Lost and Found - Luke 15:1-7

Sermon on Sunday, March 14

Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?

Everywhere you go, there’s a ‘lost and found.’ Schools, stores, churches… they all have a ‘lost and found.’ Maybe it’s a closet or a cardboard box in somebody’s office. It doesn’t have to be fancy—just something to hold wayward mittens, stray umbrellas, misplaced reading glasses…

Reading through the gospels, it’s hard to miss a ‘lost and found’ theme. When Jesus talks about the kingdom of God, he often uses losing and finding images. He tells the story of a woman who loses a coin and sweeps her entire house until she finds it. Jesus refers to the kingdom of heaven as a treasure that a man found in a field, and as a fine pearl found by a merchant. I suppose there’s just something about being lost and being found that resonates with us as human beings.
In our story today from Luke’s gospel, Jesus is eating with tax-collectors and sinners. And this frustrates the Pharisees and scribes. Maybe they’re jealous. Maybe they wish Jesus would beg for an invitation to eat with them. Or maybe Jesus’ willingness to eat with outcasts has simply made them embarrassed and uncomfortable, because they know deep down inside that if they took their faith seriously, they’d be doing the same. In any case, the religious leaders, the faithful Pharisees and scribes, are grumbling about Jesus. And so Jesus asks them an intriguing question:

“Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’”

It’s easy, I suppose, to read this and think, “Yes, this is what a good shepherd does. A sheep gets lost and so he leaves his flock and goes after it. That’s the ‘good shepherd’ way.” Upon further reflection, however, we might question the wisdom of this particular shepherding strategy. Say you’re a shepherd and you’ve got 100 sheep. You’re in the wilderness—a place where a mountain lion could easily pick off one of your sheep if you’re not paying attention. So every couple of hours, you make a habit of counting your sheep, just to make sure they’re all there. One afternoon you’re doing the count, “96, 97, 98, 99…” and you realize that one’s gone missing.

What do you do now? Do you stay with your flock of 99? Or do you leave them alone while you search for the one? What makes good shepherding sense? Well, according to Jesus, the good shepherd leaves his 99 sheep alone in the wilderness to go and look for one that’s probably already made a nice meal for a lion or some other creature. What kind of shepherd does that?

In Jesus’ story, though, the shepherd gets lucky. He finds the lost sheep and says to his friends and neighbors, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.” And we can well imagine his friends and neighbors saying, “Gee, that’s great. Remind me not to send you into the wilderness with my sheep, because as shepherds go, you stink!”

I imagine that might be what the Scribes and Pharisees are thinking in Jesus’ presence. But of course, this is not a seminar at the annual Judean shepherding convention. This is Jesus, eating with the tax collectors and sinners, and the Scribes and Pharisees are there too, grumbling about the whole thing. “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them!”

Jesus’ teaching is not counsel on the finer points of shepherding; rather, it is a direct challenge to anybody who would attempt to pass judgment on who is “in” and who is “out.” Had Jesus not communicated in parable language here, his words to the Pharisees and scribes may well have been, “What makes you think you’re so good? What makes you think you’re the only ones God cares about? In fact, I’ll tell you what, God rejoices when these tax collectors and sinners come to me and listen! God rejoices when they show a fraction of the faith you practice…” Jesus might have said to the Pharisees and scribes, “You know, God may not be a practical thinker like you. God might be more like an impractical shepherd who’s so upset about a lost sheep that nothing can keep God from it—nothing!”

We always think of Jesus as the “Good Shepherd,” which is strange, because he’s the shepherd who will always throw conventional shepherding wisdom out the window when one of his sheep gets lost. Jesus is more like the “Crazy, Unpredictable Shepherd,” which would be a wonderful name for a church, wouldn’t it? Every town’s got a “Church of the Good Shepherd,” but wouldn’t it be fun to worship at the “Church of the Crazy, Unpredictable Shepherd”? “Where do you go to church?” “Oh, my family and I worship at the ‘Church of the Wild, Crazy, Impractical Shepherd.’” That’s the shepherding Jesus describes here—the kind of shepherding that leaves the whole flock for the sake of just one who gets lost.

Maybe here’s where we come in. Have you ever been lost? Have you ever felt lost? When’s the last time you got lost? I’d like to take a moment to invite you to think of a time in your life when you were lost…

• As a child, separated from family…
• Maybe you got lost once when you got your heart broken…
• You realized that you friends weren’t who you thought they were…
• You got some news over the phone that scared the life out of you...
• You came to realize that you weren’t really sure who you were...
• Lost in a sea of unfriendly faces…
• Lost in a sea of confusing medical reports…
• Lost without a job, without purpose, without someone or something to turn to...

It’s easy to get lost. It’s easy to wander away and find ourselves lost. Lost in the wilderness of isolation, of individualism, of consumerism, materialism, perfectionism, busy-ism… It’s easy to get lost in the wilderness of I-don’t-need-anybody and it’s equally easy to get lost in the wilderness of nobody-needs-me. We know what it means to be lost. Sometimes the whole trick in life is getting found.

Of course, we usually like to be in charge of our getting found. Especially when it comes to faith, we like to be in charge. That’s why we use this language of “finding God.” You’ve heard it before: “I found God.” “I was lost in my life, but then after searching for a while, I finally found God.” “I found God when…(I went to church, I joined a Bible study, I saw a beautiful sunset, I heard a really good sermon, I met a wonderful person…) I - I - I - I found God!”

Did you ever hear that? Did you ever say it? I know I have. It’s like we’re rewriting the parable of the lost sheep and we’re the sheep who gets lost. It goes something like this...

“The Kingdom of God is like a sheep who wanders away from the flock. He wanders and wanders until he can no longer hear his 99 sisters and brothers. After awhile, he gets really, really hungry and, to his astonishment, remembers that there may be predators lurking around nearby. ‘Wow!’ he says, ‘I need to get home!’ Relying on his innate sense of direction, the sheep aligns the stars and plots an effective course from his current position back to the flock. When he arrives, he exclaims, “I was lost, but now I have found my shepherd!”

This is the Christianity around us, friends—a faith that relies on the individual to get found—a faith that makes you the active agent of your salvation. And it makes sense. We live in a culture that encourages and rewards our resourcefulness as individuals. But here’s the gospel: you are a child of God not because you found God, but because God has found you. God is the one seeking you. God is like a crazy shepherd for you and it doesn’t matter how lost you become! God is like a wild shepherd who didn’t pay attention in shepherding school because God would sacrifice everything just for you! And there is no place in the whole wide world or in the deep depth of your soul that God won’t come looking for you.

We’ve got just a few weeks left in Lent. And I would like to offer this invitation. Instead of seeking God during that time, maybe try remembering that God is seeking you. God is looking after you, searching for you in all the lost places you find yourself. God is in the constant business of looking for you, and then finding you, and then welcoming you home. That’s who God is—the Wild, Impractical Shepherd. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Stand Up - John 5:1-18

Sermon on Sunday, February 28

When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.”

The Oscars are coming up next Sunday night. I’ve always enjoyed the Oscars, except there are years when I realize I haven’t had time to see any of the movies. This is one of those years—I’ve seen just two of the films receiving any nominations and so watching the Oscars is only sure to confirm that yes, I am currently out of touch with popular culture.

I was an extra in a movie once—nothing to write home about. It was a small, independent film, shot in the house next door to ours when we were living in Austin, Texas. That’s how I got the role, really. They needed people for a scene and so they started asking neighbors. In my six seconds of fame, I’m standing in my neighbor’s backyard, wearing a suit and pretending to laugh at a joke. No Oscar nominations for me that year, I’m sorry to say.

Sometimes I wonder about the “supporting cast” of Scripture. A large group of people, some with speaking parts, who drift in and out of these Bible stories. In most cases, we’re not told what their names are. If the Bible were a movie, the closing credits would include a long list of characters known simply as, “rich young man,” “woman with a withered hand,” “boy with five loaves and two fish.”

There are dozens of them in the gospels alone—these characters who help us understand the message and who, at times, can seem a bit one-dimensional. “The leper,” “the man with dropsy,” “the woman at the well”—they show up in the story, do their job, and go home. It’s left to us to wonder, “Who is this person, really? What is he like? Does she have a family? Dreams? Aspirations?”

The man in our story from John’s gospel this morning is “the invalid by the pool,” and he’s a little more than an “extra.” He’s got a few lines to say, and in terms of his particular condition, he might stand out a bit. Still, it’s easy for him to blend in with that large, unnamed cast of biblical characters, so I wonder if it won’t pay to wonder about him for just a little while.

