June 24, 2012 - Pentecost + 4 - Jesus Invites Us to Cross the Sea

Jesus Invites Us to Cross the Sea

Mark 4:35-41

Pentecost + 4 – June 24, 2012

We are blessed this morning to be here to witness and to celebrate the gift of new life that comes through God in Jesus in the sacrament of baptism, as we welcome Michael Garcia into the family of God. And as I thought about this gift of new life, I was reminded of a picture that's been making the rounds of Facebook – although I'll admit it's mostly been shared by my pastor friends, because apparently we dig these kinds of things... It's a picture of a baby sitting in a metal baptismal bowl, for lack of a better word; bigger and deeper than the traditional font that we have here at St. John's. She's immersed up past her waist, and the picture is of the moment when the pastor pours water over her head with a big red cup. And what really catches your attention in this shot is the baby's face – sitting there in the water with this look of shock at the unexpectedness of it all as water streams into her eyes and into her mouth and down into the baptismal font. There's no fear there, it's just that her mouth and eyes are wide open in sheer surprise – she didn't see this coming! A friend of mine commented, “Best baptismal picture ever. Because God does surprise us – get used to it, little one!” (W. Trozzo)

I think we pastor-types like this picture for just that reason – because it captures the element of surprise that goes along with the baptismal life of faith, the fact that God acts in ways that we never could have expected, and leads us to places and situations and people we could never imagine going to on our own.

We see that in the gospel for this morning. Jesus has been hard at work on this day, teaching the massive crowds who gathered to hear him. The crowds were so huge that Jesus had to get into a boat on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and put out a little way so he could get a little breathing room, so the people wouldn't press so close that he ended up out in the water. And when all was said and done on that day, when evening had come, Jesus invites the disciples to come with him and cross to the other side. And so they did, leaving the crowd behind, taking Jesus in the boat with him, just as he was. You kind of have to wonder about that. Who wants to take a boat ride across the sea as night is falling? And to go to the other side meant going into Gentile territory; that's where they'd land, and what would be the point in that? But still they went, and of course, a storm blows up. Wind and waves so big that they are filling the boat with water. And I imagine these disciples, some of them experienced fishermen, they make their living on the water, thinking they can handle it, that they've got it under control, bailing water as those their lives depended on it, and finally realizing that they're out of their depth, that they couldn't keep ahead of the water that was pouring in on them, freaking out and finally turning to Jesus, who has inexplicably been sleeping all this time, waking him up, and asking in desperation and frustration and fear - “Don't you care that we're about to die here?” And then their utter amazement, their shock, their great awe, when he sits up and rebukes the wind and speaks peace to the water, and the storm stops as quickly as it started. Who is this man that even the unpredictable powers of nature, the chaos of the sea obey him?

This is the life we sign up for when we decide to follow Jesus, when we hear him invite us into the boat and decide to get on board. We'd like to think that being a disciple of Jesus means staying safe on shore and enjoying the waves as they gently lap against the beach, or that we'll get to stay in safe harbors where there is little to rock our little boats. We wish that joining his team would protect us from stormy seas. We hope that having Jesus in our boat means smooth sailing from here on out. But if this story from Mark's gospel teaches us nothing else, it teaches us that life as a disciple of Jesus isn't about our own personal wish-fulfillment. Living out our lives as baptized children of God does not make us immune to trouble or danger or fear. Jesus never promises that getting in the boat with him will keep us safe. More often than not, Jesus leads us into uncharted water, into strange places beyond our comfort zones, out of our depth, into situations that we cannot control – and sometimes it seems like once he's gotten us out there, we turn around to find him sound asleep in the back of the boat, seemingly unaware that the boat's about to capsize.

But the thing about this story is that even in the midst of the storm, the disciples were never alone. Jesus never left them. He never abandoned ship and left them to fend for themselves. He was there all along.
That is at the heart of our baptismal faith – knowing that no matter how high the waters get, no matter how strong the winds blow, no matter what it looks like, Jesus – the one who invited us into this boat in the first place, the one who asks us to travel the sea with him – Jesus never leaves us to cross the sea on our own. He never abandons us in our times of need, our times of worry, our times of fear. The one who has the power to rebuke the wind and speak peace to the sea is with us always. And that perhaps is the biggest surprise – to realize just when we feel most alone, most afraid, most vulnerable, that Jesus is with us always and promises never to let us go. God does surprise us – may we learn to trust in God's ever-surprising, never-failing, shocking gift of grace and hope and love. Amen.

June 17, 2012 - Pentecost +3 - Christ Makes Us a New Creation

Christ Makes Us a New Creation

2 Corinthians 5:6-17

Pentecost 3 – June 17, 2012

Many of you know that my husband Andy has a curious condition. It started before I knew him, and really only got worse after we got married, especially during our first year of marriage when we were on my internship in Michigan, where a whole bunch of other people had the same problem. It's kind of contagious. Don't worry though – it's not a disease. It's just a bad case of motorcycle-itis! See, Andy had wanted a motorcycle for a while, and when we were in Michigan, he actually went and took the motorcycle saftey course to learn how to ride and how to do it as safely as possible – but he didn't have a bike to call his own.
But one day, I was at a breakfast with some other pastors, and one of them said he had an old, “vintage” Honda at home that he was looking to get rid of. It wasn't in great shape, he said, but with some new points and new tires and some cleaning up, he said, it'd be good to go – he just didn't have the time to fix it up himself – and he was willing to give away, free to a good home.

Well, good wife that I am, my ears perked up, and I said that Andy might be interested in something like that. So, lo & behold, we became the owners of a 1969 Honda CL175. Andy & someone from the church who had a motorcycle trailer went to pick it up and when he got it home, even someone like me, who has no real experience or interest in working on a motorcycle could tell that this bike would require more than just a little work. It needed a lot more than just new tires and new points to get the engine firing. It was dirty and rusty from sitting around, and the more Andy worked on it, the more things he realized would have to be fixed – not just to get it running, but to get it running well. You know the kind of project I'm talking about. The list goes on and on until it seems like you'll never be done.

Now someone without the motorcycle bug, like me, would look at this bike and just shake their head. It's a hopeless case! Why bother?! It's obviously going to take tons of time and money and effort to get it back into riding shape. Why not just spend your money on one to get a new or used one that works?” And truth be told, that bike is still sitting in our garage. It's still got lots of work to be done. And it's coming with us to Wisconsin – and I'm still shaking my head.

But Andy sees things differently. He loves this beat-up old bike. He knows all the work that's needed, but he also sees what it can become! He sees it the way it was meant to be, back when it had just come off the line, shiny and new and running like a dream. He has a vision of this old bike becoming new again, of it having a brand-new life, and so he's willing to keep at it – to put in the time and work and money to get it there.

The apostle Paul would have understood this kind of project. He speaks about the same kind of thing in our 2nd lesson today, as he writes his 2nd letter to the community of believers in Corinth. He talks in the very last verse of this section about a new creation. I love that line: “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” Powerful and inspiring words, until you stop for a minute and realize what they mean. Because if a brand new creation is necessary, if everything old must pass away, that means that something has gone terribly, horribly wrong with the old. We're like that old rusty motorcycle. We don't just need a tune-up – we need a complete overhaul, from the inside out – an engine rebuild, new gaskets and seals, and on and on. This is total transformation that Paul is talking about! And that can be exciting, but it's also terrifying! If we had our say, we'd probably be content with a new coat of paint and some shiny new parts – the kind of superficial repairs that make the outside look good, but don't really get to the heart of the problem. Paul says in this letter that Jesus “died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them,” but truthfully, most of us are not living for Jesus – we're still trying to live for ourselves! We'd just as soon not have to go through this whole “new creation” business because recognizing our need to change, to grow, to become more than we are today is painful. Being taken apart and cleaned up and getting replacement parts is a long, challenging process – and who wants to go through all that work when most of the time, we think we're fine just the way we are?

Paul was being a little optimistic in this letter, I think, when he says that we now regard no one from a human point of view. I think that's usually how we see things; it's only once in a while that we get a glimpse from God's perspective. But Jesus sees things differently – and he loves the beat-up old bikes that we are. He knows all the work that has to go into each and every one of us, but in his eyes, we're so worth it. Because Jesus sees past the built-up grime and the rust, he sees past the clogged valves and worthless tires – and he sees in us what we can become. He sees us the way we were created to be, when we came off the line, shiny and new and revving our engines, before sin in all its many forms took its toll on us. He wants to get us back there – and he's willing to put in the time and the effort to make it happen. Jesus will stop at nothing to make us a new creation in him – and he proved it on the cross. That's how much he loves us. That's how much he loves you. He was willing to die so that we may have new life, so that we can become, in him, a new creation!

It's Christ's love for us that changes us, his love that transforms us into the people he sees when he looks at us. And once that happens, there's no telling where the transformation will end! But I do know that letting Jesus change us doesn't stop with us – through us, he starts changing the world around us, when we start seeing ourselves and others and God's whole creation from his point of view, we get a taste of what God's never-ending love is like and we want to share that! And other people get a taste of that love and they want to share it too, and it goes on and on! There’ll be no stopping it when we are truly living out Christ’s love for us in our lives & in the world. Then we will be able to say with Paul, “everything old has passed away; see everything has become new!” Thanks be to God!

Amen.

