Wednesday, June 29, 2011
June 26, 2011 - Pentecost + 2
Before I begin today, I want us to take a minute or 2 to think about what you would say if you wanted to let someone know what's at the heart of your relationship or belief about God, Jesus, your faith. Imagine you're making a cardboard sign to hold up. In 10 words or less, what is at the center of your life with God? Don't worry, this is not a test. I'm not gonna ask you to share them out loud, you don't have to sign your name to them – although I would love to see what you write if you don't mind putting it in the offering plate when that time comes around. If you're a guest, you don't have to participate, although you're certainly welcome to if you want to! But for the rest of us, I Just want to take a minute or 2 to think about this question & put it into words. What is at the heart of your faith, your belief about God/Jesus/Holy Spirit? Okay? Time starts now...
Thanks for doing that. We'll come around to why we did that in a bit, but first, let's look at this gospel from Matthew. I have a sneaking suspicion when we hear and read these three verses that most of us get it backwards. Based on the reading I did this past week, I certainly get that impression, and I know I've done that myself before. See, I think when we read this passage, we get the impression that its message to us is about us welcoming others. We think it is about us handing out cups of water to dry, dusty prophets and righteous people and little ones. We think it's about our duty to show hospitality to the strangers God sends among us, to receive those who come seeking God inside the walls of our church. Now certainly that is a role for us to play; there's lots and lots in the Bible – the Old and the New Testament about welcoming the stranger, but if we are sitting around waiting for people to come to us so that we can hand out some gospel goodies to those who dare to enter our door (and it does take some daring to go to a new church for the 1st time), if we think that's all this story is about, then we've got it wrong. We've got it backwards.
We've got to remember what's going on in this story. We have to remember who Jesus is talking to. And to do that we've gotta back up a little bit. We've gotta go back to the beginning of chapter 10, when Jesus summoned his 12 disciples. He gathered them together and then gave them authority – and then he sends them out, with instructions to proclaim the good news that the kingdom of heaven has come near, to give the evidence of that by curing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing the lepers, casting out demons. He does that, and then the rest of the chapter he goes on to talk about the challenges they'll face. He says he's sending them out like sheep in the midst of wolves. He says that family will betray family and hand them over to the courts, to death. He says that the one who wants to save his life will lose it, but the one who loses his life for Christ's sake will find it. And then finally, these words that come to us today, which is not about the disciples, but about the ones the disciples go to. It's a reminder that though there will be rejection, and dejection, and subjugation, there will be those who will welcome them. There will be people who will look at them and see Jesus shining through them, and behind Christ, God the Father who sent him. There will be people who will welcome them and show them hospitality, people who will meet their needs and welcome the message they bring on behalf of Christ. But whether they are welcomed or not, the disciples are expected to go!
And I think that's the message for us today, people of God, fellow followers of Jesus. It's a reminder that we are not the ones waiting to receive whoever God send, no we ARE the sent ones. Like the original disciples, we have been summoned and sent out by Jesus, given authority to proclaim the good news of God's kingdom coming near, given together the privilege and the honor of going therefore, and making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching others to follow the Way of Christ, our teacher and Lord. This passage is not about sitting back, it's about going out! It's about letting ourselves get dry and dusty for the sake of the gospel. It's about daring to share the story.
You all know that I'm on Facebook. A few months back, someone started a group for ELCA clergy – a place for discussions and debate, a place to ask questions and share suggestions and seek support. Recently one woman put out a challenge to the group. She issued an invitation to be part of what she called “One Living Lutheran Creed.” This is what Pr. Meta Carlson said as she introduced her idea:
"Lutherans often describe their congregations with words like 'friendly', 'welcoming' or 'hospitable'. Super and probably true, but I consider this to be part of our Lutheran problem. These are lovely but reactionary descriptions of God's people. They all require others to make the first move.
It's hard to initiate - to meet people outside, to tell our story, to be proud proclaimers when our (spiritual) heritage prefers stoicism and quiet humility. But maybe it would be easier and FUN to practice making that first move together."
And so, she says, why don't we Lutherans pick one Saturday to go out, in public, on our streets, in our neighborhoods, by our church buildings, - and this is where that opening exercise comes in – and hold up big ol' pieces of cardboard, signs that say what we believe? That's the creed part – creed comes from the Latin word “credo” - which simply means “I believe”. So, she says, why don't see what happens if we shy Lutherans dare to bring the word of God out from behind our brick walls and stained glass windows into the light of day? What if we dared to believe that we too are sent by Jesus, that we too have a mission from God to proclaim the good news? What if we took a chance and dove head first into those baptismal waters, the ones that will wash over Harry today, the place where we hear God's voice calling us and claiming us as beloved children, where we are promised that God's love for us is never-ending and that nothing can ever separate us from the Love, where we are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked by the cross of Christ forever? What if we let ourselves trust those words and believe in those promises, and so put ourselves and our pride and our concerns about what people might think aside and dared to live into the covenant God makes with us at baptism; not just to live among God's faithful people & to hear the word of God and share in the Lord's supper, but took the next steps too, to proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed, to serve all people, following the example of Jesus, and to strive for justice and peace in all the earth?
