Mud Baths

Lent 4a

March 30, 2014

John 9:1-41

Around the year 1772, though the date is not certain, John Newton penned one of the most iconic hymns in church history.  Newton, a priest in the Church of England, wrote Amazing Grace as an expression of the faith of a man who was once a wretch in every sense of the word, but found salvation.  In his younger years, Newton made his living in the slave trade, first as a slave buyer then working his way up to captain slave ships.  He had deserted the Royal Navy when he was a teenager and spent a good amount of his early years an arrogant, foul mouthed, insubordinate individual.  Even after he became a Christian, he neglected to cease his shenanigans until he left the slave trade 6 years after his conversion.  After he was ordained, however, he became very active in speaking out against slavery and worked with other prominent abolitionists in England to seek an end to slavery. 

He once was lost, but then was found…was blind, but then he saw.

A blind man sat outside one day begging for alms.  It was his only way of bringing in any income.  To the people around him he was just the blind guy.  To this day we still don’t know his name.  Today he will be known as Matthias.  Matthias didn’t know when he began begging on that Sabbath day that his world was about to be changed.  Matthias had been born blind.  He had never seen anything in the world around him.  The people around him probably barely noticed him either.  He would have been illiterate, considered unfit to work because he could not see what he was doing.  He may have been homeless, but that is uncertain because of the presence of his parents in the story.  He was pretty much a no body. 

Until that day. 

Matthias was sitting in his normal spot when he heard footsteps coming his way…thirteen people…men, given by the heft of their footsteps.  He heard one of the men ask another, who was a Rabbi, whose fault it was that Matthias was born blind, his or his parents. 

Here we go again, Matthias thought.  But the Rabbi’s response caught him off guard.

Neither this man nor his parents sinned.  But let us look for where God is at work in him. 

Matthias heard the man get closer to him, spit in the sand, and put mud on his eyes.  He didn’t know what to think.  Why was this man touching him?  Why was he rubbing mud into his eyes?  How was he going to get this stuff off? 

‘Go and wash in the pool at siloam’ the man said.  Matthias made his way to the pool, washed off the mud…and something happened.  There was light, there were colors, there were people and buildings.  Matthias could see.  And not only could he see, he wanted to tell everyone what had happened to him, even at the cost of being kicked out of the temple and being excommunicated.  For surely a God fearing man didn’t heal on the Sabbath.  There were rules about work on the Sabbath.  Work on the Sabbath is forbidden.  Healing is considered work.  Therefore, healing on the Sabbath is forbidden.  And anyone who disobeys the rules and heals on the Sabbath is a sinner and cannot be from God.  But if it had been any other day, it wouldn’t have been a big deal.  They may not have even known that Matthias had been given sight.

Matthias had mud placed upon his eyes by Jesus, an ancient medicinal practice, and Matthias saw and he believed in the one who made him able to see.

The Pharisees saw a man who had his sight given to him and who testified about the one who gave him sight, but because Matthias was given his sight on the Sabbath, it didn’t mean the same thing.  Perhaps it wasn’t Matthias who needed mud on his eyes as much as the Pharisees needed some mud on their hearts.    

You probably heard in the news this week that World Vision changed its hiring policy to allow individuals living in same sex relationships to be considered for employment at World Vision, an international organization founded upon Christian principles with the purpose of finding places where children and their families are hungry and not only securing sponsors to feed them, but also working for the injustices that put that family or community into poverty in the first place.

Immediately, a large backlash ensued from Christian groups who did not agree with World Vision’s decision.  There were lots of denunciations and threats of pulling support from World Vision and their mission.  In the face of the backlash, World Vision made the decision to go back to the old hiring policy within 48 hours of announcing the new policy.

Regardless of whether your support the gay and lesbian community or whether you believe homosexuality to be a sin, as Christians, we cannot be Pharisaic when it comes to feeding hungry children and looking for ways to fight the sources and causes of poverty and hunger.  We cannot stand by and say “hey world vision, great job taking care of children and feeding them…oh wait, the person feeding them is gay? Never mind, you need to stop feeding that child right now,” the same way that we can stop supporting a fast food chain or a retail store because we do not like how they do business because if we do that children who were sponsored will go back to being hungry, communities that were seeing improvement will no longer have the support they need.  We cannot be blind to the greater need because we have decided that for righteousness sake, the provider of that need has to fit into a certain mold…and once we ensure that, we can sit back with a clean conscience enjoying our shrimp cocktails knowing that we did the right thing. 

And however you feel about World Vision’s decisions this week, I think it’s safe to say that those who bullied World Vision using children living in poverty as the pawns need a little mud on their hearts.

Too often legalism can cause us to become implicated in the sin of absolute certainty.  We think that in order for a mission to be worth doing it has to follow a long list of rules and guidelines to the letter.  We are more willing to cast Matthias out of the temple for challenging us than we are willing to stop and question what we think we know.  And we miss messiah sightings because it wasn’t on the right day or at the right time or embodied by the right person.  And when we think we know exactly what God is up to and how and when God works, we have created a god in our own image.

