Thursday, May 5, 2011
April 24, 2011 - Easter Sunday
I was a PBS kid growing up. We watched a lot of public television in my house, and one of the shows I always enjoyed was “Reading Rainbow”. You know, the one with LeVar Burton of Roots and Star Trek: the Next Generation fame as the host. I think it's ironic that there are TV shows designed to encourage kids to read, but that aside, I did enjoy the format of the show. They always had one featured book that some actor would read to the audience, complete with all of the pictures. But my favorite part of the show was always at the end, when LeVar would say something like, “If you enjoyed this story, here are some other books you might like... but you don't have to take my word for it.” And with that, they'd go to all of these little mini-book reviews by other kids, telling a little bit about the book they had read and why they liked it.
It reminds me of what happened to Mary Magdalene and the other Mary in this story from Matthew's gospel. As we join back in with the story we heard last Sunday, when we read the passion according to Matthew, it's on the third day. Jesus has been crucified. He died on the cross, and his body was taken by Joseph of Arimathea and laid in a tomb. A guard was set in place and the entrance to the tomb sealed with a stone, lest the disciples try to steal the body away. And so the women come, as the first day of the week was dawning – that's Sunday to you and me. They didn't come expecting anything, and they certainly weren't expecting or even daring to hope that Jesus wouldn't be there. Yet on the way, “suddenly there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it... “ (vs. 2). The guards shook in fear and fainted away, but the angel came with a message for the women: “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised as he said. Come, see the place where he lay” (5-6).
The angel announces this great and miraculous news – Jesus is risen! - and he follows it up, “but you don't have to take my word for it...” Look for yourselves. See where he lay – it's empty now.
And the women do. They see for themselves, and they off they run, filled with both fear and great joy, doing just what the angel had told them to do – to share this good news with the other disciples, to take them a message that Jesus “has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him” (vs. 7).
The women don't simply get the word of the angel. They don't even have to take just the word of the empty tomb, because on their way, suddenly Jesus himself met them, and said, “Greetings!” There Jesus is! They can see him with their own eyes, touch them as they grab hold of his feet, worship him in person.
And so down on the line it goes, because Jesus sends them with the same message to the disciples that they got from the angel: “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
The women go to carry the words of the angel, and the witness of the empty tomb, and their very own encounter with Jesus with the disciples. But the disciples don't have to take the women's word for it – for they too will see Jesus risen with their very own eyes when they go back to Galilee.
And so it has gone all down through history, from that time forth until this very day. The disciples carried the good news of Jesus rising from the dead to the corners of the world, passing on the story in different places, to different people of different cultures. They shared of their own experience, but always, underneath it all, was this silent refrain: “But you don't have to take my word for it.” Not that their words weren't trustworthy and true, but “you don't have to take my word for it” because you can have your own experience of Jesus.
It's amazing, this story. Jesus sends an angel to greet the women. Jesus sends the women to his disciples. Jesus sends his disciples to the world. Always, Jesus sends people to prepare the way for his coming. Always, Jesus sends his followers on ahead of him, messengers to share the good news with all of those who come to the graveside of loves lost, dreams that have died, hope that has been extinguished – and those messengers remind us not to be afraid – because death and despair do not have the final word. Jesus is not here; he has risen as he said! But we don't have to take the messengers' word for it, because Jesus himself meets us along the way as we go, in our moments of great joy, in the times when we are deeply afraid, even when joy and fear are all tied up in some strange combination.
Jesus comes and meets us where we are, wherever we are, telling us not to be afraid. Jesus meets us in the darkness of our Good Fridays, and as the light is dawning on this Easter day. Jesus meets us even in this place, as we gather to hear this old, old story, not always certain if we dare to believe it or not. He meets us in word and sacrament, in stories shared and songs sung and prayers prayed. He's present in baptismal waters poured and bread broken and wine drunk.
Jesus is alive and active beyond these walls too, wherever God's will is done – where the hungry are fed and the naked given clothing and the homeless sheltered and the stranger welcomed. He is here with us and for us, reminding us that we no longer need to live our lives in fear, because by dying, Jesus has destroyed death, and in rising, he has raised us to eternal life. He gives us words of comfort and of hope along the road, and then he sends us on our way to carry this good news to a world that surely needs it, going forth to prepare the way for someone else to meet him soon. Jesus is not dead – he is risen just as he said!
But you don't have to take my word for it. Come. See. Taste. Touch for yourself. Experience the risen Lord - and then go to share his story, for it is your story. It is our story. It is the story of good news of great joy for all people. Thanks be to God!
Amen.
