Sermon on August 22, 2010
He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well.
For those of us who spend a weekend every spring slipping seeds into the soil, but whose thumbs are anything but green, there is perhaps something hopeful about today’s Scripture lesson. For those of us lately who have faced the prospect of being carried off by mosquitoes as we attempt to pick a few tomatoes and zucchinis from our gardens, and especially for those of us who, at this point in the summer, consider just giving our gardens up to the weeds, that there’s something encouraging in today’s parable. “Let the weeds and the wheat grow together until the harvest!” Finally some gardening advice I can live with, even if my petunias can’t.
You see the weeds in my garden have come to think of themselves as Ben’s primary crop. Many of them are second and third generation now at least, and these weed families regard the flats of marigolds I import as unwanted intruders to be surrounded and cut off from circulation. At the rate they’re growing these days, my weeds must have decided that my feeble attempts to pull them are actually part of my pruning program, a regimen I employ every month or so to help them come in stronger and more lustfully than before. So I appreciate the master’s advice—leave those weeds alone! Worry about them later! Let them grow! Strange advice, I know, but when you come to think about it, the entire thirteenth chapter of Matthew’s gospel reads like a bizarre issue of Better Homes and Gardens.
There’s a sower sowing seeds in the good soil, but also on the path, the rocky ground, and among thorns. Then there’s the mustard seed section with the tiniest seed becoming an enormous tree. And finally we have Jesus’ gardening corner where we find out that the weeds are to remain where they’re planted.
Perhaps we’re simply reminded here of something we found out in Genesis: God likes gardens. Even, apparently, problematic ones—even gardens where watering the wheat means watering the weeds as well. And by the way, we’re not just talking about any weeds here. The ancient plant Matthew refers to is called darnel. It is a weed that, as a seedling, looks a lot like wheat. And as darnel grows its roots entangle the wheat around it and these two plants become so intertwined that pulling up one will undoubtedly uproot the other. Making matters worse, darnel is poisonous.
The servants receive their master’s orders: “Let both of them grow together until the harvest.” And so all through the season they can only watch as these plants grow side by side, tangled together. Wheat and weeds.
This story is mindful of another that I first heard from Peter Gomes, a celebrated preacher and theologian. The setting was the World’s Fair during the late 19th Century. Russia arrived with a curious exhibition entitled “World Peace.” Front and center in the display was a large cage containing a wolf and a lamb, hopefully bearing witness to that prophetic vision in which the wolf and lamb lie peaceably together in the kingdom of God. Such a striking exhibit drew large crowds and finally prompted someone to ask the curator, “How do you do it?” The curator replied, “Oh, it is really very simple. We replace the lamb every morning.”
Wolves and lambs… In theory it was a good idea. In practice the pursuit of “world peace” seems to use up more lambs than wolves.
Weeds and wheat… In theory they’re to await the harvest together. In practice they do, but we know what happens. The weeds choke out the wheat. War threatens peace. Violence shatters trust. Ignorance belittles understanding. Intolerance decays community.
Intensity has grown around the decision of whether or not to build an Islamic community center and mosque near Ground Zero in New York City. A recent poll suggests that close to 68 percent of Americans object to the project. My sense has been that the weeds of mistrust and fear in this nation have been choking out the seedling of a possibility that this Islamic center could represent our country’s very best response to terrorism. It would send a message to the world that here in the United States, we refuse to be bullied and to allow a few violent extremists to cloud our judgment when it comes to the Muslim world. Moreover, I would love to be a fly on the wall in the cave when Osama Bin Laden found out that America celebrated the presence of an Islamic center in the very heart of the city he tried to destroy. But that won’t happen, I’m afraid. Those who have demonized Muslims are choking out other possibilities here. The weeds choke out the wheat.
So what are we to make of this parable where wheat and weeds live side by side at the master gardener’s insistence? Matthew provides an explanation. With the crowds gone, Jesus meets with the disciples and deciphers his parable. The sower is the Son of Man, the field is the world, the good seeds are the children of the kingdom, the weeds are the children of the evil one, the enemy is the devil, the harvest is the end, and the reapers are the angels. There you have it folks!
Personally I read this and I can’t help but think that telling the truth about a parable is sort of like telling the truth about Santa Claus. Truth may be true, but some things get lost in the explanation. And sooner or later we realize that the deepest currents of truth in our lives are ones we cannot tame.
Which puts us back in the garden, the untamed garden of our own lives. With that in mind, I’d like to make an invitation. I’d like to invite you to think of your life right now as a garden. Pretend it’s spring, and you’re the gardener standing there before the soil, and you’ve got seeds in your pockets—all kinds of seeds.
When you are kind to someone, you plant a seed—a seed of kindness. When you are patient with someone who requires patience, you plant a seed—a seed of compassion. When you encourage someone, you plant a seed of strength. When you cry with someone, you plant a seed of mercy. When you forgive someone, you plant a seed of grace.
We’ve all got these seeds, filling up our pockets—good seeds that need planting—seeds of hope and peace and light and love… And with every good thought and every good act, and with every purposeful move we make in the love of Christ, we drop another seed to the ground.
But here’s the problem. Sometimes we’re good farmers, and sometimes we’re not. Sometimes we’re the evil ones in our own gardens. And when we hurt someone, we plant a seed of unkindness. When we’re quick to point out what’s wrong, we plant seeds of despair. When we gossip, we plant seeds of separation. When we refuse to love others, we plant seeds of mistrust. When we refuse to love ourselves, we plant seeds of insecurity.
Sometimes we plant these bad seeds intentionally. A lot of times they just fall out. And so the gardens of our lives fill up with good crops and with weeds. Just like in the parable, it all grows together.
Now it’s easy in this life to get overwhelmed with the weeds. It’s easy to look at a field of thistles and just forget about planting anything new. It’s easy to read about poverty and violence and unemployment here in Racine and elsewhere and throw up our hands. But the kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field. And it doesn’t matter how many weeds there are out there—you and I are called to do something with the good seeds we’ve been given. So our task as Christians? Keep planting!
Are the weeds overwhelming? Keep planting. Is someone telling you it won’t make a difference? It will. Keep planting. Are you afraid you’ll run out of good seeds? You won’t. Keep planting. Keep planting, especially where you find weeds of hatred and greed. Work that soil and keep planting.
Think once again about your life as a garden. And I want you to bring to mind all those weedy spots in that garden—the broken relationships, the apologies that were never given, the trust that was broken, the words that have been left unsaid, the work that’s left undone, the anxiety that keeps you up at night… Picture the weeds in your garden, and then picture yourself walking right into the midst of those weeds and dropping some good seeds. Here and there, seeds of hope and possibility, willful seeds of love and grace.
Jesus said that “the kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field,” and in God’s untamed garden, those good seeds will bear much fruit. Amen.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Monday, August 16, 2010
"The Abundance You Bring" John 6:1-14
Sermon on Sunday, August 15, 2010
One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.”
All four gospel writers tell a story about Jesus feeding massive numbers of people with just a few loaves of bread. In each version, we’re told that a large crowd was following him—that there were five thousand in all, but that this may have just been the men—that in fact, with women and children counted, there could have been more than ten thousand. Just following Jesus around the countryside.
Ten thousand… Don’t these people have anything better to do? Really, ten thousand! I mean, come on—nobody can hear Jesus, can they? The disciples aren’t carting around a portable PA system, so how many there could actually hear Jesus at one time—a few hundred at best? And for at least nine thousand of those people, not only is Jesus inaudible, but he’s also impossible to see. There’s no jumbo-tron so the folks in the back can catch a glimpse of what’s going on.
I’m trying to get a sense of what it was like to be a crowd of ten thousand people trekking through fields and mountainsides—following Jesus around, but maybe never really hearing him, maybe just barely seeing him a couple of times. And so again I’ll ask the question: Didn’t these people have anything better to do? Maybe not.
And while we’re at it, don’t you find it odd that none of them brought anything to eat? Just what were they thinking? Imagine for a moment gathering your family together to go wander around with Jesus in the countryside. You’ve got sandals on, the kids, the baby… Out the door you go for God knows how long with nothing to eat? If my wife, Karla, had been in that crowd, it would have been her child who had the five loaves of bread and the two fish because we don’t go anywhere without snacks for kids. Wallets, cell phones, toys, directions—all these things can be forgotten, but the Johnston-Krase family does not climb into the mini-van without a few boxes of raisins and some animal crackers! What about these ten thousand? No food? No snacks? Nothing?
The natural assumption to make is that the crowds who followed Jesus in the wilderness where there because Jesus’ message was so compelling—so powerful, so hopeful—that they couldn’t be kept away. We can wonder, though, if perhaps their presence may have been a sign of the times—that in actuality, the people in those crowds really didn’t have anything better to do. It had been decades—almost a hundred years—since the Roman Empire had invaded that region. No one in the crowd with Jesus could remember a day without Roman soldiers keeping an eye on things. No one knew how a Galilean economy might flourish if it weren’t for their resources being siphoned off and sent back to Rome.
A nation can only live under an oppressive foreign occupation for so long before it starts to show, and you’ve got five thousand unemployed men with no better option than to wander out into the countryside after a traveling preacher—ten thousand total, wandering around with no plans for food, no plans for tonight’s shelter… Jesus looked out at those thousands of people, and he must have seen more than hunger. He must have seen the aftereffects of political greed and distorted human power. Nation sees fit to conquer nation, and this is what’s left: hundreds upon hundreds of people with no food and no better place to go.
We have our own signs of the times today. Empires still conquering. The gap between rich and poor widens. Families throughout the world and here in Racine struggling to break cycles of poverty—unemployment, crime, substance abuse, hunger, homelessness… Environmental disasters, oil in the Gulf, pollution, global warming…
Somewhere along the line, we’re all taught that we need to do our part to help the world, but somewhere along the line, we get completely overwhelmed with it all. We look out at the thousands of issues and problems and needs in our world and wonder, “Where do I begin? How do I start? And will this even make a difference?” Add to that the fact that today more than ever, our society is so overscheduled and over-stimulated… We have so many choices to make and so many places to be at one time. It’s hard to emerge from it all with enough energy and time to tackle much of anything new.
So, friends, I’d like to create an image for us today—an image of what it might look like for you and me to follow Jesus today. (At this point in the sermon, I invited a young boy from the congregation, Meyer, to come forward. He was carrying a basket with five loaves of bread in it.) Thank you, Meyer. If you could just stand here for a few minutes, that would be great. Friends, would you like to change the world? Here’s what it looks like. Would you like to reshape the reality around you? This is what it looks like.
Now you know me well enough by now to know that I tend not to be too “formulaic” in my preaching. That being said, I’d like for us to reflect on our gospel message today and create a formula for what it means to be faithful in our lives. Ready? Here it goes. I’ve got three steps for you.
Step One: Show up in a place of need. That’s the first thing that the boy did in the story. He was there in the crowd—he showed up. You can’t do anything about anything if you don’t show up. You know this. You can’t be a good dad if you’re not home. You can’t be a good employee if you’re not at work. You can’t be a good athlete if you don’t come to practice. You’ve got to show up.
