My top 10 of 2012

One of my goals this year was to increase the amount of reading that I have done.  And I actually accomplished it!!  I actually more than read enough books to create a top 10 list for the year! Here's my list:

10) Christian Worship by Gail Ramshaw
I will admit that I read this as part of a conversation with the Worship and Music committee at church, but it was a good re-cap of what I learned in my liturgy classes in seminary.  Definitely an introductory text, as is stated in the intro to the book, but good none the less. 

9) God is Not Great, by Christopher Hitchens
A pastor reading atheist writings? what?  Well, I'm not the first and won't be the last.  It's always good to get some perspective from those who vehemently disagree with you about the notion of God and faith.  And though I struggled a lot with Hitchen's arguments and disagreed with his practice of taking only the most offensive parts that the religious world has to offer and using them as his proofs for why Religion spoils things, I did appreciate his view point, none the less.  If you want to get a good perspective on how someone from outside the faith realm views religious folks, this is a good place to start. 

8) Out of Oz, by Gregory Maguire
This is the last of the now four part Wicked series.  I found it my least favorite and the slowest going of all four books.  I am tempted to give it another chance, though, after watching the Wizard of Oz and wondering in my mind what Maguire had in mind in sending Dorothy back to Oz.

7) A Lion among Men, by Gregory Maguire
I really liked hearing this tail about the Cowardly Lion.  Getting to hear the Wizard of Oz account from his perspective...plus some other parts of his own story, was really interesting. 

6) Son of a Witch, by Gregory Maguire
What if the wicked witch had a son?  What would he be like? I enjoyed the ups and downs and adventure and intrigue in this book.  It was a good follow up to Wicked.

5) Wicked, by Gregory Maguire
As usual, the original book in a series was the best.  I didn't get through it as fast as I wanted to, but it was a really good read.  Definitely one to go back to at some point now that I've read the other three books in the series.

4) Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins
Good ending to the trilogy.  Wish it hadn't been as violent at the end as it was, but in the end it turned out ok. I'm interested to see what they do with this in movie form.

3) Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins
Couldn't put the book down and then was super disappointed that it was a cliff hanger (though I suppose she needed some way to get folks to by the third book!).  As with the first book, I saw a thread of social commentary running through it that I found quite interesting.

2) The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
Got hooked in to this book right away.  Some interesting social commentary on rich vs. poor...dominant political party vs the rest of us.  The movie wasn't nearly as good, but it helped to visualize what Collins wrote about.  

1) The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot
LOVED, loved, loved, loved, loved, this book.  It was the perfect book for someone like me who has an interest in the biological sciences and in history. Skloot did a great job of weaving in the medical history behind the He-la cell line and cancer research with the story of Henrietta Lacks, her family, and Skloot's adventure to uncover the real story about who Henrietta Lacks was.  Highly recommend this book.

I'm currently in progress with The Hobbit and am enjoying it very much.  Then I will move on to "The Paris Wife."

On my shelf for 2013:
A Wrinkle in Time (How did I never read this as a kid?)
Accompany Them with Singing, by Tom Long(I WILL finally finish this!)
The Testament by John Grisham
Lots of children's books :)

A Sermon for Christmas 1

Christmas 1

December 30, 2012

Luke 2:41-52, I Samuel 2:18-20, 26

Shelly was a fighter.  Not in the literal way, she wasn’t a boxer or an MMA fighter or anything.  However, she did spend a good portion of her life fighting herself and those around her, and fighting with God.  You see, at a young age, Shelly had come to a decision on how her life was supposed to be and what path she was going to take.  She was going to go to said college, then she would go to a particular law school, become an intern at a specific law firm and work her way up the ladder and be very successful in her field.  She would be married by 25, have 4 children and 2 dogs by 35, and live a very happy life. 

Shelly’s family didn’t quite see it that way.  They thought that Shelly should get a teaching degree.  It was what all the women in Shelly’s family did.  She was supposed to marry that nice pre-med student that she dated her sophomore year in college and 3 kids were enough, no dogs, dogs are too much work.  And her family made no qualms about letting her know that this was what she was expected to do. 

But God had even different plans for Shelly.  When she was a young girl, God had called her into ministry to be with people in their time of need.  As a child, her neighbors could always count on her to stop by with a homemade get well card when they were sick, and as she got older the cards would be accompanied by cookies or other care packages that she had crafted herself.  She had a knack for knowing who needed what when.  When her college roommates needed a shoulder to cry on, it was Shelly who would be there first.  She was always the first to drop of chicken soup, the first to give out a hug, the first to let you know that she was there for you and that she genuinely cared for you and your situation. 

And she was miserable, she didn’t get the grades she needed to get into the law school of her choice…she didn’t into any law school, as a matter of fact.  But she fought it, it was what she thought she wanted to do…should could get a masters degree and try again in two years…but why was it making her so unhappy?   

Then one day during the semester before graduation, she had a meeting with her advisor who had known her since freshman year.  Shelly’s advisor knew her grades in the science department were excellent and that her caring nature would make her the perfect candidate to become a nurse.  They argued over it for about 15 minutes before the advisor finally said “will you put down the boxing gloves and let life take you where you’re supposed to go?”

Shelly listened.  She struggled, but eventually she let go and let God lead her.  And God led her to nursing school and she became a hospice nurse.  For the most part, life fell into place after that and Shelly was no longer unhappy. 

Shelly’s story is not real, but it’s not made up either.  There are a lot of people in our families, in our social circles, in our congregations, who are fighting against something.  And I know from my own personal experience that spending even a small portion of your life fighting against something is exhausting. 

Now, there are the good fights, the fights against wrong doing and injustice that work to make this world a better place.  Those fights have a tendency to energize and fire folks up for the work that needs to be done.  But I’m talking about the personal fights, against who God has called us to be, those are the ones that are tiring and have the potential to make us miserable. 

Our buddy, Martin Luther, fought this fight against his father.  Hans Luther wanted, no, expected that his son would become a lawyer.  When Martin left law school to become a priest, this was seen by his father as a slap in his face and the greatest dishonor that Martin could have put upon his parents.  But, despite this and his own struggles with his sin and the devil, Martin knew that his call into the priesthood was a call from God, for better or for worse, though he probably didn’t know at the time that he became a priest that his call would eventually spark the Reformation.