I say we do it. I say for once we should throw caution to the wind and join with Lutherans across the country. September 10 is the day we have planned, a day when the world will echo with the events and memories of September 11, 2001, when people will be reminded of questions and sorrow and doubt, looking for answers, seeking peace. We may not have all the answers, but we know the one whose peace passes all understanding. We know the one who comforts us in our grief. We know the one who gives hope to the hopeless. We can't know for sure what will happen. We don't know if people will welcome our message, if they will see the love of Christ shining through us – but the world is desperate to hear this good news – and God is sending us to tell it. May we be bold and courageous and faithful – and may we GO!
Amen.
June 19, 2011 - Holy Trinity Sunday
I've got a big reunion coming up in a few weeks. It's my 20th high school reunion. And I have to tell you, I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. I'm both excited and a bit nervous. You see, I haven't seen most of these people since we graduated or shortly after that. I've reconnected with some of them on Facebook – actually that's how we're doing most of the planning, but most of my classmates don't really know me. Sure, they knew me way back when, but I've changed since then, like we all do. Twenty years is a long time. But you worry, don't you?, or at least I do, that when we first meet again, all they'll see is the person I used to be, that I'll immediately be pigeonholed as the person I once was, that my past will define who I am to them in the present.
I wonder if the disciples felt any of these kinds of mixed emotions on their way to their reunion with Jesus that Matthew's gospel tells us about. Excitement yes, joy & anticipation about seeing the risen Lord, because when we pick up their story, the disciples haven't seen the risen Jesus yet, remember. They've just been told by the women who had gone to the graveside that the women had seen 1st an angel and then Jesus himself, tell them to go tell the disciples to go to Galilee, that there they would see Jesus. Now it's a long trip from Jerusalem where Jesus had died all the way up north to Galilee, something like 70 or 80 miles. On foot. Plenty of time to get nervous, to wonder what Jesus will say & do when they see him again for the first time. Plenty of time to replay the scene of those last 3 days out in their minds over and over, and remember in excruciating detail how they had failed Jesus, how they had all deserted and denied just when he needed them the most. Plenty of time to wonder as they walk along if he would hold their past against them; if Jesus would look at them and see only the people they had been, that he would only see their failure and regret, and what they had done in those tense, frightening 3 days. What kind of reunion will this be?
We share in these mixed feelings about Jesus, I think. Great joy, deep anticipation about seeing him face to face someday, yet uncertainty, fear, trepidation as we look back at our lives, looking at who we have been, knowing all the times we have failed to live up to his expectations for us. Even as we listen to his words to the disciples in the gospel - “Go therefore and make disciples... baptizing and teaching them...” Most of us Lutherans at least don't hear this “great commission” as anything all that great. We hear this commission from Jesus to his original disciples and know that they are meant for us too, and we think, “Oh. Great.” Because we know we haven't done this. We haven't made disciples. We, most of us, don't really even know where we should start. And let's be honest, we're not even sure much of the time how good we are at being disciples ourselves! We look at what we have and have not done for the sake of the gospel, and we fear that we will forever be defined by that past. Who are we to carry this good news into the world? Who are we to try to make disciples? Who are we to teach anyone else about following Jesus?
But when we look at this story of these last words of Jesus to his disciples as Matthew records them, we see that those fears are unfounded. Even as they see Jesus, Matthew says, “they worshiped him; but some doubted.” They worshiped, but some doubted – but even then, even in the middle of that doubt, even with all that had gone before, even with all of the times they had questioned and misunderstood and got Jesus all wrong, even knowing all that about them, Jesus still gives them this mission. He still passes his work on to them. He still trusts them to carry the story of what God had done and was doing and will do in Jesus to the corners of the earth.
Because when Jesus saw them, he didn't just see them as they were and as they had been. Jesus sees them as they can be, the men (and women) God had created them to be. Jesus sees what they are capable of doing, what they will do in his name. He has faith in them, even as their faith in him was tinged with doubts. And so he sends them forth to change the world, to spread the story of God's deep saving love for all people and all of creation, to train others in Jesus, the Way, to instruct them in the practice of everything Jesus had taught them – about love and compassion and mercy, about reaching out to the sinner and outcast and orphaned, about feeding the hungry and healing the sick and welcoming the stranger because that is how God loves. That is how Jesus loves. That is how disciples learn to love.