Maybe you’ve had an experience like this before. I was twenty-five when my mother was sick and when she died. At that time, a lot of people said a lot of things to me, but do you know what I remember? I remember who showed up. I don’t remember what they said. I don’t remember what they wrote in their cards. I don’t remember who sent flowers and fruit baskets. What I remember most is that they showed up. So much of being faithful to God and to others is simply showing up.
So Step One? Show up. Show up in a place of need. Don’t worry about what you’re going to do when you get there just yet. Too often we get stuck trying to figure out how we’re going to solve a problem when we haven’t even shown up yet. So just show up first. Show up in a place where there’s hunger. Show up in a place where people are dealing with homelessness. Show up where people are in need of comfort. Just show up! Be in the midst of it—whatever it is.
Step Two: Present what you have. That’s the second thing that the boy did in John’s gospel story. He presented what he had: five loaves and two fish. Notice that he didn’t present anything he didn’t have. He didn’t invite everyone to a seminar on how to survive in the wild without food. Meanwhile, he also didn’t offer a plan for overthrowing the Roman Empire. Instead, he simply presented what he had.
You have something. What is it? What do you have to offer? It could be something simple. In fact, it might not look like anything at all… at first. Think about the five loaves and the two fish that the boy had. In light of ten thousand hungry people, it was practically nothing. So friends, don’t think about what will be enough, or what’s needed. THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU HAVE.
This relates to the conversation the leadership of this church has been having lately, asking, “How has God uniquely gifted me to serve the Church at this time?” What do we have? Step Two is present what you have. Your gift. Your interest. Your passion. Even your willingness to see something through. Present what you have.
Step Three: This one’s going to be the hardest for us, I think. I know that this one is the hardest for me. Trust Jesus. Show up. Present what you have. And then trust Jesus. The boy showed up. He was there. And he presented what he had. He handed over his bread and his fish—a gracious act, by the way, since he wasn’t sure how much of that food he and his family would get back. And then something happened. Jesus took over and multiplied the food.
I think that the reason we get overwhelmed and stuck when we try to solve problems in our world is because we expect too much of ourselves and not enough from God. And when we don’t expect enough from God, we measure our potential solely on the basis of our own skill. We forget that we worship a God who multiplies our gifts, multiplies our talents, multiplies our efforts.
I read this story recently. A young boy was taking piano lessons. As a treat, his mother took him to hear a concert pianist. As they made their way to their seats, the boy spotted the piano on stage and slipped away from his Mom. The mother sat down and was horrified to see her son sitting at the Steinway grand piano on stage. The crowd laughed nervously as he began to play “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” When the boy realized there was a huge crowd listening to him he became nervous and started missing notes.
At that moment, the concert pianist entered the stage. He whispered in the boy’s ear, “Keep playing. We will play together.” He reached over and began playing running harmonies on either side of the boy’s one fingered Twinkle Twinkle. Everyone, including the boy, was entranced, and at the end of the song, they leapt to their feet with applause.
Friends, on our own, what we have is never enough to do it all. But we are never alone! In some form or fashion, Jesus will always play alongside of us. When we trust Jesus with that which we have, we realize that we’ve brought an abundance to the table!
The problems in our world today are different than the once that faced our faith ancestors. Poverty, though, is still poverty. Hunger is still hunger. Hopelessness is still hopelessness. So in the days ahead, may we act with strength and with courage.
Show up.
Present what you have.
Trust Jesus.
With God actively multiplying our gifts, we do bring an abundance to the world!
Amen.
One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.”
All four gospel writers tell a story about Jesus feeding massive numbers of people with just a few loaves of bread. In each version, we’re told that a large crowd was following him—that there were five thousand in all, but that this may have just been the men—that in fact, with women and children counted, there could have been more than ten thousand. Just following Jesus around the countryside.
Ten thousand… Don’t these people have anything better to do? Really, ten thousand! I mean, come on—nobody can hear Jesus, can they? The disciples aren’t carting around a portable PA system, so how many there could actually hear Jesus at one time—a few hundred at best? And for at least nine thousand of those people, not only is Jesus inaudible, but he’s also impossible to see. There’s no jumbo-tron so the folks in the back can catch a glimpse of what’s going on.
I’m trying to get a sense of what it was like to be a crowd of ten thousand people trekking through fields and mountainsides—following Jesus around, but maybe never really hearing him, maybe just barely seeing him a couple of times. And so again I’ll ask the question: Didn’t these people have anything better to do? Maybe not.
And while we’re at it, don’t you find it odd that none of them brought anything to eat? Just what were they thinking? Imagine for a moment gathering your family together to go wander around with Jesus in the countryside. You’ve got sandals on, the kids, the baby… Out the door you go for God knows how long with nothing to eat? If my wife, Karla, had been in that crowd, it would have been her child who had the five loaves of bread and the two fish because we don’t go anywhere without snacks for kids. Wallets, cell phones, toys, directions—all these things can be forgotten, but the Johnston-Krase family does not climb into the mini-van without a few boxes of raisins and some animal crackers! What about these ten thousand? No food? No snacks? Nothing?
The natural assumption to make is that the crowds who followed Jesus in the wilderness where there because Jesus’ message was so compelling—so powerful, so hopeful—that they couldn’t be kept away. We can wonder, though, if perhaps their presence may have been a sign of the times—that in actuality, the people in those crowds really didn’t have anything better to do. It had been decades—almost a hundred years—since the Roman Empire had invaded that region. No one in the crowd with Jesus could remember a day without Roman soldiers keeping an eye on things. No one knew how a Galilean economy might flourish if it weren’t for their resources being siphoned off and sent back to Rome.
A nation can only live under an oppressive foreign occupation for so long before it starts to show, and you’ve got five thousand unemployed men with no better option than to wander out into the countryside after a traveling preacher—ten thousand total, wandering around with no plans for food, no plans for tonight’s shelter… Jesus looked out at those thousands of people, and he must have seen more than hunger. He must have seen the aftereffects of political greed and distorted human power. Nation sees fit to conquer nation, and this is what’s left: hundreds upon hundreds of people with no food and no better place to go.
We have our own signs of the times today. Empires still conquering. The gap between rich and poor widens. Families throughout the world and here in Racine struggling to break cycles of poverty—unemployment, crime, substance abuse, hunger, homelessness… Environmental disasters, oil in the Gulf, pollution, global warming…
Somewhere along the line, we’re all taught that we need to do our part to help the world, but somewhere along the line, we get completely overwhelmed with it all. We look out at the thousands of issues and problems and needs in our world and wonder, “Where do I begin? How do I start? And will this even make a difference?” Add to that the fact that today more than ever, our society is so overscheduled and over-stimulated… We have so many choices to make and so many places to be at one time. It’s hard to emerge from it all with enough energy and time to tackle much of anything new.
So, friends, I’d like to create an image for us today—an image of what it might look like for you and me to follow Jesus today. (At this point in the sermon, I invited a young boy from the congregation, Meyer, to come forward. He was carrying a basket with five loaves of bread in it.) Thank you, Meyer. If you could just stand here for a few minutes, that would be great. Friends, would you like to change the world? Here’s what it looks like. Would you like to reshape the reality around you? This is what it looks like.
Now you know me well enough by now to know that I tend not to be too “formulaic” in my preaching. That being said, I’d like for us to reflect on our gospel message today and create a formula for what it means to be faithful in our lives. Ready? Here it goes. I’ve got three steps for you.
Step One: Show up in a place of need. That’s the first thing that the boy did in the story. He was there in the crowd—he showed up. You can’t do anything about anything if you don’t show up. You know this. You can’t be a good dad if you’re not home. You can’t be a good employee if you’re not at work. You can’t be a good athlete if you don’t come to practice. You’ve got to show up.
Maybe you’ve had an experience like this before. I was twenty-five when my mother was sick and when she died. At that time, a lot of people said a lot of things to me, but do you know what I remember? I remember who showed up. I don’t remember what they said. I don’t remember what they wrote in their cards. I don’t remember who sent flowers and fruit baskets. What I remember most is that they showed up. So much of being faithful to God and to others is simply showing up.
So Step One? Show up. Show up in a place of need. Don’t worry about what you’re going to do when you get there just yet. Too often we get stuck trying to figure out how we’re going to solve a problem when we haven’t even shown up yet. So just show up first. Show up in a place where there’s hunger. Show up in a place where people are dealing with homelessness. Show up where people are in need of comfort. Just show up! Be in the midst of it—whatever it is.
Step Two: Present what you have. That’s the second thing that the boy did in John’s gospel story. He presented what he had: five loaves and two fish. Notice that he didn’t present anything he didn’t have. He didn’t invite everyone to a seminar on how to survive in the wild without food. Meanwhile, he also didn’t offer a plan for overthrowing the Roman Empire. Instead, he simply presented what he had.
You have something. What is it? What do you have to offer? It could be something simple. In fact, it might not look like anything at all… at first. Think about the five loaves and the two fish that the boy had. In light of ten thousand hungry people, it was practically nothing. So friends, don’t think about what will be enough, or what’s needed. THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU HAVE.
This relates to the conversation the leadership of this church has been having lately, asking, “How has God uniquely gifted me to serve the Church at this time?” What do we have? Step Two is present what you have. Your gift. Your interest. Your passion. Even your willingness to see something through. Present what you have.
Step Three: This one’s going to be the hardest for us, I think. I know that this one is the hardest for me. Trust Jesus. Show up. Present what you have. And then trust Jesus. The boy showed up. He was there. And he presented what he had. He handed over his bread and his fish—a gracious act, by the way, since he wasn’t sure how much of that food he and his family would get back. And then something happened. Jesus took over and multiplied the food.
I think that the reason we get overwhelmed and stuck when we try to solve problems in our world is because we expect too much of ourselves and not enough from God. And when we don’t expect enough from God, we measure our potential solely on the basis of our own skill. We forget that we worship a God who multiplies our gifts, multiplies our talents, multiplies our efforts.
I read this story recently. A young boy was taking piano lessons. As a treat, his mother took him to hear a concert pianist. As they made their way to their seats, the boy spotted the piano on stage and slipped away from his Mom. The mother sat down and was horrified to see her son sitting at the Steinway grand piano on stage. The crowd laughed nervously as he began to play “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” When the boy realized there was a huge crowd listening to him he became nervous and started missing notes.
At that moment, the concert pianist entered the stage. He whispered in the boy’s ear, “Keep playing. We will play together.” He reached over and began playing running harmonies on either side of the boy’s one fingered Twinkle Twinkle. Everyone, including the boy, was entranced, and at the end of the song, they leapt to their feet with applause.
Friends, on our own, what we have is never enough to do it all. But we are never alone! In some form or fashion, Jesus will always play alongside of us. When we trust Jesus with that which we have, we realize that we’ve brought an abundance to the table!