Pentecost + 2 - June 10, 2012 - Christ Welcomes All to God's Family

Christ Welcomes All to God's Family

Mark 3:20-35

Pentecost + 2, June 10, 2012

The classic children's book, Are You My Mother? tells the story of a just-hatched baby bird, in search of his mother, who left the nest in search of food for her baby just before he popped out of the egg. If you remember this book (I've read it a lot lately), you'll know that the baby bird leaves the nest – falling down, down – it was a long way down – and then sets out to look for the mama bird. As it happens, he walks right past her first thing; he doesn't see her. So then he encounters a kitten, and a hen, and a dog, and a cow, asking each one along the way, “Are you my mother?” only to have each one indicate, either with their words or in silence, they they are NOT his mother.

So the baby bird goes on, getting more and more anxious to find his mother with each passing moment. He passes an old broken down car, looks down at a steam boat in the river and way up in the sky at a plane, and finally, at the end of all his options, he comes to a Snort (which is a big ol' digging machine, with the big claw shovel on the front). And deciding this must be his mother, he races up to it, crying out, “Mother, Mother, here I am, Mother!”, only to realize – too late!- that this thing awful, strange, foreign thing is not his mother either. Too late, because the bird has hopped up on the shovel part and the Snort has lifted him up and is carrying him away somewhere, and there seems to be no escape. But never fear – this is a children's book, after all – and it turns out the Snort, as big and scary and loud as it appears, is really acting in the bird's best interest, taking him back to the tree, and gently depositing him safely back in his nest, just in time to greet his returning mother, who asks, “Do you know who I am?”

“Yes,” says the baby bird, going through the litany of things she is not, before finally concluding, “You are a bird, and you are my mother.” No doubt in his mind, or anyone else's, about who his family is, and who his family is not in this story. His mother is the one who looks and acts like him.

How often we act this way too! Not in terms of our biological families – in most circumstances we are only too aware of who they are – but in terms of who we welcome and accept into our lives – even and sometimes especially into our churches. Congregations often refer to themselves and their relationships that way – as a family. And there's definitely some good in that, but there is a tendency for us to develop church families that look like us and think like us and act like us, at least for the most part. It's hard for us to imagine, in a world where we are increasingly polarized in our beliefs, where we listen to and read and watch people who espouse the views we already agree with... and so it's hard to imagine that the whole wide family of God might just not be made up solely of people who think and act and believe the way we do. We isolate ourselves into homogenous communities, becoming ever more divided from those who seem different, instead of remembering and recognizing the strange ways that God works, and the strange people God works through! We can be like the baby bird, who sees the Snort, this strange, threatening-looking “other”, and want to run away in a panic, instead of seeing the heart underneath the appearance, instead of seeing what we have in common aside from what makes us different.

We see some of this playing out in the gospel this morning. We have this story that begins and ends with Jesus' family seeking him out as he is surrounded and swamped by the crowds, and sandwiched in between are the scribes who have come down from Jerusalem to check out the stories they have been hearing. Jesus has been busy in these first 3 chapters of Mark. Ever since he announced that the kingdom of God has come near, Jesus has been showing everyone what that kingdom looks like. He's healed a leper by touching him; he forgave a paralyzed man his sins, healing him in the process; he's eaten with tax collectors and sinners; and most recently, he healed a man's withered hand – on the sabbath! He's not behaving like a good devout religious Jew was expected to behave, and people have begun to talk. “He's out of his mind!” some say. Others, the scribes, think he's possessed, that he came by the power to do these miraculous things by going in cahoots with Satan himself. Jesus has upended everything they think they know about who God is and how God acts and who and what God values.

And so along comes his family, finally getting word through the thick crowd that they are waiting to talk with him, and unlike the baby bird, who responds with joy when his true mother finally shows up, Jesus throws even the established notions about family into question. “Who are my mother and brothers?” he asks. And looking around, he declares that all of those around him, those everyone else sees as Snorts – these are his true family. These are his mother and brothers and sisters – anyone and everyone who does the will of God.

It's quite an expansive family tree Jesus has, not limited to blood relatives or marriage relationships or looking and acting just exactly like everyone else. No, Jesus flings the doors of family wide open and invites everyone in, anyone who wants to follow him, anyone who wants to live out God's will in their lives and in the world. Jesus welcomes whoever is willing to move beyond self-importance and self-interest and self-security to risk seeking God's will before their own. Jesus' love, Jesus' acceptance is inclusive beyond our ability to see and understand much of the time – and he offers us a place at the table. Birds or Snorts, kittens, hens, dogs, cows – whatever we may be – he invites us to join his family, to live into our identity as children of God! And as crazy as it sounds, he calls us to treat one another as family and to work together in doing the will of God wherever we might be.

Amen.

June 3, 2012 - Holy Trinity Sunday - God Calls Partners for God's Mission

God Calls Partners for God's Mission

Isaiah 6:1-8

Holy Trinity Sunday – June 3, 2012

I'm kind of astounded by the lesson from Isaiah this morning. I must have heard and read it dozens of times before, but there's so much in it that I never really noticed, never really thought about or tried to imagine before. Here Isaiah is, in the temple. I can't really imagine what the temple looked like, I just know it was huge and majestic. So think of a place like that, whatever it is for you, and then think of meeting God there. God on a high and lofty throne, God who is so big that the hem of God's robe alone fills all of that space, a God who is too immense to be contained in a building, that's the God Isaiah is dealing with.

And not only is there this tremendously huge God, but there are these weird creatures, the seraphs, who we sometimes sing about in worship, but never really visualize. One description I read is that they look like winged cobras, fiery beasts with their six sets of wings – not quite what I ever thought of when I read this scene. And as they hover around God, they cry out to each other, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory”, making the ground around them shake at the sound of their voices. Smoke fills the house, getting in your eyes, filling your lungs.

This is a wild vision Isaiah has. Plenty there to inspire awe and fear and terror. One author suggested it was kind of like the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark when the ark is opened and calamity hits all who dare to look on it. Remember Harrison Ford telling the woman with him – “Don't look at it. Keep your eyes closed.” There is a sense of danger in casting your eyes on anything so holy. - And yet Isaiah has, even though he is a man of unclean lips – his eyes have “seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” He knows what a precarious position he is in – it is a rare thing for a human being to look on God and live. Yet God does not reject him. A seraph comes with a live coal from the altar and cleanses Isaiah, removing his guilt and blotting out his sin.

It's at this moment that Isaiah hears the voice of God, looking for a volunteer, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” I don't know about you, but I'm shocked at how Isaiah responds. I can't believe that he answers. He's like the kid in class who knows the answer and really wants the teacher to call on him, “Oooh, ooh! Pick me!” Here am I; send me!

Whew! Not too many people I know, including me, are that eager to say yes to God's call. We're more like Moses, who gave God excuse after excuse, or Jeremiah, who protested that he was too young. We are filled with our own reasons and excuses about why God should go with someone else this time around, perhaps feeling, like Isaiah did at first, that we aren't quite holy enough to go on behalf this unfathomably holy God. Or maybe you have some other reason that you think disqualifies you from speaking or acting for God. Or maybe you just feel overwhelmed by the things that are already on your plate and can't even begin to imagine volunteering for one more thing, even if it is God who is doing the asking. It's easy to read these call stories in the Bible and think that God's call is for someone else, anyone else but you or me.

But that's not true. God's call is for everyone who seeks to follow. God has gifted you; God has set you apart from the moment of your baptism to go into the world. That's just one more amazing dimension to this story, because really, God doesn't need human beings to accomplish what God wants to do. God could figure out another way. But over and over, in the Bible and in our own world today, that's how God chooses to work. God invites; God calls; God asks for volunteers: people who are willing to step up and partner with God in going to a dark, hurting world; people who have stood in the place of God's holiness, God's power, God's majesty; people who have experienced the immense depth of God's grace and forgiveness and love; people who have been caught up in God's vision for healing and redeeming and loving the world. God is on a mission to save the whole world – and God wants us to be a part of that! God has a job for you to do, something that you and you alone are uniquely qualified for!

And it doesn't necessarily mean you have to start your whole life over in some new place to do it either. It could be that the world God is calling you to is the world you are already living in. The work God has for you could be the work of teaching Sunday school or leading the youth group. It could be the work of visiting the homebound and the sick or anyone else who needs to know they are not forgotten or alone. It can be the work of parenting children – little kids, teenagers, adult kids – of helping them trust in God's unconditional love through they way you love them. It can be the work of accounting or carpentry or waiting tables. It can be the work of teaching or fixing computers or answering phones all day. It may just be that God has called you to exactly where you are now. The trick is to be on the lookout for God, to learn to see the world around you and the people in it with God's eyes, so you can be ready to reach out with God's love wherever you are.

Are you listening? As we stand in God's holy presence in this place of worship today, do you hear God speaking? God's voice is calling you, me, all the people of God into action for the sake of the world God loves so much. How will you answer the call?

