what is good enough, even if what it good enough isn't what is life-giving.
Think of two sisters in the backseat of a car on a long, very long car ride. The invisible line has already been drawn down the middle of the car to keep them from touching each other. One too many "accidental" hits has happened and the "no touching AT ALL" law has been invoked. What does the completely law abiding, but maybe not life choosing sibling do? She hovers her hands right over the line, not touching her sister, but just getting real close. "I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you." The law has been followed. No rule has been broken. But is that good enough?
No, Jesus says. The law has been followed, but it hasn't been fulfilled. Life has not been chosen. "You have heard it said," Jesus' teachings on laws about murder and anger, adultery and lust begin, "but I say to you something more." God's laws aren't about prohibiting every single bad behavior. God's laws are about choosing life, choosing life that leads not only to faithful obedience to God, but loving and compassionate relationships with other people. God's laws spell out God's desire for us to turn our lives and our actions in a life-giving, life-respecting direction. Jesus desires for us to turn our hearts over to him and no other. Jesus desires for us to love others as he loves others and us.
The divine law isn't about taking away diversity and restricting creativity; it is about encouraging expansive living, protecting all people in their quest to love God with all their heart, soul, and mind. God's law is about choosing life for others as well as for ourselves through actions that respect all people as blessed creatures of the loving Creator. Choosing life is about choosing the way of the One who created all life, who sees all life, who loves all life, who forgives and renews all life. Choosing life is about trusting God whose view and vision is so much farther than our own, who could see beyond the Dead Sea, beyond Jericho and the reach of the human eye, beyond our imagination of what is right and fair and good enough. Choosing life is about facing the challenges before us with a sense of hope and courage because the one who creates order out of chaos can create life out of the most difficult situations.
This is the life God's people are called to choose. Standing on the edge of the Promised Land, the people of God were filled with excitement and anticipation, certainly, but also fear and trepidation. The Promised Land was also a "Possessed" Land. It was not empty, sitting vacant waiting for the Hebrew people to come inhabit it again. Other people were living there, farming their own farms, worshipping their own gods, raising their own families. There was anxiety among the people about how they would enter this unknown territory, worry and wonder about just where their revolution, their journey had brought them.
In Egypt this weekend some of the revolutionaries found a way to choose life as they stood on the edge of their future. The protests for the most part were over and while the celebrations continued some people began to look forward. It started first in Tahrir Square, people who had used Facebook to organize a revolution, used Facebook to organize the clean-up. People came down not with signs and shouts but with trash bags and scrubbing brushes. They cleaned up the square and then the streets surrounding the square, and then the movement spread out in symbol and reality. People took to streets around Cairo and around the nation according to some reports cleaning their country, choosing life, making a way forward in an uncertain, but much brighter future.
We all face our Promised and Possessed Lands in different ways. Our journeys bring us to different mountaintops, different cliffs from which we look over our unknown futures. Whether you're looking out over the promising future of a new job or a new family or new opportunity in school or education, or whether you're looking out over a land possessed by diagnoses and treatments for an unexpected illness, a land gripped by financial insecurity, or ravaged by wars of addiction and dependencies, the choice remains the same. Turn your heart to God. Put your trust in God's gracious mercy, God's guiding spirit, God's ordering love. With complete dependence on the one who breathed life into the dust of the earth, who died and rose again for our sake, who moves through all of creation as wind over the the water, choose life in God's hands as your way forward. You will be blessed. You will be blessed.
(with a slight nod to some of the issues of Matthew 5:21-37)
Like many of you and many around the world I have watched the events unfolding in Egypt over the last three weeks with a great deal of wonder, nervousness, excitement, and especially prayer. While I like to think that I keep up with current events, I can admit my ignorance of the intricate details of the political situation as I believe these sorts of situations are always much more complex than most of us realize. However, the passion has been unmistakeable. The technological aids have been unbelievable. The revolution was, we now see, unstoppable.
The people of Egypt are free from an oppressive ruler and they now stand on the cusp, on the edge of a new day, a new life. After a few days of expressive celebrations the time is coming to move forward. One reporter for NPR related how the people she had interviewed were wondering now, not so much with fear, but with eager anticipation, just where this revolution had really taken them.