April 22, 2011 - Good Friday
When I was a kid, my brother got the original Nintendo video game system (or as my mother always called it, an “Intendo”). Kind of funny now to look back on how basic those games were, how low-end their graphics were, but still, we played for hours on the little 13-inch television that it was hooked up to. Mostly I liked to play games like Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda. The object of both of those games was ultimately to save the princess, but in order to do that, you had to battle your way through the different levels, facing ever-stronger opponents along the way. And as I recall, you always started the game off with 3 lives, and a bunch of hearts that monitored your health level; the less hearts you had left, the weaker you were. And when your hearts were empty, your character was done for.
Now of course, along the way, there were chances to refill your hearts, to prolong your life; you even had chances to gain hearts and grow stronger so that you could survive longer. But inevitably you would come up against an enemy that was bigger and stronger than your little character, something more powerful than you that you really weren't sure you had the resources to fight against and still survive. Sometimes you could choose between running away or staying to fight. If you stayed, you just hoped that your hearts were filled up and that you'd gained enough skills to win the battle. Other times, if you were at the end of a level, you were locked into the fight. There was no running away from the big boss, who was always way bigger, and way more powerful than you, and you could just hope that you could last long enough to defeat it.
What was frustrating about these games is that if you lost (which happened to me a LOT of the time), you either ended up going back to an earlier part of the game, and had to fight back through the same things you'd already defeated, or if you were at the end of the level, you just got dumped back into the same room, forced to fight the big boss over and over again – and you usually started off weaker than when you began.
I have to tell you, this is where I decided the game wasn't that much fun any more. I'd often just give up. It was beyond me. Sometimes I'd just give it a break. Other times, I'd hand the controller off to my brother or my cousins and let them fight the big battle for me. I just didn't have the skills to win the game, and I got sick of fighting the same fight over and over and over again without making any headway.
Sometimes the world reminds me of those old video games. Sometimes it feels like we are facing the same struggles day in and day out, like we make some progress one day, but without fail, we end up facing the same foe again, the same big boss who is bigger and stronger than us. It often feels like we are up against forces that are more powerful than we are – sometimes in our personal lives with our personal struggles, but especially as we look at the world around us. For all the advances we have made as human beings, it so often feels like we have taken 1 step forward, only to take a step or two back. We've made huge strides in science and medicine, and yet diseases like cancer and malaria and AIDS continue to claim lives. We've come so far in our knowledge and ability to produce huge amounts of food, and yet even here in America in 2009, almost 15 percent of households experienced food insecurity – which means that there wasn't enough money to buy the food to meet a family's nutritional needs every day. We fight wars to gain peace, the oppressed rise up against injustice – only to be pushed back down and beaten. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. These kinds of things have gone on all throughout history, and some days it just feels futile. It feels like we'll never be able to beat the big bosses that battle against us.
It certainly seemed that way on Good Friday. Jesus found himself face to face against the big bosses of his time – the Jewish leaders, the Roman establishment, the crowd that had heralded his arrival in Jerusalem with hopeful, happy cheers now turned against him. Once again, we see a showdown between one valiant hero and all of the powers that be, trying to shut him up, trying to shoot Jesus down before he could rise to power on his own and win the game once and for all.
And so Jesus stands, locked in the room in the final stage of the game, facing off against the big bosses of sin and evil and darkness and death – not just one to contend with, but all of them at once – Jesus with no one else to help him fight, for all of his friends have deserted him. And what he does is hard to believe – he doesn't try to run away, but he doesn't exactly try to fight either. He just stands there and takes what they have to dish out. Judas leads them to the garden, then it's off to the high priest, and then to Pilate, and finally, to hang on a cross. And there he spends his life; his life is poured out. There are no extra heart refills, no extra lives waiting to power him back up once this battle is over, no escape. On that Friday afternoon, facing the big bosses of the world's powers, Jesus dies. Hanging there on the cross, giving up his last breath, then laid in a tomb, it seems to all the world that it's game over for Jesus.
But we know the rest of the story. We know that it's not game over forever.
It's there on the cross that the final battle is won – not just for Jesus, but for all of us, for all time. In the face of sin and darkness and death, by refusing to fight back the way the world fights, Jesus reveals his true power, more powerful than all the big, bad bosses of this world. It is the power of love triumphing over hate and fear, light shining out of darkness, life winning out over death. It is the power of a love that gives itself up so that we might live, so that we no longer have to hide from darkness and death, no longer need to fear the battles and bosses in our way. There on the cross, in Jesus, we have the final victory.
I know that there are days when it feels like we just can't win, that our problems and the troubles of the world seem insurmountable. It's then that we may be tempted to give up, to give in. But the struggle isn't ours alone. Jesus is right there in it with us. So when the fight seems more than you can handle on your own, remember what I used to do playing video games with my brother, and partner up with someone who has what it takes to win the game – Jesus, who fights alongside you. Jesus who fights for you. Jesus, who has already won the game for us all.
Thanks be to God!
Amen.