It can be easy for us to walk through life thinking that we know the exact path that we are supposed to take, that we are in control of whatever life has in store for us.  But when this happens, we can stray from the path that God has laid out for us.  Because of our free will, we are able to do this…but it doesn’t always lead to the best outcome.  It’s when we listen to God’s leading and nudging, that things often go the smoothest.  There are other times, though, when it seems that we are totally lost with no idea where we are headed…after all, not all of us get caught in a lightning storm like Luther did, or get blinded like Paul.  And it can get frustrating…but maybe it’s not time for the call yet…or maybe other things around us distract us from the path we’re supposed to head in.  And that’s ok.  We’re not all called at the same time and in the same way.  Just take Samuel and Jesus for example. 

God called Samuel early on in his life.  In fact, his mother Hannah heard God’s call for Samuel before he was even born.  As soon as Samuel was weaned, Hannah brought him to the temple in order that he might minister in the temple.  And as he grew, Samuel proved himself to be a worthy servant of God, growing in wisdom and insight as he worked with Eli.  I wonder if folks in Hannah and Elkanah’s neighborhood questioned the practical wisdom of giving their first born son over to the temple.  Wouldn’t it have been more practical to raise their son themselves so he could help them with the household chores, and learn Elkanah’s profession so he could take it over one day?  But as it was, Hannah and Elkanah listened to God’s voice rather than the voices of the neighbors, and things turned out just fine. 

Jesus also knew his call early on.  In our gospel text this morning, at age 12, which was considered to be near adulthood at that time, Jesus was found by a very worried Mary and Joseph in the temple where he had been so caught up speaking to the teachers in the temple and asking them questions that he wound up missing the traveling group going back to Nazareth.  It seems that in Jesus’ case, he knew his calling better than Mary and Joseph did…and this is easy to see since he is the Son of God, after all.  But I wonder if at dinners and other such events, it was discussed between the adults that Jesus should have just focused on becoming a craftsman like his father.  I wonder if there was any conversation about arranging a marriage for Jesus to a young woman in town.  Where there certain things that the folks in town, maybe even his parents as well, expected from him as a fully human young adult?  What if Mary and Joseph decided it may have been best for Jesus to stay in the temple for a bit longer and learn (and teach) the teachers, and the neighbors scoffed at them for that? But as it was, Jesus knew the mission that God had sent him to earth to carry out at a young age, and like Samuel, he grew in wisdom and insight as he grew. 

And even as the townsfolk rejected him during his years of ministry, Jesus carried out the mission and the ministry that he was sent to do.  To free people from the bonds that shackle them so that they could be free to live and to walk the path that God had set out for them, regardless of when or how the call comes. 

Jesus carried out his mission by dying on the cross and rising from the dead so that we could be free from the sin that binds so in order to live out the callings that God has for us, be it in our home life or our work life or the parts of life in between.  And he did so without the shoulds and shouldn’ts that have a tendency to weigh us down and load us up with guilt over what we have done and what we have failed to do, where we’ve succeeded and where we have messed up.  We are free to put down the boxing gloves, and live.  We are free to stop worrying if our life is measuring up to others expectations, and live.  We are free to stop beating ourselves up over meeting our own personal deadlines, and live.  It’s what God is calling us to do.      

"Pondering..." A sermon for Christmas Eve

December 24, 2012

Christmas Eve

Luke 2:1-20

I have a theory that Mary, the mother of our Lord, was an introvert.  Now scripture never comes out and says this, nor much else about her personality, but we do know one thing.  It is said more than once in the Gospel of Luke that Mary “treasured these things and pondered them in her heart.”  Mary was one to ponder, to process things internally and therefore, I don’t think I’m too far off in thinking that Mary was most likely an introvert.

And there was quite a bit to process in this night. Mary’s birth story was anything but the romantic scenes painted on the faces of nativity sets. It probably wasn’t a clean stable filled with fresh hay, well behaved livestock, or even a nicely made manger.  Mary gave birth to Jesus probably a cave or a barn, no midwife or birthing stool, and commandeered a feeding trough to use as a bed.

And beyond that, there had been a lot to ponder in regards to the events that had transpired the past 40 or so weeks that Mary was pregnant.  First, Mary had been betrothed to a carpenter named Joseph. Then, she is visited by an angel who tells her that she, a virgin, was not only just going to bear a child, but the child she would give birth to would not be the child of her fiancé. On top of all that, Mary is also told that the child would be the long awaited savior of the world. Despite all of this, Mary consents to risking both her life and her marriage in order to carry out the will of our Lord. Consent might be the wrong word for Mary, as we knew she embraced the fact that she would bear God’s son.

We know Mary embraced the responsibility she was given because while visiting her cousin Elizabeth, who was also miraculously pregnant, she sang a beautiful song of praise to God for choosing her to bear God’s son.

That was about forty weeks ago. In the past week, Mary and Joseph had taken a journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the Roman census. Normally, it would be a 4 day journey on foot for 2 healthy and non-pregnant individuals, so there was probably a few extra days tacked on there. Like all good family trips, the trip doesn’t exactly go as planned since no one checks with unborn children about when they would like to be born. It may have caught her off guard when the contractions started, her water broke, and any birth plan flew out the window.

To make it more complicated, with literally everyone and their brother in Bethlehem for the census, there were no vacancies in any of the inns in town, so unlike her cousin Elizabeth who probably had a midwife, it was just Mary and Joseph, who most likely hadn’t been present at a childbirth class since at that time being a birthing coach was a job reserved for women, assisting Mary in her labor and delivery of the baby.

However, they find a way to make it work. Mary gives birth to Jesus, wraps him in bands of cloth, and laid him in whatever makeshift bed they could muster. Soon after, a group of random shepherds appeared to Mary and Joseph and told them that they too, had been visited by angels and informed of the Holy nature of this child that had been born and they had to see it for themselves.

All of this would have been a lot to process, but there is so much more for Mary to ponder in the years to come. The implications of giving birth to the Son of God must have weighed heavily, embraced or not. 40 weeks passes by fast, but seems like forever at the same time.

But, we also must not forget about Joseph, and all he had to process as well. Here he is, far from home, alone with Mary who is bearing a child, but not his, but that of God. The social implications, the circumstances of where Mary is giving birth, with probably little knowledge of what it is he had to do to help. The stepfather to God’s son is an awfully big responsibility that Joseph did not get much say in. However, he does what he has to do because that is the kind of person he is.

            We all know the story of how Jesus came into the world, and how complicated things were in their time. A baby by itself is a lot to think about in 40 weeks, but that is what makes this story special. All those pregnancy milestones we take for granted in their time must have been truly amazing. Seeing little kicks and punches, feeling Jesus moving around, preparing himself for what will come. On top of all of that, Mary and Joseph accomplish so much, despite many odds against them.