It's the kind of question the Hebrew people asked Moses several times throughout their journey out of Egypt. Why did you take us out of that land? At least in Egypt, they were heard saying more than once, we had food to eat! As they wandered in the wilderness for forty years they wondered if they had really made the right choice by following this leader. They wondered when they were going to get to the Promised Land, and when they got there, IF they got there, what it was going to be like.
That picture up there is one view they had. It's a view of Israel from the top of Mt. Nebo, the place of Moses' death, in the modern state of Jordan. The Jordan River, the border between the two countries, is straight below the steep slope of the mountain on which the photographer is standing. The Dead Sea is directly in front of her, and all of Israel, the Promised Land is before her. On a clear day she can see Jericho, about 15 miles away.
It's from this point, Scripture claims, that Moses delivered his final words to the people he had led for over forty years. It's from this point that he led them through a final recitation of all of the laws and commandments of God. Before they could enter the land God had promised, they had to hear God's plan for how they would live there, the commandments, decrees, and ordinances that would instruct and guide every aspect of their daily lives. It's from this point that he gave them the final message, the final word from God, before he died, never entering the Promised Land himself. "Choose life," he said.
To us it sounds contradictory. On the one hand, for twenty-nine chapters, Moses speaks on and on about all the things the Hebrew people can and can't do. The exact way to organize their courts, the particular way to make offerings on an altar, what food to eat, what festivals to celebrate. Reading them all with the intent to obey can seem tedious, restrictive, repressive, maybe even deadening to our modern ears. It seems to us, especially people of a culture that so highly values independence and freedom, that every choice in life that brings variety and diversity is taken away.
Yet on the other hand Moses insists, GOD insists, it's not mind numbing or deadening. It's not a way to make uncreative, mindless robots out of God's good creation. In fact, God insists it's the exact opposite. Appropriately enough for this Valentine's Day weekend, apparently, following the law, choosing life, is a matter of the heart. Choosing life is about loving God. Choosing life is about turning our hearts to God and in doing so making the many choices that are laid before us in a life-giving, God directed way.
The law, God insists, exists to help us love God. It frees us to give our whole lives, body, soul, and spirit, our hearts to God. It frees us to some extent from wondering, guessing what it is that God wants from a loving and obedient people. The law, in our Reformed understanding, is what we are free to follow in gratitude for the new life we are given in Jesus our Christ. Choose life, God offers, choose me, as I have already chosen you.
The problem is that we get caught up in the details. Much ink was spilled in the days of the early church about how much of the law we need to follow. Do Gentile converts to the faith need to be circumcised? Do Jewish believers need to continue to keep the food laws? Even before the early church controversies, Jesus was also weighing in on the subject. "I came not to abolish the law," he insisted "but to fulfill it."
He takes away the temptation to say that the laws are gone, unnecessary, no longer useful to believers in him. But he also takes away the temptation to just slip through life doing the bare minimum. He teaches the law, expands it even, for a people who sometimes like to use the law to define what is good enough, even if what it good enough isn't what is life-giving.
Think of two sisters in the backseat of a car on a long, very long car ride. The invisible line has already been drawn down the middle of the car to keep them from touching each other. One too many "accidental" hits has happened and the "no touching AT ALL" law has been invoked. What does the completely law abiding, but maybe not life choosing sibling do? She hovers her hands right over the line, not touching her sister, but just getting real close. "I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you." The law has been followed. No rule has been broken. But is that good enough?
No, Jesus says. The law has been followed, but it hasn't been fulfilled. Life has not been chosen. "You have heard it said," Jesus' teachings on laws about murder and anger, adultery and lust begin, "but I say to you something more." God's laws aren't about prohibiting every single bad behavior. God's laws are about choosing life, choosing life that leads not only to faithful obedience to God, but loving and compassionate relationships with other people. God's laws spell out God's desire for us to turn our lives and our actions in a life-giving, life-respecting direction. Jesus desires for us to turn our hearts over to him and no other. Jesus desires for us to love others as he loves others and us.