That is what the Pharisees did…and it’s something we do now and again.   

Thankfully, God is not created in our image…we were created in God’s image.  The image of a God who heals on the Sabbath, the image of a God who takes slave traders and turns them into abolitionists, the image of a God who works miracles in bread and wine, water, and sometimes a little mud.

Could you use a mud bath? I sure could

Thirsty?

Lent 3a

March 23, 2014

John 4:5-42

Last week’s Gospel story and this week’s Gospel story tell two very different, and yet similar, stories.  In the story of Nicodemus, we meet a member of the religious elite, a named man, coming to Jesus in the cover of darkness at midnight, and he walks away from the interaction even more confused than when he approached Jesus in the first place.  This week, we meet a Samaritan woman, an unnamed woman, happening upon Jesus in the middle of the day, and she goes away from the interaction with Jesus proclaiming to those around her that she has seen the Messiah.  There is a reason that these stories are told one week after another, but I’m not going to give away any spoilers just yet.

The story of the Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well is a story loaded with details and questions and all sorts of information that would take forever to sort out.  And that’s just in the part of the story that John tells us! The back story involved here has just as much information…but it is important because it lets us in on this story in a way that we might not otherwise pick up on. 

In verses three and four of John 4, the two verses preceding our reading today, we are told that Jesus was on his way back to Galilee from Judea, but that he had to go through Samaria to get there.  But from a geographical stand point, that’s not entirely true.  There was a route that went around Samaria, in fact a route that was preferred by Jews traveling from Judea to Galilee for it guaranteed that at no time would the border of Samaria would be crossed. 

You see, historically, there was a lot of baggage between the Jews and the Samaritans.  Both groups claimed to be descendants of Jacob, and they were.  But while the Jews were of pure ethic heritage and worshiped only in Jerusalem, the Samaritans were of mixed ethnic heritage, having intermarried with the Assyrians when they were under Assyrian captivity.  This inter-ethnic marriage was forbidden in laws contained in Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and Numbers in order to maintain the purity of the priesthood and to ensure that tribes would not lose inheritance rights.  Also, while the Samaritans held the Torah (the first five books of the bible) as their sacred scripture, and followed in the tradition of the Levitical priesthood, they worshipped on Mount Gerizim and their worship practices were modified from the practices in Jerusalem.

So from the perspective of the Jews, the Samaritans were half-breeds, for lack of a better term.  They were contaminated and to even enter the border of their lands meant that there was the risk that a Jew would become contaminated as well.

But Jesus had to go through Samaria, John says.

And whereas Jesus had been approached by Nicodemus in cover of night, in Samaria he is approached by an unnamed woman at in the middle of the day.  What we notice, knowing what we know about the tensions between the Jewish community and the Samaritan community is that this unnamed woman, who has had a rough life, is courageous.  Like Nicodemus, she engages Jesus in a discussion in regards to worship practices and the coming of the Messiah.  But she does so not as a member of the religious elite, who has formal education and training, but rather she comes to him as a member of an ethnic group looked down upon by his own, and as a woman who has been either divorced or widowed 5 times…making her a person of very low status in the community.  I mentioned in a sermon a couple months ago that it was quite easy for a man to divorce a wife in Jesus’ time.  She could be cast off because she didn’t provide her husband with a son in a set amount of time…she could have been cast off because she didn’t cook his lamb the way he wanted it. A second possibility is that the woman had been widowed 5 times.  And, further, it could be that she was living in a situation of levirate marriage, where the man she was living with was the brother of her deceased husband, in hopes that the brother would provide a son for the dead husbands inheritance to go to.  Whatever the case was, the Samaritan woman did not have a good life and lived a life of shame because of the circumstances in which she lived.

It has become a temptation in the western church to paint the Samaritan woman at the well as a sinful, immoral woman.  But when we take a close look at the interaction between Jesus and this unnamed woman, there is never a scolding for a sin committed, never an exhortation to go forth and sin no more, as happens later in on the Gospel of John with the woman who was caught in adultery.  This woman that Jesus meets at the well was merely a woman caught in a bad situation, living at the bottom of the barrel in the eyes of those around her, and looking for someone to see her for who she really is. 

The Eastern Orthodox Church has taken this woman and not only given her a name, but made her a saint whose feast day was celebrated just this past Thursday.  St. Photina, the holy martyr, who was so taken by the good news in her interaction with Jesus Christ at the well, that she went about spreading the Gospel until she was arrested and executed in Carthage in North Africa.

She is why Jesus had to go through Samaria.

To those around her, she was probably the source of gossip…she probably figuratively was the bearer of a scarlet letter.  She probably heard whispers around her as she walked around town…and she probably went to the well at noon to avoid hearing the whispers as the rest of the women would have gone to the well in the morning to fetch water. 