April 21, 2011 - Maundy Thursday
I've had a song running through my head these past few days as I've been reading this gospel & thinking about it. It's a newer one to us – Will You Let Me Be Your Servant? (ELW, #659) We've sung it a few times, but it may not be all that familiar to you. It's the kind of melody that gets stuck in your head – but it's the words that were ringing in my ear this week. The first and last line are the same. I won't sing it for you...
“Will you let me be your servant,Such interesting words – 2 different sides of the same coin. “Will you let me be your servant...? Pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant too.”
let me be as Christ to you?
Pray that I may have the grace
to let you be my servant, too.”
You know, my tendency is to get that last line mixed up. It's an easy song to remember, but I always want to switch the words around and say, "Pray that I may have the grace to let me be your servant too."
Because even though none of us really wants to be in the position of servant, we often find that serving others, doing something for someone else, is a whole lot easier than being the one who is served. Being served puts us in the position of owing someone else something. It seems like we always want to figure out a way to pay that person back with an equal act of kindness, rather than just receiving whatever they have done for us and saying thank-you. But more than that, I think that having someone else serve you, having them offer themselves and their help in whatever way, whatever form that takes, makes us feel vulnerable. It forces us to admit that we have needs we cannot meet on our own, and that's a hard thing to admit, at least for most of us.
I've come across that a lot. I'm sure you've seen some of these situations too– the elderly person who really can't live all on their own safely anymore, but resists having a companion or aide coming to their home to help them; the people who have lost a job, but never tell anyone until months or years later, usually after they have found work again; the person who suspects or knows that they have cancer, and yet choosing to go through treatment without telling anyone but their immediate family members.
There are a lot of reasons for keeping these things to ourselves. We don't want to burden anyone else. We want to prove to ourselves that we can take care of ourselves, that we can manage just fine without help. We don't want that vulnerability of needing someone else.
Some of you may not have this problem. I've always admired the people I know who just seem to easily be able to say, “I'm having a hard time. Can you help me?", but I'm not really in that crowd. A few months back, Andy & I were watching an episode of the show Fraggle Rock, you know, the Muppet one, and one of the characters, Red, had some sort of problem, and one of the other Fraggles offered to help her, and she burst out into song - “I can do it on my own!” There are times when that could be my anthem, my theme song! If I'd been there at Jesus' farewell meal with his disciples, I'm pretty sure that while Peter was busy protesting, “You will never wash my feet!” I would have been off pouring water of my own – not so much so that I could join Jesus in washing the other disciples' feet, but so that by the time Jesus got around to me, he'd find my feet scrubbed clean already. “I don't need you to wash my feet, Jesus. I can do it on my own.”
But Jesus' acts and words on this night point his disciples and us in a different direction. Because the call to follow Christ is not a call to self-sufficiency. Being a Christian does not enable or encourage us to be people who “can do it on our own.” Instead, Jesus invites us to enter deeply into each other's lives, to become the kind of community that loves and trusts each other enough to share our vulnerability, to take off the masks we hide behind and let others see our needs. Because the call to follow Jesus is also the call to be part of a community of faith. We cannot be Christians all alone, off in our own little corner somewhere, doing our own thing. The Christian life assumes that we will be involved and invested in each other's lives, that we will be open to one another, willing to share our burdens, just as we help others to carry their own. This is how we become the body of Christ, our lives knit and joined to each other's, as the Holy Spirit breathes in us, and the love of Christ flows through us and between us.
The Servant Song puts it this way: “We are pilgrims on a journey, we are trav'lers on the road; we are here to help each other walk the mile and bear the load.” This is what we are called to do and to be as the body of Christ. And it starts with this night, as Jesus kneels at the feet of his friends, washing their feet, taking the role of a humble servant, as the disciples experience this sign and symbol of the deep love Jesus has for them, the kind of love that doesn't hold back, that meets us at the places of our deepest needs, that offers itself to fill our hunger and quench our thirst, and encourages us to love one another in this same way, the way of give and take, the way of offering and receiving, the way of loving and knowing that we are loved in return. It is only because we know how much Christ loves us, that Jesus accepts us, that he claims us as his own – no matter what, that we are able to even try to love each other in this way, to be open and tender and vulnerable with each other. It is our identity in Christ that sets us free to truly love one another, just as Christ loves us.
“Will you let me be your servant,May this be our song. May this be our prayer. May this be our life together, as we learn to love as Jesus loves us.
let me be as Christ to you?
Pray that I may have the grace
to let you be my servant, too.”
Amen.
April 10, 2011 - Lent 5A
This past week in confirmation class, one of our kids asked me a question. And that question was: “If you could ask God one question, what would it be?”
If you could ask God one question, what would it be?
Well, he had actually asked me that the week before, and I told him I needed some time to think about it – and then promptly forgot all about it, so my answer was a little off the cuff, but basically, on the spur of that moment, the question that came to mind was, “Why does so much bad stuff happen?”