May 27, 2012 - Pentecost Sunday - The Holy Spirit Breaks Through Barriers

The Holy Spirit Breaks Through Barriers

Acts 2:1-21

Pentecost – May 27, 2012

Years and years ago, back when I was maybe 14 or 15, Will Smith – then known as “The Fresh Prince” came out with maybe his first real hit with his buddy DJ Jazzy Jeff. It was a catchy, kind of silly rap song, called “Parents Just Don't Understand.” If you don't know the song, you still might guess from the title that the whole song was a lament about how parents just don't get it. It starts off with a tale about the humiliation of going school clothes shopping with his parents, only to have his mom, who was paying for all the clothes, pick out the most dated, embarrassing clothes a teenager could imagine, despite all of his protests about how he'll be the laughing-stock of the school. And of course, she doesn't listen, and the first day of school finds everyone laughing and pointing and whispering at his fashion-sense, or lack thereof – and even trying to explain to his mom about his day for hours when he gets home doesn't sway her. “So to all you other kids all across the land, there's no need to argue, parents just don't understand,” he says at the end of the verse.

It's the age-old problem between parents and their children – the generation gap that makes real communication feel nearly impossible. But barriers to communication don't just exist between parents and their children. It's all over our relationships; these barriers permeate our culture. It's part of our politics and the news media, part of the division between Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, the Fox News crowd and MSNBC watchers. We may speak the same language, but so often we just talk past one another. We don't communicate, not really, and we don't even really try to see the other point of view. And it's not just parents and children, or politicians or the media – it seems to happen whenever we come up against someone different than us – whether it's a cultural difference or socio-economic or whatever it may be. It happens with colleagues and co-workers and friends. And when we encounter these differences and dare to have a conversation, so often it seems like we don't really want to learn from each other. We want to convince the other person we are right. We want the other person to come over to our side, to make the effort to understand us. We're much like Will Smith in his younger years, throwing up our hands in futility – there's no need to argue, they will never understand... and so we don't put in the effort to speak the other person's language.

If the disciples had been left on their own after Jesus returned to God the Father, I think we might have seen the same kind of scenario playing out with them as they tried to tell others what God had done for them and for the whole world in Jesus. All of us humans tend to cluster with those who are like us, with those who we “get” and who “get” us easily, the people who it's not too hard to like or work with or spend time with. And throughout Jesus' time on earth, this tendency was revealed in the disciples. They tried to keep Jesus from talking to foreign women. They tried to keep him from going to the sick and desperate. They tried to block little children from pestering Jesus (as they saw it). And though Jesus crossed those human barriers and boundaries over and over again, it seems pretty likely to me that even after he died and rose again, it still hadn't sunk in for the disciples. It's not hard to imagine that they would have defaulted to their own ways, sticking with their own kind, never really trying to reach past all of the differences that exist between different ethnic and religious and social groups to share this good news of Jesus with everyone who needed to know – maybe even thinking that God's amazing love was just for their own people, their own religion.

But on this day that we read about in Acts, this celebration of the Pentecost festival, 50 days after Passover, which remembered and rejoiced in God giving the law to the Israelites on Mt. Sinai, we see that these human barriers are not part of God's plan. It's not at all what God had in mind – and so even as the disciples are clustered together, praying and waiting to see what would happen next (Jesus had said that power from the Holy Spirit would come on them, and they would be his witnesses, after all – but that doesn't mean they had any idea what that would look like) – on this day, the power of the Holy Spirit descends – sound like a violent wind, tongues as of fire. No tame, predictable, manageable Spirit this – no peaceful dove coming down gently as we so often imagine her. No, this Spirit comes with a rush, landing on their heads, filling them up so that they spill over, and all of a sudden, they speak about God's deeds of power – not in their own language, but in the many and varied languages of the Jews living in and visiting Jerusalem from all over the world, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Do you see what is happening here? The Holy Spirit comes and breaks through all of the barriers human beings have set up. She moves past human boundaries and roadblocks to open the way for real, meaningful communication and relationship and welcome, revealing as she sweeps through that God doesn't just tolerate all of these differences, but welcomes and celebrates them. In this Pentecost interruption, the Spirit shows the world that the good news is for everyone, right where they are, no matter who they are. God the Holy Spirit takes charge and speaks through the disciples to all of the people gathered there in a language they can understand, so that they might hear about God's mighty deeds of power, might know that God's love is even for them. And we will see in the book of Acts how God's love extending like a ripple effect, starting at the center with the Jewish people but always growing, moving outward, embracing those society thinks are not worthy – lepers and the handicapped, sinners and tax collectors, women and children, Samaritans, and even Gentiles.

This same Spirit is at work in our world, constantly breaking through barriers, coming to people we think are outside of or beneath God's love – all the folks we may see as different, other. God's love is NOT restricted to the people we find it easy to love. One of Norah's favorite books, a VeggieTales one, ends, “God's love is for everyone! Isn't that great?! So please join us now as we celebrate,” and Pentecost is a powerful, unmistakeable reminder of the power of that love to break through all of our differences, all of our preconceived notions, so that all may hear of God's deeds of power, in our own language. May the Spirit descend on us in her unpredictable crazy ways and fill us up! May we come to know and celebrate that God's love really is for everyone - and then send us to share the good news, even when we don't always understand.

Amen.

May 20, 2012 - Easter 7 + Confirmation - Jesus Claims, Gathers, and Sends Us

Jesus Claims, Gathers, and Sends Us

John 17:6-19

Easter 7 + Confirmation – May 20, 2012

This winter, my husband Andy finally did something he's been wanting to do for a l-o-n-g time: he got a tattoo. It's a tattoo of a cross, done on his left forearm – a permanent reminder, he says, of who and whose he is, and after he got it, he posted a picture of it on Facebook, with these words to describe it: “Marked with the Cross of Christ forever, I am claimed, gathered & sent for the sake of the world.” Powerful stuff.

He didn't come up with those words, though. They're the individualized version of the mission statement of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the national denomination St. John's belongs to. They also now form the mission statement of the Metropolitan New York Synod, which is the regional expression of our church.

“Marked with the cross of Christ forever, we are claimed, gathered, and sent for the sake of the world.”

These words remind us who we are. They remind us whose we are. They speak of our identity as Lutheran Christians, although they apply equally well to Christians of all stripes. As the mission statement for our synod, they give us focus to the key strategies we will be working on as a wider church body and as individual congregations over the next several years. But more than being a mission statement developed by the 21st century church, we can see the roots of this statement in Jesus' own words recorded in John's gospel this morning.

Once again, we join Jesus and his disciples on Holy Thursday, during the last Supper. Over the past month or so, we've eavesdropped as Jesus has shared his final words with those gathered for this meal, but today the words we hear are not directed at the disciples; they are spoken directly to God. In these last moments before he goes to the garden where he will be betrayed, Jesus prays, not for himself, but for his followers. And it's not only us who listen in – the disciples hear Christ's prayer for them too. And in these words, they get a powerful reminder of who and whose they are.

They are claimed. “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me...” Jesus says. “You gave them to me.” The disciples no longer belong to themselves, but instead know that they belong to Jesus – all that they have, all that they are, all that they hope to be – tied to the one who claims them forever as his own.

They are gathered. The disciples have been gathered by Jesus as he has gone throughout Galilee, teaching and preaching and calling them to follow. They have been gathered together for this final meal with him. But Jesus prays that this gathering will not break apart. He prays for God the Father to protect them so that they may be one, even as Jesus and the Father are one. It is a prayer not just for Christian unity between denominations, although it's certainly that. But I think in this context, Jesus is asking God to keep this band of believers together, that they might find strength and encouragement and support in one another, that they'll lift each other up and help each other to carry on in the face of the challenges that are to come, because not only are they claimed, not only are they gathered, but...

They are sent. This claiming and gathering business has a purpose. It has a point. They are claimed as Christ's own, gathered into a community, and then they are sent. “As you have sent me into the world,” Jesus says, “so I have sent them into the world.” And this is where it gets tricky, because we see so clearly all through this gospel what it was Jesus was sent into the world to do. He was sent to reveal God's love to a sinful, rebellious world. He was sent to reveal God's light to a world that too often prefers darkness. He was sent to proclaim God's forgiveness and redemption and mercy – and in return, the world rejected him. It hated him. It killed him. But Jesus did not turn his back on the world. He embraced it, with all its brokenness and pain. He died for this world and rose again. “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” (John 3:16-17).

It's this rebellious, hate-filled, treacherous world that Jesus is sending the disciples into – and he sends them with the same mission he was given, to share and show and to live the love of God, even when it's hard, even when the world doesn't want to hear it, even when the world rejects and hates them – because the world, then as now, needs to know how deep God's love for them goes.

The words Jesus prayed for his disciples on that long-ago night were a prayer for us too. Just as those first followers were marked with the cross of Christ forever, and claimed, gathered, and sent for the sake of the world, so too are we. We can trace its beginnings in our own lives to the moment of our baptism. As the water is poured over us, we are claimed forever as God's beloved daughters and sons, given the name “Child of God.” As the cross is traced on our forehead with oil, we hear these words, “You have been sealed by the Holy Spirit, and marked with the cross of Christ forever. Amen.” But it doesn't stop there. We are gathered into Christian community, to hear the word of God, to be nourished by Christ's holy meal, to be formed in the faith and to grow in the relationship that God begins with each of us. We return each week to be strengthened to do God's work in the world, to be filled up, so that we can be poured out as we are sent for the sake of the world.