The divine law isn't about taking away diversity and restricting creativity; it is about encouraging expansive living, protecting all people in their quest to love God with all their heart, soul, and mind. God's law is about choosing life for others as well as for ourselves through actions that respect all people as blessed creatures of the loving Creator. Choosing life is about choosing the way of the One who created all life, who sees all life, who loves all life, who forgives and renews all life. Choosing life is about trusting God whose view and vision is so much farther than our own, who could see beyond the Dead Sea, beyond Jericho and the reach of the human eye, beyond our imagination of what is right and fair and good enough. Choosing life is about facing the challenges before us with a sense of hope and courage because the one who creates order out of chaos can create life out of the most difficult situations.
This is the life God's people are called to choose. Standing on the edge of the Promised Land, the people of God were filled with excitement and anticipation, certainly, but also fear and trepidation. The Promised Land was also a "Possessed" Land. It was not empty, sitting vacant waiting for the Hebrew people to come inhabit it again. Other people were living there, farming their own farms, worshipping their own gods, raising their own families. There was anxiety among the people about how they would enter this unknown territory, worry and wonder about just where their revolution, their journey had brought them.
In Egypt this weekend some of the revolutionaries found a way to choose life as they stood on the edge of their future. The protests for the most part were over and while the celebrations continued some people began to look forward. It started first in Tahrir Square, people who had used Facebook to organize a revolution, used Facebook to organize the clean-up. People came down not with signs and shouts but with trash bags and scrubbing brushes. They cleaned up the square and then the streets surrounding the square, and then the movement spread out in symbol and reality. People took to streets around Cairo and around the nation according to some reports cleaning their country, choosing life, making a way forward in an uncertain, but much brighter future.
We all face our Promised and Possessed Lands in different ways. Our journeys bring us to different mountaintops, different cliffs from which we look over our unknown futures. Whether you're looking out over the promising future of a new job or a new family or new opportunity in school or education, or whether you're looking out over a land possessed by diagnoses and treatments for an unexpected illness, a land gripped by financial insecurity, or ravaged by wars of addiction and dependencies, the choice remains the same. Turn your heart to God. Put your trust in God's gracious mercy, God's guiding spirit, God's ordering love. With complete dependence on the one who breathed life into the dust of the earth, who died and rose again for our sake, who moves through all of creation as wind over the the water, choose life in God's hands as your way forward. You will be blessed. You will be blessed.
Monday, February 7, 2011
You Are
For the first time in almost 9 years of ordained ministry I had to miss a Sunday because I was sick this month. The evening of Saturday, February 5, I just knew I had to make the call to get a "Plan B" going. Many thanks to Jody, Lynne, Lynn, Barb, and John who all stepped in in different ways. Many thanks to the congregation and the communion volunteers who were flexible as we delayed the celebration of the sacrament for one week.
I also want to thank my friend Julie, a PC(USA) pastor in the Milwaukee area who had already finished her sermon when I had not. Several of us "gather" on the internet to share our preaching thoughts throughout the week, so I knew we were thinking about the Scripture in very similar ways. When Julie posted her sermon on the internet I knew that it was right in line with where I was planning to go, but had not yet gone in writing. With her permission I borrowed generously from her sermon to prepare something quickly for Sunday morning so that I could just take my feverish self to bed. You can find her sermon at her blog You Win Some, You Learn Some. My version is below.
Thanks be to God for the compassion and connectivity of Christ's church!
Matthew 5:13-20
Jesus’ comparison took on a whole new meaning for a whole lot of the nation this week. Luckily most of the storm missed us completely, but for many other people south of us - - all the way south to Arlington, TX and beyond - - being called the salt of the earth probably strikes a bit of a chord. A number of those southern cities, Arlington, TX among them, were hurting without salt. Airports were closed. Streets were sheets of ice. Businesses lost money. A whole lot a headaches and one sports writers article titled “Why the Super Bowl should always be in a sunny city” could have be avoided with a nice stockpile of salt.