Jesus goes to Jerusalem and heads over to Bethesda—to this pool which at the time was surrounded by people who were suffering from various sorts of illnesses and disabilities.
Now you need to know that this was no ordinary pool. Legend had it that from time to time, the waters were magically stirred, and when they were, at that moment an angel would appear and heal the first person who got into the water.

Jesus comes to this pool and sees among those waiting by its side, a man who’s been ill for thirty-eight years. He sees him lying there and says, “Do you want to be made well?” The man replies, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.”

Jesus commands him, “Stand up, take your mat, and walk.” And at once he is made well. He stands up, takes up his mat, and begins to walk, leaving us to wonder, perhaps, “Who was that guy? Who was he really? What was true about him?”

Once, when Sylvia was just three, we were driving in the car, and she piped up from the back seat, “Dad, I’m going to tell you something, and it’s not true, but it’s very true.” I was instantly curious, of course, ready to hear something profound coming from my daughter. She cleared her throat importantly and said, “Tweety Bird has wings and arms because she can fly and carry things.” Not true, but very true. How true.

I wonder what’s very true about our man lying beside the pool at Bethesda…

Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Bethesda, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. Bethesda was a depressing place. The architect who designed it had in mind a bright, cheerful spot where families could gather, where children could bathe, where afternoons could be spent with friends lost in conversation sitting by these beautiful pools. But the truth: Bethesda was a depressing place.

Sometimes children—on their way to or home from school—intentionally walked by the pool so they could stare at the people with strange diseases and crippled bodies. And often times adults—going about their business during the day—intentionally avoided Bethesda so they didn’t have to look at the people with strange diseases and crippled bodies.

Bethesda was a dump—literally, a dump. When a person became horribly crippled, or when a baby was born without sight, or when a family member became incurably sick, friends and family tried their hardest to support them. They really, really tried. But, you know, after a while, it got hard. And there were other mouths to feed, and the doctors couldn’t do anything, they said, and taking care of someone who required round-the-clock care became an all-consuming occupation that gradually defeated the caregiver. So people got dumped at Bethesda. Bethesda was a dump—literally, a dump.

One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. Of course, he hadn’t been at Bethesda that whole time. No, in fact, in the beginning, there was great hope for him—that he would get well. He was faithful to his doctor and he did everything that he was told to do. He was the “perfect patient”!

After a couple of years, though, it kind of became clear that he might not get better. So family and friends rallied around him. “God must have a different plan for you,” some said. Others tried to cheer him up with, “You must have gotten sick for a reason. God’s ways are mysterious, you know.” Still others said, “Maybe you did something wrong, and that’s why this happened to you.” One time somebody said (and this hurt the man a lot) “Pray hard about it, and if you have faith, God will heal you.”

“If I have faith?” he thought. “If I have faith?” What kind of crazy talk is that? All I’ve got these days is faith! My body is wearing away before my eyes and you dare to tell me “if I pray hard enough?” What do you think I’ve been doing for the past two years? “If I have faith…”

He continued to try to be the perfect patient. But gradually the man became “difficult.” It happened slowly, some said. At first, the question “How you doing?” was met with a “getting by!” But after awhile the response became, “How do you think I’m doing?” and eventually, “Oh, I’m great! Just perfect! You know, my body’s falling apart and it looks like I’m going to spend the next twenty years of my life slowly dying from this painful, torturous disease God has ‘blessed’ me with, but other than that, I’m splendid! How are you?”

People stopped asking, “How you doing?”

His family tried to keep him at home. They really did. But in the end, they couldn’t. Caring for him, dressing his bedsores, helping him go to the bathroom, trying to figure out what he could eat and keep down, cleaning up when he couldn’t keep it down… it all added up and it all took its toll. They weren’t bad people, you see. It’s just that after 16 years of it all, well, they were burnt out—more than discouraged—hopeless…

And by the time they looked for another place for him to live, their closer friends had had enough, too. For awhile they paid someone to take care of him in her home, but the money ran out, and the work was really too much for her, anyway.

They’d heard about the pool, Bethesda. At first, it sounded like a bad joke. “An angel comes and stirs the waters and then the first person to jump in gets healed? Don’t be ridiculous!” But then, as any hope for his health slipped away, it didn’t sound so bad. Finally his brother said, “Lord knows we’ve tried everything else!” The family brought him to Jerusalem. When they first saw the pool, the man exclaimed, “It must be true! Look at all the invalids here! Blind, lame, and paralyzed! They wouldn’t all be here if it weren’t true!”

His family was excited too. “Yes!” they thought, “This could work!” And with renewed vigor, they sat with him by the pool—patiently—waiting for the waters to move. The first time the waters were stirred, they hadn’t really noticed it. It was late in the day and they had been nodding off, so by the time they could stand up and look, thirty or maybe forty people had already jumped into the water to get healed. They weren’t sure that anybody was made well that time, actually. A rumor went around that a man’s arm was strengthened, but nobody was verifying it.

So they waited. And waited. And waited. And they watched that water so closely. Any movement, any ripple, any wave—the angel could come at any time! So they watched and waited. For about a year, the family waited with him. Not all of them, of course. There was still work to be done, mouths to feed. But they took turns, waiting with him by the pool.

They didn’t give up all at once. At first someone came by once a day to check on him, make sure he didn’t need anything. Then it went to a couple times a week—once a week—once or twice a month—once every once in a while… and every once in a while turned into once in a great while. Finally, they stopped coming. And then finally, after a painfully long time, he even stopped expecting them to come. So it was just him with the other invalids. He remembered one day when he was thinking about that word, “invalid.” “I know what that word means,” he thought to himself. “Invalid – in-valid – not valid.”

He smelled. He was hungry. When he wasn’t watching the pool, he was begging for food to eat. And if he wasn’t begging for food, he was begging for someone to wait with him to carry him into the water. He wouldn’t have told you this, probably, but what he really wanted was someone to wait with him. In his mind, maybe, he knew the water wasn’t going to heal him. Perhaps he knew that this whole angel-stirring-the-water-story was a pile of garbage—a hopeful pile of garbage, maybe, but nonetheless, a pile of garbage. What he really wanted was someone to wait with him—to sit with him—to talk with him—to be human with him…

When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me… Will you wait with me? Will you sit with me? Will you talk with me? Will you listen to me?!”

Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” But a story came first. A sometimes hopeful, often tragic story came first.

I may have gotten this guy’s story wrong—I know that. It might not have all happened this way. But you know what, there’s no such thing as a one-dimensional man who’s been sick for thirty-eight years and has found himself hoping in a hopeless pool of healing. There’s more to it than that. There’s always more to it.

Jesus says, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” Can you imagine what people were thinking when they heard that? This is a pool where the hopeless live! This isn’t a place for real healing! “Stand up? What, are you out of your mind?”

When Jesus tells him to stand up, he does more than heal him—he does more than make him well. He cuts through thirty-eight years of pitiful, self-loathing, downward-spiraling, debilitating sickness. Christ reaches through layers of broken relationships, defeated hopes, and broken promises, and says, “My friend, this is over! Get up!”

This is the gospel, my friends. The gospel is infinitely more than something we believe in. It is hope that the worst parts of our world—the Bethesda pools, even—can be redeemed. We—our lives—we can be redeemed, but also—our world! Our world can be redeemed.

Can’t you feel it? Sometimes it’s like our world is just sitting there by this Bethesda pool. Our whole world—given to war after war after war—unable to stop fighting. Our world—having enough food to feed everybody but somehow not doing it—having the resources to get drinking water to people who need it, but failing…

And what are we waiting for? Some miracle? Some kind of angel coming down to stir the waters and make all the bad stuff go away? Is that what we’re waiting for?

Christ comes. Christ says to us, “Stand up!” Christ says to us, “Pick up your mat!” And Christ says to us, “Walk!”

And that’s what it means to say “Yes” to God! That we stand up and say to ourselves, to God, and to our world, my life will not be defined by this hopelessness! And furthermore, I will not sit idly by while others’ lives are defined by this hopelessness! And so we are people of faith who engage in mission, where we say to others in our world—people who are hurting, people who are without homes, people who are hungry, people who have lost hope…

I will sit with you.
I will stand with you.
I will help you take up your mat.
I will walk with you.

Amen.

Led to Trust - Luke 4:1-13

Sermon on Sunday, February 21

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.

Today is our first Sunday in this season of Lent. So welcome to that—welcome into the midst of another season of reflection and listening and learning to trust. Lent always has a way of slowing us down, encouraging us all to reflect a little more, to engage life more prayerfully. Lent also runs alongside winter turning into spring. Just as we look forward to the melting of snow and the revealing of tender shoots and bulbs, Lent calls our attention forward to a celebration of resurrection.