            For us, we should take the time to ponder with Mary what it all means.  And it’s not some easy to identify little nugget that we can simply pull out and wrap nicely with a little bow on top.  Because for some of us, Christmas is not the joyous holiday that is sung about in Christmas carols.  We may have come here, we faithful…but joyful and triumphant might not be an accurate statement if we’re totally honest.  For others of us, this truly is a most wonderful time of the year with the kids jingle-belling and being filled with good cheer.  And others of us could probably take it or leave it either way.  It seems that Christmas now is sometimes just as chaotic and unromantic as it was 2000 years ago, even with the poinsettias, the lights, and the trees. 

            But I don’t think that God was going for orderly and romantic when he sent Gabriel to Mary to let her know that she would be the one to bear his son.  Sure, God is the expert at turning chaos into order, but there is the reality of what comes with pregnancy and childbirth…birth plans fly out the window and sometimes you have to settle for a cave because all of the birthing suites are full.  No, I think that when it came to the birth of Jesus, God was going for what is real.  And that meant the king of kings would be born in a cave instead of a palace, that meant that he would be born to peasants instead of royalty, that meant that unnamed and often shunned shepherds would be the first to hear the most wonderful birth announcement, not a royal court of the select elite. 

            And it was all so that whether we see Christmas as a painful time, a joyous time, or an “ehh” time, when we look into the manger there is something there for all of us.  There is the reminder that God is always up to something new and a promise of life and light in the midst of darkness and grief.  There is joy abundant found in the face of a newborn child.  There is an invitation to come and be a part of the mystery of God’s Word becoming flesh in the person of Jesus.  In the face of the newborn Jesus, there is something for each of us to treasure and ponder in our hearts.  That this child was born for you and for me…and that this child would die for you and for me.  The love from which this all came about is indescribable.  But it’s there for you and for me.      

Death, Guns, and God

I was in 10th grade when Columbine happened.  Less than a week after the shootings there, we spent an entire morning sitting on the bleachers of the football field because someone had called in a bomb threat at my high school.

I've since lost count, though someone had posted the number yesterday, of how many school shootings have taken place since April 20, 1999, but it's been far too many.  Even one school shooting is one school shooting too many.

I grew up with the understanding that, for the most part, school was a safe place.  I cannot imagine that this is the case any more.  Now there are schools that require students to pass through a metal detector to get in.  Now there is a greater police presence in schools that I ever remember seeing when I was in school.  Now, places of learning are just as likely to be places of violence (physical and non-physical) and death.  And I grieve over this.

When I heard the news about the shooting in Newtown, CT yesterday, I was waiting for my coffee and food at Dunkin Donuts. I just happened to glance up at the television to see images of the children being escorted from Sandy Hook Elementary school.  And my heart sank as I watched little innocent faces being rescued from what is likely to be the worst day of their lives.  These children are the age of a good chunk of the kiddos that I work with at Trinity...20 of them now robbed of their futures.  And I heard the words of Christ from the cross, crying out in the words of Psalm 22, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"

But then I felt a little nudge from the inside...from my unborn child who began a little dance inside my belly.  At 24 weeks of gestation, Jellybean is my constant reminder that death never has the final say, Christ's victory over death and God's wish for us to have life abundant do.  And the words in my head turned from the lament in Psalm 22 to the plea of the song "E'en So, Lord Jesus," by Paul Manz.
       "E'en so, Lord Jesus, quickly come, and night will be no more.  They need no light, nor lamp, nor sun,  
        for Christ will be their all."

In the Christian tradition, our Advent hymns cry out for Christ to come and reconcile us to one another.  "O Come, O Come, Emanuel, and ransom captive Israel, who mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appears.  Rejoice, Rejoice, Emanuel shall come to you, O Israel."  And we cry out to God on behalf of the fallen in Newtown, CT with tears and words of anger, with tears and words of pain and sorrow, with tears and words of lament.  But we do so knowing that though God is always present among us.  God held those who were killed in his arms and comforted them in their last moments. God was with all of those students who huddled in corners and their teachers who calmed their fears by reading them stories, ready to protect them at a moments notice.  God was with the first responders who came to the aid of  Sandy Hook Elementary school.  And God's mercy rests now over the victims and their families, and over the shooter.

And so the question becomes "what now?"  What do we do when innocents are slaughtered by someone who, himself was just a child who suffered from mental illness?  Well first, we keep on praying, we keep on lamenting and mourning.

But we also need to start talking.  We need to have reasonable conversations about ways in which this nation can become safer through gun control laws (Note: I grew up around guns, my husband and I own a gun, I am an admirer of guns, and I respect 2nd amendment rights, to a point).  We need to have healthy conversations about ways in which we can, as a nation, better care for those who suffer from mental illnesses but for whom services have not been as readily available since the 1980's.

There are also somethings that we shouldn't do.  Turning the shooter, a young man with a mental illness, into an evil villain is not helpful. Saying guns don't kill people, people kill people is also not helpful in this incident...there would be 28 people still alive today if Adam Lanza hadn't had access to multiple weapons. Saying God allowed the shooting to happen because we have taken prayer out of schools is probably the least helpful and most harmful thing that could be said in the aftermath of this horrific tragedy (Shame on you, Mike Huckabee).

It is my prayer in these coming days and weeks that we can come together as a nation, forget the labels that divide us, and work to make this nation a safer place for our children.  And I pray that there will be an end to gun violence...an end to all violence in this country and in this world.

May God have mercy upon all of us.

“Waiting”

Advent 1

December 2, 2012

Jeremiah 33:14-16

 

It’s happened once again, we’ve come to the beginning of a new church year.  It has seemed a little different this year with Thanksgiving having been so early that there has been a slight disconnect between the Thanksgiving holiday and the beginning of Advent.  If you think about it, though, the way in which things fell this year is very appropriate for the spirit of Advent.  It is the time of the year when, as the church, we are called on to be totally counter-cultural.  Instead of the Christmas rush, we are called up to hurry up and wait.  To be patient in our preparations, to take our time as we take in the sights and sounds of the season.  It’s also a time when we are called to go against the clutter of the Christmas season and take some time to do some “Advent cleaning” and simplify how we do things while we wait for the celebration of the birth of Christ. 

