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.

March 11, 2012 - Lent 3 - Blessing, Not a Burden

Blessing, Not a Burden

Exodus 20:1-17

Lent 3 – March 11, 2012

The Ten Commandments are a curious thing. So basic to our faith. Shared across Judeo-Christian traditions. We encourage our Sunday schoolers to learn them by heart. We teach them along with Martin Luther's explanation of what they mean to our confirmation classes – and I'm proud to say that this year's 8th graders still remember a lot of them and how they apply to our lives even though we did the Small Catechism last year.

It wasn't until I got to seminary that I learned that Christian groups don't all number the 10 Commandments the same way. The content doesn't change, just the way we divvy up the verses to total 10 commands. And it wasn't until this week that I learned the Jewish faith numbers them yet a different way. You would think that for as basic, as foundational, as these verses are, we wouldn't have any controversy or disagreement about how to number them.

That's just one of the challenges in the way that we view and understand the 10 Commandments. But a more telling and pervasive one is the way we understand what they are there to do, regardless of how we divide them up and assign them numbers. Beyond being a list for kids and youth to memorize, we tend to envision them as a burden. We hear them as a never-ending series of “no”s to our personal freedom of choice. In the King James English, “Thou shalt not” - over and over again, even if we would be hard pressed to remember all 10, let alone in order, we know that that is at the heart of them, what we cannot do!

It makes you wonder a bit how the original receivers of these commands responded to them, how the ancient Israelites reacted when Moses came back down off the mountain with these words from the LORD. Now, to set the stage a little bit, we need to back up. We hear at the very beginning of this passage what we really need to know: “Then God spoke all these words:  I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery...”

It has not been too long ago that the Israelites were slaves in Egypt. It's not so many days into their journey into the wilderness, they arrive at Mt. Sinai, where God makes this dramatic appearance, descending to the mountain in fire, so that it is wrapped in smoke, and it shakes violently, and Moses alone is called to speak with God, whose voice sounds like thunder. And here on this mountain, days into their journey into freedom, God calls them into covenant. God has led them out of slavery under Pharaoh and brought them himself, and promises to be with them. And in return, God asks that they follow God's words that he gives to them – and they say, “Everything that the LORD has spoken, we will do” (Exod. 19:8) And yet barely are these words out of their mouths, while Moses is back up on the mountain and they start to wonder if he will ever come back, and they fall away. They come to Aaron, Moses' brother, asking for him to make a god for them to worship, and so they proceed to make the golden calf (Exod. 32). There's goes commandment #1 for us Lutherans: I am the LORD your God, you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol...you shall not bow down to them or worship them...” Whoops!

It's easy to not keep the commandments, even when we want to, even when we're trying, even if we don't see them just as a super-strict God laying down the law just to spoil our fun.

But the 10 Commandments are more than just a list to memorize, more than just rules to follow, more than just directions for how to live. The 10 Commandments tell us about who God is, and invite us to grow toward becoming the people God created us to be, to help us to live in relationship with God and with each other the way God envisioned it from the beginning. The 10 Commandments are not only a prescription for living, but a description of what it looks like when God is in charge, of how life under God's gracious reign will be! Imagine with me for a few minutes what it would look like if we actually lived in a world where God's commands were followed.

Imagine a world where God has first place and final authority, where we respected the holiness of God and God's name, out of love and reverence, not fear.

Imagine a world where we actually took a sabbath. Not just a morning to come to church, but a full day where we did no work, but instead took time to be refreshed and renewed in the presence of God and of our family and friends and loved ones. Think about what it would feel like for one day a week, every week, to have no obligations, to appointments, no errands to run, no to-do list to do – not because there's nothing that needs doing, but because we choose to trust God that we can take a break and the world will go on! Imagine what creating that space one day a week to be unhurried, uninterrupted, to just be – with God, with yourself, with others – would be like. Think about how it would make the rest of the week, how it would affect your work, your relationships, your health... Aaaahhh.