That didn’t bother Jesus.  He knew about the circumstances of her life, he knew that she was a part of an ethnic group that was considered contaminated by the Jews, he knew that speaking with her in public would be considered a scandal. 

He didn’t care. 

To the person that would have been considered the least worthy to receive it by those around her, Jesus gave love and peace to a person that he saw most needed it.  He saw her for who she really was, a child of God, and in his interaction with her Jesus offers her a sense of shalom, which doesn’t just mean peace, but also means wholeness.  And more than that, Jesus offers her living water, water that will never become contaminated and bring disease, water that gives only life and healing. 

Jesus had to go through Samaria.  He had to go through Samaria because salvation may have been from the Jews, but it was for everyone.  And the woman, unlike Nicodemus, the woman went away telling of the Messiah and bringing others to follow him. 

This past week we learned of the death of Fred Phelps, the founder of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas.  Mr. Phelps’ life and his work, from his time as a lawyer in Wichita to his ministry in Topeka, was defined by hatred.  At times when people needed care and concern, Phelps and members of his family spoke of hate, of a vengeful God, and they have caused pain for many around them.  And as he has exited this life and gone on to the next, we are called as followers of Christ to not see labels which a man and his work have placed upon his forehead, but to see a man in need of love and mercy and forgiveness.  We are called to see a man in need of the promise that God hates no one, that even those of us who wound others because we ourselves are deeply wounded can hope in the healing power of Christ’s death and resurrection. That Jesus will approach one of the least desirable members of the human race and offer them living water.  Mr. Phelps needs the invitation to partake of the living water, the Samaritan woman needed the invitation to partake of the living water.  We need the invitation to partake of the living water.  For we all have sinned and fallen short of what God desires of us.  But we know this, that in water we are given physical life, in water we are given new life and are joined to Christ in his death and resurrection.  Not because we are pure, not because we are worthy, but because God knows that we are all a little thirsty. 

Faith and blessing

Lent 2a

March 16, 2014

Genesis 12:1-4a

Imagine if you will, growing up on your father’s farm here in town.  You play a vital role in the family business, managing the crops and the herds, learning everything you know from your father.  You and your spouse have a happy life together but have been unable to have children.  This causes tension in your family because there will be no one to carry on your lineage.  But regardless, your life is enjoyable, your work rewarding, etc. etc. etc.

Then one day, you hear a voice from God telling you to leave your country, your family, and the house that you’ve lived in all your life, and go somewhere that you’ve never been and no destination is actually named.  There is only the promise that you will become a great nation and will be blessed so that you can bless others. 

Raise your hand if you would go. 

If you would, why?

If you wouldn’t why not?

Another question – having pondered whether or not you yourselves would leave home and go to an unknown location…what are your thoughts on Abraham picking up and leaving home?

When I asked the confirmation youth this question back in the fall, most of them said they wouldn’t go.  They thought it didn’t make sense…especially when you consider that there was no final location disclosed, nor a time disclosed in which the destination would be revealed.  It’s just not logical. 

However, given that all we know about Abram at this point in the story is his ancestry, is marital and parental status (married to Sarai, no kids…not by choice) and their geographical location (Canaan), there are some guesses we could make.  And since Hollywood is busy getting creative with biblical stories, why not try out our hand at it.

Before we start this conversation, forget everything that you know about Abram…or Abraham.  Pretend you are hearing Genesis for the very first time and this is a stopping point. So you’ve heard the story of the creation, the story of the fall, the murder of Abel by his brother Cain, the story of the flood followed by that of a drunken Noah, and the Tower of Babel. That is all you know. 

What are some reasons that it would have made sense for Abram to leave home?

What are some of the reasons that it did not make sense?

On the whole, given what we know and our context today, if someone in this room stood up one morning during announcements and told us that they were leaving because God told him or her that they were being sent by God to a land that God would show them…but they didn’t know exactly where God was pointing to, we would probably think that they were pretty crazy…maybe a little irrational, even. 

But that’s the funny thing about faith…it’s not the most rational of forces that we fall back on.  In fact, faith in and of itself defies rational thought…it’s actually unrational, which I know sounds like a word I made up, but think about it.  As people of faith, we believe in a God whom we cannot see face to face, we are followers of a man whom none of us have never met in person, and we do our best to live in his example according to what his early followers have written about him, with some help, of course.  And, in times of trouble, we lean in on a promise that there is something better waiting for us when this earthly life ends.  The faith that we possess as a gift from God, is something that causes us to do things that don’t make sense.  Who else eats bread and drinks wine under the promise that Christ’s body and blood are present in them?  Who else takes infants, children and adults, and enacts a symbolic drowning in order to join them to the community in Christ, meanwhile proclaiming that that person has died and been given new life in Christ?  