During World War II, some European cities were bombed so heavily, there wasn’t much left of some buildings that was recognizable. Homes, shops, and cathedrals that had been standing for decades fell, leaving communities with enormous piles of rubble. But something amazing happened in the midst of that destruction. In some places where a wall might have fallen over, or where a foundation might have been blown apart, seeds had been lying in the soil, dormant for ages. And so after the war, people began to find various plants growing through the cracks in the destruction. And here’s the interesting part: some of them they’d never seen before—beautiful flowers and heirloom varieties of vegetables and herbs. (1)

I love that image of unknown seeds patiently waiting under layers of human construction. Just waiting for the right time and the right conditions—some warmth, a little rain, a crack in the rock above. It makes me wonder what seeds might be lying dormant in my own life—seeds of possibility that are just waiting for my own life to present them with a chance to grow. That’s part of life’s fun and mystery, I think. All of you—all of us—no matter how old we are and no matter how predictable we may think we’ve become, contain within us seeds of potential and promise that no one has yet considered. And when the conditions are right, they’ll grow in us and grace our lives with something new.

I say all this because it’s something of what I see happening with Jesus in our story from Luke’s gospel. At the very beginning of his ministry, life makes some demands of Jesus—perhaps some demands that he wasn’t expecting at the time.

I know that we don’t say this outright, but I think we often picture Jesus as somebody who’s always got things under control, always got his act together, and always knows what to do and what to say in any given situation. That’s pretty much how we tend to picture Jesus, isn’t it? Cool, calm, collected. We forget sometimes that Jesus was human—that Jesus really, really was human. We forget from time to time that Jesus was a real guy—that he got tired, that he might have gotten crabby, that he found some things annoying… We forget that Jesus cried—wept, even—and we forget that Jesus felt pain, feared pain.

Our story in Luke begins, “was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.” The language here is worth paying attention to. Some translations say that Jesus was “led by the Spirit.” Others suggest that he was “driven by the Spirit.” Calvin wrote that Jesus was “carried away by the Spirit.” The point is this: Jesus didn’t wake up one day and say to himself, “You know what? I think I’m going to go camping for a few weeks.” He didn’t pack, he didn’t prepare. He was led, driven, carried away. Jesus begins his public ministry as one who is not in charge, but rather as one who’s been dramatically moved by the Spirit against his will—into the wilderness. And we have to keep in mind here that “the wilderness” wasn’t a state park. “Wilderness” was a place beyond the city’s safety where one was subject to the elements and to robbers and thieves. No water, no food, no safe haven—this is where Jesus was taken.

Writer Barbara Brown Taylor’s got a great description of what “the wilderness” might look like in our own lives. “Maybe it just looked like a hospital waiting room to you,” she writes, “or the sheets on a cheap motel bed after you got kicked out of your house, or maybe it looked like the parking lot where you couldn't find your car on the day you lost your job. It may even have been a kind of desert in the middle of your own chest, where you begged for a word from God and heard nothing but the wheezing bellows of your own breath.”

Have you been to the wilderness? The wilderness of the moments after she stopped breathing. The wilderness of too much debt. The wilderness of believing—really believing—that others judge you just as harshly as you judge yourself… Have you been to the blinding wilderness of anger? And if you’ve been to the wilderness, or if you are in the wilderness, a question to consider is this: What tempts you there? How are you tempted in the wilderness of your own life?

The gospel writers understood the devil as the source of temptation. You may or may not think of the devil as literally as they did, and that’s fine. Our problem usually isn’t that we don’t know what to believe about the devil. Our problem is that regardless of our theology, we often fail to take temptation seriously. We often fail to acknowledge and grapple with the powerful, seductive forces of temptation in our lives. So I’ll ask it again: What tempts you in the wilderness?

Are you tempted to believe you can do it all alone? Are you tempted to think you’ve got all the answers? Or are you tempted to believe that life will never be as good as it once was?

See, understanding temptation isn’t always easy. Maybe if the devil himself were the one doing the tempting, we might stand a chance, but so often we’re the ones creating those subtle undercurrents of temptation in our own lives.

Are you tempted to say nothing—because if they knew you, they wouldn’t love you? Are you tempted not to try, because somewhere along the line, a fear of failure took a hold of your life? Are you tempted to expect less of yourself, because it’s easier that way? Are you tempted to trust less, because that way you won’t be disappointed? Are you tempted to never cry again, to never let your guard down?

Temptation isn’t always obvious. But sometimes it is. Are you tempted to keep drinking? Are you tempted to cheat? Are you tempted to lie or steal? Are you tempted to finally blow up? Are you tempted to think too much of yourself? Or are you tempted to doubt yourself? Are you tempted to believe that your worth can be measured by the things you’ve done right? Are you tempted to believe that your lack of worth can be measured by the things you’ve done wrong?

Writer and humorist Sam Levenson once said, “Lead us not into temptation. Just tell us where it is; we'll find it.” That’s true, I think. We have a way of finding temptations in our lives—temptations to exaggerate our worst fears and to give credence to our baser instincts.

Here’s the good news. And it’s strange news, too, but it’s good news. Jesus was tempted. And maybe that’s hard for us to believe. Maybe we want to think that somehow Jesus couldn’t have known what it’s really like to lose hope, to fear, to be tempted to give up. But Jesus was tempted. If Jesus wasn’t tempted, then what are we to say? That Jesus looked human, but really it was all a façade? That in reality, Jesus was just God parading around the countryside pretending to feel pain, pretending to struggle with life, pretending to fear?

The Lenten season draws us more deeply into an understanding of incarnation—that in Jesus Christ, God was really human, and that it wasn’t an act. Jesus’ temptation was real temptation. Jesus’ tears were real tears. Jesus’ “if it is possible, let this cup pass from me,” was real fear of death by crucifixion. This is good news because it reminds us that in Jesus Christ, God entered into the true depth of human existence, which can be a nightmare.

One more thing about the wilderness. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like being lost too much. The novelty of being lost wears off quickly for me, especially when I’m late. Now that I’ve got my iPhone, of course, I’ve got instant access to a global positioning system that will tell me where I am on the map at any time. I like that. And it’s not that I like the prospect of never having to stop to ask for directions. I like the security of knowing that I can’t get lost with this device at my side!

Sometimes in this life, though, we get so lost—lost among the temptations we face to believe the lies we tell ourselves—lost among temptations to trust less, believe less, expect less… We get lost in the wildernesses of this world where no gadget can save us—where we’ve got nothing going for us except, perhaps, to trust God.

And the biggest temptation we face, I think, is the temptation to trust ourselves and ourselves alone. When you stop and think about it, this is where most temptations end up—a trust in one’s self at the expense of trust in others. Trusting yourself to stay in control. Trusting yourself to always be right. Trusting yourself to know your limits. Trusting you and you alone to get yourself out of this mess. Now there’s nothing wrong with a good, healthy dose of self-confidence. But when your confidence prevents you from expanding your circle of trust to include others—to include God, you’re in trouble.

The way out of temptation is not avoidance. The way out of temptation is trust.

Shannon, a single mom, lost her job when her kids were four and nine. Work had been steady, but not steady enough, so there wasn’t much in the bank. Rent, groceries, doctor visits, clothes for school. Something had to give, finally. She had family but they were far away, so she and her kids stayed with a friend on the pull-out sofa. “The hardest thing wasn’t making myself believe that I could make it,” she said. “The hardest thing was realizing that I couldn’t make it alone.”

Trust—real trust—is scary because in trusting, we place our lives in another’s hands, sometimes entirely. And friends, we are always tempted to not do that—to keep our lives in our own hands. But this Lenten season, in whatever wilderness you find yourself, could you be led to trust?

(1) I'm grateful to my good friend Allen Brimer, who shared this image of post-WWII seeds during a call to worship back in our seminary days. It was during Lent when he shared this, and seldom has a call to worship enlivened my sense of place and purpose more.

On Faith and Evolution - Genesis 1:1-8

Sermon on February 14, 2010

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.


A little girl asked her mother, “How did the human race appear?” The mother answered, “God made a beautiful garden called Eden. God put two people in this garden, Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve had lots of children and they had children and that’s where people came from.”

Two days later the girl asked her father the same question. The father answered, “Many years ago there were monkeys from which the human race evolved.”

The confused girl returned to her mother and said, “Mom, how is it possible that you told me the human race was created by God, and Dad said they developed from monkeys?” The mother answered, “Well, dear, it is very simple. I told you about my side of the family and your father told you about his.”