Imagine a world where parents and those in authority are respected. Imagine a world where life is honored, where we would not have to worry about one person taking the life of another – whether through guns at school or terrorist bombs or domestic violence; where people would not tear each other down, but instead would try to lift each other up and looked out for the well-being of others as much as we look after our own.

Imagine a world where relationships are held sacred, where commitments made and vows spoken are kept, where we wouldn't have to worry about adultery or betrayal; a world where lock-makers and safe-makers would have to find new jobs because stealing would no longer be a threat, a world where we not only did not steal, but tried to help each other to hold on to what is rightfully ours.

Imagine a world where we could trust what others say. A world where we were content with what we have and could rejoice in what others have, instead of being consumed with envy and jealousy and greed, because we know that what we have is enough and that God provides us with what we need.

This is the world God has been calling into being from the very beginning, forming order out of chaos, light out of darkness, wholeness out of fragmentation. This is what God seeks in making covenants with Noah and Abraham and Sarah and all the generations that follow them. This is what God wants the people of Israel to represent to the rest of the world, a model of how it can be when God is really, truly our God, when God is in control. It is a world of wholeness, of joy, of peace. These commandments aren't given to hem us in and enslave us, they are given to set us free! The God who gives them is the God who liberates us, who leads God's people out of slavery into freedom in the promised land, the God who is not content to let us be enslaved again to the things of this world.

May we learn to live in the freedom God gives in these commands.

Amen.

Lent 2 - March 4, 2012 - The Promise of a New Name

The Promise of a New Name

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

Lent 2 – March 4, 2012

Names are powerful. Names are valuable. Names are important, because they are such a deep part of who we are and how we are known. It is rare for people to change their names, because they are such a central part of our identity. Even when it's part of the tradition, it's hard to get used to the idea of having a different name. I remember when I got married, I had to think for a long time about whether or not I wanted to change my last name, or if I should keep my original name or maybe do the hyphenated thing. Even now, there are times when I slip and almost introduce myself by my maiden name or sign my old signature. And if a last name is hard, it's even harder to imagine changing our first names. Learning to respond to a new name, having to remind old friends and loved ones of your new name... it's a challenge.

The Bible is filled with stories of people and their names. Names, even more then than now, carried meaning. Knowing a person's name told you who they were, where they came from perhaps, or even something about their character.

The Bible also has many stories of people whose names are changed. Jacob becomes Israel, Simon becomes Peter, Saul becomes Paul. So today too, in our Old Testament reading, we have the story of how Abram and Sarai become Abraham and Sarah.

Now Abram and Sarai first show up near the end of chapter 11 in Genesis, and then right away as chapter 12 begins, we hear God's call to Abram to leave behind his country and kindred and everything he had ever known to go to the land God would show him. And this call came with a promise, that God would bless Abram, so that Abram would be a blessing to others, that all the families of the earth would be blessed through him. Abram is 75 at the time. 75 – a time of life most of us are stable and steady and don't really want to pick up and move, and yet off they go, not knowing the end of God's road for them. Abram and Sarai aren't perfect, but they are faithful, and bold to follow where God leads. As we catch up with them in chapter 17, Abram is now 99. Sarai is 90. They must think they are headed towards retirement, that they have finished the work God had set out for them to do, and then – God shows up. God appears to Abram, making a covenant with him and with Sarai and with their offspring after them. God promises to give Abram a son – by Sarai, who is 90 years old, remember! - and that their descendants shall be numerous, and as if to prove it, God changes Abram's name. Abram means “exalted ancestor,” but God calls him Abraham - “ancestor of a multitude,” even before he has a son! And Sarai isn't left out! She too, is given a promise, a promise that though she has been barren and is way beyond the age of bearing children, she will bear a son, and with that promise, she too is given a new name.

These new names, Abraham and Sarah, these are the names that they are known for throughout the rest of history. These names, the names God chooses and gives to them as a sign of God's covenant with them, are a daily reminder. Every day they have to remember to call each other by these new names after decades together with the old ones – and every time they speak these new names, they are reminded of God's promises to them, of God's relationship with them – and these are the names we still know them by today.