The first hearers of the Gospel of Matthew found themselves in the middle of a storm of their own. They weren’t bombarded with snow and ice, but they were caught up in a storm of a spiritual and political sort. The temple had just recently been destroyed. Jesus had not returned quite as quickly as everyone had anticipated. The city of Jerusalem was occupied by the Romans. Everything that stood for their life with God was completely gone. Even the Jewish community was turning against itself as different factions argued about the right way to respond to the Roman oppression, with submission or with force, with subversion or with protest.
Jesus knew in a way that only the Messiah can know that they and that we would need to hear these words in the storms of our lives. This whole Sermon on the Mount, that began with the declaration of blessings, the radical inclusion in God’s grace of all those who are usually excluded, this whole Sermon on the Mount somehow reassures us of God’s favor, reminds us that it is for others too, and challenges us to demonstrate it to the world. A preacher friend of mine likes to say that the Beatitudes that come right before our passage today can be summed up this way, “You are blessed. Act like it.”
His comparisons of us to salt of the earth and the light of the world does the exact same thing. Jesus doesn’t say, “If you do this, that, and the other thing, then you will be salt.” He doesn’t bargain with us, “I’ll give you a little light if you give me a little praise.” Jesus isn’t trying to convince his followers or beg them or bribe them into working on his behalf. He just declares it to us. “You are.”
Salt gets a pretty bad rap these days. Most of the time when we hear about salt when there ISN’T a big game in a not so sunny city we’re hearing about how bad it is for us. Salt will raise your blood pressure. Salt will dehydrate you. These things may be true some of the time for some people, but at the same time it is also completely true that none of us can live without salt. The human body needs salt to perform some of its most basic functions even down to the cellular level.
In Jesus time salt had other important functions. In addition to preserving food and serving as currency, salt was also a sign of a promise. People making an unbreakable covenant with one another would seal the promise with the exchange of salt. This is what Jesus says we are. “You ARE the sign of my never-ending covenant with the world.” Intimidating, right? And as if that wasn’t enough, Jesus goes on and throws another metaphor on top of that one, “You ARE the light of the world.” Most days we’re probably lucky to feel like the tiny candle on a birthday cake, but Jesus says we’re the light of the whole world!
The world doesn’t help us with our feelings of adequacy either. It seems like every time I turn around another study group is reporting the findings of their poll about the public’s opinion of Christians and the church. “Judgmental,” they call us. Even “hateful.” Close-minded, arrogant, hypocritical. Irrelevant. That seems to be the prevailing opinion of the church as expressed by those outside of the church. As we hear it over and over and over again, we run the risk of believing it. Like Matthew’s church who was reviled and persecuted, who was defamed and hated, we run the risk of resorting to acts of violence or just slipping underground and out of sight all together.
Hearing the world’s opinion of us over and over again, we run the risk of making it our opinion about ourselves, too.
We are right. They’re wrong.
We are saved. They aren’t.
We are in. They’re out.
And maybe worst of all, we don’t matter. They’re right.
But we do matter. We are relevant. Even when the world’s seemingly falling apart around us - - when the economy is tanking, and nations are in complete upheaval, and cancer is striking at all the wrong times - - even when everything seems to be crumbling all around Jesus has the gall to announce, “You are loved. You are blessed. Act like it.”
I read somewhere in an article on parenting that a child needs to hear ten positive messages to counteract one negative one. It’s a good thing Jesus gives us so many. Blessed are you the poor in spirit. Blessed are you who mourn. Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are the persecuted. Blessed are you. You ARE the salt of the earth. You ARE the light of the world.
We don’t need to work at it. We don’t need to strive for it. We don’t need to try to earn it. We ARE. You ARE because God put that never-ending covenant in you. God placed a light into each and every one of us. “You ARE because I am in you,” Jesus says.
A story has been told about a rabbi who was wandering through the forest one evening. As he was praying and walking along, he lost his way and found himself in front of a military base, where a guard brought him out of his reverie by shouting, "Who are you? What are you doing here?" The rabbi replied, "How much do they pay you?" "Why do you ask?" the guard wondered. "Because," said the rabbi, "I need someone to ask me those questions every day.”