The problems in our world today are different than the once that faced our faith ancestors. Poverty, though, is still poverty. Hunger is still hunger. Hopelessness is still hopelessness. So in the days ahead, may we act with strength and with courage.
Show up.
Present what you have.
Trust Jesus.
With God actively multiplying our gifts, we do bring an abundance to the world!
Amen.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
"Caught Between Miracles" - Luke 5:1-11
Jesus got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch."
Did you know that Jesus has a facebook page? It’s true. For those of you who aren’t familiar with facebook, it’s a sort of personalized spot on the internet where folks like you and I (and apparently Jesus) can post thoughts, information about ourselves, photos, blogs, and random links to Youtube videos…
Apparently jesus.com, jesus.org, and jesus.net were all taken by religious groups, so Jesus found himself on facebook. He used to be on myspace.com, but nobody uses myspace anymore, and so neither does Jesus. His profile is perhaps what you would expect. His interests include do-it-yourself carpentry and mass catering. According to his profile, he’s single, a Sagittarius, and in a relationship. He doesn’t want kids, and uses facebook to look for friends and to network.
And just when you think that Jesus having a facebook page is just silly, listen to some of the things that some of his 89,024 facebook friends have written: (these are facebook users who’ve officially declared themselves “fans” of Jesus)
Thank you! you amaze me everyday! I am so in love with you! You always make it turn out right, even when it feels so wrong! you fix me, and you complete me.
Thank you Lord for the blessings that you have given us. Please forgive us of our sins.
I love you. Please guide me in the right direction.
Jesus i love you, you are amazing thank you for everything... love ur close friend tanisha. ♥
jesus
when i say your name
it's like a party in my mouth
thank you jesus thank you
Long time no talk
Everywhere Jesus goes, he draws a crowd, Even on facebook.
We’ve got a crowd in Luke’s gospel this morning. According to the fourth chapter of Luke, Jesus has been teaching in synagogues throughout the countryside, and if his teaching’s been anything like it was in his hometown, he’s been making people pretty mad. If you remember that scene you’ll recall that when Jesus did a teaching in the Temple back in Nazareth, he so infuriated the clergy-types that they chased him out of town and tried to throw him off a cliff, which is not a good way to start a career in public speaking. That was at the beginning of Luke’s fourth chapter, a chapter that ends with this sentence: “So Jesus continued proclaiming the message in the synagogues of Judea.”
It’s sort of interesting to think of Jesus’ ministry as one that involves getting kicked out of a list of gradually more prestigious religious institutions. From Nazareth to Jerusalem that’s basically what happens. The negative publicity, however, seems to be working in Jesus’ favor, and the crowds can’t stay away.
Jesus is standing by the lake and they’re doing what crowds do. Lots of people are just there. Some need to get healed. Others are curious about what this guy said to make their pastor so mad. And, of course, a crowd draws a crowd and we’ve got a nice little sea of humanity by the Sea of Galilee.
It’s a beautiful picture, really, to paint in your mind’s eye. Loads and loads of people doing what people do at the lake! Men, women, and children, gathering with friends, seeing what all this fuss is about, talking. Some are fishing and some are just washing clothes. Nobody thought about childcare, so there’s a bunch of kids doing what kids do when they’re at the lake: swimming, splashing, running, throwing rocks in the water. If you can, take a moment to let yourself hear the sounds of this wonderful human mass gathered by the lake.
Jesus shows up, and probably gradually at first, but then with increasing fervor, the crowd presses in on him to hear the word of God. And Jesus begins with a miracle. Maybe it’s a hidden miracle, actually. On the surface it’s nothing, really—nothing like healing somebody or walking on water. But it’s a miracle or sorts.
What does he do? First, he sees these boats sitting there on the shore. Then he gets into one of them, Simon’s boat, and asks him to put out in the water a ways. You could say he’s just being creative—trying to find a way that everybody on shore can see him and hear him. But then Jesus does this little miracle: he sits down.
Now I know what you might be thinking: “He ‘sits down.’ That’s it? Well, I guess every little thing Jesus does is a miracle, then? Oh, look! Jesus sat down! It’s a miracle! Oh, look, Jesus stood up again! Another miracle! But according to Jewish custom, one stood to read scripture, but sat down to teach.
Now we could say, “Well, maybe we shouldn’t read into this too much. Maybe it’s really no big deal that Jesus sat down in the boat. After all, aren’t you supposed to sit down in a boat?” But sometimes the little details are worth our attention. In Luke chapter four, when Jesus teaches in the synagogue, the author makes a point of saying that Jesus “sat down” to teach. And here by the lake in chapter five, he does it again: Jesus “sat down and taught.” If Jesus’ act of sitting down were really insignificant, we could argue that Luke wouldn’t have included it at all.
But he does. “Jesus got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat…”
Jesus sat down in the boat. And then what happened? What incredible thing happened next? What’s the hidden miracle? Can you see it? Jesus created a synagogue by the lakeshore! In an instant—in the time it takes to sit down—Jesus said to the entire crowd that was gathered there, “Welcome to this holy place!” And suddenly the people—women, men, and children—some of whom under normal circumstances, were not welcome in synagogue, found themselves in a sacred space. Prostitutes, people with leprosy, women and men who were considered “unclean” for various reasons—they were all there. And suddenly, the best seats in the synagogue did not belong to the religious leaders, the wealthy, or the powerful. They belonged to women washing clothes and children splashing in the water.
Holy space—synagogue, temple, church, sanctuary—was redefined! And the crowd found itself caught in a holy moment!
I don’t know if that’s ever happened to you. I suspect it has. It’s probably true that for lots of us, while our most overtly religious moments happen in a building much like the one we’re in right now, many of our most sacred, holy moments pop up in other sanctuaries: rivers and gardens, seasides and lakeshores, pieces of poetry and wonderful novels and music... Often these are the holy places that give birth to our sense of God’s direction in our lives.
That’s a little bit of what happened at the lake with Jesus and the crowd. Suddenly, and without warning, women, men, and children found themselves in a new place—a synagogue of sorts.
There’s another more obvious miracle in this story: the giant catch of fish. Jesus tells Simon to take his boat and put out into the deep water and let his nets down for a catch. He does so reluctantly, but up come more fish than his one boat can handle. They bring another boat out, fill them both with fish.
And I know that this story is a metaphor for “catching” disciples. Jesus even says to Simon, James, and John, “From now on, you will be catching people.” But there is little about this image of a bunch of fish—stuck in this huge net, sucking air, slowly dying while the folks back on shore lick their lips and get a fire going—there is little about this image that resonates with my own sense of sharing God’s love with others—with making disciples.
The whole idea of “catching” people doesn’t really work for us. We Presbyterians don’t like to think of ourselves as “people catchers.” We’ll leave that to some other denominations. No, Presbyterians tend to approach evangelism like wallflowers at a junior high sock hop: don’t make any sudden moves, let them come to us, you can tap your foot, but don’t clap, and for God’s sake, don’t dance.
At second glance, however, I do find a richness in Jesus’ second miracle in today’s story. Jesus says to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” While I fail to connect with the picture of a net-full of wiggly fish, I love the image of putting out into the deep water. That’s what we do, I think, when we nurture real discipleship in ourselves and in others. We get out of the shallows and we find the deepest waters we can. And it’s into those deep and often dark waters that we cast our conversations, our stories, and our questions. And ultimately, it’s in that depth that we long to be caught.
It’s in that depth where we recognize that our sanctuary is more than our church—that, in fact, we carry it with us and create it wherever we go...
...wherever we encounter folks who seem fed up with the shallows
...wherever people long to engage in meaningful dialog about the things that really matter
...wherever we seek to be God’s love in the midst of pain, homelessness, and exclusion.
...wherever we find thirst, hunger…
There’s a wonderful little quote by C.S. Lewis that I enjoy sharing. He said, “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” I love it. And I’d say that similarly, “We don’t have a church. We are the Church. We have a building that we meet in.”
So as the Church, may we be called to make disciples of ourselves and one another. May we embody a living sanctuary—a walking, talking, working, loving community of God’s sacred presence wherever we go. And may we put out into the deepest waters we can find, inviting others to join us in the mystery of God’s love there.
Did you know that Jesus has a facebook page? It’s true. For those of you who aren’t familiar with facebook, it’s a sort of personalized spot on the internet where folks like you and I (and apparently Jesus) can post thoughts, information about ourselves, photos, blogs, and random links to Youtube videos…
Apparently jesus.com, jesus.org, and jesus.net were all taken by religious groups, so Jesus found himself on facebook. He used to be on myspace.com, but nobody uses myspace anymore, and so neither does Jesus. His profile is perhaps what you would expect. His interests include do-it-yourself carpentry and mass catering. According to his profile, he’s single, a Sagittarius, and in a relationship. He doesn’t want kids, and uses facebook to look for friends and to network.
And just when you think that Jesus having a facebook page is just silly, listen to some of the things that some of his 89,024 facebook friends have written: (these are facebook users who’ve officially declared themselves “fans” of Jesus)
Thank you! you amaze me everyday! I am so in love with you! You always make it turn out right, even when it feels so wrong! you fix me, and you complete me.
Thank you Lord for the blessings that you have given us. Please forgive us of our sins.
I love you. Please guide me in the right direction.
Jesus i love you, you are amazing thank you for everything... love ur close friend tanisha. ♥
jesus
when i say your name
it's like a party in my mouth
thank you jesus thank you
Long time no talk
Everywhere Jesus goes, he draws a crowd, Even on facebook.
We’ve got a crowd in Luke’s gospel this morning. According to the fourth chapter of Luke, Jesus has been teaching in synagogues throughout the countryside, and if his teaching’s been anything like it was in his hometown, he’s been making people pretty mad. If you remember that scene you’ll recall that when Jesus did a teaching in the Temple back in Nazareth, he so infuriated the clergy-types that they chased him out of town and tried to throw him off a cliff, which is not a good way to start a career in public speaking. That was at the beginning of Luke’s fourth chapter, a chapter that ends with this sentence: “So Jesus continued proclaiming the message in the synagogues of Judea.”
It’s sort of interesting to think of Jesus’ ministry as one that involves getting kicked out of a list of gradually more prestigious religious institutions. From Nazareth to Jerusalem that’s basically what happens. The negative publicity, however, seems to be working in Jesus’ favor, and the crowds can’t stay away.
Jesus is standing by the lake and they’re doing what crowds do. Lots of people are just there. Some need to get healed. Others are curious about what this guy said to make their pastor so mad. And, of course, a crowd draws a crowd and we’ve got a nice little sea of humanity by the Sea of Galilee.
It’s a beautiful picture, really, to paint in your mind’s eye. Loads and loads of people doing what people do at the lake! Men, women, and children, gathering with friends, seeing what all this fuss is about, talking. Some are fishing and some are just washing clothes. Nobody thought about childcare, so there’s a bunch of kids doing what kids do when they’re at the lake: swimming, splashing, running, throwing rocks in the water. If you can, take a moment to let yourself hear the sounds of this wonderful human mass gathered by the lake.