During this season of Lent, as we seek to return to God with our whole hearts, as we try to follow God's call wherever it may lead us, as we work to bring our lives back into line with God's will and desire for us, it is good for us to hear these stories from the Old Testament. It is good for us to be reminded of the many ways God commits to God's people, to hear again about the covenants God made, to see God reaching out to Noah and his family last week, and to Abraham and Sarah and their descendants this week, and next week it will be the people of Israel wandering in the wilderness after they escaped Egypt. Over and over again, we see God taking the initiative to bridge the gap between God and humanity, to draw us close again when we fall away – always before anything that we have done. We see in these stories God choosing imperfect people to carry out God's plan for the world, God choosing to work through frail human beings.

And all this talk of covenants in the Old Testament reminds us that God has made a covenant with each of us, as individuals and as a community of faith. In the moment of our baptism, God claims us. God promises us that we are chosen, accepted, forgiven, loved - forever. No matter what we may do or fail to do in the future, God will not abandon us. This is God's covenant with us. We are washed in water, sealed by the Holy Spirit, and marked with the cross of Christ forever. And with that promise, we are given a new name: Child of God. It is a reminder of who God says we are, even when we are tempted to return to our old names, our old selves, our old ways. Child of God – that is the name that God gives us. That is the name that we will be known by throughout all of history. That is the name written next to our given names in the Book of Life. Jesus confirms God's promises in his life, death, and resurrection. He repeats it in the meal that we share – “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, shed for you and for all people for the forgiveness of sins.” For you, Child of God. This covenant, this name – they are a gift and a blessing. May we go and be a blessing to others.

Amen.

The Power of Water

Genesis 9:8-17

Lent 1 – February 26, 2012

Water is one of the most powerful forces on earth. We need it to live – too little, and we dehydrate; too much, and we drown. People have always known this power, have feared and respected it for what it can do. Ancient writings conceive of water as the power of chaos, always lapping at the shore, always menacing peace and stability. Stories of water are a profound part of our faith. Beginning at creation, when the Spirit hovers over the waters, to the great flood, which we hear a tiny bit about today, to the parting of the Red Sea so that the people of Israel could leave behind slavery and enter into freedom. God makes water spring from the rock in the wilderness, and turns bitter water sweet. There are the waters of the River Jordan in numerous stories – Old and New Testaments, stories of Jesus turning water into wine, Jesus walking on water. Water figures heavily in the Biblical narrative.

Today, too, our assigned readings are rich with stories of water, and I want us to focus this morning on the Old Testament lesson from Genesis this morning. We come into this familiar tale after the flood has already passed. The non-stop rain of 40 days and 40 nights has stopped some time ago, and now, many days - months later really, the waters have subsided, they have been reabsorbed into the earth. Noah's ark has come to rest on a mountain, and God has called him and his family and all the animals to come back out onto the dry land. And we hear God speak to Noah and his sons, establishing God's covenant with them and their descendants and with every living creature on the face of the Earth, that God will never do this again, that never again will a flood cut off all flesh, that never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.

And this is good news. But in order to understand this story in its fullness, in order to really get what's going on here, we have to back up a little bit, because we need to know why it is that God sent the flood in the first place. And we find that in Genesis, chapter 6. This is what it says there:

The LORD saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.  6 And the LORD was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.  7 So the LORD said, "I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created-- people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them."

“And the LORD was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.”

God saw what had become of the people he had created. Now the Bible doesn't give us any specifics, there's no detailed list of their sins, no way for us to know exactly what it was that they had done and were doing – it just says that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. It started way back in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve turned away; it continued with Cain murdering his brother Abel, and we can only assume that it got worse from there. God sees this, and it breaks God's heart. It seems that God, in God's grief, can see no alternative but to start over, and so God sends the waters of the flood, washing the face of the earth, cleansing the world so that God and earth can begin again.