It’s not normal. We’re not normal…no offense…but we’re not.  Abram wasn’t either.

Abram, upon hearing the voice of God, picked up, left home, and traveled to the place that God was going to point out to him.  And as people who know Abram’s entire story, we know that it was place, it turned out, that Abram, Sarai, and Lot had to leave shortly after they arrived because of a drought and famine.  Abram got in trouble with multiple people on multiple occasions for playing Sarai off as Abram’s sister.  He pled with God on behalf of the people in Sodom and Gomorrah, though sadly there were fewer decent people in those villages than he bargained for. As a sign of his covenant with God, he circumcised himself and all the men in his family. And he trusted for years and years and years that God was going to provide him with a son and that his descendants would number the stars in the sky and the grains of sand in the desert. And when he was 86, his son Ishmael was born to Sarai’s maidservant, Haggar.  But this was not the son that God had promised.  It wasn’t until Abram was Abraham and he was 99 years old…24 years after God told him to leave home, that Sarah gave birth to Isaac…the one who laughs…because, honestly – if, in your 90’s, you are told you are going to get pregnant and give birth to a child…how else do you respond?

But I wonder if this faith of Abram, faith that led him to listen to the voice and follow to a land he had never seen before, points to something bigger. 

Because, if you think about it, the story of the call of Abram just as much about why Abram listened as it is why God called.  We laud Abram for his faith. It is, in fact, so important to the story of God’s people that the writer of Hebrew’s chose to Abraham as the prime example of what faith is about.  But have you ever wondered why this whole thing got started in the first place. 

The stories that lead up to the call of Abram speak of a very lost and sinful population.  Beginning in the garden when Adam and Eve chose to bite into a piece of fruit, to Cain who killed his brother out of jealousy, to a world that was so sinful that God was sorry that he had created humanity.  So he sent the flood…and while sin survived the flood, God changed.  Before the flood, God always protected and forgave, clothing Adam and Eve, protecting Cain from retribution, etc.  But after the flood, God modified things a bit.  And Abram was the starting point. 

In the call of Abram, we see God’s first attempt reconstitute a broken world.  And we see in the story of God’s people after Abram, the persistence of God in trying to bring folks back to be in a good relationship with him.  When sin got in the way, God was always trying something new.  When the Israelites lost their way in the wilderness, he gave them judges, when judges didn’t work God gave kings, when kings didn’t work, God gave prophets, when prophets didn’t work, God put on flesh and came to earth to experience life as we know it.  From birth to death to new life. 

And the crazy part is that it wasn’t for God’s sake that he did all this, but for ours…so that WE could be blessed.  Because that’s the funny thing about love – the pure, unadulterated kind, it knows that it cannot force anyone to love in return.  Or do anything else for that matter. But what it can do is bless, it can bless without restraint.  And that’s what God did for Abram and what God does for us.  God makes good on his promises.  God made good on his promise to bless Abram and make him a great nation, and God made good on his promise to be with us always by putting on flesh and entering into our world not to condemn it, but to save it.  And if that’s not a blessing, I don’t know what is.

Identity Crisis

Lent 1a

March 9, 2014

Matthew 4:1-11

In 1953, a very controversial novel was published.  In 1988, Martin Scorsese adapted the novel into a film of the same name “the Last Temptation of Christ.”  Both the novel and the film have caused quite a bit of anger and have even been banned in some countries.  The basis of the novel is that Jesus, though without sin, was tempted daily just like every other human on the face of the planet.  But the final temptation is for Jesus to come off of the cross.  As he hangs there in pain, he sees a young girl approach him and reveal to him that he is not, in fact, the son of God, but that God is very pleased with him and now wants him to live and be happy.  She then helps him off of the cross and leads him in to a long, happy, comfortable life.  It is not until much later, when confronted by Judas, that Jesus realizes that the young girl was the devil, who had seen Jesus’ most vulnerable moment as the time to bring forward one final temptation.  Upon realizing this, Jesus runs to a now destroyed Jerusalem and begs to be crucified so that all can be made right.  And then the viewer watches as we go back to the beginning, to Jesus on the cross, a Jesus who stays on the cross despite the mocking and the jeers of those around him.

I’ve wondered before if part of the reason that this novel and movie are so controversial because the notion of Jesus being 100% human, as we confess in the Nicene creed, is something that makes us a bit uncomfortable.  And I still do wonder that.  But I also wonder if the reason that this movie has been banned and burned and its author deemed a heretic has to do with the question of identity.  If Jesus really is the Son of God, could he have chosen to come down off of the cross?  And I think that positing a ‘yes’ answer to this question makes us just a little bit uneasy, if we’re honest.

(pause)

Immediately after being baptized by John in the Jordan, Jesus goes into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  And after 40 days and 40 nights of fasting, he was at a weak point, famished.  It is then that the devil decides to approach him with three temptations, IF you are the Son of God, he says, command these stones to turn to bread…IF you are the Son of God, throw yourself down…All this can be yours, IF you fall down and worship me. 