But why would we do this?  What is the point of going against the current that is trying to pull us into the mad rush of Christmas?  Well, first, in the middle of the jam packed calendars that come with the month of December, isn’t it nice to have someone suggest that maybe we take a time out to slow down and enjoy what this season is all about? And second, we’re preparing to celebrate a birth, which takes some time and patience…but we’re also taking part in a story that has involved a lot of waiting and preparation.  So why not jump in and make ourselves fully involved in this story rather than just being bystanders who look in and say “oh, isn’t that nice?” 

When we talk about waiting, the prophet Jeremiah, and the Israelites in exile give us a good perspective on that this means.  Jeremiah conducted his ministry during a time filled with lots of waiting in the life of Israel.  The people were waiting for freedom from their Assyrian captors, who although they had been peaceful, were captors none the less.  143 years after the people had become captives to the Assyrians, however, King Nebuchadnezzar II and the Babylonians defeated the Assyrians and took control of the kingdom of Judah.  When the Babylonians took control, the king of Judah and other major leaders in Jerusalem were taken to live in exile in Babylon.  Meanwhile Nebuchadnezzar named a new king to rule over Judah, and in doing so, tore apart the kingly line that had been promised to David.

When the Babylonian captivity began, Jeremiah had been doing ministry for 30 years.  He was called by God into ministry in a time when many felt that God was silent and holding a grudge against them for the wrong doings of their ancestors.  Jeremiah was not a very well liked man, however. He preached to the people around him about their need to turn away from the worship of idols and return to worshipping God…and he did so to the point of being obnoxious.  The people didn’t listen, in fact they disliked what Jeremiah had to say so much that they threw Jeremiah into jail because of his prophecies.  Little did they know that these prophecies that were beginning to come true. 

It was not known at the time, but soon, Zedekiah, the king whom King Nebuchadnezzar II had placed on the throne in Judah, would rebel and in response, the Babylonian army would lay siege to Jerusalem, destroying the entire city, including the temple that king Solomon had built, and take more people into exile.  

This is the context in which Jeremiah was living.  The people in Jerusalem were living in fear, they had lost the promise of the Davidic line and now they were about to lose their families, their homes, their livelihood and many would lose their lives.  On top of all this, the holiest place in all of Jerusalem, a place that was thought to be invincible by the people of the time, would be destroyed.  The people in Jerusalem were in desperate need of hope in the midst of great loss…and they were waiting…waiting for deliverance from the situation in which they were in…waiting for deliverance from God.

2600 years after Jeremiah, it seems like we’re still doing a lot of waiting and that we’re still in need of some hope.  We’re waiting for the economy to bounce back, we’re waiting anxiously right now to see if congress is going to let us fall off that fiscal cliff, we’re waiting to see how that blood work turns out, or if a loved one finally got that job they’ve been struggling to find for a couple years, we’re waiting to see if the predictions surrounding the Mayan calendar are right…which, I can pretty confidently say they’re not…just ask a descendant of the Mayans.  But there is so much waiting that we do.  Maybe Advent makes us uncomfortable because we do so much waiting that the Christmas rush and getting things checked off our list sometimes bring us a little comfort, as if maybe there is something that we have control over. 

But there is something else which can bring us great comfort and hope in the midst of all the waiting.  “In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety.”  In the midst of the destruction of the kingly line of David, in the midst of the impending destruction of Jerusalem, there is a promise.  There is a promise that the line of David will be restored to the throne.  A righteous branch, meaning a legitimate heir to the throne of David, will spring up and bring forth justice and righteousness, restoring Judah and Jerusalem.  These are words of radical hope in the midst of impending disaster, words that brought comfort to a people in the middle of waiting.  And though this prophecy was not fulfilled in the time of Jeremiah, or the exile, we have seen the fulfillment of this hope coming into our midst. 

This is the hope for which we wait and prepare for in this Advent season.  A hope in one who rose up from the line of David and brought justice and righteousness with him.  We have seen this hope realized in the birth of a child.  A child born in an unlikely place to unlikely parents, a child that did unlikely things and died in an unexpected way.  This is our advent hope.  One that grows each week, symbolized by the lights on the advent wreath, each week bringing more and more light into our midst until all five candles burn brightly together. 

A manger is probably the last place that one would go to as a place where hope comes from.  And yet, each year, that’s where we go to, to a feed trough, and from this most unlikely and unpleasant place, we find the source of our hope, wrapped in swaddling clothes.  Jeremiah didn’t know it, but this child would be one who would execute justice and righteousness, redeeming Jerusalem and Judah through the sacrifice of his own body and blood.  This is the hope that Jeremiah clung to.  A hope that endured through the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, the holiest place in the kingdom of Judah.  It is a hope that endured through the years of waiting during which Judah lived under the captivity of Babylon, it was the hope that brought Simeon and Anna to the temple each day to pray and wait for the Messiah, it is a hope that brings light into the midst of the all the waiting that we seem to be doing. A light that will never fade, even in the midst of all the waiting and hoping. 

This Advent we have a great opportunity.  We have an opportunity to wait, to slow down and prepare ourselves for the celebration of the birth of Christ.  It is the perfect opportunity for a New Year’s resolution or two.  Maybe it means taking more time to just be, or not rushing to get Christmas over with.  Or maybe, it means scheduling in some extra time to spend with family at home, away from the rush of the world, where you can slow down and together prepare for the celebration of the birth of Christ.  Let’s see if this year we can find hope in the midst of the waiting.  Blessings to you in this new year. Amen     

“Truth is…”

Christ the King

November 25, 2012

John 18:33-37

 

One of the most iconic scenes from the film “‘The Wizard of Oz” is the one where the Cowardly Lion contemplates what it would be like if he were the King of the forest.  One would think that by virtue of being a Lion, he would already be the King of the forest, but for the Cowardly Lion this is not the case…so he muses -   

If I were King of the Forest, Not queen, not duke, not prince.
My regal robes of the forest, would be satin, not cotton, not chintz.
I'd command each thing, be it fish or fowl.
With a woof and a woof and a royal growl - woof.
As I'd click my heel, all the trees would kneel.
And the mountains bow and the bulls kowtow.
And the sparrow would take wing - If I - If I - were King!
Each rabbit would show respect to me. The chipmunks genuflect to me.
Though my tail would lash, I would show compash
For every underling!
If I - If I - were King!

Truth is that the cowardly Lion’s lack of courage kept him from attaining that position of king of the forest…until he realized what true courage really was.  But it didn’t keep the cowardly lion from dreaming about it.  So, what about you?