Part of what we’re celebrating in church today is “Evolution Sunday”—a chance, really, to think faithfully and critically about faith and science, and to wonder a little about how it all fits together. Of course, today is also our congregation’s “Anniversary Sunday”—a chance to stop and reflect on what 171 years of ministry means, and perhaps to wonder about 171 more. Today is also Valentine’s Day, tomorrow is Presidents Day, and Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, thus beginning the season of Lent. You may be wondering this morning, “With Valentines, Presidents, Lent, and our church’s anniversary, did Ben really need to go dig up yet another thing to think about this morning?” Truth be told, I’m not going to say anything about Valentines or Presidents today, and I’m going to leave Lent for next week. But I think it’s entirely appropriate that today, on the anniversary of our congregation’s life, we think about issues of faith and evolution—science and religion. What better way to celebrate the rich, thoughtful, and engaging history of faith and learning at First Presbyterian Church!

I’d like to take a quick moment to explain that “Evolution Sunday” is not a day that I just made up for the sake of a sermon title. Evolution Sunday is a Sunday that coincides with the birthday of Charles Darwin, and it provides an opportunity for people of faith to raise questions about faith and science in the context of worship and Christian education. That’s what we’re doing today.

Churches around the country began holding Evolution Sunday services when, in 2004, a school board in Grantsburg, Wisconsin passed a series of anti-evolution policies. Of course, school boards around the country had already done similar things, and so I’m not too sure why it was that Grantsburg provided the impetus for what followed. I do know that at the beginning, a couple hundred clergy from around the state of Wisconsin signed a letter to the school board in Grantsburg. I won’t read the entire letter to you now, but here are a few pieces of it:

“While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook… Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts. We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator… We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.”

It started with 200 clergy in Wisconsin, and today that list has grown to over 12,400 signatures—all pastors, preachers, and professional Christian educators adding their “yes” to this statement about faith and science.

Not everyone sees it that way, of course. We all have different ways of thinking through these issues. For some, faith falls apart in light of what science teaches, and for others, science fails to convince in light of what the Bible says.

A zookeeper came across an orangutan reading two books. One was the Bible; the other was Darwin’s Origin of Species. “Why are you reading such opposite books?” the zookeeper asked. The orangutan replied, “Well, I’m trying to figure out if I’m supposed to be my brother’s keeper or my keeper’s brother.”

That’s sort of where some folks fall—an understanding of faith and science as opposites, and a belief that, like the orangutan, we need to choose one or the other. So, which is it? Or where do we start? Part of the problem, in my mind, is that we’ve got too many people running around with Bibles trying to disprove scientific discoveries, and at least a few others running around with science books trying to disprove faith. Another part of the problem is that all too often, faith is strictly filtered through the lens of scientific discovery or science is strictly filtered through the lens of biblical teaching.

That being said, there’s also a temptation to say, simply, “Let’s let faith be faith, and let’s let science be science,” and to then never let the two comingle. But then can a Christian take science seriously without dismissing his faith? Can a scientist be a disciple of Jesus Christ without leaving her scientific brain at the door?

Our Scripture reading today from Genesis goes back to the beginning. “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters…”

For some, this is the beginning of all the science they need about Creation. I’ve seen a bumper sticker that says, “The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it.” Theories and prospects of a “Big Bang” and any evolutionary designs that might have followed are apparently not worth considering. The problem, though, with this literal, simplistic reading of Genesis is that it misses something beautiful about what its author was attempting to say. Take the phrase, for example, “a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” For our Jewish faith ancestors, the “wind from God” was God’s Spirit, moving over the waters. Water itself represented chaos, disorder. So the image of Genesis 1:2 is an image of God’s Spirit, hovering over this gigantic churn of chaos and shining a light on it. “Let there be light,” God says, and so we’re given this image of a Divine spark, brining sense and order to Creation.

Is this significant because it says how it happened? Is it true because it gives a literal account of what things really looked like on Creation’s first day? Is this really all the science we need? Or, could it be that what we have here in these first two verses of Genesis really has nothing whatsoever to do with science and everything to do with how we understand the loving nature of God? God—never far from the chaos of life—hovering over it, actually, shining a light on those places in our world and in our lives where the chaos seems overwhelming—calling that light “good.”

The first chapter of Genesis is not a science textbook. It’s poetry. It’s a hymn that may actually have been sung when it was first written—a song of God’s faithfulness to Creation. The second verse goes like this: And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.”

Now all this talk of domes and waters might seem confusing. But imagine a person a few thousand years ago standing on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. He looks out at the water. What color is it? It’s blue. He looks up at the sky and what color is it? It’s blue. And what is it that occasionally falls from the sky? Water! What might he naturally conclude about the makeup of the sky? There’s water up there! Another giant sea hovering high above us!

If there’s any science in Genesis, it’s a basic, observational science that concludes that beyond this dome above us called “Sky” there lies yet another chaotic churn of water. And guess what? Now that we’ve flown through our atmosphere, we know that that understanding of the Sky is scientifically wrong. But Genesis is not about science—it’s a poetic love song to God, the Creator. And the author says in Genesis, “Thank you. Thank you, God, for creating this dome in the midst of these waters so that we might have life and breath.”

The purpose of Genesis is not to scientifically explain it all. The purpose of Genesis is to express awe and wonder at the sight of it all.

A creationist would disagree. A creationist would find a way to argue that in spite of everything I’ve said, Genesis 1:1-2 really gives an accurate scientific, historical account of the first two twenty-four hour days of creation. A creationist might also argue that Intelligent Design be taught in public schools as a science, in spite of the fact that there are no peer-reviewed scientific journals publishing empirical data supporting intelligent design. None.

But a creationist would argue that the universe must have a source—that we human beings couldn’t possibly have evolved from primates. Of course, there are a number of problems with this, one of them being that Darwin’s theory of evolution has absolutely nothing to do with the source of creation—it merely explains how it is that various species have come to look like what they look like today.

More conversation about this to come. As I preach today, I have the distinct advantage of knowing that Dave Higgs and I are about to begin a three-week Christian education series on faith and science, beginning today. That frees me to not try and say everything in the context of this particular sermon!

But for now I will say this. I believe that our best faithful minds and our best scientific minds operate in a similar direction. Both attempt to give voice to mysteries of creation and life. Both instill a true reverence for the way things are—for the sky, for fingerprints, and for the fact that our minds are advanced enough to even have this conversation. Both faith and science call us to wonder, to ask questions, and to marvel at universe around us.

Kenneth Miller has written a book, Finding Darwin’s God. In it he writes: “Even as we use experimental science and mathematical logic to reveal the laws and structure of the physical universe, a series of important questions will always remain, including the sources of those laws and the reason for there being a universe in the first place.”

One day a group of scientists got together and decided that humanity had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell God that they were done with Him. The scientist walked up to God and said, “God, we’ve decided that we no longer need you. We’re to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don’t you just go on and mind your own business?” God listened very patiently and kindly to the man. After the scientist was done talking, God said, “Very well, how about this? Let’s say we have a man-making contest.” To which the scientist replied, “Okay, we can handle that!” “But,” God added, “we’re going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam.” The scientist said, “Sure, no problem” and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt. God looked at him and said, “No, no, no. You go get your own dirt.”

May our best faithful and scientific minds lead us to wonder more and more about God at the source of it all. Amen.

Called, Sent - Isaiah 6:1-8

Sermon on Sunday, February 7

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple...

I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”


I want to share three phrases with you today. Just three phrases. The first is, “In the year that King Uzziah died.”

Nobody names their kid “Uzziah” anymore. I don’t know that I’ve ever met an “Uzziah.” But the name, “Uzziah” means, “The LORD is my strength.” And our story from the book of Isaiah begins, “In the year that King Uzziah died…”

If you look elsewhere in the Old Testament, you can find bits and pieces about Uzziah’s reign as king. He took the throne when he was just sixteen years old and ruled until he was in his late sixties. For fifty-some years, Uzziah—“The LORD is my strength”—ruled over Judah. In the books of Kings and Chronicles, it is said of Uzziah that he was faithful to God, bringing prosperity to the land.

Uzziah was a famous king. Throughout the region, to the border of Egypt, his name was known and revered. In Jerusalem, Uzziah built fortified towers and raised a massive, powerful army. According to the book of Second Chronicles, “the whole number of the heads of ancestral houses of mighty warriors was two thousand six hundred. Under their command was an army of three hundred and seven thousand five hundred, who could make war with mighty power, to help the king against the enemy. Uzziah provided for all the army the shields, spears, helmets, coats of mail, bows, and stones for slinging.”