Jesus shows up, and probably gradually at first, but then with increasing fervor, the crowd presses in on him to hear the word of God. And Jesus begins with a miracle. Maybe it’s a hidden miracle, actually. On the surface it’s nothing, really—nothing like healing somebody or walking on water. But it’s a miracle or sorts.
What does he do? First, he sees these boats sitting there on the shore. Then he gets into one of them, Simon’s boat, and asks him to put out in the water a ways. You could say he’s just being creative—trying to find a way that everybody on shore can see him and hear him. But then Jesus does this little miracle: he sits down.
Now I know what you might be thinking: “He ‘sits down.’ That’s it? Well, I guess every little thing Jesus does is a miracle, then? Oh, look! Jesus sat down! It’s a miracle! Oh, look, Jesus stood up again! Another miracle! But according to Jewish custom, one stood to read scripture, but sat down to teach.
Now we could say, “Well, maybe we shouldn’t read into this too much. Maybe it’s really no big deal that Jesus sat down in the boat. After all, aren’t you supposed to sit down in a boat?” But sometimes the little details are worth our attention. In Luke chapter four, when Jesus teaches in the synagogue, the author makes a point of saying that Jesus “sat down” to teach. And here by the lake in chapter five, he does it again: Jesus “sat down and taught.” If Jesus’ act of sitting down were really insignificant, we could argue that Luke wouldn’t have included it at all.
But he does. “Jesus got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat…”
Jesus sat down in the boat. And then what happened? What incredible thing happened next? What’s the hidden miracle? Can you see it? Jesus created a synagogue by the lakeshore! In an instant—in the time it takes to sit down—Jesus said to the entire crowd that was gathered there, “Welcome to this holy place!” And suddenly the people—women, men, and children—some of whom under normal circumstances, were not welcome in synagogue, found themselves in a sacred space. Prostitutes, people with leprosy, women and men who were considered “unclean” for various reasons—they were all there. And suddenly, the best seats in the synagogue did not belong to the religious leaders, the wealthy, or the powerful. They belonged to women washing clothes and children splashing in the water.
Holy space—synagogue, temple, church, sanctuary—was redefined! And the crowd found itself caught in a holy moment!
I don’t know if that’s ever happened to you. I suspect it has. It’s probably true that for lots of us, while our most overtly religious moments happen in a building much like the one we’re in right now, many of our most sacred, holy moments pop up in other sanctuaries: rivers and gardens, seasides and lakeshores, pieces of poetry and wonderful novels and music... Often these are the holy places that give birth to our sense of God’s direction in our lives.
That’s a little bit of what happened at the lake with Jesus and the crowd. Suddenly, and without warning, women, men, and children found themselves in a new place—a synagogue of sorts.
There’s another more obvious miracle in this story: the giant catch of fish. Jesus tells Simon to take his boat and put out into the deep water and let his nets down for a catch. He does so reluctantly, but up come more fish than his one boat can handle. They bring another boat out, fill them both with fish.
And I know that this story is a metaphor for “catching” disciples. Jesus even says to Simon, James, and John, “From now on, you will be catching people.” But there is little about this image of a bunch of fish—stuck in this huge net, sucking air, slowly dying while the folks back on shore lick their lips and get a fire going—there is little about this image that resonates with my own sense of sharing God’s love with others—with making disciples.
The whole idea of “catching” people doesn’t really work for us. We Presbyterians don’t like to think of ourselves as “people catchers.” We’ll leave that to some other denominations. No, Presbyterians tend to approach evangelism like wallflowers at a junior high sock hop: don’t make any sudden moves, let them come to us, you can tap your foot, but don’t clap, and for God’s sake, don’t dance.
At second glance, however, I do find a richness in Jesus’ second miracle in today’s story. Jesus says to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” While I fail to connect with the picture of a net-full of wiggly fish, I love the image of putting out into the deep water. That’s what we do, I think, when we nurture real discipleship in ourselves and in others. We get out of the shallows and we find the deepest waters we can. And it’s into those deep and often dark waters that we cast our conversations, our stories, and our questions. And ultimately, it’s in that depth that we long to be caught.
It’s in that depth where we recognize that our sanctuary is more than our church—that, in fact, we carry it with us and create it wherever we go...
...wherever we encounter folks who seem fed up with the shallows
...wherever people long to engage in meaningful dialog about the things that really matter
...wherever we seek to be God’s love in the midst of pain, homelessness, and exclusion.
...wherever we find thirst, hunger…
There’s a wonderful little quote by C.S. Lewis that I enjoy sharing. He said, “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” I love it. And I’d say that similarly, “We don’t have a church. We are the Church. We have a building that we meet in.”
So as the Church, may we be called to make disciples of ourselves and one another. May we embody a living sanctuary—a walking, talking, working, loving community of God’s sacred presence wherever we go. And may we put out into the deepest waters we can find, inviting others to join us in the mystery of God’s love there.
Inexplicable blog hiatus
This is my first blog post in over a month. The reason? Good question. My last post was June 8th, and as I look back, I can't see anything major that week other than a sub-par round of golf (and in this case, sub-par means way over par) surrounded by a handful of regular old summery days. Chalk it up to summer doldrums? Anyway, I'm back on the horse today, beginning with this post. I'll also catch up with some recent sermons and an evotional or two. Thanks for stopping by and I'll promise to stay on track. Really. I will.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Praying for the Gulf
On Sunday, Rev. Steve Fringer led us in a community prayer that included these words about the BP oil spill in the gulf. Thought I'd share them with you today as we continue to be prayerful about that situation...
Creator God, You invite us to join you in creation’s process, to be faithful stewards of your earth, so we offer our thanks and praise for the way the earth rewards the work of our hands with abundance and goodness. Yet as oil poisons the gulf waters, we have become increasingly aware of just how fragile your creation is and how awesome our responsibility. So we pray that a way be found for the leak to stop completely. We pray for all those people whose livelihoods and lives have been devastated by this tragedy, for those devoted to clean up efforts. We pray for fish and fowl, pelican and manatee, marsh and beach, oceans, wetlands, and eco-systems; that the damage done not be irreversible; that out of this tragedy wisdom be born and new and just policies to protect the delicate balance of life be crafted.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Edges - Luke 7:11-17
Sermon on June 6, 2010
Soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, “Do not weep.” Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, Rise!”
Luke 7:11-17 is a good example of what I sometimes like to call “routine Jesus.” He and the disciples are traveling through the countryside, and as they often seem to do, they stumble upon a scene of sad desperation. Here it’s a funeral procession. A man has died, and now his mother, who is a widow, along with a crowd from the town, is carrying his body out through the town’s gate.
We know what’s going to happen already, don’t we? We’ve read or heard enough gospel material to know almost exactly what Jesus is going to do in this situation—so much so that reading through Luke chapter 7 is a bit like driving past a dairy farm in central Wisconsin. We know what we’re going to see before we get there: cornfield, house, barn, silo, cows, cornfield.
Getting into today’s passage, we read the sentence, “As [Jesus] approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out,” and we know what we’re going to see before we get there: compassion, touch, miracle, and a bunch of people glorifying God. And that’s what happens, pretty much. Jesus has compassion for the widow—the young man’s mother. He touches the frame on which the man’s body is being carried and says, “Young man, I say to you, ‘Rise!’” and it’s a miracle—the dead man sits up and begins to speak. The crowd goes wild.
No big surprises here on the surface. If you or I had been there in that crowd that day, we’d have a real story to tell, but because this one is so short and because it’s tucked into Luke’s gospel with dozens more, we tend to drive by quickly without looking.
This morning, however, I would like to suggest that a few details in this story make it stand out. But let me say this first. Luke 7:11-17 is not a story about Jesus raising somebody from the dead. No, Luke 7:11-17 is a story about Jesus meeting somebody on the edge of her life and saving her there.
Here’s what I mean by that. In verse twelve, we’re given two details about the situation. We learn that the man who died was his mother’s only son and we learn that she herself is a widow. Now this isn’t added background information to give the characters depth or make the narrative more interesting. The fact that we have a widow who’s lost her only son is actually the true crux of the story.
To explain that, here’s a quick, nutshell lesson in ancient economics. If you are a woman in the ancient Middle East, you’d better pray you have a father or a husband or a son to take care of you financially. A woman in Jesus’ day could not own property or earn income by herself. She couldn’t take out a loan or start up a small business. Without a man to rely on for financial security, a woman in the ancient Middle East had two awful choices: she could beg for a living or she could turn to prostitution. So, friends, when we’re moving along in Luke’s gospel and we read the line, “He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow,” what we have is a woman on the very edge of her life, perched on the brink of desperation with no way back.
Sometimes your life gets pushed to the edge. You don’t go there willingly, it seems. But you get pushed there sometimes. Financial ruin, a death in the family, your marriage is in trouble, your drinking becomes a problem, your job isn’t yours anymore… And it’s weird: most of the time, normal life just feels normal. We’ve all got our problems to work through; we’ve all issues to straighten out. But then the bottom falls out, and you’re standing there on the edge of it all.
We could tell any number of stories here, couldn’t we? Stories from our own lives, from our own families, stories that have grown out of this family of faith… The cancer diagnosis, the car accident, the loss of good mental health... And there are no answers on the edge—no simple solutions. There’s not a formula for what-to-do-next on the edge.
Sometimes, like the woman in Luke’s gospel, you’re on the edge with a crowd. And sometimes you’re there alone, wondering, maybe, if anyone will show up. Normal life doesn’t prepare us, does it? Relatively safe routines don’t equip us to handle a trip to the edge of life.
The first thing I noticed about Frank and Carole was how tender they were with each other. I met them in a hospital room in Chicago. Carole was there with stage four lung cancer and Frank was there with Carole. The doctors had done what they could. Too late for surgery, they’d said, so it was chemo and radiation and chemo and radiation. Gradually their plan was turning away from aggressive treatment to pain management. Frank was there with her, each day, talking, reading to her, wiping her forehead, sitting with her in silence…
One day I stopped by Carole’s room and Frank wasn’t there. We chatted for a bit, and I asked, “Where’s Frank today?” “Oh, he just went downstairs to get something to eat,” she said. And then she stopped and she cried. Through the tears she said, “Oh, Frank can’t see me like this. It would kill him to see me like this.” Later on she said something that stuck with me. She said, “I know that I am coming to the end, but I have to be strong for Frank.”
That afternoon I caught up with Frank in the lounge. And we talked for a while. And it was clear to me that here was a man feeling completely defeated. At one point in our conversation, oddly, but maybe not surprisingly he said through his own tears, “One thing I know—I can’t let her see me down. I’ve got to stay “up”—got to stay strong for Carole.” A part of me wanted to say kindly but bluntly, “You two spend a lot of time together. You should really try talking with each other about this.”
On the edge, trying to look like we’re not on the edge. Trying to be “strong.” Because normal, safe life doesn’t prepare us for the edges. So even though we’re getting close, we we strive to maintain a picture of business as usual.