If you could be King for a day, what would you do with that power?  What clothes would you wear?  What food would you eat? How would you get around town? Where would you live?  Would you have a staff?  How would you spend your time?

I’m sure we all have our various dream scenarios for an event such as this.  If I were King for a day, I would be king of an island in the Caribbean. My house would be an ocean front bungalow.  And I would begin my one day by awaking to the sounds of the ocean, then enjoying a breakfast of fresh pineapple from my garden, followed by a stroll in the sand down to a spa where I would spend the day relaxing. And I would end the day by fixing a magnificent dinner of surf and turf for friends and family in my beautiful kitchen.  But the truth is it’s only a dream…and I’m good with that.  I’m good with having a 2 bedroom kingdom to rule over…or rather, that our dog, Abba, rules over. 

And I’m sure that the life of a real king or queen isn’t all spa days and fancy meals…although we sure like to think that it is.  That’s how we have depicted kings and queens over the years.  Exquisite dress, decadent dinner parties, getting to do whatever you wish because, in the words of Mel Brooks in History of the World, Part I, “It’s good to be the King.”  But the truth is there are still legal and diplomatic matters to tend to.  And though in many countries the title of King comes more as a figure head than an actual political position, there is still quite a bit of power and fame there. 

So what do we do when we are presented with a king that doesn’t fit that stereotypical image of royalty?  What happens when the king that we are looking at would stick out like a sore thumb when placed among the likes of Caesar, The Queen of England, or the King of Jordan? 

I wonder if sometimes we don’t know what to do with Christ the King.  We spend so much time talking about Jesus as our friend, Jesus being just like you and me…trying to make Jesus fit into our image of what we think Jesus would be like to justify how we live day to day, because that’s what Jesus would do…that to think of Jesus as King can get difficult.  Sure we love the good old hymns like All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name, Rejoice, the Lord is King!  Jesus Shall Reign, and the Hallelujah chorus is always a highlight of the Christmas season…but the word King is so political, almost to the point of having a negative connotation for us in the US with our pride in the democratic system. 

How can we talk about a King who stands both with me and the person who disagrees with me?  What do we do with a King that will root for both KU and Missouri? Is that even possible for a King to be a-political? And so we stand mystified about how to proceed with this one that we call Christ the King…this King Jesus, who though he became fully incorporated part of this world, rules a Kingdom that is not of this world, who stands with me and with those that I’d rather he not stand with. 

But the real complication comes in the fact that our Christ the King, the one that we proclaim as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, is a very unkingly King.  As he stands in front of Pilate, we see a man in peasant clothes, a man who was the child of the poor young woman Mary, a man who was born in a place that was anything but royal, who had no home to call his own, a man now standing in front of this Roman authority, dressed to the nines in royal fashion.   This one we call King, our King, was a very non-traditional king.  He was a homeless king, he was a servant king, he was a king who threw out the rule book on what a king looks like and acts like, who a king eats with, who a king talks to, and how a king claims victory over his enemies. 

The truth is that our king is unlike any other king known in history.  Our king is a king who broke all the human rules on what it means to be a king and came up with a list of new list of rules that for us can seem dissonant…and at times even unsettling.  A set of compassionate, loving rules, that set King Jesus apart from the rest of the rulers of his time or any time before or since. 

Our king is a king who shows us the truth about who we are and then shows us a way of living better with one another.  Our king is a king who could have raised up an army to defend him and vanquish his enemies for his own fame and power…but instead he chose a different path, gave up his power, and laid down his life so that both his enemies and his followers could know the truth, the truth that our king has power over life and death and that through his own death, King Jesus gave us a victory that can never be taken away from us.

It is not included in our text this morning…but in John 18:38, Pilate asks Jesus “What is truth?”  The truth is that in this moment, Pilate was standing in the presence of the Truth.  The Truth is found not in a royal palace, or a presidential mansion, but lying in a manger…holy and pure and innocent…the Word of God made flesh. The Truth is found conversing with Samaritan women at the well, standing guard over an adulterous woman about to be stoned, eating with the sinners and the tax collectors, welcoming children into its midst, living in the midst of poverty, and raising up those who society would put down and cast out.  These are not places that a stereotypical King would go, and yet it is where our King is found time and time again.  This is the truth that we find in Christ the King, and when Pilate tried to silence the Truth by putting it to death, we saw the ultimate victory that our King won, not for himself, but for us.

There are no satin robes for our king, and his crown was one made of thorns, and yet we celebrate and serve a benevolent King, one who sides with the poor and the outcast, one who brings freedom our of slavery, one who brings life out of death.  And that is the Truth. Amen. 

    

“Reformation: How Martin Luther found Freedom in the Word of God…and how we can, too!”

Reformation Sunday

October 28, 2012

John 8:31-36

 On October 31, 1517…a mere 495 years ago, a relatively unknown monk living in a small city in Germany performed an act that would, unbeknownst to him at the time, turn the church upside down.  When he tacked his writings on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg, Luther may have had some inclination of what awaited him at the hand of the King Charles, the Holy Roman Emperor and Pope Leo X…but he had even more of an inclination that the power of the word of God had set him free to challenge the abuses he saw in the church, namely, the selling of indulgences as a fundraiser to build St Peters in Rome. 

Had Martin Luther been around 50 or 100 years earlier, this never would have happened…but the advent of the printing press made it possible for his Ninety-Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences to be read by anyone who was literate.  Before the creation of the printing press, folks like Luther who challenged Rome would be silently “removed” from the situation, most commonly by being burned at the stake.  And to be honest, had it not been for the intervention of Saxony’s Prince Fredrick the Wise, Luther would have wound up burnt on a stake and the Reformation may not have happened.  But there he stood, at the door of the castle church with a hammer, a nail, and 95 theses in his hands, having found the freedom to Sin Boldly, freedom which he found in the word of God.

Luther hadn’t always had that freedom to challenge the status quo in the church.  In his earlier years as a monk, Luther was enslaved by his own sin and the feelings of guilt surrounding those sins.  He had become enslaved by an image of God as an angry, judgmental God, ready to swat down a sinner like someone chasing a fly with a fly swatter.  He was enslaved by the idea that there was absolutely nothing that he could do to earn the love of this image of God’s and that he was doomed to suffer in the bowels of purgatory or hell.  So Luther, almost literally, enslaved himself to the practices of penance - fasting, long hours of prayer, he would whip himself, and he spent many, many hours in the confessional, all in attempts to make peace with his image of an angry God.  And the more he tried to find peace with God, the more and more he became enslaved by the thought that this would never happen for a sinner such as he thought he was.