Norah has a book that someone gave us after she was born. It's called God knows all about me. The words go like this: “From my fingers to my toes, from my knees to my nose, God knows all about me. When I'm good, when I'm bad, when I'm happy, when I'm sad, God knows all about me... From by bottom to my belly, when I'm sweet and when I'm smelly, God knows all about me... When I run, when I skip, when I stumble and I trip, God knows all about me. From the beginning...to the end, God will always be my friend. God knows all about me.”
What a good reminder that no matter what we do or don't do, no matter who we are or are not, there's nothing we can do that surprises Jesus. He already knows all there is to know about us – but that's not all he sees when he looks at us, because he knows more about us than we know about ourselves. Jesus doesn't define us by our past, by the times we stumbled or tripped, because Jesus is always calling us into his future. He knows what we are capable of, even when we can't see it ourselves, even when we doubt him and us. And so he gives us this great commission. He trusts us to share the story – his story – of grace and mercy and love and forgiveness, of walking with him in his path, learning to become his disciples, and inviting others to learn with us too. The faith he has in us is amazing, and he promises to be with us as we go, even to the end of the age.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
June 12, 2011 - Pentecost
Several years ago, there was a movie called Splash. Any of you remember it? It starred Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah, and I'll be honest: I don't remember all that much about the plot of the movie, except that he was a human, and she was a mermaid who somehow was able to come out of the ocean and live on dry land. What I do remember of this movie is this one scene where Tom Hanks brings Daryl Hannah a gift. It's a big box, beautifully wrapped, all tied up with a big shiny bow. He hands it to her, and she is over the moon, gushing, thanking him, telling him that it's beautiful, that she loves it... and finally he says to her, “Aren't you going to open it?”
See, she didn't realize that there was more to the gift. She didn't realize that she needed to open it – that there was more inside for her to see, to use.
The second lesson from 1st Corinthians, with all its talk about gifts, reminds me of that scene. The apostle Paul, great church planter & letter writer that he was, first wrote these words to the church in Corinth, a church that was in the middle of a whole bunch of struggle and conflict and turmoil with each other. Now apparently what was going on there as that people were fighting about who had the more important spiritual gift. They'd argue back & forth, competing with each other. I imagine it like this, “My gift's better than your gift...” Everyone wanted to be important, everyone wanted to rank higher than someone else. And so Paul writes them this letter, to help straighten this & a whole lot of other issues out.
But when we read this letter today, I don't think that's so much our problem. I don't generally hear people lording it over each other, putting their own gifts in first place. No, we're more like the mermaid in that scene from Splash. If we even realize we've been given a gift, many of us haven't quite realized that we're supposed to open it! We don't seem to get that there's more to it than just pretty wrapping paper and a big bow – that the gifts we have were meant to be opened up and used, not just sit around on the shelf and look good. And just as often, we don't recognize the gifts we've been given as gifts that come from God. Because our spiritual gifts are kind of like the air we breathe, or if you're a mermaid, like the water you swim in. It's always been there, it's so much a part of you that you never give it a second thought. It comes so naturally that you'd be surprised to know that other people think it's a gift. It's just what you do.
What Paul wants those early Christians to know, though, in the middle of all of their battling about who has what gifts and which gifts are the most important, is that all of them are important. The Holy Spirit gives each of the believers a gift – on purpose! This is what Paul says: “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” Then he lists all sorts of spiritual gifts – the utterance of wisdom and knowledge, the gifts of faith, of healing, of miracles; prophecy, the discernment of spirits, the speaking of different tongues, the interpretation of those tongues – this isn't an exhaustive list, mind you – just a sampling, and I suspect they were the ones that they were in contention over... but each of these gifts was given by the Spirit, who activates them and allots them as she chooses – but each person is given a gift, and each gift is expected to be used for the good of all.
I think that's still Paul's message for us today. Even if our issues about our spiritual gifts are different, I think if Paul was writing us this letter – or emailing or Facebooking it to us (I don't think Paul would be able to use Twitter though – he's way too much of a run-on-sentence kind of guy!) - he would say to us – from the youngest to the most senior among us, “The Spirit has given you a gift. Some of you are handymen (or women), some of you are teachers. Some are leaders, some work behind the scenes. Some are musicians, some are writers, some are organizers. Some of you like to work in the dirt, others would rather use your heads. '...there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”
Do you hear that, people of God? Each of us has a gift, something special given to us by the Holy Spirit, something that is a unique combination of our talents and abilities and personalities and that God-piece that the Spirit stirs up and activates in us. And you know what else? God has given us, right here, in all the people of St. John's, all the gifts that we need to do the work that God has called this congregation to do. God has given us just the right people with just the right gifts so that we can carry out God's mission for us right now – to lift each other up and support one another as we reach out into the world to share and live the good news of God's kingdom coming near, breaking into our world as we speak! Those gifts are in you and in me and in the people sitting in front of you, next to you, behind you. They're in our littlest Sunday schooler, in our confirmands, in our high school seniors who are graduating and going into the world. They're in parents and empty-nesters and those who have long since been retired. The Spirit has given us all the gifts we need to do the work of God in this church and beyond. So don't just sit there admiring the pretty package and the beautiful bow. It's a gift meant to be used. The church and the world need you to use it – it's for the common good. Can you hear the Spirit? “Aren't you going to open it?”