Someone asks us how we’re doing and we say something like “Doing ok. How ‘bout you?” A big part of our problem is our stubborn reluctance to admit that the edge is near. Of course, in this culture of ours, when we ask someone how they’re doing, we’re usually not prepared for “I’m falling apart,” “I’m losing my mind,” or “I feel like I’m going over the edge!” But maybe we should be open to that possibility when we start a casual conversation.
Jesus says to the man—to the body of the man—“Rise!” But that’s just part of it, because in that act of healing, he says to the woman, “It’s ok. You can step back from the edge now.” That’s the miracle in this story. Jesus saves the woman from a life of begging or even worse. He rescues her at the edge of her life.
Maybe there’s an edge in your life that you’re afraid to get close to. A relationship that seems lost, a job that’s going nowhere, a mountain of debt, a looming cloud of sadness… Maybe there’s an edge you’re staying away from—maybe for good reason. But know this: Jesus is waiting for you along the edges of your life, waiting for you there, ready to offer hope.
And we could leave it at that, and that would be enough—a call to trust Jesus on the frayed edges of our lives. We’d be silly, though, not to mention that our ministry to each other and to our world should never be confined to a safe, manageable distance from the edge. No, as we are called to the loving ministry of Jesus Christ, we too are called to the edges. Where sadness turns into despair. Where a problem turns into an addiction. Where poverty turns into homelessness.
Is there an edge in this world that God is nudging there towards? For the person sitting next to you? For someone else in this room? For someone you haven’t met yet? Every day, everywhere, people are approaching the edges in their lives. Where is God calling you?
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Evotional - Hopeful?
Dear Friends,
On Sunday, as our worship service drew to a close, I shared these words with you during the benediction. They’re from Barbara Kingsolver during her 2008 commencement address at Duke University.
“The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. The most you can do is live inside that hope, running down its hallways, touching the walls on both sides."
Have you been struck by hope this week? Or is hope something you’ve had to look for diligently? And what would it look like to “live inside that hope, running down its hallways, touching the walls on both sides”?
May your hours and days this week find you hopeful, friends. And, feeling that hope, may your life reflect God’s hopeful love in Christ.
“And now, O Lord, what do I wait for? My hope is in you.”
- Psalm 39:7
Peace,
Pastor Ben
On Sunday, as our worship service drew to a close, I shared these words with you during the benediction. They’re from Barbara Kingsolver during her 2008 commencement address at Duke University.
“The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. The most you can do is live inside that hope, running down its hallways, touching the walls on both sides."
Have you been struck by hope this week? Or is hope something you’ve had to look for diligently? And what would it look like to “live inside that hope, running down its hallways, touching the walls on both sides”?
May your hours and days this week find you hopeful, friends. And, feeling that hope, may your life reflect God’s hopeful love in Christ.
“And now, O Lord, what do I wait for? My hope is in you.”
- Psalm 39:7
Peace,
Pastor Ben
Living Into Hope
Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
Are you a hopeful person? What do you think? Maybe you’ve never considered that question before, so go ahead and think about it for a second. Are you hopeful? If your answer is “yes,” that’s great. Of course, this may represent a little wishful thinking on your part—hoping that, in fact, you are a hopeful person. Though I suppose that if you hope you’re hopeful, then you are indeed at least somewhat hopeful.
Now your answer may have been “no” or “I don’t know,” or you may have thought to yourself, “Am I hopeful? What kind of hair-brained question is that?” Perhaps when you considered the question, your mind raced to glasses half-full or half-empty, or weather reports: Is there a 30% chance of rain today, or would that be a 70% chance of total sun?
If you’re feeling hopeless at the moment or in general, you may know that there’s plenty of advice floating around out there for you. This past week I googled the phrase, “how to be hopeful,” and as luck would have it, just such an article existed online. According to the website “wikiHow,” you can be a more hopeful person if you apply some simple steps in your life:
1. Think about a plan for your life.
2. Learn from the people around you.
Ok, so far so good, I guess. But this next step is questionable:
3. Imagine waking up fresh with new opportunities every morning feeling hopeful.
In other words, if you want to be more hopeful, you should try waking up each day simply feeling hopeful.
4. Develop some talents.
5. Get training and counseling.
That last step might be the wisest. Becoming hopeful isn’t like turning on a switch—it doesn’t work that way, at least not all the time. It takes time and sometimes it does take counseling. But overall I’m suspicious of any guide to hopefulness—or love, faith, peace, or happiness for that matter. It’s always seemed to me that forces in this world like hope are too rambunctious for a step-by-step approach.
With this in mind, I’ve been mulling over Paul’s words in his letter to the Romans: “We… boast in our sufferings,” he says, “knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”
Sounds sort of step-by-step, doesn’t it?
Step 1. Suffering produces endurance.
Step 2. Endurance produces character.
Step 3. Character produces hope.
Of course, Paul’s words are perhaps easier to consider when you’re feeling hopeful than when you’re actually suffering. Despite what Paul is doing in his letter, I cannot imagine a scenario where I’d cite Romans 5:3-4 for a person who’s suffering. “What’s that? You lost your job? Well, don’t worry, my friend, because according to the Bible, suffering produces endurance which produces character which produces hope… So cheer up, because your unemployment is really your key to endurance, character, and hope!” Not so comforting, is it?
Still, it may all be true. Suffering does produce endurance. Often begrudgingly, we learn something of endurance in the midst of suffering. The battle with cancer that takes not weeks, not months, but years. The life-long grief that comes with losing a child. The grueling road of intense pain management. Yes, suffering does at least produce endurance, but does this always lead to hope? Suffering can produce a lot of other things, too, and Paul seems to have left them out. Suffering can produce bitterness, which can produce resentment, which can produce destructive patterns in relationships, which can produce more unwanted suffering.
But for Paul, suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope. This morning I’d like to suggest that Paul is right, but that this process of suffering leading to hope is not one that always flows naturally. Rather, it is one that we must cultivate, and sometimes it’s a true struggle.
You may have heard this wonderful ancient story. A Cherokee elder was teaching his grandson. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible battle and it is between two wolves. One wolf is evil—he is anger, envy, greed, guilt, and hatred. The other wolf is good—he is joy, peace, kindness, love, and hope. And this battle is the same one that goes on inside of you—and inside of all people.”
The grandson thought for a minute and then asked, “Grandpa, which wolf will win?” And the elder simply replied, “The one you feed.”
Are you a hopeful person? Do you feed hope in your life? If you do, you may find that even suffering is not wasted—that even the painful, broken pieces of life can be gathered together and fashioned into something hopeful.
From 1989 to 2003, the West African nation of Liberia was brutalized in its own civil war. Close to 250,000 were killed and many more became homeless. Fourteen years of war left the country’s economy in shambles and its communities overrun with weapons.
It was in the midst of that devastation and chaos that a small group of Liberian Ch
ristians fed hope. Their cities, towns, and countrysides were littered with bomb and shell casings—part of war’s pollution. They began to gather them, and with those empty rounds of ammunition, they put themselves to work. I’m holding in my hand one of their creations. This is an empty shell from the Liberian Civil War, but it’s been cut and reformed in the shape of a cross.
The people who made it are part of a group called Liberians Against Violence. They are victims of Liberia’s war—civilians and former soldiers—who are now generating income for themselves and their communities by fashioning these crosses. They’ve partnered with the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program and with other non-profit organizations throughout the world, and they are making an impact in a nation that has an 80% unemployment rate.
Suffering produces endurance produces character produces hope. Yes, if you feed it that way. Our spiritual task in life is to feed hope, and sometimes that’s hard to do. Sometimes you literally have to pick up the worst, violent pieces of your life and smash them forcefully into something worth keeping.
What does that look like for you?
May Lou Weisman has written a book called Intensive Care. In it she tells the tragic story of the death of Peter, her fifteen-year-old son. Peter suffered from muscular dystrophy, and at the end of his life Mary Lou and her husband Larry were with him at his bedside.
By this time, Peter’s body was completely paralyzed, but his mind was still sharp. He lay there, moaning with pain, struggling to communicate with his parents. “His voice,” wrote Mary Lou, “sounded so far away, so lost.” But then, suddenly, in a surprisingly clear voice, Peter spoke directly to Larry, his father.
“Daddy, what does ‘impudent’ mean?” Bewildered and frightened, Larry and Mary Lou looked at each other. What could this strange question from their dying son possibly mean?
“Daddy, what does ‘impudent’ mean?”
Even though he had tears streaming from his eyes, Larry answered Peter matter-of-factly. “Impudent. Son, impudent means bold. It means shamelessly bold.”
Peter paused for a moment, death closing its grip on him, and then he said, “Then put me in an impudent position.”
And sure enough, just before their son died, Larry and Mary Lou, positioned Peter’s arms and legs in a posture of bold defiance, an “impudent position” in the face of death. (1)
Sometimes, in the midst of suffering, we have to fiercely feed the good wolf. Sometimes, when suffering is all we know, we have to brazenly feed any source of hope we can find. Because Christian hope isn’t just wishful thinking or even sincere optimism. Rather, Christian hope is an “impudent position” against the powers of death and brokenness.
Our hope is not, “I hope the sun comes out soon,” “I hope the Brewers can get their act together,” or even “I hope this economy picks up soon.” Our hope is a faith that in broken world of violence and war and hunger and greed, none of these things will have the last word—that against all odds, love is finally stronger than hate. Our hope is an “impudent position” that we willfully take—a position that celebrates resurrection even in the midst of suffering and death.
May God bless you with courage, faith, love, and impudence as you live into hope today in the days to come. Amen.
Back to the Blog
Well, it's been a while. Having returned from Ethiopia a month ago with our two new children, Karla and I have been "laying low" for a bit. And for me "laying low" apparently means letting go of my blog. But I'm back this week with this past Sunday's sermon and the weekly First Presbyterian Church evotional. Enjoy!
Ben
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Evotional - Nothing Goes to Waste
Welcome to the Eastertide. A resurrection quote for you today from Henri Nouwen. May we be mindful today that “nothing that belongs to God will ever go to waste.”“The resurrection does not solve our problems about dying and death. It is not the happy ending to our life's struggle, nor is it the big surprise that God has kept in store for us. No, the resurrection is the expression of God's faithfulness to Jesus and to all God's children. Through the resurrection, God has said to Jesus, ‘You are indeed my beloved Son, and my love is everlasting,’ and to us God has said, ‘You indeed are my beloved children, and my love is everlasting.’ The resurrection is God's way of revealing to us that nothing that belongs to God will ever go to waste. What belongs to God will never get lost.”
- Henri J. M. Nouwen
Sunday, April 4, 2010
because of and not so that - Holy Week Day 7
Sermon on Sunday, April 4
Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her. - John 20:18
Earlier this week we had one of those perfect spring days—a day to get outside and get your hands dirty. We did just that at our place and got our garden going again. We made it a little bigger this year, so I was on my knees with the flat spade slicing off the sod. Sylvia was on worm patrol—vigilant in her self-assigned task of making sure that each worm was safely returned to the soil.