IF

IF

Prove yourself to me, Jesus.  If you are really the Son of God, you can feed yourself…you can throw yourself down from the pinnacle of the temple and not suffer any harm, for the angels will protect you…OR, you can pledge your allegiance to me and I will give you more power than you know what to do with.

The ultimate temptation that the devil levied against Jesus, really wasn’t about bread or angels or an all powerful authority over thrones and dominions, but rather and attempt to undermine Jesus’ confidence in his identity, an identity which had just been vocalized at Jesus’ baptism 40 days earlier when God said, “this is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

But even in his a moment in which he was weakened by hunger, Jesus does not give in to the devil’s attempt to rob him of his God given identity.  Instead, he relies on and is strengthened by this identity, secured for him through his relationship with his God and father, and that is what gives him the strength to resist the devil and all of the ways in which he tried to tempt Jesus from letting loose of his dependence on God. 

Have you ever noticed that the devil likes to pray on us in times of weakness?  In Genesis, as in Matthew, the devil preyed upon Adam and Eve when they were hungry and looking for food.  “Did God really say you shall not eat from any tree in the garden?” Having sown the seed of doubt into their heads (and, for the record, Adam and Eve were both there), the devil goes in for the kill and tells Adam and Eve that, indeed, they will not die if they eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…contradicting what God had told them earlier.  And unlike Jesus, who relied on his identity in God and used that to resist the devil, Adam and Eve gave into the temptation and relied on the words of the serpent instead of the words of God.  They let their identity as children of God take a back seat to an identity of independence created when they bit in to the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 

This is what the devil likes to do to us, too.  If you are a child of God, why can’t you find a job? If you are a child of God, why are you suffering from a chronic condition?  If you are a child of God, why isn’t your life going just as you always thought it would?  And it doesn’t happen in moments when we are strong and confident, but in times when we have hit road bumps, when we have been challenged or vulnerable.  It’s like the devil knows just when the perfect moment is to plant an earworm in our brain that plays a tune which repeats themes of self-doubt and questioning our identity over and over until we start to believe that it might actually be true.  

But the devil is not the only one who likes to get us questioning who we are.  The really sad thing is that some preachers have latched on to the notion that this is true.  Those who preach the prosperity gospel tell folks that if their faith is strong enough, if they give enough to the church, then God will reward them beyond their imagination with worldly riches.  But if you’re struggling financially or have chronic health issues, it’s time to start questioning the strength and the commitment of your faith.  

And it doesn’t stop there. There is a myth that has been going around for quite a while that self-sufficiency is the only way of being a worthwhile member of society.   We come from cultures that praise the protestant work ethic, we preach that if we are going to be successful in life, you have to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.  And I will be the first to confess that my biggest sin in this life has been giving into the thought that if I am not in control of every facet of my life, then I am somehow failing.  We are bombarded day in and day out with messages that we are not good enough, skinny enough, rich enough, smart enough, worthy enough to be valued by others because we do not possess the image of the photoshopped models who grace magazine covers.

And if we’re bombarded enough, we start to believe it.  We start to believe that we are the ones who can control whether God loves us or not. We start to believe that we are the ones to blame for not fitting into a cropped and edited version of what we are supposed to look like, dress like, how much money we are supposed to make, etc.

When we believe this the lies that the devil and the world tell us, we stop believing the truth.  The truth that in the waters of baptism, we were named and claimed as children of God, that through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, nothing we do or fail to do can keep us from the love of God.  That regardless of our age, gender, profession, and income bracket, we are invaluable members of the kingdom of God, made precious in God’s sight through the blood shed on the cross.  That no matter what, God has our back and God will be with us and for us all the days of our lives.

So when the devil or society tempt us away from the truth, away from believing in our identity as beloved Children of God, pushing our sins and our shortcomings in our faces, we can look the devil in the face and say, in the words of Martin Luther “Away with you Satan, I am baptized!”

Funeral sermon for Freda F.

Readings

Job 19:23-27b

‘O that my words were written down!
   O that they were inscribed in a book!
O that with an iron pen and with lead
   they were engraved on a rock for ever!
For I know that my Redeemer lives,
   and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;
and after my skin has been thus destroyed,
   then in my flesh I shall see God,
whom I shall see on my side,
   and my eyes shall behold, and not another.

Psalm 23 (read in unison)

¹ The LORD is my shepherd, 

I shall not be in want. 

² He makes me lie down in green pastures,

he leads me beside quiet waters, 

³ he restores my soul. 

He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. 

⁴ Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, 

I will fear no evil, for you are with me; 

your rod and your staff, they comfort me 

⁵ You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 

⁶ Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life,

and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

Revelation 21:1-6

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.²And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. ³And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
‘See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
⁴ he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.’