Amen.
June 5, 2011 - Easter 7
God's work. Our hands. That's the tagline of the ELCA. You may have heard it a time or two, or seen it on the front page of our website, or read it on the synod poster that hangs on the bulletin board as you enter the church building. It's a pretty straightforward slogan, revealing both our denomination's mission and our identity. God's work. Our hands. God has a plan. God has a vision. God has work to do, and as followers of Jesus, we are partners in that work. We are called to participate in God's dream for the world, not just inside the walls of our churches, but in the world “out there”. That is our mission as a church – to be doing God's work with our hands.
It is also our identity, because we believe that it is something we are already doing. Imperfectly, of course. Incompletely, yes. But we can look around at what the church is doing – not just this individual congregation, but our synod – the regional branch of our denomination, and also the national church – the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America – and we can point to the many and various ways that God is using our hands to accomplish God's work.
This is not a new thing. This has been God's call to God's people ever since there were people. This has been the invitation of God from the very beginning – for people to work with God, to be God's partners in doing God's work in the world. You can see it in the creation story – when God creates Adam and Eve and places them in the garden, and tells them to till it and keep it, to be fruitful and multiply. We see it in the life story of Abraham and Sarah, who were promised that they would be blessed – so that through them, all the nations of the world would be blessed. We see it in the gospel story, as Jesus prays for his disciples on night of his betrayal. (Remember, we're still on Maundy Thursday, as we have been the past several weeks, listening to Jesus share his final words.) Read a few more verses past where this selection ends and we hear Jesus saying that he is sending his followers into the world just as he himself had been sent. And we hear it too in the words of the first lesson, which comes to us from the book of Acts, as the disciples gather around Jesus, 40 days after he rose from the dead, just as he is about to ascend into heaven. “...you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
“You will be my witnesses,” Jesus says. The disciples are left behind – but left behind with a purpose. We hear Jesus say in John that he had finished the work God had given him to do – but the work's not done yet. There is still more to do, and so these disciples, these apostles (which means “sent ones”) are called by Jesus to testify to what God had done in Jesus, to tell Jesus' story and how it had connected with their own stories, and how they had been drawn more deeply into God's story. They are commissioned not just to tell this story with their words, but to live it out with their lives; they are to continue doing what they had first learned from Jesus – the things that they had seen and experienced him doing – healing, and teaching, and forgiving sins; welcoming the sinner and outcast, proclaiming the good news of God's kingdom coming near. Ordinary men and women, not so different than you and I, called to be partners in God's work, called to do God's work with their hands.
That's exactly what they did, of course. Starting close to home in Jerusalem, but eventually branching out, in ever-widening circles. The whole book of Acts is one story after another about how they did just that.
Our church could write our own book of Acts to remind us of the many and various ways we have been involved in doing God's work with our hands. From the wider church down to our local congregation – Lutheran Disaster response – on the ground when disaster strikes, & often the last to leave. They were here after 9/11 & only in the past year or so did they close up shop. The Lutheran church & its people are still on the ground in New Orleans and beyond, helping victims of Hurricane Katrina. At work in Japan, and Haiti, reaching out in the wake of tornadoes and flooding, providing money and supplies and workers to repair the physical destruction, but also there with listening ears and open hearts and prayerful spirits to sustain their emotional and spiritual needs. Local food pantries. Soup kitchens. After-school centers. Congregations and synods who look around their neighborhoods and see the needs of their neighbors, and then creatively come up with ways to meet those needs. People giving of themselves, their time, their possessions to share the love of God with a world in need – this is what it looks like to do God's work with our hands.
But perhaps you feel more like the disciples in this Acts story, left looking up at the sky as Jesus disappears. I always imagine them just kind of dumbfounded, not knowing what to do, not knowing what to say. The two men in the white robes show up and say, “Why are you staring at the sky? Jesus will come the same way you saw him go...” and so the disciples look around at each other, like “Now what? How are we supposed to be witnesses?” Maybe you feel like you've never really figured that part out either. We look at what those followers of Jesus did, maybe even listen to the stories of what the people of the church are doing out there, and wonder how we can possibly do that ourselves. We have other commitments, after all – work, and family, and helping with the PTA or Girl & Boy Scouts or volunteering at the hospital – all of the million and one demands on our time, and it seems impossible to add one more thing to the to-do list, even if it is to do God's work with our own hands.