So where did Luther find this freedom to sin boldly and call the church out for its abuses?

Luther’s superior, Johann Van Staupitz, in seeing the depth of Luther’s struggle, sent him to Wittenburg to study and to teach. It was in these academic studies that Luther became so deeply exposed to the bible, and particularly the New Testament…it was in these academic studies that Luther finally grasped the words “if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed,” and “We hold that a person is justified by faith, apart from works, as prescribed by the law.”  Luther realized in his reading of the New Testament, particularly the Gospels and Romans, that salvation isn’t about what you do, it’s about who you are as a beloved child of God.  Luther found the peace and the freedom that he was looking for in the word of God…and I’m not just talking about the words written in the bible…I’m talking about the Word made Flesh. 

When Luther found the grace that comes to us through Christ, as revealed in the scriptures, it opened up a whole new world for him.  One in which an angry, vengeful, God was replaced by a God who loves and who seeks the lost and the broken and brings them peace. 

This is the freedom that Luther needed to allow him to preach and teach to the people of Wittenburg, it is this freedom that gave Luther the courage to call the Pope, and the church in Rome, out on its abuses perpetrated in the selling of indulgences, taking advantage of an illiterate public that had never had the opportunity to read the bible for themselves and selling them a vision of fire and brimstone that could only be escaped by purchasing get out of purgatory free cards, so that the capital campaign to build St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome could be funded.  It is this freedom that caused Luther to stand firm in his challenges to Rome at his trials, for he could do no other…and it is this freedom that inspired Luther to take another step towards treason against the church when he translated the New Testament, and eventually the whole bible into German so that the Word of God could be placed into the hands of the people who before had to rely on the testimony of the priests to learn about faith.  

As we gather here, 495 years after Luther tacked the 95 theses to the door of the castle church in Wittenburg, it is very tempting for us as people who live with the freedom to worship however and wherever we wish, to echo the words of the Jews who believed in Jesus “we are children of Abraham, and have never been slaves to anyone.”  But when we do this, we ignore two realities, the reality of our history of slavery, and the reality that we share with our dear brother Martin.  Like him, we too have enslaved ourselves to things that keep us from being able to live fully, love fully, and serve fully.  We have become enslaved to fear, enslaved to wealth, enslaved to possessions, enslaved to own self-consciousness, our own sin and our own guilt.  And these things that enslave us keep us from being able to stand up and sin boldly for the sake of the Gospel. 

But just as Luther found freedom in the Word of God, so can we.  There is freedom waiting for us in the Word made Flesh in the person of Jesus Christ whose death and resurrection, the acts that freed us from our sin and granted us life, are revealed to us in the words of scripture.  There is freedom waiting for us in the grace that God provides for us as beloved children of God who are saved and set free from our sin not because of anything we do or do not do, but rather because of the love, hope, and peace that God grants us in this gift. 

We are children of a God of love, one who looks into our hearts and consistently finds the best that is within us and tries to draw that out of us.  We are children of a God who freed us, through Christ, to live fully, to love fully, to serve fully, with total confidence in God’s love and grace, without fear of making mistakes, without the guilt that can overcome us when we mess up, without the chains that our sin has tried to shackle us with.  We are free to live as people of God…to sin boldly as sinners who have been set free to be saints of God…to continue to walk in the steps of Martin Luther, working for justice and peace in the church and out in the world. 

“Cut it off? No, Cut it Out!”

Pentecost 17

September 30, 2012

Mark 9:38-50

 

Can you imagine the side conversations going on between the disciples after Jesus’ teaching here?

What does he mean cut your hand off if it causes you to stumble? Doesn’t he know how much that is going to hurt?  Is he serious?  And what exactly does stumble mean?  What are the rules we have to follow if we are going to do just what Jesus said we should do?   But again, is he really serious?  Cause I gave that other exorcist a dirty look earlier for not following the rules…does that mean I should go take my eye out?  I don’t know if I could do that.

And it all started because John and the disciples were threatened that there was someone outside of the twelve who was able to cast out demons in Jesus’ name…and they had had some trouble with it.  He wasn’t one of them…he hadn’t been in the inner circle…how was he able to cast out demons in Jesus’ name…that’s not fair…Jesus, make him stop…he’s not following us!

Wait us? I thought you were all following Jesus…shouldn’t John have said he’s not following you? Actually, he couldn’t have really said that because it wouldn’t have been true. The man was following Jesus and had apparently picked up some tricks in regards to casting out demons in Jesus’ name. 

So Jesus responds to John “don’t stop him from doing deeds of power in my name.  He’s making a difference, and if you stop him, the deeds of power being done by him in my name are going to end.  And there’s really no reason for you to be worried, someone who does a deed of power in my name isn’t going to be speaking ill of me anytime soon.” 

That’s when Jesus launches into the better than’s…it would be better for you if a millstone were tied around your neck and be thrown into the sea than to make a little one who believes in me stumble…it would be better for you to enter life maimed or lame than to have a hand or foot that causes you to sin…it you would be better for you to have one eye, than two eyes that cause you do things you shouldn’t.   

And we repeat…boy, I really hope he’s not serious.

And Jesus isn’t serious.  He doesn’t want us to cut off our hands and feet or tear our eye out if they cause us to sin.  There would sure by a lot of bloodshed if that happened.  Instead, Jesus takes the opportunity to employ a bit of exaggeration to get the attention of the disciples…and our attention as well.  Be careful of the things we say, the things we do, and the way we look at people sometimes.  It’s easy to be hurtful when we are not careful.  And it happens to all of us, when we get cut off in traffic, when someone participates in an activity that we don’t approve of, we a project we are working on gets messed up, or when someone steals the spotlight from us…when we get annoyed, or frustrated, or become focused solely on ourselves, it gets easy to say and act in ways that we wish we could take back later. 

It’s in these cases that it’s good to know that Jesus isn’t always dead serious when he teaches…that sometimes he bit of a flare for the dramatic when trying to get a point across.  It’s also a good thing that there really is no such thing as a true biblical literalist.  Otherwise, there would be a lot of people out there walking around missing an eye, a hand, a foot…maybe even a tongue.  If we did take everything in the bible literally, then maybe the group of disciples would look like what Pastor Michael Coffey, from Austin, Texas, described in this poem. 