Once the sod was gone, I came through with a shovel and turned it all over, and then we both started to break apart the clods with our bare hands. Sylvia said to me, “Dad, I’m Mother Nature and you’re Father Nature, and we’re making the earth soft again.” Hearing her say that strengthened in me what I was already feeling—that simple wonderful sense of spring again.
Coming through Holy Week towards Easter this year, it’s been easy to sense resurrection in the air. New life, new growth—crocuses and daffodils exploding through the ground, buds on the raspberry bushes… and just weeks ago it all sat below a few inches of snow, locked in the frozen soil. But now here we are singing, “Jesus Christ is risen today,” and we sense it all around us.
So, friends, Happy Easter! Today we revisit the essence of our faith—a faith that is nurtured in our understanding of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For close to 2,000 years now, we’ve been attempting to respond to that story. The entire Christian movement—Catholicism, Presbyterianism, Pentecostalism… protestants, Mennonites, orthodox Christians, Charismatic Christians, Baptists, Methodists… all of it: organized religion and disorganized religion has attempted to live in response to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
Bono, the lead singer of the band U2, gave an interview a few years ago. It’s fairly well-known that Bono is a person of deep Christian faith, and he was asked specifically about his relationship with “organized religion.” Bono said, “It's true. I often wonder if religion is the enemy of God.
It's almost like religion is what happens when the Spirit has left the building.”
Maybe you’ve felt that before. Looking back on the resurrection scene in John’s gospel, we see an astonished woman, Mary, who meets her risen Lord. She’s terrified, shaken, amazed, confused… The sight of Jesus alive again has utterly changed her world, and we can well imagine her sprinting from the empty tomb to tell her friends what has happened—consumed with a passion to share what she has seen and heard.
But has the Spirit left the building? Have we become complacent? Comfortably disengaged from that same sense of resurrection awe and wonder? The old hymn, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” ends with the line: “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.” My soul. My life. My all. That may be true—that the reality of God’s love in Jesus Christ demands everything we’ve got—our very best. And yet I would like to share with you one of the most common and compelling religious question of our day. In essence, that question is this: “Why church?”
I’ll elaborate. Why go to church? Why do we need church? Or, to put an even finer point on it: If Romans chapter 8 is true—and nothing can separate us from the love of God¬, then why should we strive so much to stay connected? Why should anyone bother with institutionalized religion? Why does it make a difference and what are we hoping to accomplish with all this churchy-ness? Sometimes the question comes out like this: “I’m a spiritual person and I believe in God. Why do I need church on top of that?”
For years and years, organized religion has answered these questions with “So that…” You go to church so that you can be a Christian. You need church so that you can be saved. And even: You go to church so that you can experience God’s presence. That’s interesting, isn’t it? In the beginning, when Mary ran from the empty tomb to tell the others that she had seen the Lord, the “church” was a wonder-filled band of misfits who couldn’t believe their ears. But in the eyes of many today, the church has become the establishment—the be-all, end-all broker of spirituality. It’s no wonder, then, that many are questioning its relevance. It’s no wonder that more and more of those who perhaps think of themselves as “spiritually hungry but institutionally suspicious” are leaving the church in their dust—especially when the church itself can’t come up with a compelling enough reason for its own existence.
This may not seem like a terribly wise thing to do—questioning the relevance of church on Easter morning. But maybe there’s no quicker way to irrelevance than failing to do so. And so with the time that I have left this morning, I’d like to offer something of my own answer to the question, “Why church?”
For me, and for many of you who are part of this particular family of faith, my sense is that our answer to the question, “Why church?” does not begin with the words, “So that,” but “Because of.” Because of… And there’s a difference. There’s a big difference between “I go to church so that I can experience God’s presence” and “I go to church because of my experience of God’s presence.”
There’s a huge difference between “I go to church so that I can be close to God” and “I go to church because of God’s closeness.” You see, at its very core, Christianity is a because of faith, and not a so that faith. What that means is that Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection articulates a truth of God’s love and not a condition.
Think about the Holy Week we’ve just been through. Unfortunately, there is a forceful and convincing “so that” explanation of the cross. And it’s this: Jesus died on the cross to take the punishment for your sins—a punishment, by the way, that you deserved in the first place. This was God’s gift of grace for you. Your job now is to receive that gift so that it can be yours. So that… Lined up behind that theology are a whole bunch of other “so that’s.” Accept Jesus so that you can be saved. Pray so that God will hear you. Be faithful so that you can be acceptable to God…
But friends, I don’t believe that Christianity is a “so that faith.” Rather, it’s a “because of faith.” So let me share with you a “because of” explanation of the cross. It’s this: God loves us. God loves us so much that nothing can keep God from us. Jesus’ life is really the life of Emmanuel—God with us—God who couldn’t be kept from us.
One way to think of the cross is to think of Jesus taking blame and punishment for our sins. But another is to simply say that on the cross, God said to us, “This is how I am with you. This is how I am with you! I am with you in your pain, with you in your brokenness. Nothing can keep me from you and nothing can ever separate me from you. You can betray me like Judas and deny me like Peter, but I will still always go to the ends of the earth for you. I will still be faithful to you—even when it means giving up my life for you.”
So many have tried to reduce Christianity to a series of yes-no questions and to the grand litmus test of whether or not you’re saved. But on the cross and out of the empty tomb, Jesus Christ says to the world, “It been done. And God’s love isn’t something that you have the power to undo. You can leave it, deny it, doubt it, and refuse it, but you can’t make God’s love any less real.”
I am a part of a Christian family of faith because of that love. I worship in a church family because I want to live my life in light of that love—that all-consuming, gracious love that I have come to understand in the life of Jesus. That’s why I am a part of this church—and because I believe that the church, at its best, can be a living, intentional community of that same love.
Easter itself offers a series of questions for us, and they all use the words, “because of.” Because of God’s love expressed in the life of Jesus, how will you live? Because of Jesus’ love for not only his friends, but also his enemies, whom will you love? Because of God’s love for you, can you love yourself? Because of God’s faithfulness to you, can you be faithful? Because of God’s passion for humanity, will you reach out in acts of compassion? Because God’s love in Jesus rose from the grave, can you trust that love never dies?
The Christian faith is a “because of” faith, and because of that, it’s good to be church here with you. Happy Easter. Amen.
Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her. - John 20:18
Earlier this week we had one of those perfect spring days—a day to get outside and get your hands dirty. We did just that at our place and got our garden going again. We made it a little bigger this year, so I was on my knees with the flat spade slicing off the sod. Sylvia was on worm patrol—vigilant in her self-assigned task of making sure that each worm was safely returned to the soil.
Once the sod was gone, I came through with a shovel and turned it all over, and then we both started to break apart the clods with our bare hands. Sylvia said to me, “Dad, I’m Mother Nature and you’re Father Nature, and we’re making the earth soft again.” Hearing her say that strengthened in me what I was already feeling—that simple wonderful sense of spring again.
Coming through Holy Week towards Easter this year, it’s been easy to sense resurrection in the air. New life, new growth—crocuses and daffodils exploding through the ground, buds on the raspberry bushes… and just weeks ago it all sat below a few inches of snow, locked in the frozen soil. But now here we are singing, “Jesus Christ is risen today,” and we sense it all around us.
So, friends, Happy Easter! Today we revisit the essence of our faith—a faith that is nurtured in our understanding of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For close to 2,000 years now, we’ve been attempting to respond to that story. The entire Christian movement—Catholicism, Presbyterianism, Pentecostalism… protestants, Mennonites, orthodox Christians, Charismatic Christians, Baptists, Methodists… all of it: organized religion and disorganized religion has attempted to live in response to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
Bono, the lead singer of the band U2, gave an interview a few years ago. It’s fairly well-known that Bono is a person of deep Christian faith, and he was asked specifically about his relationship with “organized religion.” Bono said, “It's true. I often wonder if religion is the enemy of God.
It's almost like religion is what happens when the Spirit has left the building.”
Maybe you’ve felt that before. Looking back on the resurrection scene in John’s gospel, we see an astonished woman, Mary, who meets her risen Lord. She’s terrified, shaken, amazed, confused… The sight of Jesus alive again has utterly changed her world, and we can well imagine her sprinting from the empty tomb to tell her friends what has happened—consumed with a passion to share what she has seen and heard.
But has the Spirit left the building? Have we become complacent? Comfortably disengaged from that same sense of resurrection awe and wonder? The old hymn, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” ends with the line: “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.” My soul. My life. My all. That may be true—that the reality of God’s love in Jesus Christ demands everything we’ve got—our very best. And yet I would like to share with you one of the most common and compelling religious question of our day. In essence, that question is this: “Why church?”
I’ll elaborate. Why go to church? Why do we need church? Or, to put an even finer point on it: If Romans chapter 8 is true—and nothing can separate us from the love of God¬, then why should we strive so much to stay connected? Why should anyone bother with institutionalized religion? Why does it make a difference and what are we hoping to accomplish with all this churchy-ness? Sometimes the question comes out like this: “I’m a spiritual person and I believe in God. Why do I need church on top of that?”
For years and years, organized religion has answered these questions with “So that…” You go to church so that you can be a Christian. You need church so that you can be saved. And even: You go to church so that you can experience God’s presence. That’s interesting, isn’t it? In the beginning, when Mary ran from the empty tomb to tell the others that she had seen the Lord, the “church” was a wonder-filled band of misfits who couldn’t believe their ears. But in the eyes of many today, the church has become the establishment—the be-all, end-all broker of spirituality. It’s no wonder, then, that many are questioning its relevance. It’s no wonder that more and more of those who perhaps think of themselves as “spiritually hungry but institutionally suspicious” are leaving the church in their dust—especially when the church itself can’t come up with a compelling enough reason for its own existence.
This may not seem like a terribly wise thing to do—questioning the relevance of church on Easter morning. But maybe there’s no quicker way to irrelevance than failing to do so. And so with the time that I have left this morning, I’d like to offer something of my own answer to the question, “Why church?”
For me, and for many of you who are part of this particular family of faith, my sense is that our answer to the question, “Why church?” does not begin with the words, “So that,” but “Because of.” Because of… And there’s a difference. There’s a big difference between “I go to church so that I can experience God’s presence” and “I go to church because of my experience of God’s presence.”
There’s a huge difference between “I go to church so that I can be close to God” and “I go to church because of God’s closeness.” You see, at its very core, Christianity is a because of faith, and not a so that faith. What that means is that Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection articulates a truth of God’s love and not a condition.
Think about the Holy Week we’ve just been through. Unfortunately, there is a forceful and convincing “so that” explanation of the cross. And it’s this: Jesus died on the cross to take the punishment for your sins—a punishment, by the way, that you deserved in the first place. This was God’s gift of grace for you. Your job now is to receive that gift so that it can be yours. So that… Lined up behind that theology are a whole bunch of other “so that’s.” Accept Jesus so that you can be saved. Pray so that God will hear you. Be faithful so that you can be acceptable to God…
But friends, I don’t believe that Christianity is a “so that faith.” Rather, it’s a “because of faith.” So let me share with you a “because of” explanation of the cross. It’s this: God loves us. God loves us so much that nothing can keep God from us. Jesus’ life is really the life of Emmanuel—God with us—God who couldn’t be kept from us.