But the thing is, you're already doing it. You're already a partner in God's vision for the world, whenever you are living your life in love – when you give of yourself to someone else – when you are parenting or grandparenting, caring for aging parents, visiting the sick and homebound. When you make that investment of time in someone else's life – watching the neighbor's kids or mowing the lawn or shoveling the snow; when you do your job ethically, with honor and integrity, when you make decisions that consider their impact on your neighbors across the nation and the globe and not just what may be best for yourself – In becoming fully the people God created us to be, not just by what we do on Sunday mornings or within the walls of the church, but by recognizing that what we do with our whole selves, every day, matters to God – that's also what it looks like to partner with God – to do the work God has given us to do, faithfully, right where we are, in the middle of our normal, everyday lives. Doing that, we glorify God – and know we, too, are doing God's work. Our hands. Thanks be to God! Amen.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
May 29, 2011 - Easter 6A
One of my favorite fantasy fiction series is a set of books about the Dragonriders of Pern. In the world of Pern, dragons exist. They are living, breathing sentient beings who partner with humans to fight against the deadly Thread that periodically falls from space and eats its way through anything organic. When the dragon eggs are about to hatch, specially selected humans stand around the edges of the hatching sands, ready to be chosen by a dragonet.
When this happens, what they call “Impression,” the person and the dragon are linked for life. The dragons cannot speak, but each pair can hear each other – in a way, it's like reading each other's minds. Even when they are away from each other, they can communicate. Each feels the other's unconditional love and acceptance. This bond is the deepest, most profound bond they can experience. It is a bond so strong that if the human rider happens to die, the dragon immediately blinks out of existence. It cannot continue without its partner.
It's not quite so easy for the humans though. If their dragon dies, they continue to live. But it is a ravaged existence. They forever feel the emptiness where their dragon used to be – and many succumb to depression or addiction, seeking ways to numb the pain, to fill the void.
I imagine that the disciples felt something like these dragon-less riders on this night in the gospel, for they have a deep bond with Jesus. Jesus isn't quite gone yet, but they know he is about to be. He's told them that, on this Maundy Thursday night, the night of the last supper, the night of his betrayal and arrest. And already they feel that gaping hole where Jesus used to be, the pain of wondering what life will possibly be like without him, the questions – how can we go on? How can we go on living when Jesus is gone? It doesn't really matter that Jesus has also been saying things about coming back – about going to prepare a place and returning to bring them with him, that he will not leave them orphaned but will come to them again, that because he lives, they also will live. Who can make sense of that? People don't come back from the dead. Everyone knows that. The disciples struggle, as they feel this bond – the deepest, most profound, most intimate connection they have ever known – start to slip away, as they slip into the pain and fear of having to say good-bye for what seems like forever...
...the same way we've all felt at some point in our lives. The way we've felt when someone we love is dying, when someone we love has died, and we know that life will never be the same. As we contemplate life without that person – whether it's a parent or friend or spouse – and we wonder if we can go on, as that pain, that fear of being left alone starts to sink in, and we know we'll always carry that hole with us. That fear and feeling of being left alone doesn't come just with death. It comes with the struggle of depression or addiction, the sense that no one knows what we are going through, that conviction we'll just have to muddle through on our own. I imagine the people of Japan still recovering from the earthquake and tsunami and nuclear fall-out know how that feels. The people in the south and mid-west digging out from flooding and tornadoes on a scale they couldn't have imagined – losing loved ones and houses and mementos of precious memories to forces of nature. It's in the faces of veterans who return from wars where they have seen things no human eye should see, returning to a people who are grateful, but will never really “get” it, who cannot understand the post-traumatic stress that they live with everyday as they try to readjust to civilian life back home.
I remember in the Pern books one character named Brekke, a young woman who had lost her dragon. It had been injured so badly that they weren't able to save it. Brekke had been injured too, but her life was saved. Yet as she hovered near consciousness, and her heart realized her beloved Wirenth was gone, she cried out over and over again, “Don't leave me alone! Don't leave me alone! Don't leave me alone!”
It was the cry of the disciples' hearts that night. It is the cry of our own hearts. Don't leave us alone.
The miracle of the dragon tale is that Brekke had a unique ability to hear other dragons, something most of the riders could not do. As she lay there in her recovery, crying out in her anguish, she heard the voices of the other dragons, comforting her, reassuring her, promising never to leave her. It was their presence that pulled her through, that gave her strength to go on living – because they promised always to be with her.
Jesus promises the same thing to his fearful, desperate disciples that night. “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”
“I will never leave you alone,” Jesus says. And in the meantime, while I am physically gone, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever... you know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.” Just as the dragons promise Brekke to be there in her dragon's place, Jesus promises to send the Holy Spirit, to be with the disciples – and with us – forever. It is that Spirit who looks out for us, who comforts us, who is always with us through those times even when we feel most alone.