"One of them came in wet with a millstone and a rope

knotted around his throat gasping for air having dragged

the darn thing up from the bottom of the river

where he once was baptized a while back

because he had cursed at a child for high pitched screaming

Another came in with her right hand

hacked off – she was left-handed –

and she dripped crimson drops all the way

down the hall to Jesus' living room

admitting she had used the missing appendage

to flip someone off in traffic for cutting in

One more limped in with a lopped off foot

in his hand and he dropped to the floor sobbing

because he had tripped someone in line

in front of him to get a better seat

at the Bruce Springstein concert

Then there was the disciple who had an eye patch

and fumbled her way through the door

having glared at her next door neighbor with

a rude stare because she looked way too  good

in that new dress and those shoes with red soles

and wished she would trip and tear her ACL

The poem doesn’t end here.  But what comes next really hits what Jesus was trying to get across to the disciples.  And to us. 

They gathered around Jesus, each face

with a seriousness that puzzled the good Lord

except for the one with the plucked out eye –

it was hard to look puzzled with the patch and all.

He looked at them and said,

holding back an uncharacteristic chuckle:

For God’s sake, stop damaging yourselves.

You know I was kidding, right? 

Have you heard of hyperbole, people?

Just don’t do those mean things anymore

and if you do, say you’re sorry, make amends, and move on.

Lift up the lowly and respect the helpless.  

 It’s just not that hard.

Come on, folks!  Get over yourselves!

You're not that bad, and you're not that good."

There’s no actual call for us to damage ourselves when we do wrong by our neighbors…but rather, a call to do our best to be at peace with each other, to keep our actions and our words in check, because we never really know what the reactions will be to them.   None of us are perfect, we’re all going to offend someone at some point, whether we mean to or not…it’s a fact of life.   

And knowing that none of us are perfect and that sometimes it is hard for us to be at peace with each other, Jesus went to the cross and initiated the peace making process.  For in that act, Jesus made peace between us and God, which opened up for us a pathway through which we can to be at peace with one another.  To make amends when we mess up, to love one another and to be that salt that adds flavor to one another’s lives.  That sounds like a much better deal that cutting our limbs off.    

Questions?

Pentecost 17

September 23, 2012

Mark 9:30-37

Have you ever wondered if the disciples are actually paying attention to what is going on as they have been following Jesus?  In the time between last week’s Gospel reading, in which Peter confesses Jesus to be the Messiah and then promptly sticks his foot in his mouth, and this morning’s text, a lot has happened.  Jesus has gone up the mountain with Peter, James, and John and been Transfigured, then upon returning from the mountain, he heals a boy with an unclean spirit that the disciples had been unable to heal because, apparently, they didn’t pray.  And now, Jesus is again foretelling his death and resurrection, and pointing to a child as a model of discipleship.  That’s a lot to process in a couple of days…surely there had to be some questions from the disciples in regards to what was going on…but, then, why is it that all but one of the questions that Mark mentions in this portion of chapter 9 comes from Jesus? 

The only question that comes from the disciples was ‘why couldn’t we cast the demon out?’

But Jesus’ questions are a little more pointed: ‘What are you arguing about with them?’ 

‘You faithless generation, how much longer must I be among you? How much longer must I put up with you? 

‘What were you arguing about on the way?’

I imagine this is the rabbi version of a mother asking her children “do I have to come back there and separate you?”

Why were the disciples so afraid to ask Jesus questions when they didn’t understand what was going on?  Were they afraid that Jesus would rebuke them like he did Peter when Peter stuck his foot in his mouth?  Were they afraid that they would look silly if they asked the wrong question?  Were they afraid that Jesus would just ask another pointed question in return?

My guess is that it was a combination of these things.  They were afraid that they would look silly in front of the other disciples and would be put next to Peter as that other disciple that Jesus rebuked.  But, really who could blame them for being afraid to ask Jesus about something they didn’t understand.  For most adults, it’s a normal reaction.  We want to look like we’re on track with the straight A students in our class, we want to seem like we “get it” even though sometimes we don’t…because pretending to get it is a lot easier than having to admit that we don’t get it.  When I was in college, I didn’t get a lot of what was going on in my science classes…probably the first sign I should have majored in religion all along instead of torturing myself with a biology major.  But I was afraid to ask questions because I was so used to being the kid in high school who got it when it came to science.  I didn’t want to be thought of as that girl who asks the silly questions…did she even study the material?  So I didn’t ask questions…but I was also the kid who, in middle school asked all the questions that drove my classmates nuts because it often meant that we wouldn’t get out of confirmation class or math class early.  And I know I’m not the only one…somewhere between the beginning of middle school and the beginning of high school, questions become taboo…the but why? but why? but why? Stage has ended and self-consciousness takes over. 

And sometimes there’s a reason that we become afraid to ask questions…and that’s because we are taught that to question is to lack faith.  I have friends who were taught as children that it’s not ok to ask big questions about God and the church, because it means that you’re starting to go down the wrong path where faith is concerned.  You don’t want to become a doubting Thomas, do you?  One friend was asked by her pastor. 

But what’s wrong with being a doubting Thomas?  Thomas was the only one of the disciples with the boldness to ask questions, to put himself out there, and in the end he was the disciple that really got it.  Sadly, Thomas doesn’t get much play in the gospel of Mark, but I think that this allows Jesus to offer up a better example to the disciples, and to us, of what discipleship is all about…it’s about asking questions and not being afraid to be who you are, even if that means you don’t get it all the time. 

On the way, the disciples had taken up the argument over which one of them was the greatest…it was a common argument to be had amongst people of the time.  But their arguing went totally against the point of Jesus’ mission. Jesus’ mission and ministry wasn’t about being the greatest, it was about being a servant, it was about building up those around you instead of seeking to be built up.  And so he places a small child in the middle of the group of disciples, perhaps the child of one of the disciples and he says to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’

The power behind this statement is immeasurable…more so for the disciples than it is for us.  You see, at that time, children were seen as the promise of the future...but in the meantime, they were also a liability.  A child was more likely to become ill and die, a child did participate in the productivity of the household…but not at the level of an adult, and a regardless of the child’s productivity, it was still another mouth to feed.  In other words, a child in the time of Jesus was seen in the same way as a servant…except that the child held a place of honor in the household…which was something that a slave would probably, and could probably, never attain.  The child being held in Jesus’ arms that day was an insider who was placed in the realm of the outsiders until the time in which it was able to be a fully productive member of the household.

But there’s more than that here…have you ever heard a child ask questions?  Why is the sky blue? Why is the grass green?  Are we there yet?  But why? But why not?  Have you ever noticed that it is the questions of a child that have the greatest ability to turn a parent or other adults face bright red? 