We will be reminded of this sent-ness this morning as we celebrate with our confirmation students as they affirm the promises made at their baptism. This is their mission, and ours too – we have chosen to accept it when we agreed “to continue in the covenant God made with us in holy baptism: to live among God's faithful people, to hear the word of God and share in the Lord's supper, to proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed, to serve all people, following the example of Christ, and to strive for justice and peace in all the earth.” This is what we are sent to do. God in Christ has claimed us and gathers us, and now we are sent to share and show and to live the good news of God's saving, boundless, endless love – for the sake of the world God loves so much. May we go with boldness and joy, strengthened by Christ's prayers for each of us.

Amen.

May 13, 2012 - Easter 6 - Empowered to Love as Jesus Loves

Empowered to Love as Jesus Loves

John 15:9-17

Easter 6 – May 13, 2012

You may have heard or seen the story about Stephanie Decker and her family in the news recently. She's the woman from Henryville, Indiana, a town that was flattened by a series of tornadoes back in the beginning of March. In the midst of all that tragedy, Mrs. Decker made news because on that day, knowing the tornadoes were headed straight for her home, she gathered up her young son and daughter and hustled with them to the basement. She sat them together, threw a comforter over them, and then shielded them with her own body as the storm ripped their house to shreds around them. Debris and wreckage rained down on them, severing both her legs. When the tornado passed, they had all survived, but Stephanie lost both of her legs at about the knee. Miraculously though, her kids were fine; they didn't even get a scratch.

She was rightfully proclaimed as a hero, and just this week her story resurfaced as she and her family were brought to New York to take in a Yankees game, and were given makeovers before being featured on the Today Show's “Moms Rule” segment.

These are the kind of stories that we like to hear, stories that inspire and touch us with the reminder that people are capable of doing incredible things for others in the name of love. And while such stories are not completely absent from our world, they are unusual enough that when they do occur, they make the news, and we are amazed, because we know that that kind of self-sacrifice and self-giving love are relatively rare.

And knowing what a rarity such acts are helps us enter into the gospel story for today. It helps to move just from just listening to these kind of abstract words into more concrete examples of what Jesus is talking about to the disciples here, to start to grasp what all of his talk of love really means. Because these words about friendship and love are nice. They sound good, but it's only when we start to dig into them and the situation Jesus was in that we realize how deep they go.

We hear Jesus speaking in this passage on the night of his betrayal. The scene is the Last Supper. Danger lurks in the shadows of the room. Jesus' somber prediction that everyone will desert him and that one will betray him is still lingering in the air. Judas has already left the building, bent on a mission to hand Jesus over to the authorities. And with all that swirling around them, Jesus speaks to them of friendship, of abiding love. He reminds them of the love that exists between him and God the Father, the love Jesus has for his friends, and of the love that they are now to have for one another. “This is my commandment,” Jesus says, “that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends” (vv. 12-13).

This is the kind of love Jesus commands them to live out, a love that is willing to give itself up, to die if necessary. Now, from what I read, this wouldn't have been a totally new concept for the disciples. The ancient Greek and Roman world had quite a high opinion of friendship. Philosophers like Plato and Aristotle and others all spoke and wrote about this ideal of a true friend being someone who would be willing to lay down his life. But then, as now, just because it was an idea doesn't mean it happened all that often. It was rare even then to find someone who could love another to the point of actually dying for them. And yet this is what Jesus is calling and commanding them to do – to love that fully, that deeply, that completely.

It's what he commands us as his followers today to do too. And as I said, these are nice, romantic, inspiring words, but we know how unusual that kind of love is. We wonder, if faced with the choice or necessity, would we be able to go through with it? And maybe, in an intense, dramatic event such as Stephanie Decker faced, with adrenaline pumping, we could see how it might happen. But what about our everyday lives, living out love that's not only willing to perhaps die, but also to live with and put up with and honor and seek the best for others? The kind of love that's willing to lay down its selfishness, and petty complaints, and our desire to get our own needs met first – we know we fail to live that out everyday... not just with strangers and neighbors but with our friends and family and those we love! When we start to get into this gospel and what it means for how Jesus actually wants us to live, we realize what a tall order this is, how impossible it is for us to love as Jesus loves us. His words sound good in theory, but in practice, BOY are they ever hard to live up to.

But this is exactly what we see Jesus do. That's what makes his words different than all those philosophers and writers who proclaimed this kind of friendship as a virtue. Not in an intense moment where he was pushed to act, but deliberately, willingly, Jesus gives his life for the world – for his disciples then, for you and me now. Jesus saw the writing on the wall. He knew what was coming – and he could have found a way out if he chose to – but he didn't. This is what he came to do. He goes from this meal with his followers, straight to the garden where he knew Judas would lead those who wanted him dead, and when they came, with lanterns and torches and weapons, Jesus steps forward to meet them. “Who are you looking for?” he asks, and when they say, “Jesus of Nazareth,” he doesn't hesitate to say, “I am he.”

“No one takes my life from me,” he had said back in what we know as chapter 10. “I lay it down of my own accord.” Jesus lives out what he has been teaching, revealing his love as the greatest love, love that lays itself down for his friends.

This is the love Jesus has for us. It's the love that flows constantly between the Father and the Son, love that overflows to us and the whole world. It is his love that lives in us, as we live in him and abide in him, his love that moves us past just seeing ourselves and looking out for #1, his love that empowers us to love like Jesus. This kind of self-giving, self-sacrificing love doesn't come from within us. It starts with Jesus. And it is his love that Jesus chose us and appointed us to carry into the world, his love that enables us to bear and share fruit that lasts. We may not be called to go to extremes like Stephanie Decker had to. We may be called to lay our lives down in a million small anonymous ways, we may not get any recognition for it, but this is way we are commanded to love, every day, giving ourselves away and reminding those we meet through our words and actions that they too are people Jesus loves, people Jesus laid his life down for, empowered to do so because we have seen and experienced and know just how much Jesus love us.

Thanks be to God!

Amen.

May 6, 2012 - Easter 5 - Jesus Gives Fruitful Life

Jesus Gives Fruitful Life!

John 15:1-8

Easter 5 – May 6, 2012

I'm not much of a gardener. I've talked and written about that before. I don't exactly have a black thumb, but I don't really have a green thumb either. I've had my fair share of houseplants over the years, usually the ones that are supposed to be easy to take care of and easy to grow. But what I've learned is that easy to grow is not the same as hard to kill.

Back in my college and post-college years I had a philodendron. You know the kind I mean – kind of heart-shaped green leaves, and a vine-y kind of plant; if you'd give it something to hold on to, you could get branches to snake around the room. And I had one of those that lasted and lasted and lasted – but really, this was one of the kind of plants that's more hard to kill than easy to grow. I mean, it survived, but the longer I had it, the uglier it got. It would grow nice long vines, but they were spindly-looking things, the leaves would get fewer and farther between, and you just knew that the plant was not all it was supposed to be, all that it could be. It was just getting by, but it wasn't thriving. It wasn't lush and full the way it started out. Some of you less-than-green-thumb gardeners can probably imagine your own scraggly plants in the place of mine.

As I listen to these words from Jesus this morning, I get an image of that old philodendron in my mind's eye. The lectionary is messing with our timeline again, and we hear Jesus speaking on what we call Maundy Thursday, the night of his betrayal and arrest, and these are part of his final words to his followers – he's got three chapters and a long, last prayer altogether, but as he gathers with them for this farewell meal, Jesus wants to leave them with words of wisdom and encouragement, promise and hope – words that they can carry with them through the tough days that will follow – not just his crucifixion and death, but all of the struggles and persecution that will come even after he has been raised from the dead and they go out into the world to share this incredible story. And so he talks to them about their relationship. Jesus talks about they way they are all interconnected. About what they will need to do in order to do more than just survive, but how it is that they can grow and thrive.

He uses this image of the vine and the branches. Jesus says to them, “I am the vine and you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.” I am the vine, Jesus says – I am the root, the source. I am what gives you life and strength and nourishment. I am what you need to be hooked into if you want to have a deep, vibrant, meaningful life. I am what you need to sustain you, so abide in me. Dwell with me. Make your home in me. Let your life intertwine with mine, and you will have an abundant, lush, full life.

He also talks about God, his father and ours, the vinegrower. I may not have a green thumb, but even the best master gardeners in this congregation are nothing compared to God. God is the ultimate gardener. God knows how to work in our lives to help us to grow – to be more than a spindly, sparse philodendron holding on to a stake or a rod and inching along, but not really putting out leaves or growing into the fullness of what we were created to be. And so Jesus speaks these words that, quite frankly, make me & probably many of you nervous – He talks about God removing branches that bear no fruit, and pruning even those that do bear fruit so that they will bear more. And the ones who don't abide in Jesus – well, they're thrown away like a branch and wither and are gathered up and thrown into the fire to be burned. I hope that when we hear these words, they make us pause, that they make us stop at least for just a little bit to look at our lives and wonder where we land. Are we bearing fruit? Are we disconnected from Jesus, from the source of true life? I don't know about you, but neither of these possibilities seems all that great. Pruning doesn't seem like such a great alternative to being tossed on to the burn pile. Can't we just live our lives on our own, letting our branches go where they want, getting along the best we know how without God the gardener coming to interfere?

The thing is though, that that's not really living. Think again of whatever plant you've owned or seen in someone else's house or in a restaurant – wherever you've seen something like my philodendron, getting along, but not really thriving. That's how a life that's lived disconnected from Jesus looks. It may be hard to kill, but it's hardly a lush, full plant. And the longer those vines are allowed to grow away from the roots of the plant, without pinching them back and pruning them, the worse they look – the less leaves, the less beautiful, the less vibrant, the less healthy they are.