Uzziah was powerful and organized. He ruled Judah with vision and with authority. For most of Uzziah’s reign as king, his name was synonymous with prosperity and prestige. But then, as the story unfolds, Uzziah’s reign did not end well. In his strength he became prideful, says the writer of Chronicles, and his pride became his downfall. His crime? He attempted to elevate his status to that of high priest. Apparently, the power of kingship wasn’t enough for Uzziah, and so he barged into the temple and assumed the role both king and priest. As the story goes, he was immediately struck with leprosy for defying God’s will in this way.

For his last ten years as king, Uzziah was shut away in a separate house, shunned from any real power. His son, Jotham, ran the kingdom in his place. Finally, Uzziah withered away and died, and because of his leprosy, was buried alone—not with the former kings of Judah. It was sort of a pathetic end to a once mighty and prosperous kingship.

Our story today begins, “In the year that King Uzziah died…” But I’d like to rephrase that. “In the year that King Uzziah died” means, “In the year that ‘The LORD is my strength’ died…”

The year King Uzziah died: the year we questioned the LORD’s strength...
The year we wondered if our best days were long gone,
The year we wondered if we’d been blessed or just lucky,
The year King Uzziah’s earthly power and fame finally shriveled to nothing,
The year we had to accept that even the best of us could fall so low…

History has a way of forcing moments like these upon us—moments when we question God’s presence, when we question all that we thought we knew about our strength and sense of security. Isaiah chapter six begins with the people of God wondering, “What now, God? What next?” And perhaps it should evoke in us all those times and places when we simply could not see a way forward.

The year King Uzziah died: the year we questioned the LORD’s strength...
The year the economy dropped out from under us,
The year he lost the job,
The year we lost the house,
The year she got sick,
The year the marriage finally fell apart…

The year we questioned the LORD’s strength...
The year the earth shook,
The year a hurricane took our city away,
The year the towers fell,
The year we lost faith,
The year we questioned everything…

It’s not so often that I spend so much time on just seven words, but the phrase, “In the year that King Uzziah died” is loaded. More than a simple historical marker, it says something of the human condition—that from time to time we find ourselves questioning God, questioning ourselves, questioning our future… and that so often life itself gets carried away to the point where we’re not sure who’s in control anymore, if anyone.

In the book of Isaiah, it is in the midst of this anxiety and uncertainty that a new prophet is born. It is in the context of turmoil and fear and doubt that God’s voice is heard again and in a new way. This brings us to our second phrase: “The hem of God’s robe filled the temple.”

In our story, Isaiah is not a prophet yet. But he’s in the temple and he sees God “sitting on the throne, high and lofty.” It’s a pretty fantastic scene, with six-winged seraphs flying around and singing and smoke rising up everywhere. It’s a vision of God on a massive scale—so massive, in fact, that just the hem of God’s robe fills the temple.

Some interesting things about this description of God. If you wanted to read it all literally, you might say, “Well, that settles it—God must wear a robe—a really, really big robe! With a big, big hem.”

Or we might say instead that nothing in this world can contain God. God is always bigger than the temple, bigger than the church, bigger than our understanding. Our words can’t contain God, our beliefs can’t contain God… even our religion can’t contain God—nothing can! God cannot be contained! God is God, and perhaps the visions we have of God are but fragments of a much, much larger whole.

“In the year that King Uzziah died,” Isaiah saw the Lord sitting on the throne, high and lofty, and “the hem of his robe filled the temple.” In other words: In the year everything fell apart and we began to question everything, we saw God and God was bigger than all we could see.

The third phrase is a question: “Whom shall I send?” In light of the first two phrases, I marvel at these four words: “Whom shall I send?” The world is falling apart—Uzziah, “The Lord is my Strength,” has died. But still, God is still God—a God so big, even the hem of God’s robe fills the room. And yet, God’s question for humanity is not what we would expect it to be. God does not say, “How can I help now that your king is dead?” or “What can I do to restore your faith?” Instead, God’s question is, “Whom shall I send?”

We’d often love to have a Superman God—a God who swoops in when the going get rough—a God who makes everything ok. So often we’d love to have a God who makes it easy to believe, easy to trust, easy to not worry about the things that fall apart in this world. But God doesn’t ask, “How can I make everything ok?” Instead God asks, “Whom shall I send? Whom shall I send?”

This is the nature of God. God—bigger than our understanding, always bigger than our imagining. But not a “Superman God”—rather, a God who is always asking, “Who will go for me? Who will speak for me? Who will move with my Spirit and love with my love?” Even when the world seems to be falling apart, crumbling in the midst of war and poverty and brokenness, God is whispering into the ears of would-be prophets like you and me: “Whom shall I send? Whom shall I send? Whom shall I send?”

The faithful response, then, is not to understand it all, or even to know the way forward. The faithful response is to daily summon the will to say, “Here am I. Send me.”

Come Alive - this week's E-votional

Every week I try to send out an "e-votional" to folks at the church. Sometimes it's just a little quote or a poem; sometimes it's something of my own making - a thought or two, a prayer... This week's e-votional features a quote by Howard Thurman that I like a lot:

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Isn’t that a powerful thought? I think so. So many needs around us, and often we’re tempted to meet them all. A question to consider, though, is “What makes me come alive?” And perhaps our answers to that question really do lead us to the places where we’re most needed.

Leaning towards this Sunday, I'm preparing to preach on that text from Isaiah 6: "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" "Here am I; send me!" At this point, I don't know if Thurman's quote will make it in the sermon or not, but I'm wondering more and more about a "coming alive" that goes along with saying "yes" to God's call in our lives. We'll see. Blessings until then!

It's About Love - I Corinthians 13:1-13

Sermon on January 31, 2010

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

If you’ve ever been to a Christian wedding, you’ve probably heard I Corinthians 13 read aloud. Whenever I’m doing premarital counseling with a couple and it comes time to plan the actual service and think about which scriptures they’d like to have read at their wedding, I share with them a list of passages that they might want to consider. I Corinthians 13, of course, is on the list, and when we get to it, I’ll often hear one of them say something like, “Oh, no. We can’t do I Corinthians. Everybody uses I Corinthians at their wedding. We’ve got to find something different.”

Once, in my very first premarital counseling session with a couple, we were just getting started—still weeks away from planning the service—when the bride told me, “Well, before we get going, just so you know, we are not using I Corinthians 13 at our wedding.” “Really?” I asked. “How come?” “All my friends have used it, and quite frankly, I’m tired of hearing it.” But then she asked, “Is there another good ‘love passage’ in the Bible?”

I guess a couple of things are going on here. First, more and more, couples are feeling some strange pressure to be “different” in their wedding—as if somehow entering the covenant of marriage and binding your soul to that of another person needs to “stand out” any more than it already does. But also, this general criticism of I Corinthians 13 suggests that it has been overdone. In a way, it’s sort of become the “Kum ba yah” of biblical passages, the song that’s been played way too many times—so many times, in fact, that it’s begun to lose its meaning.

Or perhaps I Corinthians 13 simply smacks of too much Hallmark greeting card sentimentality—so much so that “Love is patient; love is kind…” has become like “Roses are red; violets are blue…” overused to the point of becoming useless. Of course, the truth is that I Corinthians 13 is a powerful biblical text. There’s a good reason so many couples have chosen to have it read at their weddings. It presents such powerful, compelling language about love—language that sets love apart, I think, from its many references in pop culture and on Valentines Day cards.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

If you’re sitting there and your sense that I Corinthians 13 is overdone still prevents you from considering it much further, let me invite you to do a little exercise. Start with verse four and read through verse seven, and instead of reading the word “love,” substitute your own name. Instead of reading, “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude,” read to yourself, “____ is patient; ____ is kind; ____ is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. ____ does not insist on his own way; ___ is not irritable or resentful; ___ does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. ___ bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

To what extent do I embody “love”? Makes for an interesting self-inventory, doesn’t it? And we realize that “love” here isn’t simply an emotion; rather, Paul thinks of love as a “way.” He writes, “I will show you a still more excellent way.” Love—not a feeling, but a way, a practice, a life that we lead. And as Paul describes it, the way of love can be described both by what it is and by what it isn’t. “Love is patient… love is not envious…”

It’s kind of like the aspiring wood carver who was really trying to whittle a basic project—a little figure of a dog. He was making a mess of it and failing. So he went to his teacher with his knife and his rough block of wood and said, “I give up. How do you do this? What is the secret of carving?” The teacher looked at him and said, “Well it’s easy, really. You just take this piece of wood and cut off everything that doesn’t look like a dog.”

What happens when you cut everything else away in your life? What are you left with in the end? Is it something that resembles love? Is it a dog? Think about the rough block of wood of your own life. And imagine whittling it down to its essential substance. Chip off those outer layers, the stuff that really doesn’t look like you, and what are you left with?