And that same Holy Spirit, who abides with us, who remains with us forever – that Spirit is in us. The Spirit moves in us to bring the love of Christ to others, to share the presence of Christ with those in our world who feel orphaned and alone. It is the Spirit that works in us and through us to reach out to people in need, to remind them, just as we have been reminded, that Christ is still alive and active and loving this world – through us! Knowing that we will never be left alone, we are given the grace to walk with those in need – given the compassion to weep with those who weep, the energy to work alongside those who struggle, the generosity to give to those who have nothing. We experience the love of Christ most fully when we live the love of Christ out in the world – keeping his commandment to love one another as he has loved us. There are a million opportunities, and million ways that we can be a tangible sign of Christ's love in action. May the Spirit of truth move in us today – and may we reach out with the love and presence of Christ so that all may know that they are never alone.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
May 22, 2011 - Easter 5A
“Do you trust me?” - That's what Aladdin says to Princess Jasmine after they've been chased by the local law-enforcement from the marketplace, and find themselves cornered in the upper floor of a tower with no place to run, no escape, as the men who have been chasing them are almost upon them. Aladdin stands in the open window and says, “Do you trust me?” “Do you trust me?” he asks again, as Jasmine hesitates, and when she manages to squeak out “Yes”, he grabs her hand and yells, “Then jump...” Out the window they go, and down, down – crashing through canopies and awnings, which break their fall, until finally they land, safe on the ground, no worse for the wear.
Trust. It's a vital part of any relationship – and it's a crucial question underlying our gospel story from John this morning. As we always do, we join a story already in progress. This chapter is part of what scholars call the Farewell Discourse, beginning with Jesus washing feet and hosting the Last Supper in chapter 13 and continuing through chapter 17, when they finally leave the upper room and go to the garden of Gethsemane. Here in chapter 14, Jesus has just finished telling the disciples that Peter will deny him, that one of the others will betray him, and Judas has already left the building to do just that. He's told them that he is about to die. Their heads are spinning, and then Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.” But we can translate that word believe another way. It also means trust. “Trust in God. Trust also in me.”
Trusting isn't necessarily the same as believing. We can believe in God, which we usually take to mean as some intellectual agreement. It's a mind thing. We can believe in God, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we trust God. Trust can be a hard thing, especially when we don't know what's coming next, when we're not sure what the road ahead holds for us, when the road that lies behind us has been rough and rocky. I resonate with dear old Thomas in this story; Thomas, the one we so often call “doubting”, when really he was just honest – putting into words what everybody else was thinking and feeling. When Jesus talks about going to prepare a place in his Father's house and coming back to bring the disciples to himself, and says, “And you know they way to the place where I am going,” Thomas blurts out, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” You can almost hear the fear and confusion and hurt and frustration in his voice. “Jesus, you've just told us all of this stuff that's gonna go down tonight, and in the next few days, and none of it makes any sense. I can't see where this is all leading – and what I do understand scares me. Please, just give us some straight answers. Tell us what we do next. Can you give us your forwarding address, so we can look on a map and come find you?”
We've all felt that way sometimes – felt lost and confused. We've wondered if the world was ending – and I'm not just talking about these past few days when the end of the world was predicted, but about those times when life as we know it gets turned upside down, by death or disease or destruction or distress of many kinds, when we don't know where to go or to turn next. Or even just in those times when we were seeking some sense of direction, in those periods of discernment when we're trying to figure out who we are and what we should do – what we value, what makes for meaning, what would be the best choice, not just for the moment, but for the long-term future... and we think, “Lord, I don't know where you are going. I don't know where you are leading me or where I am going! How can I know the way?!” Wouldn't you love it sometimes if we had a spiritual GPS, mapping out the steps of our lives, leading us to our destination, giving us the turn-by-turn with plenty of warning before the fork in the road so we stay on the right path, the most direct route, with none of that “recalculating” going on? When we feel lost in life, we want the great big neon sign that points out the way.
And in these moments, when we don't know where we are headed or what way to go to get there, that's when trust comes in. Because Jesus says to Thomas, and Philip and the rest of them, “Trust in God, trust also in me.” Don't just believe with your heads, trust with your hearts. And like Jasmine with Aladdin, trusting sometimes means taking that leap of faith, not knowing where you will land. Trusting sometimes means taking a risk, even when you can't be sure of the outcome, because you have faith in the person who holds out their hand to you.
Jesus invites us to have that kind of trust in him – the kind that believes in the person in front of us, even when we can't see the way out ourselves. We trust Jesus, even when our hearts are troubled, because he himself is the Way. He is the Truth, he is the Life. We trust the Way who leads the way because his way leads us from the grave to resurrection. His way leads us out of darkness into light. His way leads us from death into new life. Even when the future is unclear, we know that the future isn't something to be feared, and so we step into that future, sometimes boldly, sometimes with fear and great trembling – but we take that leap of faith, because Jesus himself invites us, and because he promises to prepare a place, and to come lead us along the way, not just in some far distant day, but even now, even today.