But the life that God designed us to live, the life God longs for us to have, the life Jesus invites us into in this gospel, is one that is symbolized by those full-leafed, gorgeous plants you see in the store before we bring them home. They're lives that are full, abundant, joyful, lives that are connected to the root of life, Jesus – and that life, Jesus' own life, flows through them. There's pruning involved sometimes, because even this amateur gardener knows that plants and trees need to have the dead spots trimmed back and cut off periodically. Those dead or dying parts all pull at our connection to the vine that sustains us. They sap the strength that could be going into new growth and abundant fruit. They're all of those things that promise to fulfill us and our need for true connection, to nourish us, to give us that abundant life we desire, and yet leave us trailing out there, far away from the root and source of true life. So even though is sometimes seems that way, pruning isn't a punishment, it's just part of the natural process that makes space for new life to grow.

I know which kind of plant I'd rather be. And the great news is, our part is just to abide. To stick close to Jesus, to make our spiritual homes in him and to let him live in us. Branches don't have to worry all the time about whether or not they're producing fruit, or which parts need pruning. If they stay connected to the vine, fruit is a natural outcome, and the vinegrower will take care of the rest.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

April 22, 2012 - Easter 3 - Jesus Calls Us to Witness

Jesus Calls Us To Witness

Luke 24:36-48

Easter 3 – April 22, 2012

My brother Rob has recently joined Facebook. It's been a wonderful gift for me, because we're both busy and we both work weird schedules and we don't always have a chance to talk on the phone or see each other very often. And after all these years of resisting, he finally gave in and signed up, and he has embraced it wholeheartedly. He shows up on my page a lot, making comments, sharing music; we get to be more a part of each other's lives, and I've really been enjoying that.

But I have to laugh a little bit, because in the brief month or so Rob's been on Facebook, he has become a witness, an evangelist of sorts – for his new favorite TV show, Touch, with Keifer Sutherland, if you were wondering. He loves this show. Something about it really speaks to him, and so every week after the latest episode, he posts something about it, asking people if they've seen it yet, reminding them that they should really tune in if they haven't, that they are missing something unique and worthwhile. And he's so persistent and so into it that despite my vow I would never watch Touch because of a way over-saturated ad campaign for a month before it premiered, I finally broke down and watched the pilot. And I liked it. And I'll probably add it to the list of shows I save to watch regularly. All because my brother was “touched” by the premise of the show and kept on talking about it.

This morning's gospel lesson ends with the rather fearsome line, “You are witnesses of these things.” We don't know how the disciples reacted to Jesus' words, if their faces lit up at this great commission, or if they tried to hide their anxiety and dismay at the thought of what Jesus was telling them they were to do. We know that when Jesus shows up that first Easter night – yup, the lectionary has us stuck in a little loop and keeps bringing us right back to Easter Sunday – we know that when he shows up, appearing among them with no warning, just like in John's gospel last week, they are startled. Terrified. They think he's a ghost. And even after Jesus shows them his hands and side and asks them if they have anything to eat (resurrection is hungry work, it seems), even in their joy, they still wonder. They are still disbelieving. Part of that was a result of the joy, the “is this too good to be true?” effect. But we don't know what they thought about this call to be witnesses to what they have seen and heard, that Jesus iss the Messiah who suffered and died and rose again, that they are to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins in his name.

No, we don't know what they thought about their new job description as disciples, but we know how we respond to these words when we realize that they are spoken to us as well. We, who so often run into pockets of disbelief within ourselves, who wonder how all this can be true, who sometimes doubt our own faith and our abilities to tell this incredible story – we are nervous. We are scared. We are reluctant. We're LUTHERANS after all! We do many things well, but sharing the stories of our faith has not tended to be one of them. We have lots of reasons to explain why we don't witness – we don't know enough, we don't know what to say, we don't want to harass other people or shove our religion down their throat. Plenty of good reasons, but that doesn't let us off the hook. Jesus still calls us witnesses to these things – the things we have seen God doing for us and for the whole world through Jesus Christ. Not just the Easter event; Easter changes everything of course, but God's saving, redeeming work in the world didn't start there and it sure didn't end there! Jesus is alive and is still active in the world – healing, comforting, forgiving, saving – and we are witnesses of these things. We have a responsibility and a commission to tell people about how we see God working in the world, even now, starting in our own homes, in our own neighborhoods. Even the disciples started in Jerusalem – they didn't go out to “all nations” until later on.

We make “witnessing” into such a big deal that our tongues get tied. Our hearts quiver inside us at the very thought. But as I was reminded in an article by David Lose, preaching professor at Luther Seminary, this week, we all witness all the time. Just like my brother, talking about his favorite new show. We all do it. We talk about our favorite shows or the great new movie we just saw. We tell others about the amazing restaurant that they just have to try or that place with the out-of-this world bagel or cup of coffee. We talk about the triumphs of our sports teams, we share the good news of upcoming weddings or births or anniversaries. This past week, you couldn't get me to shut up about the vacation that starts after worship today – and I'm not even going anywhere exotic, just to our time share in Florida.

The point is, we are witnesses all the time to the things that touch us or impress us. We share these stories without any nervousness, without any sense of self-consciousness or anxiety. When something meaningful happens to us, we want others to have a chance to share in our joy, to experience it for themselves.

That's all Jesus really wants us to do when he calls us to be witnesses... to share the stories of how we have sensed God at work in the world – at home or work or school, through the government or the church or some other organization that reaches out to help people in need, through a friend or a stranger. Witnessing about these things doesn't have to be hard or complicated or scary. We don't have to be gifted public speakers or have years of theological education or have read the Bible cover to cover 17 times. Jesus calls us, each of us, just as we are, just as he called the first disciples and sent them out into the world to carry this good news. He promises the Holy Spirit, power from on high to clothe us, to give us words to say and the wisdom to know when to say them. But this is what Easter people do. People who have experienced the power of the living Christ in our lives have stories to tell, stories to share with others who are hurting, searching, seeking; people who are longing for the chance to start over and don't know if it's possible, people who need to know that in Jesus there is forgiveness of sins and love never-ending and the peace that passes all understanding. These stories are ours to tell – big, little, and all the ones in between. My challenge for you this week is to actually tell one person, to practice – to notice how God is at work in the world, and then to talk with someone about it, maybe your family over dinner, or a friend on the phone, or someone from church you run into at a meeting or at the grocery store. But try it out. Be a witness. God will bless you as you do.

Amen.

April 15, 2012 - Easter 2 - The Discipleship of Doubt

The Discipleship of Doubt

John 20:19-31

Easter 2 – April 15, 2012

“Unless I see... I will not believe.”

This is what Thomas said to the other believers that first Easter night. “Unless I see for myself the place where the nails were and the hole in his side, I'm not buying it.” And so, in one moment, Thomas earns himself the nickname that has defined him ever since, “Doubting Thomas”, the title he cannot escape (cartoon story - "No one calls you Denying Peter, or Runs-Away-Naked Mark; I'm just saying!"), said so often in scorn as though doubt were the polar opposite of faith, as though doubt were antithetical to belief, as though all of the other people who had encountered the risen Jesus that first Easter Sunday had not gone through the same questions Thomas had.

The author of John's gospel shows just those doubts. Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb that morning and finds an empty grave – but until Jesus himself appears and calls her name, she sits there weeping, thinking someone has moved his body. When Mary encounters Jesus, he sends her with a message to his other followers, and she goes with the powerful witness: “I have seen the Lord!” John doesn't describe their reaction, but from what we hear in our gospel story today, we don't get the impression that they believed her, because when night falls, we find the disciples locked behind closed doors, huddling together, hiding out in fear of the religious authorities who had orchestrated Jesus' death a few days before. It is only when Jesus himself comes, appearing among them despite their locked doors, bidding them Peace, showing them his hands and his side that their eyes are opened and they believe.

That's where Thomas comes in, Thomas who shows up later on, missing Jesus – and the other disciples can barely contain themselves, they are tripping over each other in their eagerness to share what has happened. They blurt out, just like Mary had done earlier, “We have seen the Lord!” But Thomas can't believe it either. He needs to see with his own eyes, feel with his own hands the same things Mary and the other disciples had seen; he wants to experience the power of the resurrected Lord for himself.

I can relate. Too often, we act as though doubt is a bad thing. But we all go through it. Belief and unbelief go hand in hand. Faith and doubt are two sides of the same coin. We are like the man in the story from Mark's gospel who has a son in need of healing, and the disciples hadn't been able to do anything for him. So he pleads with Jesus: “If you are able to do anything, have pity on us and help us,” to which Jesus replies, “All things can be done for the one who believes.” And the man cries out, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”

And we come to church this morning, perhaps with this same plea on our lips, seeking peace and comfort and hope, longing to believe in this amazing story of Christ's triumph over death, but filled with our own doubts and questions, wondering how we can hold out hope that God is real, that love exists, that everlasting life is possible, and that new life can be experienced here and now in this lifetime. But we look around at the world, hoping to see evidence of God's creative and redeeming power at work, and instead seeing evidence of the power of greed and anger and violence and prejudice – the power of sin and death undeniably at work in nations, in communities, in families, within ourselves. And so we wonder what this story of Jesus' resurrection has to do with us and our problems, filled with the doubts and questions that nag at the corners of our minds, or maybe have taken center stage lately – wondering as we come here this morning if there is a place for us here in this house of worship, this community of faith, if God and the people sitting around us can deal with the parts of us that have a hard time believing.