Now you may or may not remember that I brought that up a few weeks ago – and I taught you a new theological word to use at cocktail parties. But if you've forgotten it, the word for that kind of question is “theodicy”. It's the question of why a good, loving, all-powerful God allows bad things to happen in the world – things like earthquakes and disease and poverty and war and abuse of all kinds.
And I told the kids, & would have explained it better if I'd had more time, that I know there is no real good answer to that question. There are answers, but none that totally satisfy; none that quite answer the question we'd like it to be answered. And so we face the reality that parents of newborns have to suffer the anguish of their babies undergoing open-heart surgery just days and months after they enter the world, and that lots of parents don't have the resources to feed their children what they need to survive, let alone grow to their full potential, and millions of people continue to be without food, water, or electricity due to that earthquake and its aftereffects in Japan, and that cruel dictators in many places in the world cling to power with ferocious methods that defy the imagination. These and a multitude of other situations big and small in scale & numbers of people affected take place every day, and we wonder: “Why, Lord?” Why, when we know and trust and believe that you could do something about all of these situations, do you wait? Why don't you come right away to help us? Because if you had been here, none of this would have happened! We wouldn't be suffering the way that we do.
Mary and Martha knew these questions, knew them up close and personal, the way they knew Jesus up close and personal. We don't know all that much about Mary and Martha and Lazarus – don't know how they met Jesus, don't know what it was about them that makes John describe this family of sisters and one brother as people Jesus loved. But the Fourth Gospel makes sure that we know that Jesus did, in fact, love them. And still, even though Jesus loves them, “after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was” (vs. 6).
Jesus stayed, knowing that Lazarus was sick. Jesus stayed, even though the sisters had sent him a message. Jesus stayed, although he knew very well what their message didn't come out and say – please come, come now, come quickly. And yet, Jesus stayed.
And Lazarus died.
When Jesus gets there, it's too late. Lazarus is dead and gone, sealed up in a cave with a stone rolled against its entrance. And the sisters, both Martha and Mary come to Jesus and say, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died.” If you had showed up just a little sooner, Jesus, you could have saved him. You could have prevented this whole awful mess from happening. And underlying that – both the pain of their loss, and the hint of accusation. Why didn't you come Jesus? Why did you let this happen?
It's normal and natural for us to want Jesus to swoop into our lives like some kind of superhero and save the day just in the nick of time, to want him to keep us & the ones we love out of harm's way, to keep trouble from ever touching our lives. The world doesn't work that way – but that doesn't mean that he has abandoned us. It doesn't mean that he has forgotten us. When the dark times come, it doesn't mean that Jesus has left us to fend for ourselves. Just like in this gospel story, it may sometimes feel that he comes too late, that he comes when the situation has gone beyond the point of no return – but he does come. We hurt when we feel like Jesus is dragging his feet, taking his sweet old time, because we cannot see the whole scope of it. We can't see in advance what will come out of it – we can only see moment by moment. But I'm reminded of a gospel song that goes, “He may not come when you want him, but he's always right on time.”
“He may not come when you want him, but he's always right on time.”
That's what Martha and Mary and the whole crowd with them discover. Jesus may not have come exactly when they wanted him, but he does come. And in God's timing, Jesus shows up right on time. He finds them weeping, and he weeps too. Jesus weeps with us. He enters into their anguish & into our anguish and feels it as his own. And just when all hope seems gone, Jesus acts, as only he can. He comes with power - for he is the resurrection and the life – not just in some future, everlasting day, but right here and right now, in this present moment, Jesus is the bringer of new life. He is the One who has the power to bring light out of darkness because he is Light. He is the One who has the power to bring hope out despair, because he is Hope. He is the One who has the power to bring life, even out of death, because he is Life! Even when it seems that the only thing left to look forward to is the promise of what lies beyond the grave, even when our circumstances seem beyond the possibility of recovery, even then, especially then, though we cannot see or even imagine how, Jesus is at work. It is precisely in those dead & gone situations that Jesus' power shines most clearly – for Jesus has power even over death itself.
It's only a little bit ironic that Jesus says that Lazarus' illness does not lead to death – because not only does Lazarus die (only to be brought back to life), but it is this incident, this death-defying act, that leads the Jewish leaders to make up their minds to find a way to get rid of Jesus once and for all. It is the giving of life that will cost Jesus his own life. But because he died and rose again, we know that Jesus has ultimate power of life and death. There is nothing in heaven or on earth more powerful than he – and he comes to the tombs of our lives, calling us by name, calling us to leave behind the bonds of death and step into his new life. Thanks be to God.
Amen.