Do you trust him? Then j-u-m-p... straight into the arms of the one who will lead you home.
Thanks be to God!
Amen!
May 15, 2011 - Easter 4A
Once upon a time, (okay, just a few summers ago), shortly after Andy & I had gotten our dog Kosar, we needed to go out of town overnight for a wedding on the 4th of July. Not knowing that we could board him at any of the local vets, we ended up hiring a dog-sitter – someone who would come to the house to feed him & let him out & keep him company a few times a day. This seemed like a great plan. We met the sitter in advance – she met the dog, all was going well.
Until Andy got the call in the middle of the wedding reception. The dog-sitter was all in a panic. She couldn't find the dog. She had been to the house a few times already, and things had gone fine, but this time around, she came to the house, and found the door unlocked, & no sign of Kosar. She'd looked upstairs & downstairs, calling his name – but to no avail. It seemed the dog had disappeared.
Well, Andy told her to look again & call him back in a little bit – and in the meantime, he filled me in. Both of us were upset – but then it dawned on me. “Did you tell her to look under the table?” I asked.
See, Andy & I have this dining room table that has the leaves that fold and hang down on the sides – it's called a gate-leg table, from what I'm told. And when Kosar was a puppy, he used to like to squeeze underneath the chairs and lie down there – and since the leaves are pretty much always down, and the table's a dark wood, and Kosar's a black dog, when he'd lie there with only his little nose sticking out underneath, you'd never find him there by accident – he just blended right in!
And if you've met Kosar, you also know he's not the friendliest or bravest of dogs. So there was no way that he was coming out for this strange woman who was calling his name over & over again. Better just to stay where he was, hidden from the world.
Ever since this story happened, it's what I think of when I hear this story from John's gospel, with Jesus talking about the sheepfold and thieves and bandits, gates and shepherds and sheep – these sheep who will follow their shepherd, the one who calls them by name and leads them out. But, “they will not follow a stranger,” Jesus says, “but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers” (v.5). And I hear this story, and I think – that's exactly what Kosar did!
But then I remember that at that stage of the game, when he was still a puppy, and we'd only had him a few months, he didn't always come to us either. How else do you think I knew to look for him underneath the table? It's because he had hidden from us a time or two. Even though he knew our voices. Even though we took care of him, and fed him, and took him for walks, and gave him treats and toys and played with him and loved him, there were times when his built-in nervousness would exert itself – and no matter how we called or cajoled him to get him to come, he'd stay put.
I think that's sometimes how we are with Jesus. We hear his voice, but we're not 100% sure it's him calling us to come out from under the table. We're not positive we recognize him, and it feels so much safer sometimes to stay where we are, hiding out under tables, or safely penned up in sheepfolds. As individuals and as congregations, it's easier to stay where we are, enclosed by what is known and familiar, instead of taking a chance of listening to that voice and following it out into the unknown. It is a risk to trust this voice that calls us to move beyond the pen, to venture out beyond the gates of the ways we've always done it before, to go out into the wider world where danger may lie in wait, where we feel vulnerable and on edge, not certain about the road in front of us and where it may lead. Why not just stay where we are? We have what we need & besides, it's safer inside the gate, isn't it?
It's such human nature to want to stick with what's familiar, to avoid changes, to feel insecure when we are called to step out into new territory, to take on new challenges, to see the world in new ways. Churches face this all the time as we live in between the comfort of “We've always done it this way” and the uneasiness of “We've never done it that way before!” We get in our groove, we get used to our way of doing things, and we don't like the idea of change. We'd rather stay where we are.
But that's not the life Jesus longs for us to have! Imagine if Kosar had never learned to trust Andy & I – if he had always wanted to stay hiding out underneath our dining room table. Think of the fun he would miss – the trips to the dog park, the car rides to visit family, the new stuffed animals to pull apart and unstuff! If Kosar had never learned to trust us, to believe that we have his best interests at heart when we call him, he could still be living under the table. He'd be safe there (especially now that Norah is crawling and likes to crawl after him!) - but it wouldn't be anything like an abundant, full life.
That is the invitation of this story. Jesus calls himself a shepherd, he calls himself the gate for the sheep. He calls his own sheep by name – and when they come to them, he leads them out – and when he has brought them all out of the sheepfold, he goes ahead of them. He says, “Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
Hear that again. Jesus comes so that we may have life, and have it abundantly. He comes to lead us out of the sheepfold, out of the things that pen us in (even if they feel safe). He comes to lead us to fresh green pasture, to new places and new visions. Abundant life does not come to us if we remain in the sheepfold. We have to follow Jesus out there, wherever he leads us, to find it. May we learn to trust his voice when he calls our names, trust him enough to follow into the abundant life he promises.