Sometimes you can get to the core of it all and not like what you see. When that icon of baseball, Mickey Mantle, was dying of liver cancer, he was asked what advice he would give young people who still looked up to him. Mickey Mantle—an amazing athlete, an all-star on the field, but one whose recklessness and debauchery off the field gave him a reputation. He looked at the camera and said simply, “Don’t be like me.”

And the end of it all, when you see your life for what it is, will it look like love? Love is, at the end of it all, what it’s about. Love is the heart of our faith.

When I was in Austin, I was doing campus ministry near the University of Texas. One of the years I was there, the Dalai Lama was touring the United States, and he came to the UT campus and spoke in the Erwin Center—the basketball arena where the Longhorns play. The students at the church and I jumped at the chance to attend—to hear from one of the world’s religious leaders. And so we packed in with thousands of other young people that evening to hear from this little man in an orange robe with glasses.

He spoke for a while about the practice of faith and about peace, and near the end of his talk, he invited students from the audience to ask him questions. A young man near the front of the arena came to a microphone and asked simply, “What advice would you give to us college students who are about to go out into the world.”

The Dalai Lama was silent for a moment. My own seat was up high—in the nose bleed section—but I could almost sense the crowd leaning forward, ready to take in whatever this man said to them. And then he spoke. He said, “Be kind to each other.” That was it. Next question, please.

At first, I thought, “Really? Be kind to each other? We’ve got the Dalai Lama here and that’s it?” I guess I was expecting something a little more, oh, I don’t know… revolutionary? But then the students and I talked about that response during our walk back to the church, and we realized something: if we truly took kindness seriously, it would be a revolution. If everyone in the world was simply and deeply committed to kindness, we’d have a wonderful revolution on our hands!

And then we began to wonder about things that Jesus said that, on the surface, seemed perhaps a little too simplistic—things that, if we took them seriously, would revolutionize the way we lived our lives. “Love your neighbor as yourself” was one of them.

And we could have added to the list Paul’s words: “Faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” Love is the greatest. It’s about love—our faith is about love. I’ve said this before here, and I’ll say it again: this is what the gospel is all about—that in Jesus Christ, God loves us. Through Jesus Christ, God says to us, “You can betray me, you can deny me, and you can doubt me, but I will still love you. You can even put me to death—even death on a cross—but you cannot destroy my love for you.”

“You can do everything right in the world or you can do everything wrong. You can run to me and you can run away from me. You can choose to love me back, or not,” says God, “but nothing will ever change the fact that I love you. You can love me, love the world, and love yourself, and you can hate me, hate the world, and hate yourself, but nothing you ever do or fail to do will change my love for you.” This is God’s love—a love for us to embrace and practice in our own lives and in our world.

Have you ever heard of the phrase, “six degrees of separation”? Supposedly, every person in the world is connected to every other person in the world through six people. So, for example, I have a friend from high school who used to go out with a guy who used to date the singer Jewel, who, in turn, probably knows at least one person who knows Kevin Bacon, and so forth… If you think of everyone that you know in your life and then were to branch out to everyone that they know, and then branch out even further, with only six steps you would likely reach every person on the planet.

The question to ask, then, is an exciting one: What power could your love have in this world? Beginning with you and moving out, what power could it have? In light of the world’s problems, we tend to think of ourselves as immeasurably small, but the truth is this: love can change the whole world and it begins right here.

Evotional - To Be of Use

One of my favorite poems of all time is “To Be of Use” by Marge Piercy. As Haiti’s earthquake has snapped us to attention and begged us to consider what we might do to alleviate the suffering of others in our world, these words have come to mind again for me. May they bless you with an earnest curiosity about your own work, whatever it may be: serving, caring, leading, teaching, building, healing, listening, parenting, grandparenting…


“To Be of Use”
by Marge Piercy

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who stand in the line and haul in their places,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

Body Language - I Corinthians 12:12-31

Sermon on January 24, 2010

If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.


I was a teenager in the 1980’s. For youth and young adults today, I realize that makes me something of a curiosity. But it’s true—I came of age during the era of acid-washed jeans, MTV, parachute pants, and mullets. My generation was the last to move through high school without the internet and without email and without cell phones. It’s sort of strange today to think of life without those things, but somehow we survived.

I bring this up because there’s an episode of the 80’s that I’d like to share with you. Some of you will remember this—that in 1986, there was a movement in the United States called “Hands Across America.” Basically, the idea was that millions of people would come together for fifteen minutes, holding hands in a line that stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Everyone would pay $10 to participate and that money would be donated to local charities that fought hunger and homelessness.

I guess in 1986, this seemed like a pretty good idea. Sunday afternoon, May 25, more than five million people lined up across the country and held hands. The line stretched 4,152 miles from New York City to Long Beach, California. And had that line been absolutely straight, it would have indeed been an unbroken chain all the way. But in order to get more people involved, the organizers had the line snaking its way from one major US city to another. So moving eastward from New York, the chain only made it to Maryland before it suffered a large gap; apparently the folks in Baltimore didn’t want to hold hands. The line continued through the country, mostly intact (five million people is a lot of people), but it suffered significant gaps here and there, especially in the Arizona desert, where the longest breaks in the chain occurred. Some die-hards flocked to the desert, though, and formed mile-long chains here and there. In the end, the event turned out to be, “Hands Mostly Across America.”

Not a complete loss, though – the event raised close to $20 million for soup kitchens and homeless shelters across the United States. Not bad for a day’s work. Of course, the event was expensive to promote and to run. Before it could even take place, corporate sponsorships totaling close to $30 million had to be raised to cover costs. So yes—the math: Corporations like Coca-Cola and Citibank doled out $30 million to run an event that, in the end, raised $20 million.

But, we could argue, that $20 million was really put to good use, and what about the symbolic significance of everybody holding hands across the country? What about the hope, the love, the promise that such an event could instill? What about the fact that on May 25, 1986 at 3:00 p.m. Easter Standard Time, five million folks across America, including Jazzercisers, Hell’s Angels, Hopi and Navajo Indians, 500 little leaguers at Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Stadium, numerous celebrities, and President Ronald Reagan held hands together and sang “We Are the World,” “America the Beautiful,” and the Hands Across America theme song? (Yes, there really was a Hands Across America theme song – part of the $30 million price tag, I guess) All those people holding hands, connected and singing sappy 80’s pop music (which by the way, wasn’t called “sappy 80’s pop music”—it was just called “music.”) Isn’t there something wonderful about that single act of solidarity?

And you could say “Yes”—that Hands Across America, despite its shortcomings, provided a symbol of unity and hope for a nation struggling to address issues of global hunger and poverty. So, yes, Hands Across America was a nice gesture.

But if events like “Hands Across America” teach us anything, it’s this: that true unity is awfully hard to organize and even more difficult to maintain. Furthermore, I would argue that when we engage in an activity that focuses our attention and our efforts on issues of poverty in our world, we are apt to more fully understand that poverty in our world is overwhelming. And in the true face of poverty, our symbolic acts of unity often fail to deliver long-term results.

It’s relatively easy to hold hands and claim for a moment that “Yes. We are the world. We are one human family.” It’s much more difficult to shape our lives in ways that authentically resonate with the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., whose quote I included in our bulletin this morning: “I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured.”

Dr. King echoes those words of the apostle Paul, who wrote in his letter to the Corinthians, “In the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body… If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.”

There’s a word for that. Ubuntu. Go ahead and say it: “Ubuntu.” “Ubuntu” is a word from the Bantu languages of southern Africa, and it means, “I am because you are.” “Ubuntu—I am because you are.” Go ahead and take a quick second and say to the people next to you or around you, “Ubuntu.”

I am because you are. If you suffer, I suffer with you. If you are honored, I rejoice with you. I am because you are. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. Ubuntu. I am because you are. Ubuntu—more, much more than fifteen minutes holding hands. Much more than a photo opportunity. Ubuntu is a way of life that acknowledges the truth of our connectedness!

A nice image for us striving to live in a spirit of Ubuntu is the aspen tree. Did you know that out in Colorado and Utah, an aspen forest is usually just one tree? That’s the way aspens grow. The root system is all connected. You can take a genetic sample from the leaf of one aspen and then walk a mile or so and take another from another tree, and you’ll find that it’s all really one tree—connected underground.

What would happen if we human begins began to understand ourselves that way? What would happen to our sense of connection as a church? What would happen to our view of the world around us?