5 And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new.’ Also he said, ‘Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.’ ⁶Then he said to me, ‘It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. 

John 14:1-6

‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. ²In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? ³And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. ⁴And you know the way to the place where I am going.’ ⁵Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’⁶Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

SERMON

It was the night of the last supper.  Jesus had humbled himself to wash his disciples feet.  He had spoken of his betrayal and his denial, commanded them to wash one another’s feet, to love one another as he had love them.

Their hearts were troubled. 

What else can hearts do when people know that someone whom they love and respect is going to be betrayed and denied and ultimately lay down his life for them. 

If only there had been more time.  If only there had been more time for teaching, for stories, for meals, for fishing and praying and healing.  If only there had been more time before a kiss, a trial, a cross. 

Indeed, their hearts were troubled. 

And as we gather this morning to say goodbye to Freda in this earthly life, our hearts are troubled, too.  No matter how long a person lives, no matter what the circumstance of their death, saying goodbye to someone whom we love and respect and cherish is a hard thing to do. If only there had been more time.  If only there were more hugs, more hair do’s, more time spent discussing whether or not Freda should be resting in the shade or out trimming the bushes and pushing the wheelbarrow,  more cookies, more time to celebrate the milestone of turning 100.  Indeed, our hearts are troubled.      

The first two times I went to visit Freda, I interrupted her in the middle of reading her bible.  Her bible was not in pristine, mint condition, mind you.  It was the bible of someone who walked slowly through its pages multiple times, making notations everywhere, writing down passages and facts to help sort out who was who in the story of God’s people.  Freda’s bible was the bible of someone who loved her Lord with all her heart, all her soul, and all her mind.  So it wasn’t surprising when I had the honor to read some of her poetry, the beautiful words of a woman of faith.

Let me read one of them to you:

"This is the day the Lord has made

so why should we despair

for we know he has us in his keeping

as we kneel in humble prayer

as we bless the Lord our Savior

for all the love we share

He will lead us into glory

when our work is finished here"

Freda was truly an example of faith.  And I can imagine that she would be nodding in agreement with Job at the words that he wrote which were read this morning. 

Oh that my words were written down, oh that they were inscribed in a book, oh that with an iron pen and with led they were engraved on a rock for ever!
For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.

Throughout the book of Job, we see that Job, a very faithful man, is put to the test.  He endures trials and loss, he is accused by his so-called friends of having sinned or not having enough faith…but even when he was at his lowest, even when he was almost to the point of cursing God, Job proclaims with absolute confidence his faith in God, his redeemer, his comforter and his advocate.   When things are at their worst and it seems from an outsider’s perspective like God may not even be there for him anymore, Job states with certainty that he knows that God is there and even at the last, even when Job’s body is no more, in his flesh he shall see God standing beside him.  Job knew that despite all that had happened to him, God was there standing beside him giving him the strength to keep going even when things seemed the most difficult. 

I am confident that the strength of Freda’s faith is echoed in these words of Job.  I am confident that in the good times as well as in the difficult times, ones that become more and more prevalent towards the end of her life, Freda knew that God was standing by her side.  In not just talking the talk of faith, but also walking the walk and demonstrating to others the depth of her faith, Freda introduced her children, and many others around her to God.  And it is because of this faith that we can take comfort that not only has Freda met God in the flesh, but we also know that she is in the place that Christ has prepared for her as a baptized child of God. 

When Freda was washed in the waters of baptism, God claimed her as his own, and in his death and resurrection, Christ destroyed the power of death so that nothing could keep Freda, or any of us from being with him in the place that he has gone to prepare for us. 

And though our hearts are troubled, we know that one day we will all be reunited and it will be a bigger and better party than we can ever imagine.  For we will gather with our family and friends of all times and places in the physical presence of Christ. 

So, as we say goodbye to Freda, it is not a forever goodbye, it is a see you later goodbye.  For one day, we too will be led into glory when our work is finished here. 

Amen.

Car commercials and Ashes

Ash Wednesday

March 5, 2014

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

There are two car ads which have come out in the last two years that have caused me some consternation.  The first is the Mercedes commercial which came out on the day of the Super Bowl a year ago.  A man sits in a restaurant in New Orleans with the Devil, who offers him a Mercedes-Benz, and all the fame etc, that will come with this status symbol…if he will just sign his soul over.  About to sign the contract with the devil, he then realizes that he can afford the car without the devil’s help.  The other commercial came out during the Olympics this year.  It is an ad from Cadillac that puts the work harder, buy more culture of the US on a pedestal while mocking folks from other countries for strolling home from work, stopping off at cafes, and taking August off. Off. 