All of creation is given a new beginning. God seeks, even out of this destruction, to transform and save the world through the cleansing, life-changing power of water.
But the truth of the matter, the truth that God realizes even as the waters are still receding, is that even this massive flood has not solved the problem. Even the mighty, overflowing waters could not manage to cleanse the human heart entirely from sin. No sooner are they off the boat than God recognizes that “the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth” (Gen. 8:21) still. Sin still holds sway in human lives. Sin still warps humanity and keeps us from being the people God created us to be. Sin still keeps us separated and distant from the God who created and loves us.

And that is still true today. Our world has much in common with Noah's world. There is plenty of good, of course, but there is much evil at work in our world. Sin still holds on to us and our lives; it is a power that holds us in its grip. We see the evidence of this all around us – in our personal lives, in our communities, in our nation, in the world.

And God is still grieved. God still mourns over the brokenness of what God created and called good. God grieves over the ways that we hurt ourselves, the ways we hurt each other, the ways we hurt this planet and its creatures that we were given to tend and care for.

What is amazing about this story of God at the end of the flood is to hear the promises God makes – to Noah and his descendants and all living creatures – the birds, the domestic animals and every animal of the earth, for all future generations – that God will never send a flood that like that again. To witness God hanging God's bow in the sky as a reminder to God of this promise. And what's cool about that, what I never realized about this bow, is that it's not just a rainbow. It's not just a pretty sight to see after the rain. It's a symbol of a bow, as in bow and arrow. It represents a weapon of war – and when God hangs this bow in the sky, it is God declaring God's retirement from battle. What it means is that no matter how else God may try to win us back, to restore and redeem us, destruction is no longer an option.

But don't think that means that God has given up on us! God's heart is still grieved, and God still longs to transform us, to redeem us, to be in relationship with us – for us to love and trust and rely on God above all else. And God will not stop until that happens. But God realizes that destroying us won't set us right. So, where once God used water to destroy, God now uses water to bring new life! God used the waters of the flood to try to cleanse the earth from sin, but that didn't work, and so now God uses the water of baptism. In those waters, we are cleansed. Our sins are washed away, and the power of Sin within us is put to death. Our old sinful selves are put to death, but when we rise from that water, we enter into new life, life in Christ, life that will never end! In these waters, waters that offer healing, not destruction; hope, not despair; forgiveness, not punishment -- in these waters, we see how God now chooses the way of love, Love that lives to die, Love that gives itself up so that we need not be destroyed, Love that chooses its own death so that we may live. May we trust our whole lives to this Love, and may we feel these baptismal waters flooding our lives, rejoicing that God now uses water to save! Thanks be to God!

Amen.

February 19, 2012 - Transfiguration of Our Lord Sunday - Glory in the Valley

Glory in the Valley

Mark 9:2-9

Transfiguration of Our Lord Sunday – February 19, 2012

Glory! Or as my friend and colleague, Pr. Barnett, from down the road likes to put it when his West Virginian is showing, “G-lo-rey!” That's what we get here in this morning's gospel, on this Transfiguration Sunday. We trudge up the hill with Peter and James and John (or at least, I trudge, that's how I go up mountains) for some time apart with Jesus, and we get this mysterious, glorious scene. Jesus is transfigured. Somehow, everything is different. His divine glory is revealed to these three. It's as if they get to see Clark Kent change into Superman before their very eyes. Up on the mountain, they suddenly see Jesus as they've never seen him before. They catch a glimpse of a Jesus they weren't quite expecting. And along with Jesus, two other super-hero figures of the Old Testament appear, Elijah and Moses, talking with Jesus.