One way to think of the cross is to think of Jesus taking blame and punishment for our sins. But another is to simply say that on the cross, God said to us, “This is how I am with you. This is how I am with you! I am with you in your pain, with you in your brokenness. Nothing can keep me from you and nothing can ever separate me from you. You can betray me like Judas and deny me like Peter, but I will still always go to the ends of the earth for you. I will still be faithful to you—even when it means giving up my life for you.”
So many have tried to reduce Christianity to a series of yes-no questions and to the grand litmus test of whether or not you’re saved. But on the cross and out of the empty tomb, Jesus Christ says to the world, “It been done. And God’s love isn’t something that you have the power to undo. You can leave it, deny it, doubt it, and refuse it, but you can’t make God’s love any less real.”
I am a part of a Christian family of faith because of that love. I worship in a church family because I want to live my life in light of that love—that all-consuming, gracious love that I have come to understand in the life of Jesus. That’s why I am a part of this church—and because I believe that the church, at its best, can be a living, intentional community of that same love.
Easter itself offers a series of questions for us, and they all use the words, “because of.” Because of God’s love expressed in the life of Jesus, how will you live? Because of Jesus’ love for not only his friends, but also his enemies, whom will you love? Because of God’s love for you, can you love yourself? Because of God’s faithfulness to you, can you be faithful? Because of God’s passion for humanity, will you reach out in acts of compassion? Because God’s love in Jesus rose from the grave, can you trust that love never dies?
The Christian faith is a “because of” faith, and because of that, it’s good to be church here with you. Happy Easter. Amen.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Holy Week Evotional - Days 5&6
The sun has just about set on Good Friday, and so once again we keep vigil together. To that end, I bring you this poem, “A Naked Death” by John van de Laar.
Peace,
Ben
“A Naked Death”
by John van de Laar
Yours was a naked death, Jesus:
Not for you the fine linen of a rich bed
surrounded by wealth accumulated over a comfortable lifetime.
Not for you a well prepared service of farewell
with time for proper grieving and departures.
Not for you a carefully chosen shroud,
or a tenderly nurtured grave.
When you kept your rendezvous with death
All was stripped away except your determined love
and the life that lay dormant for a moment
waiting for the morning
When your naked glory would break free again.
Amen.
Peace,
Ben
“A Naked Death”
by John van de Laar
Yours was a naked death, Jesus:
Not for you the fine linen of a rich bed
surrounded by wealth accumulated over a comfortable lifetime.
Not for you a well prepared service of farewell
with time for proper grieving and departures.
Not for you a carefully chosen shroud,
or a tenderly nurtured grave.
When you kept your rendezvous with death
All was stripped away except your determined love
and the life that lay dormant for a moment
waiting for the morning
When your naked glory would break free again.
Amen.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Holy Week Evotional - Day 4
Today is Maundy Thursday – a day when we remember Jesus’ commandment to the disciples at that Last Supper – that they love one another just as he loved them. May this gorgeous spring day find you contemplating this gift of love. To that end, here’s a wonderful Frederick Buechner quote:
“Romantic love is blind to everything except what is lovable and lovely, but Christ's love sees us with terrible clarity and sees us whole. Christ's love so wishes our joy that it is ruthless against everything in us that diminishes our joy. The worst sentence Love can pass is that we behold the suffering that Love has endured for our sake, and that is also our acquittal. The justice and mercy of the judge are ultimately one."
“Romantic love is blind to everything except what is lovable and lovely, but Christ's love sees us with terrible clarity and sees us whole. Christ's love so wishes our joy that it is ruthless against everything in us that diminishes our joy. The worst sentence Love can pass is that we behold the suffering that Love has endured for our sake, and that is also our acquittal. The justice and mercy of the judge are ultimately one."
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Holy Week Evotional - Day 3
Some thoughtful Holy Week words from James Martin in his book, Becoming Who You Are
Toward the end of his earthly ministry, Jesus is clearly able to see what needs to be done. He has by this point more fully embraced his identity and his ministry. But there is one last test: his time in the Garden of Gethsemane immediately before the beginning of the Passion. Near the end of his life, he struggles with a complete embrace of his mission. "If it is possible, let this cup pass from me," he says, hoping that perhaps suffering is not what God intends.
But somehow he realizes, through prayer and reflection, that his impending suffering, whatever it would be, is what God is asking of him at this moment. He realizes that it is part of the reality of his life. And it is here, it seems to me, that in accepting the cup of suffering, Jesus fully and decisively accepts his identity. Part of his life and vocation includes suffering, as do all of our lives and vocations. Jesus is then completely free.
Toward the end of his earthly ministry, Jesus is clearly able to see what needs to be done. He has by this point more fully embraced his identity and his ministry. But there is one last test: his time in the Garden of Gethsemane immediately before the beginning of the Passion. Near the end of his life, he struggles with a complete embrace of his mission. "If it is possible, let this cup pass from me," he says, hoping that perhaps suffering is not what God intends.
But somehow he realizes, through prayer and reflection, that his impending suffering, whatever it would be, is what God is asking of him at this moment. He realizes that it is part of the reality of his life. And it is here, it seems to me, that in accepting the cup of suffering, Jesus fully and decisively accepts his identity. Part of his life and vocation includes suffering, as do all of our lives and vocations. Jesus is then completely free.
Holy Week Evotional - Day 2
A Holy Week prayer for you today – from author and theologian Brain McLaren.
Compassionate God, as we consider the sufferings of your servant Jesus, in whose face we see your glory and love, our hearts are moved in compassion. As we weep with him for Jerusalem, for Israelis and Palestinians who are alike your beloved children, we also weep for those who suffer in our cities and towns around the world.
We pray for drug dealers and criminals for whom deadly weapons are the tools of their trade. We pray for weapons merchants and aggressive politicians who think deadly weapons can achieve peace. We pray for crooked police officers and city officials, whose corruption fuels violence. We pray for racists and hate-mongers who think their security is enhanced by reducing the security of others. We pray for people plotting terrorism, thinking that terror can cure terror. We pray for all those who live by the gun, the bomb, the knife, the threat, the insult, the epithet. Help them see that these things do not make for peace.
We pray for those facing unemployment, for the complex economic currents that we theorize about but don't fully understand. We know that violence is often a twin-brother of unemployment, and so we pray for business leaders who can seek to maximize employment for many, not only profit for a few.
Turn our cities, we pray, to your way of reconciliation, forgiveness, grace, compassion, and love. Help them see the futility of any path to peace that violates peace in its means. Help them see that there is no way to peace, but that peace itself is the way. Raise up prophets for peace - leaders in every city who pray, preach, and work for peace.
And help each of us as well, to find ways to be instruments of your peace. As participants in your mission to heal the world we pray. Amen.
Compassionate God, as we consider the sufferings of your servant Jesus, in whose face we see your glory and love, our hearts are moved in compassion. As we weep with him for Jerusalem, for Israelis and Palestinians who are alike your beloved children, we also weep for those who suffer in our cities and towns around the world.
We pray for drug dealers and criminals for whom deadly weapons are the tools of their trade. We pray for weapons merchants and aggressive politicians who think deadly weapons can achieve peace. We pray for crooked police officers and city officials, whose corruption fuels violence. We pray for racists and hate-mongers who think their security is enhanced by reducing the security of others. We pray for people plotting terrorism, thinking that terror can cure terror. We pray for all those who live by the gun, the bomb, the knife, the threat, the insult, the epithet. Help them see that these things do not make for peace.
We pray for those facing unemployment, for the complex economic currents that we theorize about but don't fully understand. We know that violence is often a twin-brother of unemployment, and so we pray for business leaders who can seek to maximize employment for many, not only profit for a few.
Turn our cities, we pray, to your way of reconciliation, forgiveness, grace, compassion, and love. Help them see the futility of any path to peace that violates peace in its means. Help them see that there is no way to peace, but that peace itself is the way. Raise up prophets for peace - leaders in every city who pray, preach, and work for peace.
And help each of us as well, to find ways to be instruments of your peace. As participants in your mission to heal the world we pray. Amen.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Holy Week Evotional - Day 1
A brief e-votional each day this Holy Week. Today, the day after Palm Sunday, it's a quote from Joan Chittister, from her book The Liturgical Year:
"Palm Sunday... reminds us that at the moment of what seems to be the height of Jesus' public acceptance also begins the process of His public betrayal, His public failure, His public abandonment. Only in the mind of God is Jesus any longer a success, it seems ... Here in the Passion narrative we trace the struggle, one scene at a time, between the Word of God and the ways of the world.”
"Palm Sunday... reminds us that at the moment of what seems to be the height of Jesus' public acceptance also begins the process of His public betrayal, His public failure, His public abandonment. Only in the mind of God is Jesus any longer a success, it seems ... Here in the Passion narrative we trace the struggle, one scene at a time, between the Word of God and the ways of the world.”
How He Lived; How He Died
Palm Sunday Sermon in 2 Parts - Sunday, March 28
As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”
How He Lived…
Two of my favorite authors and thinkers in the faith are Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan. Together they’ve written a book called The Last Week, and it’s an exploration of this Holy Week in which we now find ourselves. One of the images they bring to light is that of Jesus, entering Jerusalem. He’s riding on a colt, but his friends are all walking. They’re wearing robes and sandals and carrying very little.
On the other side of town, Borg and Crossan suggest that another figure is entering the city—that of Pontius Pilate. Unlike Jesus, Pilate rides on a majestic warhorse. He’s accompanied by Roman soldiers carrying weapons and banners—impressive and intimidating signs of empire. Pilate, of course, is essentially an extension of the Roman Empire, sent to Jerusalem to keep an eye on things.
So there you have it. On one side of the city, a Roman bureaucrat arrives in an intimidating display of power. Surrounded by spear carriers and sword wielders, he’s here to maintain order.
On the other side of the city, a simple carpenter’s son arrives on a colt. Had it not been for the miracles and the rumors spreading ahead of him, he would have looked like just another peasant making his way into the city.
Both Pilate and Jesus come with power. Pilate has the power to make right with might, to represent the authority of a great earthly kingdom. Jesus has a different power—power to love and to serve and sacrifice—and he brings the authority of a heavenly kingdom.
Both Pilate and Jesus come in peace. Pilate is here to keep peace—to make sure no one gets out of line, to keep an eye on the activists, to prosecute those who could present a threat to Rome. Jesus is here to announce peace, but this is not the same kind of status quo peace based on the political convenience of some far-distant power. Jesus’ peace is a peace that can be given freely but not legislated—shared but not enforced.
This was how Jesus lived. Jesus was the living alternative to a business-as-usual, might-makes-right way of life. At every turn, Jesus flipped institutionalized religion upside down. He misquoted scripture, healed on the Sabbath, touched people with leprosy, met with outcasts, talked with a Samaritan woman, forgave sins… Jesus was an inconvenient presence in his time and in his faith. And now here he is, riding into Jerusalem—into the regional lions’ den of earthly power and authority.