April 3, 2011 - Lent 4
You may or may not have noticed that there has been an explosion in 3D technology over the past several months. It started slowly, first with a movie here and there, and then more & more movies – and now every time I go into Costco, in the electronics section that's right by the entrance, half of the TVs come with 3D, and the displays come complete with the special glasses you need to be able to enjoy all that the TV has to offer. And there are hand held video games that have jumped into the 3D market as well.
Now some of you may remember the 3D movies of old, where the point was really just to be doing something new & different. It didn't really add much to the experience – the effects weren't that good, and involved things like sharks leaping out of the screen at you. It's a bit different today. I haven't seen all that many movies in 3D, but I remember going to see Avatar in the movie theater in 3D, and was impressed with how subtle & yet realistic the 3D effect was. There was one point during the movie where I reached out my hand to brush away some dust in the air, only to realize that the dust wasn't really there – it was part of the movie. Kind of amazing – in this case, most of the time anyway, the 3D aspect helped to draw me in, to make me feel like I was actually in the make-believe world of Pandora.
The funny thing with all this 3D stuff is, of course, that the world around us, the real world, is 3-dimensional. But the world of entertainment has been flat, 2D – unable to convey the depth, the fullness of real life, until recently.
My husband Andy, however, is not convinced. He's an early adopter in a lot of ways, likes to get the latest and greatest – stood in line in the first few weeks that the original iPhone was offered & was willing to pay a ridiculous amount of money to get it (although I have to say, he kept it for a LONG time, as far as cell phones go). But even though he likes new gadgets & electronic stuff, he's not at all into the 3D thing. He's content to have his entertainment to stay strictly in the realm of 2D, and really kind of wishes that all of this 3D stuff would run its course and go away.
It reminds me of the way the Pharisees are in this gospel story with Jesus. This chapter centers around blindness – but it's not just the physical blindness of the man born blind that Jesus encounters here. This gospel is also about spiritual blindness – about the ability to see God at work in the world, God at work in the person of Jesus – or the inability to see that. The man born blind has never been able to see at all, but Jesus comes along – and the disciples point him out, kind of as an object lesson. The common line of thought in that time and culture was that if someone had a disability, there was a reason for it, and that reason was that someone sinned. In this case, the disciples wanted to know if the man himself sinned somehow (before he was ever born) or if it was his parents' fault that he had never been able to see. Jesus moves them away from that thinking. This isn't the time to point the finger and cast blame, but instead an opportunity to see God at work in this man's life – and so Jesus spits on the ground and makes some mud, spreads it on the man's eyes, and tells him to go wash. Amazingly, the man receives his sight – and where before he couldn't see at all, now he sees in 3D, technicolor, with a fullness & depth that he had never imagined would be his.
The Pharisees, on the other hand, are trapped in their 2D world. They hear of this tremendous miracle, but instead of rejoicing, they call together the inquisition! Because Jesus had dared to work on the sabbath (making the mud was considered work), they believed Jesus was someone opposed to God. They couldn't see that God was working through Jesus. They couldn't accept that God could be working in new ways, outside the way that they had always done things. Jesus comes along handing out 3D glasses, offering the opportunity to see and experience the world around them in ways they never imagined, but they'll keep their 2D vision, thanks. They wish that Jesus would just go away with his newfangled ways of doing things, his non-traditional ways of talking about God and living out God's love.
We fall prey to this spiritual blindness more than we'd like. It's not that we can't see at all (most of us, most of the time), it's more that we can only see in 2 dimensions. Too often, all we can see is a flat world, because that's all we're used to seeing. It's like we're Dorothy living in Kansas, living in a world of black and white, not realizing that all around us, the world is filled with vibrant color. Without the 3D glasses that Jesus gives, we miss the richness of God's grace, the depth of God's love, the breadth of God's forgiveness. The 2 dimensionality of our spiritual sight leaves us blind to so much that God has to offer. We are blind to the real world, God's world, that surrounds us.
But it doesn't have to be that way. In this story, Jesus comes to the man who was born blind, and without that man having to say a thing, Jesus gives him the gift of sight, the chance of a lifetime to see the world with new eyes. But his recovery doesn't end when he goes to the pool of Siloam and washes. His physical sight is restored then, but he grows in spiritual sight only as he moves through the story & is asked again and again what happened to him. And each time he tells the story, his spiritual sight gets stronger – he moves closer and closer to seeing who Jesus really is, until finally Jesus reveals himself as the Son of Man. When he sees Jesus face to face, it's as if Jesus gives him 3D glasses, and suddenly he gets a glimpse of the world in all its fullness, seen just for a moment with Christ's vision for the world as God intended it to be – a world filled with love and mercy and forgiveness, a world filled with grace and healing and kindness.