Amazing stuff. But one of the things we, living in 21st century America, less acquainted with our Bibles and certainly with ancient Jewish thinking, fail to see in this whole episode, something that Peter and James and John would NOT have missed, is that Elijah and Moses were signs and symbols of the Day of the Lord coming near. The belief was that God would send them to let humanity know that the Reign of God was at hand. And poor Peter, who we usually give a hard time in this story because of his desire to stay, to hold on to this mountaintop experience and capture it forever, well, there may be more than meets the eye there too. Because the expectation at the time was that God was going to usher in the new age during the Festival of Booths, – and so Peter is offering to build them booths for them so they won't have to do it themselves as this great Festival of celebration is about to begin. And it's understandable, knowing all this, being up on the mountain with Jesus, surrounded by all of his sparkling GLORY, that this is when they would think that God is about to come and begin to rule, finally, that now is the time when God will bring about peace and well-being for all of creation.

We operate the same way. Once in a while, we get a glimpse of God, Jesus, the Spirit in their divine glory – in a especially powerful and moving worship service where the readings and the songs and the sermon all seemed to speak to your heart and drew you into a place where you knew that you were in the presence of the Living God; or on a literal mountaintop, when you finally came to the summit after all the hard work of getting up there, not seeing the destination til you got there, and then when you arrive, you see the surrounding land laid out all around you and it takes your breath away and you marvel at what God has made; or on the beach at sunrise, listening to the waves pound and it looks like the water goes on forever and you are at peace; or at the birth of a child, seeing new life draw first breath, and you embrace that tiny creature for the first time, knowing that you are embracing a miracle of God. I even had one of those moments driving in the car once, on I-80 in Pennsylvania, and suddenly, I felt Christ in the car with me, and I can't really explain it, except that I felt him physically there, like if I turned my head and looked in the passenger seat, I would see him there – and I couldn't tell you what transpired, just that those few moments stick with me.

In any of these or a million and one other ways you may have found yourself pulled into the presence of the Living God, experiencing God's glory, and these are the moments when it feels like God is finally about to break through into our world from beyond our dimension, to come in powerful, unmistakable new ways that will transform us and the world around us, and at last things will be as we know that they should be. Those moments are when we feel we know who God is and what God is all about.

But what we don't understand, and what Peter (and James and John too, we can assume) don't understand is that the glory of Jesus and the fullness of God's reign is not able to be seen just in Jesus on the mountaintop, glowing, dazzlingly white. That's a part of it, but if that's all we see, we are left in the lurch when we come down off those mountains, as we always have to. When we are stumbling through the valley times of our lives, it can be good to remember the mountain, but that's not all there is to the story. God's reign comes on that mountain, yes, but what we see in this story, and really in the whole story of Jesus' life, is that Jesus comes down. He leaves the glory of heaven to be born as a baby himself. He leaves the glory of that mountain to return to the valley, where he finds people arguing over how to deal with a boy possessed by a spirit. He comes down into darkness and dinginess and dirt – and it's there that we see Jesus initiating the fullness of God's reign. Not simply in mountaintop experiences, but wherever we meet him along the way – in our darkness, as much as in our light; in our sorrows as much as in our joy; when we are weighed down with heavy hearts as much as when our spirits are rejoicing. We find him not just in the high and lofty, but in the unbelievably simple and common everyday stuff of life. In the tap water that washes over us at baptism, joined to words of promise that we, too, are God's beloved children. In the olive oil that is traced on our foreheads in that same baptism, reminding us that we are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever. In bread broken and wine poured, transfigured by Christ's life and death to become for us new life and forgiveness and grace and mercy, contained in ordinary food and drink that we can taste and touch and see and smell.

These simple things, as much as our mountaintop moments, are what gives us strength for the journey ahead, as we wait, in the meantime for God's reign to be fully revealed, for Christ to come again in the glory that he so richly deserves, yet laid aside for us. And while we wait, we listen to this one, God's beloved Son, learning to follow and obey, to line our footsteps up with his – through communion and worship and study and prayer and relationship with one another, all of these – sacred and common at the same time, transfigured for us by the One who himself is on this day transfigured, shown forth, revealed, the One who goes up the mountain into glory, and just as certainly turns and heads back down, headed unavoidably to Jerusalem, to death, to the cross, lifted up where his true glory is revealed in the self-sacrificing love that is willing to die so that we may live. May his light be reflected in our lives.

Amen.