Everyday we need to be reminded of who we are. Everyday we need to ask ourselves those questions or find someone who will ask them for us. Every day we need to answer “Who are you? What are you doing here?” and the answer comes straight from Jesus’ lips. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. You are blessed. Act it.
A striking image that has come out of Egypt in the last week has made its way around a number of news outlets. It sits perfectly and appropriately alongside one from less than a month ago, an image of Egyptian Muslims providing a human shield for Coptic Christians trying to attend mass under the threat of violence on their Christmas day. The picture this week was of Egyptian Christians providing that same shield from violence for their Muslim compatriots who stopped to pray in the middle of the protests and demonstrations in Cairo. Hands held hands in an outward facing circle as the faithful men bowed down on the ground in prayer.
When was the last time we were that kind of salt? When was the last time we provided that kind of light? That kind of love for others?
But it’s likely that those aren’t the only images we can muster up of salt and light in the world last week; we just weren’t looking for them. We just weren’t naming them that way. One preacher suggested early this week that we all keep “Salt Logs” for the next week, writing down the times we were recognized who we are, salt of the earth, light of the world, and what we’re doing here, sharing God’s love in Jesus with the world. I think if we did, we’d find plenty of evidence of the truth.
Beloved of God, you are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. Every good and perfect gift you need to make a difference has already been given to you. Carry your zest, your brilliance with you everywhere you go. Amen.
I also want to thank my friend Julie, a PC(USA) pastor in the Milwaukee area who had already finished her sermon when I had not. Several of us "gather" on the internet to share our preaching thoughts throughout the week, so I knew we were thinking about the Scripture in very similar ways. When Julie posted her sermon on the internet I knew that it was right in line with where I was planning to go, but had not yet gone in writing. With her permission I borrowed generously from her sermon to prepare something quickly for Sunday morning so that I could just take my feverish self to bed. You can find her sermon at her blog You Win Some, You Learn Some. My version is below.
Thanks be to God for the compassion and connectivity of Christ's church!
Matthew 5:13-20
Jesus’ comparison took on a whole new meaning for a whole lot of the nation this week. Luckily most of the storm missed us completely, but for many other people south of us - - all the way south to Arlington, TX and beyond - - being called the salt of the earth probably strikes a bit of a chord. A number of those southern cities, Arlington, TX among them, were hurting without salt. Airports were closed. Streets were sheets of ice. Businesses lost money. A whole lot a headaches and one sports writers article titled “Why the Super Bowl should always be in a sunny city” could have be avoided with a nice stockpile of salt.
The first hearers of the Gospel of Matthew found themselves in the middle of a storm of their own. They weren’t bombarded with snow and ice, but they were caught up in a storm of a spiritual and political sort. The temple had just recently been destroyed. Jesus had not returned quite as quickly as everyone had anticipated. The city of Jerusalem was occupied by the Romans. Everything that stood for their life with God was completely gone. Even the Jewish community was turning against itself as different factions argued about the right way to respond to the Roman oppression, with submission or with force, with subversion or with protest.
Jesus knew in a way that only the Messiah can know that they and that we would need to hear these words in the storms of our lives. This whole Sermon on the Mount, that began with the declaration of blessings, the radical inclusion in God’s grace of all those who are usually excluded, this whole Sermon on the Mount somehow reassures us of God’s favor, reminds us that it is for others too, and challenges us to demonstrate it to the world. A preacher friend of mine likes to say that the Beatitudes that come right before our passage today can be summed up this way, “You are blessed. Act like it.”
His comparisons of us to salt of the earth and the light of the world does the exact same thing. Jesus doesn’t say, “If you do this, that, and the other thing, then you will be salt.” He doesn’t bargain with us, “I’ll give you a little light if you give me a little praise.” Jesus isn’t trying to convince his followers or beg them or bribe them into working on his behalf. He just declares it to us. “You are.”