And Jesus offers us a chance at 3D glasses too – a chance to see the world as he sees it – with depth and richness and vibrancy – a world that exceeds anything we can imagine. Here and now, we only get glimpses and glances – a foretaste of the feast to come – but this world, God's world is all around us, filled with compassion and love and grace. Jesus gives us the 3D glasses we need to see it. Let's put 'em on and celebrate what God is already doing in the world all around us – and then let's share this new vision so we can help others see what Jesus helps us see. This transformed, 3D vision will help us change the world.
Amen!
March 27, 2011 - Lent 3
This week's gospel story is a world away from what we heard last week. Last week, just one chapter ago, we heard another story of a person's encounter with Jesus – only that one took place under the cover of darkness. This one happens right out in the open, under the bright noonday sun. Nicodemus was a man, a Jew – a leader of the Jewish people, in fact. This woman – well, obviously, she was a woman, a woman the author of John doesn't bother to name, although Jesus spends more time talking with her than with any one other person in this gospel – and this woman was a Samaritan. And not only did Jews not share anything in common with Samaritans, as John's gospel explains, they actually considered each other enemies. And of course, Nicodemus was the epitome of an insider – but this woman at the well, well you can tell from the story that she was anything but. Not only was she the opposite of Jesus – a different religion, different gender, & so outside the group Jesus' disciples might have expected Jesus to reach out to, but if you read between the lines, you get the sense that she was an outsider to her own people, an outcast in her own community.
And you can tell that because she came to the well to draw water at noon. Most women would have come to get water together – in the morning and in the evening when it was cooler. But our woman at the well came alone, at the hottest point of the day. Now there have been many who have said that she was an immoral woman because she comes alone, and because Jesus says she has had 5 husbands and is currently living with a man who is not her husband – but I don't think that's what this story is about. It's possible that she had really bad luck when it came to men – that she had had to bury 5 husbands, or that they had divorced her – and after all, a woman in that day & age was at the mercy of her husband or father – but no matter what the real story was, John gives the impression that this woman was shunned and shamed and separated from the people in her town. She was disconnected, cut off from others. So when she came to the well that afternoon to get the day's water, she was thirsty – not just physically, but spiritually. She longed to know and be known, to be connected, to be cherished, to be loved. She came that day to the well with a soul that was parched.
I imagine that most of us, at one point or another have gone through these parched times of the soul, when we have felt disconnected from the people who matter to us, when we have longed for deeper, more meaningful, more intimate relationships, to know and be truly known. We have known the fear of that kind of vulnerability, remembering the times that we dared to open up and show those hidden parts of ourselves, and maybe were rejected, or looked down on, or judged. Or maybe we just fear that we will be – that if people knew us, really knew who we are deep down inside, with all of our hidden failings and faults, they would turn away. We have all known, as the woman at the well knew, the experience of isolation, of separation. We have felt this kind of thirstiness that leaves us longing for someone to reach out with acceptance and love and refresh our scorched spirits.
And so the Samaritan woman came to the well that day, looking for water, not expecting to find anything more, not daring to hope that there would be anything more there to find. As she draws near to draw her water, she finds herself face to face with Jesus, resting there along his journey from Judea in the south up to Galilee in the north, taking the direct route through Samaria. And though he is Jewish and a man, both facts that should ensure his silence, Jesus dares to reach across the boundaries of their society and speak to her. As they talk, it begins to dawn on the woman that Jesus sees her – beyond her gender, beyond her religion, beyond the fact that she has come to the well by herself at noon – Jesus somehow sees her & knows her – he knows all about her – and yet he doesn't speak to her with condemnation, he doesn't look down on her, he doesn't reject her. He accepts her as she is, and offers her this tremendous gift of living water, the kind of water that gushes up within her and quenches her thirsty soul; this ever-flowing, over-flowing, living water that changes everything & cannot be contained. As she discovers that Jesus knows her, and knowing her, loves her, she receives this gift, experiences it so that she cannot remain where and how she was, but rushes off, leaving her water jar behind. This living water lifts her up & out of herself, carrying her back to her people, the ones she has been set apart and separated from for so long, because what else can she do with this new life, this living water that is gushing up within her and spilling over, but to race back to tell them, to invite them to come and see for themselves the man who told her everything she had ever done?
We too know this longing for connectedness, to be known in the fullness of who we are – with all of our strengths and our weaknesses, our pride and our remorse, our joys & our sorrows – to have someone who knows all about us – the good, the bad, and the ugly, and accepts us just as we are, loves us despite ourselves. And in this story we find ourselves, coming to the well, finding ourselves face to face with Jesus – and discovering there that Jesus already knows everything about us. With him, there is nothing that needs to be covered up or hidden away – and hearing him offer the gift of living water, the water that overcomes our thirst, the water that becomes a spring ever flowing, gushing up, watering our souls, bringing us abundant, over-flowing, eternal life – life given freely, and meant to be shared. Jesus, the Savior of the world invites you to come and drink – and then carry this living water to a world that is dying of thirst.