Now, I like cars.  I like nice cars.  The car of my dreams is a 1967 Shelby Mustang GT fastback.  So that’s not the issue.  The issue is what these commercials suggest about having cars such as these.  You get the Mercedes-Benz and it comes with the red carpet, your picture on the cover of a magazine, hoards of people of the opposite gender running after you.  And according to Cadillac, the American dream is to work yourself into the ground, take sacrifice vacation time so you can buy expensive stuff.  In other words, what these two commercials…and many others like it, are trying to tell consumer America is that it’s all about us.  It’s about status, it’s about money, it’s about fame and fortune…it’s about bragging rights.  It’s about Me.

There’s nothing wrong with having things.  There’s nothing wrong with having nice things.  And there is nothing wrong with working hard and trying to get ahead or working hard so that you can play hard.  Anymore, though, getting something nice for yourself is less of a fulfillment of a desire to treat yourself to something nice and more of a fulfillment of a desire to be noticed.  But I think that the mistake that we make is in thinking that this is life.  The nice cars, the fancy clothes, the parties, the masks, the jewelry, the parades, the myth that it’s all about us.

Because the truth is, at some point, it all comes to an end. 

No matter how much we don’t want it to, no matter how much we think we can go on forever…all good things, as they say, must come to an end.  The $75,000 car will eventually break down.  The clothes will eventually fade.  The house will eventually need repairs. The parties and the parades will eventually need to be cleaned up.  The masks eventually have to come off.  This life will, eventually, come to an end for all of us.  And when it does, regardless of whether we drive the high end Mercedes or the low end Chevrolet, whether we are rich or poor, famous or unknown, male or female, it will be said of all of us that we are dust and to dust we shall return. 

But on this day in which we are urged to return to the Lord our God, we hear Jesus urging us to go down another path. 

Here again what he says.

‘So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others.

 ‘And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others.

‘And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting.

‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; ²⁰but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 

Just as it was during the transfiguration of Christ when the cloud overshadowed the mountain to help Peter, James, and John refocus on Jesus, so it is here that Jesus is pointing us towards a different focal point, one that looks away from ourselves, away from the me’s, the my’s, and toward something bigger.

In the early church, part of the purpose of the season of Lent was to prepare those desiring to become full members of the church for baptism.  And when baptized at the Easter Vigil, these individuals would take off their clothing, walk down into a pool to be fully immersed in water and would exit the other side of the baptismal pool, being clothed with a brand new white robe, symbolizing that they had left the self enslaved to sin at the entry to the pool and the self freed and given new life in Christ was the person who exited. 

And though we don’t have baptismal pools big enough to do full immersion, that’s what baptism is all about, dying to the sinful self and rising to freedom in Christ.  Because the Christian life isn’t about the me’s and my’s, it’s about us collectively as a family in Christ. 

So when we give alms, or pray, or fast, Jesus isn’t bashing practices around such things.  In fact, earlier in the sermon on the mount, he tells us to let our lights so shine before others that they may see our good works and glorify our father in heaven.  What Jesus is talking about is the heart with which we give alms, the heart with which we pray, the heart with which we put on ashes and remember that we are dust and to dust we shall return.  If we do these things for fame and notoriety, so that people will notice us and see “what good Christians” we are, we are doing it for the wrong reason. 

Instead, we gather this day to return to the Lord our God, who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.  To remember that we are creations of the almighty, that we came from the dust of the earth and that eventually we will return to the dust of the earth. We put on ashes as a reminder that all good things in this life will eventually come to an end.  We eat bread and drink wine to be strengthened for the journey through the wilderness that is Lent. And we go out into the world as people who live on the other side of the cross and the tomb.  People who have been given new life in the waters of baptism…people who, when the ashes come off, still bear a cross on our foreheads.  A  cross signifying that we have been named and claimed by the one who walked to Jerusalem and to the cross for us so that we could have life in him. 

God’s blessings to you as we begin this holy journey.

Amen.    

Equipped and transformed

Transfiguration

March 2, 2014

Matthew 17:1-9

On the last Sunday in January, when we cancelled church because of the weather, I was going to preach on the call of the disciples to be fishers of men.  The first to be called into service as Jesus’ co-workers were fishermen, Peter and his brother, Andrew, and James and his brother, John.  They knew the work that fishing entailed and so to be called fishers of people probably made more sense to them than it can for us sometimes.  I do wonder if, when Jesus called Matthew, the tax collector, he called him to be a collector of people instead of taxes, but who knows.  When Jesus called Peter, Andrew, James and John to follow and become fishers of people, they may not have been the best candidates for the job.  They were a part of the lower class, under the control of the whims of those to whom they supplied their catch, and they were probably not the cleanest people in the world working with fish all day.  And judging from their call story, they may not have even been good fishermen since they immediately dropped everything to follow…leaving their families to take care of whatever catch there may or may not have been. 

But Jesus was never known to call the elite and highly educated and respected into service.  He didn’t call the equipped in order to help him spread the Gospel, he equipped those whom he called.  He took empty tackle boxes and filled them to the brim with everything that the disciples would need in order to follow him and share the Good News. 