Salt gets a pretty bad rap these days. Most of the time when we hear about salt when there ISN’T a big game in a not so sunny city we’re hearing about how bad it is for us. Salt will raise your blood pressure. Salt will dehydrate you. These things may be true some of the time for some people, but at the same time it is also completely true that none of us can live without salt. The human body needs salt to perform some of its most basic functions even down to the cellular level.
In Jesus time salt had other important functions. In addition to preserving food and serving as currency, salt was also a sign of a promise. People making an unbreakable covenant with one another would seal the promise with the exchange of salt. This is what Jesus says we are. “You ARE the sign of my never-ending covenant with the world.” Intimidating, right? And as if that wasn’t enough, Jesus goes on and throws another metaphor on top of that one, “You ARE the light of the world.” Most days we’re probably lucky to feel like the tiny candle on a birthday cake, but Jesus says we’re the light of the whole world!
The world doesn’t help us with our feelings of adequacy either. It seems like every time I turn around another study group is reporting the findings of their poll about the public’s opinion of Christians and the church. “Judgmental,” they call us. Even “hateful.” Close-minded, arrogant, hypocritical. Irrelevant. That seems to be the prevailing opinion of the church as expressed by those outside of the church. As we hear it over and over and over again, we run the risk of believing it. Like Matthew’s church who was reviled and persecuted, who was defamed and hated, we run the risk of resorting to acts of violence or just slipping underground and out of sight all together.
Hearing the world’s opinion of us over and over again, we run the risk of making it our opinion about ourselves, too.
We are right. They’re wrong.
We are saved. They aren’t.
We are in. They’re out.
And maybe worst of all, we don’t matter. They’re right.
But we do matter. We are relevant. Even when the world’s seemingly falling apart around us - - when the economy is tanking, and nations are in complete upheaval, and cancer is striking at all the wrong times - - even when everything seems to be crumbling all around Jesus has the gall to announce, “You are loved. You are blessed. Act like it.”
I read somewhere in an article on parenting that a child needs to hear ten positive messages to counteract one negative one. It’s a good thing Jesus gives us so many. Blessed are you the poor in spirit. Blessed are you who mourn. Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are the persecuted. Blessed are you. You ARE the salt of the earth. You ARE the light of the world.
We don’t need to work at it. We don’t need to strive for it. We don’t need to try to earn it. We ARE. You ARE because God put that never-ending covenant in you. God placed a light into each and every one of us. “You ARE because I am in you,” Jesus says.
A story has been told about a rabbi who was wandering through the forest one evening. As he was praying and walking along, he lost his way and found himself in front of a military base, where a guard brought him out of his reverie by shouting, "Who are you? What are you doing here?" The rabbi replied, "How much do they pay you?" "Why do you ask?" the guard wondered. "Because," said the rabbi, "I need someone to ask me those questions every day.”
Everyday we need to be reminded of who we are. Everyday we need to ask ourselves those questions or find someone who will ask them for us. Every day we need to answer “Who are you? What are you doing here?” and the answer comes straight from Jesus’ lips. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. You are blessed. Act it.
A striking image that has come out of Egypt in the last week has made its way around a number of news outlets. It sits perfectly and appropriately alongside one from less than a month ago, an image of Egyptian Muslims providing a human shield for Coptic Christians trying to attend mass under the threat of violence on their Christmas day. The picture this week was of Egyptian Christians providing that same shield from violence for their Muslim compatriots who stopped to pray in the middle of the protests and demonstrations in Cairo. Hands held hands in an outward facing circle as the faithful men bowed down on the ground in prayer.
When was the last time we were that kind of salt? When was the last time we provided that kind of light? That kind of love for others?
But it’s likely that those aren’t the only images we can muster up of salt and light in the world last week; we just weren’t looking for them. We just weren’t naming them that way. One preacher suggested early this week that we all keep “Salt Logs” for the next week, writing down the times we were recognized who we are, salt of the earth, light of the world, and what we’re doing here, sharing God’s love in Jesus with the world. I think if we did, we’d find plenty of evidence of the truth.
Beloved of God, you are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. Every good and perfect gift you need to make a difference has already been given to you. Carry your zest, your brilliance with you everywhere you go. Amen.
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