Amen.
March 20, 2011 - Lent 2
I've always had a certain affection for this story, and for the character of Nicodemus. It started back in college, when our Lutheran Campus Ministry pastors came up with a Bible study called “Nic at Nite” - you know, like the TV channel, except it was based on this story from the gospel of John. And it wasn't your typical Bible study. It was more of a discussion group – a chance for a bunch of college kids to get together and talk about our faith - & even more important, for us to ask the big questions of our faith. Who is God? Who is Jesus? What do they have to do with my life? What do they want from me? All those good questions.
But this gospel story – it was the basis for that group, because Nicodemus, who only shows up in John's gospel, and then only 3 times, comes to Jesus with questions. This is the first time we meet him, and it seems that Nicodemus, this Pharisee and leader of his people, has heard about Jesus. Now, we're only in chapter three, so you know this is early in Jesus' ministry, and at this point, he hasn't done all that much. He's called a few disciples, he's done the whole changing water into wine thing, and oh yeah, he just finished turning the tables over in the temple. That got some attention!
So now Nicodemus is curious, and he comes to Jesus with these questions, probably expecting some clear answers. He doesn't come across that way, as a questioning person, not at 1st. He starts the conversation off sounding pretty confident: “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who comes from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from God,” but you can almost hear the question underneath it. Is it true? Just who are you? What are you doing? What does it all mean?
These aren't new questions. We've all asked the same kinds of questions – and our questions don't stop there, Even when we think we've got a fairly good handle on the answers, something will happen to send us back to Jesus with more questions in the middle of the night, just like Nicodemus. You know the kind of questions I mean. Not just the big questions about who Jesus is or who God is but the just-as-big questions about where Jesus is when you need him and why God allows all the trouble in the world. We lay awake with these questions, what theologians call “theodicy” questions. Basically, that's the age-old dilemma of why bad things happen to good people – and how a good God could let such bad things happen. And with everything that's been happening around the world in recent days and weeks and months, I'm sure that are many people bringing these questions to Jesus in the darkness, wondering why there is so much pain and hurt and devastation in the world. Why are there earthquakes and tsunamis and the threat of nuclear fallout? Why are there hurricanes and tornadoes and flooding? Why do so many people suffer from cancer or live with belly-gnawing hunger or die from treatable diseases because they don't have access to life-saving medications?
There are people in this world who are braver than I, people who claim to speak for God in the face of these situations, people who dare to think that they have the answer to these questions. We have a church group that demonstrates at military funerals, claiming that the deaths of soldiers are a direct result of God's displeasure with America's tolerance of homosexuality. We have religious figures who declared that God sent Haiti an earthquake as punishment because their government made a pact with the devil to gain their independence. We have political pundits who suggest that God sent the earthquake and tsunami to Japan in order to send a message – I guess that the world needs to straighten up & fly right because “what we're doing isn't working”.
Their answers are enough to make you weep in sadness or yell in frustration – because while I don't claim to speak for God, I do dare to claim the truth of what we read in the Bible. And what we read in the Bible this morning from the 3rd chapter of the Gospel of John is that there aren't a lot of good answers for why all of these bad things happen. The reality is, we live in a broken world. This world, the whole creation, the whole universe, is not the way God intended and created it to be. Death and disease and destruction are not a part of God's vision for the world – they never have been. They are the signs and symptoms of the rebellion and sin that entered the world way back in the garden of Eden. But these events are not sent by God as a warning. They are not sent by God to get our attention. They are not sent by God as punishment. We know this because Jesus tells us so – right here in John 3:16 & 17. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
“For God so loved the world...” It's important for us to know that in John's gospel, when John talks about “the world,” he means the world that sees God as an enemy, the “God-hating world.” And yet, despite the fact that the world hates God, God sends, not earthquakes or tsunamis or hurricanes or natural disasters of any kind, not diseases and destruction and death – no, in the face of the world's rebellion, God sends none of those things. Instead, God sends Jesus.
God sends Jesus. Because God loves this broken, messed up world that much. God sends Jesus, because God longs to restore us and all of creation to what we were meant to be. God sends Jesus – not to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. God sends Jesus, and it is in him and through him and because of him that we have can hope in the face of struggle and pain and tragedy – because in Jesus, we see the face of God. In him, we get a glimpse of how much God loves each of us. In Jesus, we see how far that love is willing to go to heal, because he lays down his life for us. In him, we know that God will never leave us alone, no matter what. Even with all of our questions, we cling to this one thing. God sends Jesus – God sends him still! - and God sends him in love to redeem us, restore us, and make us whole again.
Thanks be to God!
Amen.