This being the case, however, I don’t know if Peter, James and John were completely prepared for the day in which Jesus brought them with him up to the mountain top.  I imagine Peter, James and John (who knows where Andrew was) following Jesus up the mountain thinking it was a regular day and that they were going to go up to pray…Jesus liked to go up to mountains to pray for some reason.   It wasn’t a regular day, though, for suddenly Jesus was transformed in front of them.  His clothes were no longer the color of the linen he wore, but they were a dazzling white and his face shone like the sun.  And then Moses and Elijah showed up (though, how they knew it was Moses and Elijah puzzles me…the photo directory hadn’t come out yet).  And as I imagine this scene, I doubt that if I had been there, my reaction to these events would have been any different.  I imagine it would be like the time I met Kasey Kahne 6 years ago…only a million times better. 

Who wouldn’t want to stay and linger in the presence of the man that God chose to lead the Israelites to freedom and the man who was the greatest of the prophets?  There would be so much to learn from them…so many questions to ask them!  What was it like when you lifted your hands and God parted the Red Sea?  What about the time, Elijah, when you faced off against the prophets of Baal and won? 

So let’s build tents, one for you, Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.  You must have a lot to talk about and we don’t want for you to have to be uncomfortable…we can stay as long as you like.

Poor Peter, he always comes so close to getting it and then he misses…like six days before this when Pater made the powerful profession that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of the Living God…and then five minutes later, Jesus is calling him Satan and telling him to get behind him because Peter rebukes Jesus and the notion that Jesus will have to die.  We see Peter try so hard and wind up like Charlie Brown over and over, running to kick that football and winding up on his hind end.  He gets it, but he doesn’t.

But before Peter is done speaking, God interrupts. 

Now, not only are have they seen their good friend and teacher become transformed before them, not only have they physically been in the presence of Moses and Elijah, but now the voice of God is speaking directly to them, instructing them as to who Jesus is and that they are to listen to him. 

What do you say in a moment like this? Are there even words to describe the awe-some nature of hearing the voice of the heavenly father speaking directly to you? I don’t know if there was any better of a response than to fall on their faces in fear…not like a terrified that something is going to hurt you fear, but an awe-struck, heart is pounding, oh wow there is my favorite celebrity of all time, what do I say, what do I do, don’t look stupid, reverent kind of fear. 

And what about the cloud?  Well, my experience with foggy days is that fog forces us to focus because you can’t see too far ahead of you.  And I can imagine that with all the excitement of seeing Moses and Elijah, and a transformed Jesus, they needed a “Peter…Peter, look at me…focus, Peter.” And in enveloping the mountain with a cloud so that they could only see Jesus, they were forced to focus on him and on the voice from the heavens and in doing so, they got to see a preview of the fullness of the glory of Christ that would be revealed when he rose from the dead. 

Jesus wasn’t the only one transformed in this trip up to the mountain…it’s impossible to stand in the presence of Moses and Elijah, see the fullness of the glory of Christ, and hear the voice of God and not be changed…to not have ears opened to hearing the words of Christ in a new way, to not have eyes opened to see just how much work needs to be done…to not have minds opened to seeing new ways of being disciples and to not be strengthened for the journey to accompany Jesus to Jerusalem.  But having ears and eyes and minds and hearts opened can leave us intimidated, overwhelmed by just how much work there is to do.  Maybe it would be easier and safer if we just stayed up on the mountain…if we just stayed within the walls of a church building…

But Jesus didn’t come to sit on the Mountain top and spout off decrees like traditional royalty…he came to get his hands dirty, he came to sit with us in our unbelief, to cry with us in our grief, to calm us in the midst of uncertainty, to celebrate with us in our joys and our triumphs, to transform us and equip us to go out into the world and be co-workers in spreading the Gospel through our words and our actions. Jesus came down the mountain for the soldier tormented by battle scars…for the actor tortured by the demons of addiction…for the young mother widowed after her husband’s 6 year battle with cancer…for the high schooler so afflicted by the words of his tormenters that he starts to believe the awful things they say to him.  We all have dark places, places of struggle and doubt and fear that we would rather no one else knew about. But as much as we try to hide and mask these dark places in our lives, we cannot hide them from Jesus. Jesus knows our pains and he is there with us in those dark places to bring us life. We are never alone…Jesus himself went to hell and back so that he could give us what we need to endure and walk with us and so we would know and be transformed by his light, his love, and his peace.
Out of his love, God sent Jesus to come among us…and even after experiencing the fullness of his own glory, Jesus came down from the mountain. There was work to do…there were people to heal…there were tackle boxes to fill…and in the end, there was a cross waiting for him…a cross that would set us free from the grasp of death and bring us in to the fullness of the new life that is in store for us…a new life in which we are transformed and called to go out into the world, equipped with what we need to share the Good news and transform the world. Amen.