And yet, you are here, with whatever lingering doubts or questions or uncertainties you may have, you have come. We are here, all of us together, wrestling with those questions, carrying with us the unbelief that coexists side by side with our belief.

And I have to say that we are in good company. I take courage from Thomas' story, because here he is, the quintessential example of doubt, smack dab in the middle of this resurrection story, surrounded in this second part of the lesson for today by people who seem so sure of themselves and what they have seen and what they now believe. But even when he cannot bring himself to believe just based on what they say they saw, Thomas sticks it out. He is still with them one week later. What a powerful example! He doesn't let his doubts push him away – and neither do the rest of them. They welcome him in, he remains a part of their group, even as he protests his inability to believe unless he sees. He brings his questions right to the heart of their community – and there is a place for him there. And wouldn't you know it – one week later, Jesus shows up again, the last person Thomas was expecting, but there he is, despite closed doors, coming one more time to stand among his followers, to offer his peace, extending his hands and side to Thomas to give him exactly what he said he needed – and Thomas believes!

And in that moment of belief, Jesus does not reproach him, even though that's often how we have read these words, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” These are words of blessing, not rebuke – for all of John's first readers who had not seen the risen Christ for themselves, down through the centuries and generations of God's faithful people, even down to us, and now on this morning extended to Cassie, the newest member of God's family who will be baptized this morning – who will grow to have faith because of this gathering of believers who will embrace her as she wrestles and struggles with questions and doubts of her own, helping her to grow stronger in her faith, as we all do, not despite our doubts, but because of them.

This is what we do as Easter people, as people of resurrection faith. We know that we don't have to have all the answers, that our relationship with Jesus and each other is not weakened when we dare to speak the questions that are on our mind. We remind each other that faith is not the opposite of doubt, but that true faith learns to live with doubt and still finds a way to believe at the same time, trusting, hoping, holding on, until we encounter again our risen Lord in sudden and unexpected ways, our Lord who comes to us in the midst of our doubts and fears, bringing peace, breathing the Holy Spirit, giving us power to believe again.

Amen.

April 8, 2012 - Easter Sunday - Jesus Meets Us on the Journey

Jesus Meets Us on the Journey

Mark 16:1-8

Easter Sunday – April 8, 2012

Many of you know that when I lived in Rhode Island, I used to go camping and hiking quite a bit in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. It was something I had really never done before I moved there; my family didn't camp, and neither did my friends, so neither had I. But lots of my friends in Rhode Island liked to camp, and one Memorial Day weekend the invited me along. And so began a love of camping and hiking, and I was going as often as I could. I had one main friend, my hiking buddy Vaughn who usually organized these things – big group hikes with lots of people from work and other times smaller groups or just the 2 of us.

Now Vaughn was always in much better shape than I was, not to mention being a much more experienced hiker, and so when it was just the two of us, he pretty much always left me in the dust. That was okay; we agreed on it ahead of time, and that way, we could each go at our own pace. But as I huffed and puffed and trudged along up the 4000+ footers we were usually seeking to conquer, even when he was long out of sight up the mountain, I never worried. I always knew that he would be waiting for me up ahead, that he wouldn't leave me to navigate the trail alone, that I would find him sooner or later, just around the next bend or after a particularly steep climb, there to check in with me, encourage me about what was to come further on, and then to walk with me as we set out again, before taking the lead and speeding up the trail. And so the pattern would repeat throughout that trip, and on each mountain we hiked together.

Today's gospel gives us sense of just this type of relationship - this going ahead and expecting others to follow, this trust that has developed between Jesus and Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome, and all of the other disciples. Of course, the women come to the tomb on this morning weighed down, not just with the burial spices they carried, but with the grief and sorrow of the past three days. It was like a bad dream they just couldn't wake up from, one that just went on and on, from Judas betraying Jesus on Thursday night, through the shocking brutality of Jesus' death on the cross on Friday, and through the long sabbath Saturday, a day when they could do nothing, nothing but pray and wait and plan for Sunday morning to go and anoint Jesus' body, giving him a loving farewell there in the tomb. They go not even knowing how they will get into the tomb, past the stone they had seen Joseph of Arimathea place there Friday afternoon. They go into a place of death, expecting to find death.

But when they get there, one surprise after another meets them. When they get to the entrance to the tomb and look up, they see it standing wide open, the stone, which was very large, has been mysteriously rolled away. And when they dare to step inside to see what's going on, they don't find the body of Jesus wrapped in a linen cloth like they were expecting. Instead, a young man dressed in white is sitting there – and they are alarmed! Well, duh! “Don't be alarmed” he says to them. “You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised, he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”

This is great news – but the way Mark ends the story leaves a little to be desired. It's a safe bet that his first readers were expecting a little more, and that we are too. Wonderful to hear that Jesus has been raised, but it'd be nice if he made an appearance to the women to back up what the young man, perhaps an angel, told them. We too, are looking for this; it's Easter morning – we expect to hear this of dramatic resurrection appearance of Jesus, our risen Lord who died and yet lives... and all of the other gospels all have Jesus showing up to meet with his disciples – with Mary Magdalene, alone, or with the other women, in the garden; on the road to Emmaus; in the Upper Room where the disciples are hiding out in fear on Sunday night. But not Mark's gospel. Mark's gospel ends here, with the women given a message to take to the other disciples, and then immediately fleeing – “and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

We want more; we expect more – not just in the story, but often in our own lives. We'd like Jesus to make a personal appearance, to come into our lives in some powerful, unmistakable way, to remove all doubt – that he is real, that he exists, that this story is true!! But most of the time, what we get is the word of someone else, someone who reminds us that Jesus is not in the grave, that he has been raised – and that he is going ahead, back into the world, calling us into new life, resurrection life, where he will meet us! And in our disbelief, in our shock and amazement and terror – we are given a message to take to the rest of the world. To do what so many before us have done – to share the story that we have received, to tell the truth that we have experienced: that Jesus lives, and that he goes on ahead of us – that he'll meet us further along the road, just as he promised.

It's not easy to go just on the say so of another witness. We see that from the way the women react initially. They say nothing. This story is too fantastic, too good to be true, too bizarre to be believed. But the thing about following Jesus is that we learn to trust him, and in that trust, we go when we hear him say go. Even when we can't see him on the path ahead of us, we keep hiking the trail he has marked out for us, because we know he doesn't break his promises, we know that we will come around a bend on the path or reach the top of a steep hill and find him there waiting for us, and there we rest in his presence. Maybe he gives us a hint of what the trail is like just ahead; we are encouraged to keep on going, always following into the future, his future – one that has conquered death so that we need not fear death, one that isn't always easy but is always filled with hope and promise for what we will see when we reach the summit and join with Jesus there.

On this day, wherever you are on this journey with Jesus, whether you are a novice hiker or an old seasoned veteran, know that Jesus is going on ahead of you, always beckoning you to come, promising to meet you along the way. Go in confident amazement and awe or maybe with alarm and trembling but go. Go and as you go, invite someone else to go with you. Tell them of this incredible good news Jesus has been raised. Share the stories of resurrection life, of light and hope and freedom bursting out of tombs, new life that cannot be contained with someone who can't quite believe it is true. It's the only way they can know that Jesus is waiting for them, just ahead. If we don't tell them, who will?

April 5, 1012 - Maundy Thursday - Jesus Feeds the Faithless

Jesus Feeds the Faithless

Mark 14:3-25

Maundy Thursday – April 5, 2012

Many of you know J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, from the books or the movies. In these stories, we hear the saga of Middle Earth, centering around Frodo Baggins and his companions. Caught in the darkening power of evil forces at work in their land, Frodo and his Fellowship are called to set out on a quest: to return the One Ring to the land from which it came, to destroy the ring in the fires of Mordor that forged it, to set their land free. If you know these books or the movies that were made from them at all, you know that there are 3 books worth of dangers and adventures, that they experience fear and fighting and failures along the way.

Of course, they also have help from their allies – it is the only way that they will have any hope of achieving their quest. And so it is, before they begin the arduous trek to Mordor that Frodo and the friends who will accompany him take counsel with the Elves and with Gandalf and the other elders and leaders who have thought through this course of action. And before Frodo and the others set out, the Elves give them a gift. It is the gift of Lembas, or waybread in the Common Tongue. A secret closely guarded by the Elves, it is an important and special gift, because though it doesn't look like much, it has special properties. It lasts and lasts without going bad, and is very nutritious and sustaining, not just physically, but spiritually as well. A little bit goes a long way – and time and again, the band of adventurers will turn to this bread when there is little else to carry them through, when they are dejected and fearful and near despair, tempted to give up on their mission.

In tonight's gospel, Jesus gives a similar gift to his followers. This is the night of his betrayal, and Jesus gathers his disciples together in the Upper Room for one last meal. A special meal, not just because it is their last with Jesus, but because it is the Passover celebration, which reminds them of God's powerful act of liberation long ago in Egypt, as God led the people of Israel out of slavery and oppression under Pharaoh. Before they set out, God instituted this meal to feed the ancient Israelites, but it was more than mere food. It was to become for them the sign and symbol of God's ability to save, throughout the generations.