March 13, 2011 - Lent 1
Most of you know that my husband Andy is also a pastor. And his church is what they call a mission start congregation, a new church that is still trying to get off the ground. So periodically, they have these big outreach events – last summer it was a big cook-out; just recently it was a special afternoon worship & fellowship time. They really want to get the word out to their community that they're there & that everyone is welcome, so when these events are coming up, the members of the church not only invite their friends & family and classmates and co-workers who aren't a part of a church, but they will also go and hang out in the subway stations and hand out invitations to people, tell them a little bit about the church, & so on.
Well, while Andy was doing this one day, he encountered a woman who seemed a little confused. You see, she was convinced that Andy was Jewish. So she questioned him: “How can you be Christian if you're Jewish??” And of course, Andy said, “I'm not Jewish.” But she persisted. “Yes, you are. How can you be Christian if you're Jewish?” Well, Andy didn't try to argue with her; he just let her go on her way, but I tell you this story because this random woman, this stranger, seemed to think she knew who Andy was better than Andy knew himself. She called his identity into question.
That's what I see going on in today's gospel story. Every year, the first Sunday of Lent brings us this story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness. The exact details are all a little different depending on which gospel you're reading, but they're basically the same. Matthew's version says that Jesus is led into the wilderness by the Spirit, and after he finishes fasting for 40 days and 40 nights, and he is famished, then the tempter shows up. And of course, there are the three temptations: “Turn these stones into loaves of bread. Throw yourself down from the temple & let God's angels catch you. Worship me, & I'll give you the world.” And these are all very real temptations – to fill his hunger supernaturally, to prove God's love, to take the easy road to glory and power instead of the road that leads to the cross.
But underneath the specific temptations themselves, there is a challenge to Jesus' very identity, to who he is. How can you be the Son of God if you're out here all by yourself starving in the desert? That's no way for the Son of God to live! If you are the Son of God... I don't think that the tempter, the devil, doubts that Jesus is the Son of God. It's more that he's trying to get Jesus to doubt himself, to doubt God, to begin to question just who he is and what he's supposed to be doing – and maybe, just maybe, to consider doing it his own way, going down his own path, instead of trusting God enough to do it God's way. Just like in the Genesis story - “Oh, God told you that, did he? Well, here's another option...”
Ah, and isn't that the way temptations usually come? Isn't that at the root of all of our temptations – to do it our way instead of trusting God enough to do it God's way? They're especially strong in those times when we feel isolated and alone, in the middle of the wilderness, empty, hungry for something to fill those empty spaces inside us. And in those wilderness times, it is all too easy to start to question ourselves, to wonder who we are, if we are capable of walking the road that seems to be laid out before us, and to wonder why it is we've ended up in the wilderness in the first place, why if God really loves us, God would allow us to spend this time in the wilderness. Even as people of faith, perhaps especially as people of faith, when we listen to the tempter's voice, telling us it knows us better than we know ourselves, we start to question our identity as children of God.
That's why we look to Jesus – it's why we always have this story of his temptation at the beginning of Lent as we start our own 40 day journey. Because we need to hear the story and be reminded he has been through the same kind of temptations we have been through, even this temptation to doubt God and to doubt himself. We need to see how he handled it. And Matthew tells us that in the face of that temptation, Jesus leaned on the word of God. For each temptation the devil brings, Jesus turns to the word of God: “It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'... Again it is written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'...” and finally, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'” Jesus draws on the power of scripture to strengthen him in his temptation, but even more than that, in the face of this identity crisis, Jesus clings to the word of God spoken over him at the moment of his baptism: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” No matter what Satan the tempter may say or do to try to convince Jesus he is something or someone else, Jesus knows who he is and who he is called to be, because he hear the very voice of God himself say it. The tempter says, “If you are the Son of God,” but even more powerfully, God says, “You are my Son.”
And God speaks those words to us too. Over and over again in scripture there is the reminder that no matter who the world tries to tell us we are, when we're in the wilderness, doubting ourselves, wondering if we'll measure up; when we've fallen into temptation or even run straight toward it at full speed knowing that it's wrong; when we wonder if we can be made whole, be made new – the word of God comes to remind us who God says we are. It's there in the very beginning, in the garden of Eden in Genesis, when God created humankind in God's image and called it very good. It repeats in the words of the prophet Isaiah when the people of Israel were in exile, living in a foreign land, wondering if God would ever lead them home again – and God says, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine” (Isaiah 43:1). It's there in the words the apostle Paul wrote to the Roman Christians: “...you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption... we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:15-17). No matter what temptations you face, no matter who the tempter tries to convince you you are, cling to the word of God, for God says, “No matter what, whether you succeed or fail, whether you triumph or tank, you are my son. You are my daughter. You are my children, my beloved.” Cling to the Word of God, Jesus, for it is him that we find our identity. It is through him that God claims us as God's own. Wilderness experiences, wilderness doubts will eventually fade, but God's word, God's love, is forever. Thanks be to God.
Amen.
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