Children are not afraid to ask questions when they do not understand…they have a sincere curiosity about how the world works.  Chris and I are already preparing a list of ‘go ask your mom’ and ‘go ask your dad’ questions that, our little one might ask one day.  Children yearn for the special knowledge held by adults.  And I can imagine that if the disciples had been children, Jesus would have been answering but why questions all day when it came to the work that they were on a mission to do.  

 “whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me”

So how do we welcome those who are not seen at the greatest in the eyes of the world, but who have so much to teach us adults about asking questions when we don’t completely understand something?

How do we truly and 100% welcome the little ones around us who may be antsy in the pew on Sunday morning but who are so eager to learn the ways of the big kids? 

How do you see Jesus in the children that we welcome?   For it was Jesus who freed us to be able to be like children, not worrying about getting all the right answers and not afraid to ask the big, and little, questions.  Amen.

“Carry on my wayward son, there’ll be peace when you are done”

Pentecost 11

August 12, 2012

2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33

It’s a pretty well-known story, the tale of the prodigal son.  In the Gospel of Luke, it is a story about a son who thought that he knew better than his father, so he set off on his own with his share of the inheritance and eventually comes to his sense while sitting in a pig stall getting ready to fight the pigs for their food. 

The story of Absalom and David found in 2 Samuel is not that story of the prodigal son.  I hesitate to even call Absalom prodigal…wayward probably works a lot better.

Here’s what the lectionary has caused us to miss:  Shortly after the power play that David pulled to take Bathsheba as his own, which resulted in her husband Uriah’s death, David’s oldest son, Amnon, raped David’s daughter, Tamar.  David was furious with Amnon for what he had done, but we are never told that David took any action to punish his son for what he had done.  Infuriated by the incident and David’s lack of action, David’s third son, Absalom, took matters into his own hands and killed Amnon two years later on an evening when Amnon had had a little too much to drink.  After killing his brother, Absalom fled from Jerusalem and remained away for three years, during which time David began to yearn for him.  Upon Absalom’s return, David forgives him…but Absalom wasn’t quite done with his mischief making just yet.  Absalom returned to Jerusalem with a plan to take over for his father, and he worked for four years to usurp his father’s throne.  Eventually, he was successful, being crowned King at Hebron and forcing David to flee Jerusalem to preserve his own life.  Then, as a visible sign to the people that Absalom was now in charge of things, Absalom made it a regular practice of laying with David’s concubines in public. 

Sounds like a really great kid, doesn’t he? The son that every man dreams of having one day, right?  Not so much….

After Absalom usurped the throne, David sent one of his trusted friends into serve on Absalom’s court and spy on him, but otherwise, David took a pretty passive stance on the whole thing, trusting that the Lord would take care of him in the future, regardless of whether he was on the throne or not. Eventually, however, David does muster an army together to go in and take back David’s place on the throne…and this is where our reading from this morning comes in.  David’s army has requested that for his safety, David not be allowed to go into battle.  They reasoned that if people didn’t know who they were and things didn’t go according to plan, they could slip out easier than if David was with them.  David agrees to this, but makes one plea in the presence of his men…and that was to deal gently with his son Absalom.  That’s his only request before sending the troops to battle.

It’s a very interesting request that David makes…for the troops to deal gently with his son.  A son who killed his brother, usurped his father’s throne and attempted to murder his father in the process, slept with his father’s concubines and did everything he could to make a mockery out of his father to prove that he was the one in charge now.  Absalom had not only become a political and military enemy, he had become a threat to David’s very life.  And yet, in this moment of preparation before battle, David chose to be a father before he was a king and to request that the life of his son be spared. 

As a person who is not a parent of a human child, I don’t know that I get it 100%. I know that throughout my entire life I have been reminded by my own parents time and time again that there could never be a reason for them to stop loving me.  But I also am aware of family situations where parent/child relationships have been broken and estranged for reasons that are nowhere near as severe as throne usurping, attempted murder…even though the betrayal felt in those broken relationships may feel that severe in the moment, or even years down the road.

So, in the aftermath of the great betrayal and rebellion of Absalom, I see vast amounts of grace in David’s request that his son be treated gently by David’s army.  But as it turns out, it was the forest that first dealt harshly with Absalom, followed by David’s disobedient men.  Joab disobeys David’s orders and has Absalom killed after finding him stuck in a tree by his hair, and when David is informed of this by the second runner, we see in the end of our text not the joy of a king whose enemy has been vanquished, but the grief of a father who loved his son dearly and without condition.  David was not a perfect man, he was actually a bigger scoundrel than we call him on.  There were times in his life, especially after the incident with Bathsheba where David was anything but a man after God’s heart…but here we see a man who gets it, who put down his crown to cry out in lament for his son.     

But there is also a glimpse of something bigger, as if the story of David and Absalom were to serve as a parable for readers of the Hebrew Scriptures in the same way the parable of the prodigal son reached Gospel readers.  I see in the story of David and Absalom, a representation of the story of God and God’s people. 

All throughout scripture and beyond, we have seen a relationship between God and God’s people that has been rocky, to say the least.  Time after time we have rebelled against God and betrayed God. 

We have fought ill-gotten religious wars in God’s name,

We have murdered our brothers and sisters and treated others like they were less than human,

We have replaced our heavenly father by placing our trust in money, in our jobs, and in ourselves,

We are fighting a culture war brandishing weapons of fried chicken sandwiches and waffle fries while 1 in 5 children in this nation go to bed hungry at night. 

Over and over we have done things as acts of rebellion against our heavenly father that we never should have done and have caused great damage to our relationship with our creator.  And the great irony of the whole thing is that in the midst of the great amounts of pain that we humans have caused each other and our heavenly father throughout the years, God’s love and faithfulness remain steady and unwavering.  Despite all the ways that we have been God’s wayward children, God’s love for us has been so deep…God’s desire for us to be protected from all the wrongs in the world so great, that God took a huge barrier out of our way by sending Jesus to come among us, show us the love of God in the most tangible of ways, cause some holy trouble by eating with the so called “wrong” people, and went to the cross so through that act we could be freed from our sin to have the boldness and confidence to call out to our heavenly parent and know that we will be heard. 

David was an imperfect man with a rebellious son, but in a story of a father’s love for his wayward son, we see God’s love for us, God’s wayward children and a faithfulness that is unwavering. 

So, carry on God’s wayward daughters and sons, there’ll be peace when we are done, lay your weary heads to rest, don’t you cry no more. Amen