But even in the act of that liberation, the faith of the Israelites is challenged. They're on their way out of Egypt, but find themselves stopped dead in front of the Red Sea. They turn to look behind them, only to see Pharaoh's armies fast approaching. It looks hopeless. No way out. How can God possibly intervene? Better to have stayed in slavery in Egypt, they cry out to Moses, than to die out here!

In the gospel, we see a similar story playing out. The faith of the disciples about to be tested. Even though salvation is around the corner, the coming of God's promised reign very near, at hand – before the disciples can realize and take hold of it, they are stopped short. They come face to face with Good Friday and the cross, and there seems no way forward, no way out. As we will hear tomorrow in the Passion story, their faith in Jesus and in God's ability to save is pushed beyond its limit when the chief priests, scribes and elders come to arrest Jesus in the garden. In the face of what is about to happen, it is hard to see how this can possibly end well, to imagine how God can possibly bring something good out of the terror and shock of this night. So they panic. They flee.

Sometimes we find our own faith tested, strained to the breaking point. Despite God's promise of salvation, no matter how many stories we read in the Bible that tell of how God acts, intervening sometimes just in the nick of time to bring hope and promise, it can be hard when we're in the middle of a bad situation to see how God will act. When we are caught between a rock and a hard place, between an advancing army and threatening sea, it can be next to impossible to see how God will make a way out of no way, how God can possibly act in a way that will bring deliverance out of our desperation and despair.

And so on this night, Jesus institutes a new meal, which like Passover, will live on throughout the generations, becoming a reminder for us of God's powerful act of liberation in Jesus; more than a reminder, really – more of a lived experience that reveals God's power at work in our lives. This meal Jesus shares with his first followers and with us who follow him today is an amazing gift. Because much as the Elves knew the Fellowship of the Ring faced impossibly difficult times ahead, Jesus knows what lies ahead later on this evening. He's told them more than once that when he goes to Jerusalem, it will be to die. At the beginning of this gospel, he says that the woman who breaks open the jar of ointment and pours it on his head has anointed him beforehand for his burial. As they sit around this table and share this final meal together, Jesus knows how they will respond. He predicts that one of them, one of his closest followers, will betray him. Tomorrow, we will hear him say that all will desert him, that Peter will deny him. None will stand by his side, and they will be dejected and despondent and disappointed, not just in his death, but in themselves, in their failure to follow him to the end. He knows, not only the trouble he will face as he goes to his death, but the trials they will face, not just on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, but in the days that follow Easter as they seek to share the amazing unbelievably good news with the whole world. He knows, and he has compassion for them, this fickle, faithless fellowship – and so he feeds them. He takes common, ordinary bread, which like the Elves' Lembas doesn't look very special or powerful – and he blesses it and breaks it and gives it to them. “This is my body.' He gives thanks for a simple cup of wine and passes it for all to drink. “This is my blood. For you.” A simple meal, but one that will strengthen and sustain them for the days to come. It will renew and fortify their faith for the road that lies ahead of them. On the days when darkness is all around and everything seems hopeless, and they are tempted to give up on the mission Christ has entrusted to them, they can take this bread and drink from this cup and be reminded of God's saving power, experience again God's redeeming love that brings light out of darkness, hope out of despair, life out of death. They will turn to this meal again and again, experiencing Jesus present with them, his very life offered up for them, and then go again to share this good news with the world.

So it is with us. In our dark, troubled, and often troubling world, it can be hard to believe that God is still in control, that God is always at work to redeem and restore all of creation, even us! It can be hard to trust that God can bring us out to the other side of trouble. But we come to this meal, hands outstretched to receive what Jesus offers – bread and wine, his body and blood, given and shed for us, giving us courage and strength for each new day, empowering us not to lose hope, not to abandon Christ's mission for us, even as we wait and watch to see how God in Christ always acts to save.

Come. Eat. Drink. Let Jesus feed you with himself, and then go, share the good news with the world.

Amen.

April 1, 2012 - Mark 11:1-11 - Jesus Saves Us From More Than We Know

Jesus Saves Us From More Than We Know

Mark 11:1-11

Palm Sunday – April 1, 2012

Fairy tales seem to be making a comeback in the media these days. There are two different movies about the Snow White story coming out in the next few months, and two TV shows debuted this past fall that revolve around fairy tale characters with a modern twist. One of them is the show Once Upon a Time, which tells the tale of the people of Storybrook, Maine. It's a sleepy little town. People from there tend to stay there, and not too many strangers ever come through. Except for Emma.
Emma is drawn to this town by an encounter with a boy, Henry, who says he's the son she gave up for adoption, and ultimately, Emma drives him back to Storybrook, because he has no money for the bus and is only something like 12 years old, and of course she is curious.

Not surprisingly, one thing leads to another, and Emma ends up staying in town, and ultimately becoming the sheriff, because she has learned that Regina, Henry's adoptive mother, and also the mayor of the town, isn't someone to be trusted. Regina seems nice enough on the surface, but she has a way of manipulating people and circumstances to get what she wants, and she doesn't much care who gets hurt in the process.

But underneath all of this, there's another layer to the story, a layer that only Henry seems to know... the people of Storybrook are not really from this world. It turns out that Regina is really the Evil Queen from the Snow White story, who, in a fit of rage had put the entire world of fairy tales under a curse, a curse that brought them to Storybrook and left them with no memory of who they were and where they had come from. All of their relationships, their loves, their families from before – everyone is in Storybrook, but they don't remember the history they share. Henry goes to find Emma because he believes she is the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, the only one rescued from the curse, the one foretold who would break the curse and save everyone from the Evil Queen Regina... it's just that no one in town knows that they need to be saved. They're happy enough to have Emma become sheriff, at least the ones who realize Regina has a dark side, but they have no wish or desire for her to break the curse. No one realizes they are under a curse in the first place.

The people of Jerusalem who come out to meet Jesus and cheer his entry into town remind me of the people of Storybrook. They come laying cloaks before Jesus and waving leafy branches they had cut in the fields to welcome him, and as they see him approaching, they begin to shout: “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest!”

 Hosanna – which means “Save us!”

 “Save us, Jesus,” they cry, but their next words give us a clue about what kind of saving they are looking for. They bless the coming kingdom of their ancestor David – David who was Israel's greatest king, the one who brought peace from their enemies and unity among their own tribes, at least while he lived. King David's days were the glory days for the people of Israel. A time of freedom, when they weren't threatened or oppressed by any outside countries, when they ruled over themselves in prosperity and peace. It didn't last too long after he died, and by now, they are, of course, under Roman rule, and chafing to be free. In these words, they show that they hope and expect that Jesus will be the one to restore the kingdom, that this powerful and charismatic leader whose words and deeds have preceded him will rally the people to rise up and rebel against Rome, overthrowing their rule and making the way for them to be a sovereign nation once more.


No one can blame them for wanting this of course. No people wants to be occupied by a foreign military power. But they're so focused on the temporary that they cannot see who Jesus is and what he has really come to do. They don't see the depth of their need, how far their captivity and oppression go. They don't realize that they are under a curse.
 
This is often the way for us too. We read the stories of Jesus in the Bible. We come and hear them in church, and we are inspired and encouraged. When we find ourselves weighed down and stressed out, we cry out with the ancient people of Israel, “Hosanna! Save us, Lord!” But I don't know if we always know what it is we are asking to be saved from, and who it is we are asking. So we see and read and hear so often people who talk about following Jesus as though he is our fairy godmother who comes and waves a magic wand and makes all of our troubles disappear, as though Jesus has come solely to save us from our money problems or our health problems or our relationship problems or personality problems or our addictions. We cry to Jesus to save us from these things – and he can – and he does! - but what we miss is the underlying problem, the root thing that we need to be saved from in the first place. We're looking for solutions to temporary problems, not knowing that we are living our lives under a curse, that there is far more going on here than meets the eye! What we will see and experience in the coming week, as we travel with Jesus to Good Friday and the cross will reveal the depth of our captivity.

Back in Storybrook, Emma doesn't really know what she's up against, even though Henry has told her she is the one who has to break the curse. She doesn't really believe him. Who knows where the story will take her, but already, she's taken some licks for standing up to Regina, just on the surface problems of this dimension of existence, let alone breaking the curse once and for all.

But Emma is not Jesus. And Jesus does know what he's up against. He knows he's come to do more than overthrow a government, because governments and their leaders come and go. He's come to fight against the powers and principalities, the powers of sin and death and the devil that are always at work beneath the surface of our lives and in the world around us. What Jesus came to do goes beyond our individual concerns, even though he cares about those concerns and about us. But he's come to get to the heart of our curse once and for all, the sin that corrupts and touches each of us and our whole creation, the situations and systems that are bigger than any one person, the things that we can't even see or recognize that hold us captive and oppressed.