I’d like to talk again about the earthquake in Haiti. Those pictures online and on TV are still so vivid in our minds and we continue to express concern and care for folks living in Port au Prince. On Friday night, a bunch of singers and celebrities came together to raise money for Haiti, and I guess the danger might be that this becomes another “Hands Across America Moment”—a strong show of unity and support followed by a gradual fading away as other news stories take center stage and capture our attention.

Haiti, like the gulf coast after Hurricane Katrina, is going to need serious, long-term care. And so we might wonder what will sustain that kind of commitment. And here’s the truth. It won’t be our good intentions. Feelings of sadness and sympathy will not sustain the kind of loving humanitarian outreach that will be needed in Haiti over the next decade or so. But you know what will? Ubuntu. A conviction that what Paul said was true—that if one member suffers, all suffer together with it. That’s what will sustain outreach to Haiti—an unswerving commitment to the fact that our very identity is wrapped up in the identity of the people of Haiti.

This, by the way, is what really makes a difference in our world—our recognition of ourselves in each other. Scripture’s teaching—Christ’s teaching—that you love your neighbor as yourself is an Ubuntu teaching—a call for you to see yourself in the face of another.

You’ve all experienced this, I know. Many of you here have lost loved ones. Your life’s great grief has been the loss of a parent or a spouse or a child. And you’ve said it: “When he died, a part of me died with him.” “When she died, a part of me died too.” And that’s not just a figure of speech—it’s true. It’s true because in our loving relationships, our identities bleed together and it’s hard, if not impossible, to understand ourselves apart from the other.

Think about what the world would be like if we all shared that sense of “self” and “other”—if we could all truly see ourselves in the faces of others. This is a big part of what being a church family is all about. Because it’s here in this family of faith that you and I practice Ubuntu. It’s here that we recognize each other as sister and brother in the same body of Christ. And it’s here that we experience the truth that when one of us suffers, we all suffer with that one. And when one of us rejoices, we all find cause for rejoicing.

The challenge and joy of being a church family is expanding our sense of Ubuntu to include an ever-widening pool of family members. Our outreach, then, to folks who are homeless and hungry, to our neighborhood and to the city of Racine, and to places like Haiti grows not from our desire to be charitable; rather, it flows from our conviction that we are one body.

I’m going to give you an assignment today. And that assignment is this: practice Ubuntu with somebody this week. Practice I am because you are with somebody! Maybe it’ll be with someone you know and maybe it’ll be a total stranger. Someone at work, a girl serving coffee, somebody on the street… Imagine that the two of you are part of a much larger body. See yourself reflected in the face of another, and then see what that reflection enables you to say, to do, and to believe. Amen.

Enough - Exodus 23:4-13

Sermon on January 17, 2010

You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

Every Sunday morning I check the news. It’s part of a pre-worship routine that I do each week. I get up early, put on a pot of coffee, and then check in briefly with cnn.com. The thought is that something may have happened during the night—a death, a disaster, a conflict, some catastrophe—something may have happened during the night that has effectively rendered my prepared sermon irrelevant.

My plan has always been that I could write a new sermon—or at least change the one I’ve got—to address the situation, to comfort the congregation if need be, and to begin to develop a response that grows out of our Christian faith.

The earthquake hit Haiti on Tuesday, so we’ve all had five days to ask “Why?” Five days to sift through pictures and news articles and to begin to face the true magnitude of the situation there in Port au Prince. And despite the extra time to think and prepare, I must say that in some ways I’m at a loss for words. Like many of you who are also glued to the news, I’m stunned by the horror of it all. So you and I and the whole world are scrambling to respond to Haiti—scrambling to respond not only with humanitarian aid, but also with words to even describe what has happened there.

I’ve watched more television than I usually do these days, and at one point, I heard a reporter, in reference to the post-earthquake devastation, say, “The tragedy here is one of biblical proportion.” Did you happen to catch that? I sat there on the couch and thought, “Thank you, random reporter, for that riveting theological assessment.” But I must confess it left me wondering.

What is biblical proportion? I was never very good at math, and I’m not even particularly good at reading recipes. So understanding proportions to begin with has always been a bit of a challenge for me. But biblical proportion? Supposedly it refers to something that happens on an enormous scale—so huge, in fact, that it could only be possible in the Bible.

And, proportionally speaking, when it comes to mass crises, the Bible has more than its fair share. A giant flood being the first, but moving into the stories from Exodus, we find a few more. The Hebrew people forced into slavery in Egypt. Pharaoh issues an order to kill infant Hebrew boys. And then in the following chapters, plagues: thunder and hail, water turning to blood, flies and gnats, disease, darkness, death. Tragic events of biblical proportion.

However, I’d like to suggest this morning that there are other biblical proportions worth paying attention to. We’re not going to hear about these on the 10 o’clock news, and that’s fine. But I do believe that they’re some of the best biblical proportions the Bible has to offer:

The first is 5,000 to 5 and 2: the feeding of five thousand people with five loaves and two fish. That's a biblical proportion.

The second is 99 to 1: the shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine sheep in search of the one that is lost. That's a biblical proportion.

The first will be last and the last will be first. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. These are true biblical proportions!

According to the laws of this world, they don’t always make sense, and certainly according to laws of scarcity, fear, and competition, they never make sense. But these are biblical proportions. And they beg this question of our nation and our world: will history measure our response to Haiti’s earthquake in biblical proportions? Will the outpouring of aid and efforts to heal and revitalize Haiti reflect loving biblical proportions?

Pondering those questions, we turn to this morning’s passage from the book of Exodus, where the voice of God is understood through Moses. God is giving Moses these lists of commandments, and tucked in there among them all is this one: “You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt.” Perhaps this command blends in with those around it, but you know, it’s interesting. In the entire Old Testament, there is one commandment to love your neighbor and no less than thirty-six commandments to love the stranger. And there’s a reason for that. After all, the people of Israel knew what being a stranger felt like. As slaves in Egypt and then later during Babylonian exile, the Israelites understood what it meant to be strangers in a strange land. Consequently, one of the foundational building blocks of our faith tradition is a commandment to make sure that the stranger has enough.

This is God’s heart in the book of Exodus! Remember that when the Israelites are wandering in the wilderness, they are strangers, and God provides manna for them to eat. And the thing about that manna is that it’s everywhere! So it’s distributed equally to everyone—everyone gathers as much as he or she needs. And because there is enough manna to go around, there is no market for surplus manna. Because it is so plentiful, it’s impossible for an enterprising person to try to corner the market and drive up the price with artificial shortages.

You can’t be poor when there’s manna on the ground, and when there’s manna on the ground, it doesn’t pay to be rich, because everyone simply has enough.

We haven’t yet seen this kind of manna in Haiti. Simply getting the resources there and where they’re needed has been difficult. But many Americans and folks from all over the world are mobilizing.

Here in Racine and in this church, we ask ourselves, “What can we do?” Did you know that Port au Prince, Haiti is closer to Racine than San Francisco or Seattle? It’s strange—watching the news, it’s easy to think that Haiti is such a far-distant place, but it’s in our yard. So perhaps it helps greatly to remember that when we reach out with love and care to the people of Haiti, we echo the commitments of our faith ancestors who could not be stopped from loving the strangers in their midst!

In a moment I’m going to ask Tim Lafond, our chair of finance and stewardship, to share a few words about our own congregation’s response to the situation in Haiti. Before I do, though, I’ll share some bad news and some good news. The bad news is that there are many hurting, displaced people in Haiti who are waiting for help. The good news is that there is enough—the world has enough food and water and resources to heal and rebuild Haiti (and a few other places where the human family is struggling!).

Tomorrow we celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. And so as we prepare for our offering, I’ll close with my favorite King quote. This comes from an address he gave at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. just four days before his assassination. I think these words can and should fuel our own response to suffering in Haiti and in our world.

"Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood [or sisterhood]. But somehow, and in some way, we have got to do this. We must all learn to live together as brothers [and sisters] or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured."

(From "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution," delivered by Martin Luther King at the National Cathedral, Washington, D.C., on 31 March 1968.)

Amen.

To contribute to relief efforts in Haiti through Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, go to their web page and click "Give $"

Thinking of Haiti

Along with you, I've been reacting to news from Haiti with such shock and sadness. In the coming days, no doubt, we'll learn more about the devastation there and hopefully we'll get a better sense of how we might be helpful in efforts to rebuild. For now, I want to share two links with you. The first is the link for Presbyterian Disaster Assistance PDA is an extremely efficient and helpful organization in situations like these, and I'm confident that the financial resources we funnel through them will be put to good use.