Amen.
May 8, 2011 - Easter 3A
Some events are just incomprehensible. We start out with so much hope, so much promise, so much anticipation. We dream our dreams and plan our plans, thinking about what it will be like some day.
And sometimes those dreams come to pass. But there are other times, other dreams, that don't come to fruition, that somehow go terribly horribly wrong, leaving us wondering how such a thing could happen. Whether it's something on the scale of 9/11, which has been on all of our minds this past week, or the disappointments that strike more intimately, more privately, the burdens that we carry quietly on our own, when things don't go according to plan, when things don't turn out the way we had hoped they might, they leave us struggling, wrestling, walking along the roads of our life, trying to make sense of it all, trying to figure it all out. The marriage that fell apart. The son or daughter who turned away from the family or sank down into addiction. The children longed for who never came. The ones who died too soon, leaving some among us with heavy hearts on this Mother's Day. The career you worked so hard for that remains always just out of reach. Each of us has our own share of disappointments that we carry with us. And as people of faith, we wonder sometimes, in the midst of our grief and our sorrow, where is Jesus? Why didn't he stop this from happening? Why does he seem so far away? He promises, “...remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age (Mt. 28:20),” so why don't we feel his presence when we need him the most?
That's where we find the two disciples in the gospel story this morning. Cleopas and the other, unnamed disciple, walk along the road, headed to Emmaus, we can only speculate why. Perhaps now that it seems that everything has fallen apart, they are doing the only thing that makes any sense – going back home to pick up the pieces and start over, however that may be possible. And so they walk together, filled with disappointment, trying to make sense of what has happened. They had hoped that Jesus was the one to redeem Israel. Just a week ago – this is still the 1st Easter Sunday for these disciples, after all – just a week ago, it had seemed that those dreams were about to come true, as Jesus triumphantly entered into Jerusalem to the cheers of all the people. They had looked to him to set things right, to lead the rebellion and overturn their Roman rulers – but oh how quickly things change. Before they knew it, Jesus was handed over to be condemned to death and crucified. And it's now the third day since these things happened, they explain to the unknown man who has joined their journey, and some women had gone to the graveside, but the body was gone and no one knew what to make of that. What will they do, now that Jesus is really and truly gone? How will they move on?
The disciples in this story don't know what we know. They have no narrator to clue them in to who this stranger really is. They haven't had 2000 years of witnesses and story-sharers to help them, to walk along the road with them, to remind them that things aren't always what they seem. Yet they find in the unrecognized Jesus a listening ear – and so they pour out their confusion, their dejection, their anguish at the loss of the one they loved and trusted and hoped in so much, still unable to see the truth that is right in front of their eyes, even as he begins to share his story, intertwined with God's story – God's plan to intervene in human history – linking it to their story.
It's only after the fact that they see Jesus for who he truly is. Only when he takes the bread, and blesses it and breaks it, as he has done so many times before. (In Luke's gospel, Jesus is always eating with people, always hosting a meal.) But in this familiar act, suddenly, they recognize him. Their eyes are opened – and then Jesus disappears! Then they look back at their walk with him, and the pieces fall into place. “Weren't our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening scripture to us?” And they are renewed, restored with joy.
Isn't that the way it works most of the time? In the middle of our hard times, we often feel alone. With our eyes clouded by emotion and hurt, we cannot see Jesus. We feel like he has abandoned us in our time of greatest need. But – when we come through to the other side – & sometimes it takes a long time to get to this point, it's not always as quick as it was for Cleopas & his friend – it's only then, looking back, that our eyes are opened to see the one who has been walking with us all along. It's only in retrospect that we can see how God is able to work even in the worst things in our lives, how God is able to bring some good out of bad situations. When Joseph (you know Joseph – of Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat fame, from the Old Testament) – when he was sold into slavery in Egypt by his brothers, and eventually those same brothers ended up at his mercy, depending on him for food in a famine – he was able to see God working through what they had done to him, and say, “ Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people...” (Gen. 50:20). The Apostle Paul said a similar thing when he wrote to the Roman church. He said, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God” (Rom. 8:28). The reality is that we don't usually know how God is at work in the bad situations of our lives, how God could possibly bring anything good from our most difficult circumstances, not when we're in the middle of it.
But that doesn't mean that God isn't working, or that Jesus is not walking with us. That's the witness of this story – that is the promise, the hope – that Jesus comes alongside us when we are questioning and confused, when we are disappointed and depressed. He comes to us as we journey through our lives, and walks with us, even though we don't always recognize him. Have you seen him? Have you heard his voice? May he reveal himself to us today – in words of scripture, in bread broken, in wine poured. May we see him among us – and then may we run to share the story!
Amen.
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