“Hosanna!” we cry with the people of Jerusalem on this day. “Lord, save us!” And save us he will, but it won't look like what they or we were expecting. Jesus comes to set us free, to give us the freedom that lasts forever, freedom that before the week is out, will cost him his life. Come see and experience the love that dies so we may live.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

March 25, 2012 - Lent 5 - God's Promise is Forever

God's Promise is Forever

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Lent 5 – March 25, 2012

Shortly before Andy & I were to be married, we went to meet with the interim pastor at his church, where the wedding was taking place. We had done our premarital counseling with someone else, but Pr. Jim wanted to meet with us once, since we were getting married in his church. Andy and I always remember that conversation, because among other things, Pr. Jim asked us to talk a little bit about our parents and our families, and how they had influenced our understanding of marriage. As we shared some of those stories, one of us concluded by saying that we both understood that for us, divorce is not an option. Pr. Jim then told us that he and his wife had a similar view, that marriage is until death do us part. And sometime after their 40th anniversary, as they were talking with someone about their long relationship, his wife said this: “We've been married for 40 years, and all those years, never once did I think of divorce. Murder – yes. But divorce, no.” Til death do us part. =) It's become a running joke for us...

I think of that story – about that kind of commitment to marriage and your marriage partner (not the murder part!) - when I read the Old Testament lesson from Jeremiah for today. Because in this passage, God speaks of God's relationship with the people of Israel as a marriage: “though I was their husband, says the LORD.” And God's understanding of this relationship is of the “until death do us part” kind.

Certainly, if ever someone would have grounds for divorce, it's God in this relationship with Israel. They are unfaithful. Rebellious. Un-trusting. Always grumbling and complaining about something, even when God is taking good care of them. Always trying to do things their way instead of God's way. Though God sends them messengers in the prophets over and over again, a kind of ancient marriage counseling in some ways, the people refuse to listen. And God would be within God's rights to say, “That's it! I'm done with you people! I'm leaving you and finding some new nation that will appreciate me!”

It would be easy for God to say the same thing about us. In so many ways, we turn from God and the relationship God created us to have with God. We find it hard to wait for God's timing, so we hurry up and do things our way, thinking that we can show God how it's done. We resist God's call to trust, to obey, to put God at the center of our lives instead of someone we come visit once a week or month or year – whenever it's convenient or when we need something. We push God away, when all God wants is what is best for us. How many times do we put God through this?– and you know that we could almost understand if God would just give up on us after one too many times, that God would be sick and tired of being rejected and just walk away.

But that's not who God is. That's not what God is about. See, God is a God of the covenant. God is a God who keeps God's promises. God had made this covenant with Israel's ancestors long ago, when God rescued them from slavery in Egypt and led them through the wilderness to the Promised Land. God has been making covenants with humankind since the time of Noah and the aftermath of the flood, and again with Abraham and Sarah and the promise of descendants more numerous than the stars. And even though the people had failed time and time again to live up to their end of the bargain, God would not give up. God's covenant, God's promises, are forever. And what that means is that God is willing to go to any lengths to restore that relationship, to heal what is broken, to draw us and all of God's beloved people back into the heart of God's love. God will do whatever it takes to keep the lines of communication open.

 Which is not to say, of course, that God is a doormat or that God will let us just walk all over him and get away with whatever we want to do. That's not a very loving way to be in relationship. There are consequences for our sin, for our rebellion, for our turning away. We see it in the great flood, we see it in the delayed entry into the Promised Land (they weren't out there in the wilderness for 40 years because God didn't know the way!), we see it when the people of Jeremiah's time are led into exile in Babylon. We see in our own lives, in our broken relationships and regrets, in the things we wish we could forget – the things we wish God could forget.

But that exactly what God promises here – to forgive and to forget. God does not hold on to our sins forever. God does not let the ways we mess up push God away. God does not hold grudges, and God certainly doesn't hold our old sins, our old mistakes, our old “stuff” over our heads, always ready to bring up the past. No, when God forgives – God forgets. It no longer has the power to stand in the way of God's relationship with us. More than anything else, God longs for that relationship to be healed and whole and trusting. God is always seeking to be reunited with us, for us to experience and live into God's mercy and compassion and forgiveness for us, so that we might find new life in God's covenant with us.

Because when God said “I do” to us, it was forever. In sickness and in health, for better, for worse – til death do us part.

But it's even better than that, because even death cannot separate us from God's love for us. In death, Jesus' death on a cross, we see the full depth of God's love for us, how far God's love is willing to go to bring us back, to bridge the gap, to cross the divide that we so often create. Jesus, lifted up, is what draws us back to him, to God, to life. Jesus' life poured out is God's new covenant, God's promise to us that even death cannot part us.

May this new covenant be written on our hearts and transform our living.

Amen.

March 18, 2012 - Lent 4 - Liberation in the Light

Liberation in the Light

John 3:14-21

Lent 4 – March 18, 2012

Several years ago I went to see the movie The Others in the movie theater. It was a ghost story of sorts, set just at the end of World War II on the island of Jersey. It's about a mother, Grace, played by Nicole Kidman, and her two children, Anne & Nicholas. Her husband, Charles, had gone off to the war, and had not yet returned. It's a good spooky, suspenseful movie, leaving you wondering what's going on nearly until the end of the film.

Anyway, one of the things that has stuck with me from the movie happens near the beginning, when new servants arrive to work at the house. As Grace is giving Bertha, the head servant, the tour of the house, she goes from room to room, locking each door behind her as she goes, and pulling the drapes shut as well. The home is shrouded in darkness, which Grace explains is for the safety of her children. They are photosensitive, and must never be exposed to light stronger than a candle, lest their skin get burned. It certainly adds to the mood of the movie!

As the story progresses, Bertha tries to persuade Grace to try again, to let a little light into the dreary, dark house – it's possible, she suggests, that the children could have outgrown their sensitivity. These things sometimes happen, and how will Grace know unless she tries? But of course, Grace refuses. She is terrified of what the outcome might be if Anne and Nicholas are exposed to sunlight. She wants only to protect them, refusing to see that there may be another way, that light may now not be something to be feared.

What an appropriate image to go with the gospel story today, with its talk of light and darkness, which is such a strong theme woven throughout the whole gospel of John, really. We hear in this very familiar passage that God loved the world in this way: God gave his only Son – not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him! But John follows that up by saying that those who don't believe are already condemned. “And this is the judgment,” he says, “that light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light...” (vs. 19 & 20).

Now of course, Anne & Nicholas hadn't done anything evil. Neither, really, had Grace, in keeping them out of the light. But there's just something so powerful in their utter fear of light that reminds me of this gospel - because I think this is true of us too. We prefer to hide out in the darkness. We hang up heavy dark drapes in the windows of our souls. We carefully go from locked room to locked room, lest any light sneak in. It's as though we think we can hide from others; hide from ourselves; hide from God if we stay in the darkness; that perhaps all of our flaws and failures, our warts and our wounded-ness will go unseen in the dark; that we will be safe from judgment and condemnation and punishment, if only we can stay in the shadows and stay out of sight.

Think about that for a little bit. Who among us likes to come clean? Sometimes, yes, on our better days, when we realize we've messed up, we might come to someone we've hurt or wronged, and admit to it; we might be able to be brave enough to ask for forgiveness and seek to heal what we have broken. But what about those times when no one knows what we have done, or what we have neglected to do that we should have done? The times when no one really needs to find out, and the temptation is so strong to keep it to ourselves, to lock it behind closed doors, to pretend as though it never happened? More often than not, those secret sins start to eat away at us, growing and taking on a life of their own in the dark; the secret becomes even more of a problem than the original misdeed itself. King David put it so well in Psalm 32: “While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long” (vs. 3).

What do we think will happen if we screw up our courage and go into the light? We fear that we will be rejected, condemned, pushed away, if we dare to reveal who we really are, if we are brave enough to acknowledge our sinfulness and our need. When we sit and stay in the darkness, the darkness gets to working on our imagination – like a little kid hiding under the covers in the dark at bedtime, afraid of what is lurking there, too caught up in the fear of what is under the bed or behind the closet door to get out of bed and turn on the light and see that there was really nothing there to be afraid of. And so we get caught there, dreaming up worst-cast scenarios, and refusing, like Grace, to entertain the possibility that light is nothing to be feared after all, but something to welcome and embrace!

At the end of The Others, as the unseen intruders seem to be taking over more and more of their home (I told you this was a ghost story, didn't I?), one morning, Grace is thrown into a panic when she gets up and discovers that all of the curtains, every single one, have been taken down. They have disappeared. She's screaming, the kids are screaming – they are terrified! She races to cover them with a drop-cloth that was covering the furniture, still seeking to protect them. Now I'm not going to give away the end of the movie, if you haven't seen it, but ultimately, it turns out that light no longer has power to hurt them. It is only in the clear light of day that they, Grace & Anne & Nicholas, are able to come to grips with what has really been going on in their home – and it's in that light that they are liberated. They are set free by admitting the truth – first to themselves, then to each other.

That's what John reminds us of in these words from Jesus today. Jesus, the Light who is coming into the world, the Light that shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it, this Light, his light, is not something to be afraid of. We don't have to hide away in the dark, fearing what will happen if he saw the truth of who we are. He already knows. He knew when he set aside the glory of heaven to come to earth to die on a cross. That's why he came! To shine his light in our lives, in all of the dark corners, in all of the locked rooms. He came to save us from our own darkness! It's only by coming to the Light that we can be healed. It is only in the Light that we can know freedom. Light is what liberates us to live as God created us to live! Come to the Light, live in his light, and learn there of his great Love for you!

Amen.