The second link is to an organization to which First Presbyterian Church, Racine is connected. Linda and Joe Markee, Julie Markee's parents, sit on the board of The Haiti Foundation of Hope. While this organization serves communities in more rural, northern parts of Haiti, their work and ministry is no doubt impacted by the recent earthquake. Joe and Linda will be coming to First Presbyterian Church this spring to give a presentation on their work. It will be good in the coming weeks to learn from them more about how we as a congregation might be able to respond.

When Heaven was Opened - Luke 3:15-22

Sermon on January 10, 2010

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Dayton Edmonds, a United Methodist missionary, tells this tale about a poor man who had a vision in his dream. And his dream was of a heavenly city where everything was perfect. Growing very weary of his living, he decided to go in search of his heavenly city of his dreams. So he gathered what few belongings he had and started on his journey. He walked. All day long he walked. And as he walked, he had but one thought: the heavenly city of his dreams—how perfect it was going to be when he arrived. All day long he walked with this one thought, and then it was evening time. He had not yet come to the heavenly city of his dreams. So he decided to make camp right where he was. He took out a crust of bread, gave thanks to God, and ate it. And then, just before he went to sleep, he took off his shoes and he put them in the path, facing them in the direction that he would continue his journey the next day. And, then, the poor man went to sleep.

Little did he know that in the middle of the night, a trickster came along, picked up his shoes and turned them around, facing them back in the direction from which he had come. Early the next morning, the poor man awoke. Taking out his crust of bread, he once again gave thanks to God, and ate it, and then he walked to the path, and he slipped on his shoes. And he began to walk in the direction that his shoes were facing. All day long he walked, and as he walked, he had but one thought: the heavenly city of his dreams and how perfect it was going to be when he arrived. He walked until it was almost evening.

He looked off in the distance and he saw it! The heavenly city of his dreams! It wasn't as large as he thought it was going to be, and it looked strangely familiar. The poor man walked until he found a strangely familiar street, and he turned down the strangely familiar street, and he walked until he found a strangely familiar house. And he knocked on the door, and when the door was opened, he was greeted by a strangely familiar family. The poor man went inside and lived happily ever after in the heavenly city of his dreams.

Sometimes a new perspective leads to a new life—a new sense of place and purpose—and perhaps even a living conviction that Heaven itself isn’t so far away. Racine, Wisconsin, or maybe Burlington—the Heavenly city of our dreams! On some days, maybe.

And yet I tend to be suspicious of theologies and explanations that lean toward an understanding of Heaven being simply a matter of perspective. There are those who claim that in a very real sense, Heaven is not a place—not a destination, but rather a state of mind—a way of embracing the present and experiencing God each day. My hesitation with that line of thinking comes from the fact that for so many in this world, daily life is an absolute struggle to survive. While some may be able to find Heaven in the day-to-day, there are simply those for whom life is a living Hell. And it’s hard for me to imagine myself saying to a man suffering from severe bouts of depression, or to a woman in an abusive situation, or to an orphan in a war-torn country, “Don’t worry. Heaven is here—it’s just a matter of your perspective!”

I doubt very much that I could stand by that explanation of Heaven. And yet… And yet we have these gospel stories where again and again and again we hear John the Baptist and then Jesus saying things like, “The kingdom of Heaven is near!” “Repent! Believe! For the kingdom of Heaven is near!”

Coming right out of Christmas, we have these stories about Heaven’s nearness fresh in our minds. An angel appears to Mary and later an angel appears to Joseph. A heavenly host of angels appears to the shepherds living in the field! These are just the first gospel stories where the boundary between Heaven and earth seems amazingly thin.

And then throughout his teaching, Jesus paints a picture of Heaven that is anything but far-distant. “The kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed…” “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with flour…” “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure in a field…”

At one point, in fact, in Luke’s gospel, the Pharisees ask Jesus when the kingdom of God is coming and Jesus responds, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.”

For Jesus the boundary between Heaven and earth is thin—perhaps even nonexistent. In today’s story from Luke’s gospel, we find Jesus by the River Jordan. It always feels strange to me that every year we go from baby Jesus to big Jesus all in one week. But here we are—and Jesus the adult is being baptized and we see something of Heaven’s nearness.

Luke paints a complicated picture for us here. Clearly a movement is getting off of the ground. The people are “filled with expectation”—excited about John and excited about the coming Messiah. We can imagine that they’re showing up at the Jordan in droves to be baptized. At the same time, Herod doesn’t like what he’s seeing. Crowds like this today could spell “uprising” tomorrow, and so for the sake of Rome’s control in the region, he puts John in prison. And so the world that sees Jesus’ baptism isn’t much different from the world that received his birth: violent, unstable, corrupt.

And the amazing thing is that it’s in the very presence of a violent, unstable, and corrupt world that the heavens are opened. “Now when all the people were baptized,” Luke writes, “and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove.”

I wonder what that looked like. I wonder what that felt like. I wonder if people standing there looked up and said to each other, “Well, would you look at that? The heaven is opening up. I’ll be darned.” Or perhaps whatever happened in that moment was really too wonderful to describe. That’s probably true, isn’t it? Whatever descriptions we think we have of Heaven—they all probably fall wonderfully short of capturing it all.

One thing we do know from reading the gospels, however, is that there is something of Heaven’s nearness that is worth paying attention to. Beginning with Jesus’ birth and baptism and unfolding through the gospel stories, the boundary between Heaven and earth seems so paper-thin. The kingdom of Heaven—the kingdom of God, Jesus says over and over again, is closer than you think.

The question we might bring to that observation, though, is “So what? So what if Heaven is really nearby?” Well, for one thing, if the kingdom of Heaven is really nearby, we just might find ourselves living a little more expectantly—eager to catch a glimpse of Heaven here or there—in a relationship, in a moment of joy or wonder, in the intricate uniqueness of a snowflake clinging to the windowpane…

But also, if the kingdom of Heaven is really nearby, we just might challenge ourselves to shape the world around us in its heavenly form! We know the truth, and the truth is that there are places in this world where Heaven must feel like a far-distant fairy tale. And yet Jesus calls us to pray, “Thy kingdom come, they will be done,” and so we become God’s agents of heavenly nearness! Perhaps God is calling you to be one who opens the heavens to a certain place in this world.

That may be an interesting way to sum up the Christian life—recognizing the kingdom of Heaven when it appears and creating the kingdom of Heaven when it is most needed.

My prayer this morning is that in the coming days and weeks, Jesus might come to you like a trickster, pointing your shoes in a new, heavenward direction when you least expect it—helping you find your way to the kingdom of Heaven—helping you share the news that yes, the kingdom of Heaven is near! Amen.

Putting Away the Decorations

We just finished putting the Christmas decorations away at our house. Before they're completely gone from sight, however, I thought I'd share these pics with you. A wonderful couple in the church gave Sylvia this lovely manger set for Christmas, and as you can see, she enjoyed playing with it. Here's what it looked like when she first set it up.


This was before Christmas, so of course, Jesus hadn't arrived yet.


Then Jasmine, Cinderella, Ariel and Mulan came to be with Mary and Joseph.


Jesus is born in a pile of gold tokens! Another princess on the scene, plus a Polly Pocket hiding behind the shepherd. And Sylvia's new headlamp - the Bethlehem star or another gift for Jesus?


The final scene, complete with new Polly Pockets, a Littlest Pet Shop cat, and a purple hedgehog. Not sure about the meaning of the barrettes up top, either, but they managed to stay through a few weeks of changes.

Sylvia's six now, and she's working out a theology. She told me this morning that she didn't think Adam and Eve could have been the first people because God had to be first. She said this with a delightful expression on her face and then laughed uproariously at the thought that things could be any different. It's been fun to watch her begin to work it all out along with the rest of us.

This year's manger scene with its ever-changing cast of characters hits me with a message of God's immediate presence in our lives. God's coming in Jesus wasn't simply a long-ago event. Rather it is but one expression of a daily reality - that God truly is with us - Pollies, pets, and princesses - all of us. What a playful reminder!

Evotional - Laughing Breath

Merry Eighth Day of Christmas to you all. Today I'm adding my final Christmas Evotional of the year - a poem by Thom M. Shuman. May these words bring out the very best in you as you continue to reflect on Christ’s birth, and may God's laughing breath give you life in 2010!


if you came in the spring,
we could expect newness,
bright yellow flowers
to soften your path,
the songs of birds
to herald your coming.

but you came in
winter's despair;
the chill of complacency
settled upon us.

if you came in summer
we could expect you
to be bronzed,
blonde,
stepping from the sea;

but you came
in a stable,
a wrinkled baby
with animals your midwives,
and angels your playmates.

help us to set down
our parcels of expectations
to reach down and scoop
you up in our arms,
your laughing breath
giving us life.
Amen.

- Thom M. Shuman