A question to consider: What was Jesus doing in Jerusalem? Really—what was he doing there? After all, Jerusalem was a hotbed of religious thinking and politics—a dangerous place for a man like Jesus, whose reputation for confronting and disrupting religious and political powers was sure to get him in trouble. So what was Jesus doing there? Well, thanks to hindsight and close to 2,000 years of Christian tradition, we could say that he was there to die—that Jesus was there in Jerusalem to be crucified. But I wonder if this is at least a slight oversimplification.
Ask yourself: What might Jesus have been thinking about that day? As he rode into town on that young colt, and as he watched the people waving palm branches and shouting, “Hosanna,” was Jesus thinking to himself, “Well, it’s been a nice run. These three years have sure gone fast. Too bad it all has to end this week…” Is that what Jesus was thinking? After all, Jesus surely must have known that death was a possibility here—that he was putting himself in harm’s way. So what was he thinking? Was he saying to himself, “I know what I’m here for—I’m here to get myself killed, so let’s get this over with.”
Or is it possible that Jesus was thinking something much different—that in fact Jesus was thinking, “I have to keep trying. I have to keep loving. Keep healing, keep reaching out, keep telling the truth, keep announcing peace…” Is it possible that Jesus came to Jerusalem to do what he’d been doing all along—to offer a compassionate, inclusive vision of God’s love for God’s people? To present a hopeful sense of purpose in this world?
Maybe Jesus didn’t come to Jerusalem to die. Maybe—just maybe—he came to be fully alive and to teach others what it could mean to live that way. And maybe this was the problem, because throughout history humanity has had a way of violently rejecting those who could do such a thing. And of course, Jesus did die in Jerusalem—he was killed there. But there is a huge difference between saying “Jesus came to be killed so that we could know love” and “Jesus came to love and so we killed him.”
If we say that Jesus came to Jerusalem to be killed so that we could know love, on some level we imply that his presence there was part of some cosmic script over which he had no control. But if we say that Jesus came to love and then was killed, we embrace this Holy Week as a remembrance of the way Jesus lived.
Jerusalem was a death trap for Jesus, but that’s where he went. And in doing so, Jesus said something about the nature of God—namely, that God is in the constant business of entering and confronting the broken places in our world. God will not be kept from showing up where love and truth are most consistently rejected. Jerusalem, Racine, your family, your thoughts, your marriage, your fears and worries, your pain… To the very end, without counting the cost, that’s where Jesus will go, because that’s how he lived.
How He Died…
Jesus died asking the question, “Why?” In Mark’s gospel, we read something of Jesus’ last moments before death…
When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Mark 15:33-34)
I don’t know about you, but I usually like to think of Jesus as having things under control. Calm. Cool. Collected. When storms rage on the sea, he quiets them. When the religious leaders try to trap him, he slips away. When the disciples argue amongst themselves, he sets them straight. Over and over again, Jesus is the one keeping it all together. With grace, he moves through towns and cities and countrysides, healing the sick, forgiving sins. Around practically every gospel corner, we see Jesus speaking and moving with graceful purpose,
handling the world’s problems with apparent ease…
But now this. “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?”
And so Jesus joins the entire human race in asking the question: Why? Why, God, why? Jesus, in that moment of blinding pain and anguish, having watched his friends filter away, and now hanging from the cross, asks that question that is so central to the human experience—especially the human experience of suffering: WHY?
It’s not a always a rational question, but it’s a human question: Why? Why, God?
Why is it, if you’re so powerful and good, that evil exists in this world?
Why, God? If you can do anything, why was my child born with a mental handicap?
Why did my father have to die so soon?
Why did the tornado hit my house?
Why can’t I get through one day without feeling lousy?
Why cancer, God?
Why earthquakes, God?
Why the holocaust, God?
Why can’t I have a normal life, my God?
My God, why have you forsaken me, God?
Jesus’ “WHY” wasn’t the first human “WHY” and it certainly wasn’t the last. But it was definitely was a human why. Which brings us to the heart of it all—that Jesus was human. Really human. God with us. God, yes—but one of us. A walking, talking, eating, sleeping, laughing, crying, feeling joy, feeling pain human being. Prone to sadness and misery, prone to defeat and heartache—human.
Jesus was NOT God in a human costume, parading around for roughly three decades, pretending to know what it’s like, pretending to struggle with the confines of an earthly body, thinking all the while, “Gosh, it’ll sure be great to get back up to Heaven with Dad so I can lose this goofy human body.”
The story of Jesus isn’t a story of God masquerading as a human being—pretending to feel pain, pretending to catch a cold, pretending to grieve when John the Baptist died, pretending to know what it’s like to feel so undeniably human all the time. The story of Jesus is the story of Emmanuel—God with us, truly with us, one of us, one with us. Living with us and, in the end, dying as one of us.
And when Jesus cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” it’s not a show. It’s not a desperate plea for posterity’s sake. It simply is what it is. A real man, hanging on a cross, wondering just where in God’s name God is. Feeling alone, abandoned, forsaken. And, when you think about it, what else is there to say? Love. Pure, unadulterated love, is being betrayed, denied, and murdered here. Flushed down the toilet of humanity’s wasteful greed and ignorance.
And thus the cross comes into focus and we see more of what’s going on. God is with us. With us in our living, and with us in our dying. With us in our suffering. With us in our abandonment.
God with us in that feeling we get that God is nowhere to be found. That is how Jesus died.
As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”
How He Lived…
Two of my favorite authors and thinkers in the faith are Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan. Together they’ve written a book called The Last Week, and it’s an exploration of this Holy Week in which we now find ourselves. One of the images they bring to light is that of Jesus, entering Jerusalem. He’s riding on a colt, but his friends are all walking. They’re wearing robes and sandals and carrying very little.
On the other side of town, Borg and Crossan suggest that another figure is entering the city—that of Pontius Pilate. Unlike Jesus, Pilate rides on a majestic warhorse. He’s accompanied by Roman soldiers carrying weapons and banners—impressive and intimidating signs of empire. Pilate, of course, is essentially an extension of the Roman Empire, sent to Jerusalem to keep an eye on things.
So there you have it. On one side of the city, a Roman bureaucrat arrives in an intimidating display of power. Surrounded by spear carriers and sword wielders, he’s here to maintain order.
On the other side of the city, a simple carpenter’s son arrives on a colt. Had it not been for the miracles and the rumors spreading ahead of him, he would have looked like just another peasant making his way into the city.
Both Pilate and Jesus come with power. Pilate has the power to make right with might, to represent the authority of a great earthly kingdom. Jesus has a different power—power to love and to serve and sacrifice—and he brings the authority of a heavenly kingdom.
Both Pilate and Jesus come in peace. Pilate is here to keep peace—to make sure no one gets out of line, to keep an eye on the activists, to prosecute those who could present a threat to Rome. Jesus is here to announce peace, but this is not the same kind of status quo peace based on the political convenience of some far-distant power. Jesus’ peace is a peace that can be given freely but not legislated—shared but not enforced.
This was how Jesus lived. Jesus was the living alternative to a business-as-usual, might-makes-right way of life. At every turn, Jesus flipped institutionalized religion upside down. He misquoted scripture, healed on the Sabbath, touched people with leprosy, met with outcasts, talked with a Samaritan woman, forgave sins… Jesus was an inconvenient presence in his time and in his faith. And now here he is, riding into Jerusalem—into the regional lions’ den of earthly power and authority.
A question to consider: What was Jesus doing in Jerusalem? Really—what was he doing there? After all, Jerusalem was a hotbed of religious thinking and politics—a dangerous place for a man like Jesus, whose reputation for confronting and disrupting religious and political powers was sure to get him in trouble. So what was Jesus doing there? Well, thanks to hindsight and close to 2,000 years of Christian tradition, we could say that he was there to die—that Jesus was there in Jerusalem to be crucified. But I wonder if this is at least a slight oversimplification.
Ask yourself: What might Jesus have been thinking about that day? As he rode into town on that young colt, and as he watched the people waving palm branches and shouting, “Hosanna,” was Jesus thinking to himself, “Well, it’s been a nice run. These three years have sure gone fast. Too bad it all has to end this week…” Is that what Jesus was thinking? After all, Jesus surely must have known that death was a possibility here—that he was putting himself in harm’s way. So what was he thinking? Was he saying to himself, “I know what I’m here for—I’m here to get myself killed, so let’s get this over with.”
Or is it possible that Jesus was thinking something much different—that in fact Jesus was thinking, “I have to keep trying. I have to keep loving. Keep healing, keep reaching out, keep telling the truth, keep announcing peace…” Is it possible that Jesus came to Jerusalem to do what he’d been doing all along—to offer a compassionate, inclusive vision of God’s love for God’s people? To present a hopeful sense of purpose in this world?
Maybe Jesus didn’t come to Jerusalem to die. Maybe—just maybe—he came to be fully alive and to teach others what it could mean to live that way. And maybe this was the problem, because throughout history humanity has had a way of violently rejecting those who could do such a thing. And of course, Jesus did die in Jerusalem—he was killed there. But there is a huge difference between saying “Jesus came to be killed so that we could know love” and “Jesus came to love and so we killed him.”
If we say that Jesus came to Jerusalem to be killed so that we could know love, on some level we imply that his presence there was part of some cosmic script over which he had no control. But if we say that Jesus came to love and then was killed, we embrace this Holy Week as a remembrance of the way Jesus lived.
Jerusalem was a death trap for Jesus, but that’s where he went. And in doing so, Jesus said something about the nature of God—namely, that God is in the constant business of entering and confronting the broken places in our world. God will not be kept from showing up where love and truth are most consistently rejected. Jerusalem, Racine, your family, your thoughts, your marriage, your fears and worries, your pain… To the very end, without counting the cost, that’s where Jesus will go, because that’s how he lived.
How He Died…
Jesus died asking the question, “Why?” In Mark’s gospel, we read something of Jesus’ last moments before death…
When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Mark 15:33-34)
I don’t know about you, but I usually like to think of Jesus as having things under control. Calm. Cool. Collected. When storms rage on the sea, he quiets them. When the religious leaders try to trap him, he slips away. When the disciples argue amongst themselves, he sets them straight. Over and over again, Jesus is the one keeping it all together. With grace, he moves through towns and cities and countrysides, healing the sick, forgiving sins. Around practically every gospel corner, we see Jesus speaking and moving with graceful purpose,
handling the world’s problems with apparent ease…
But now this. “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?”
And so Jesus joins the entire human race in asking the question: Why? Why, God, why? Jesus, in that moment of blinding pain and anguish, having watched his friends filter away, and now hanging from the cross, asks that question that is so central to the human experience—especially the human experience of suffering: WHY?
It’s not a always a rational question, but it’s a human question: Why? Why, God?
Why is it, if you’re so powerful and good, that evil exists in this world?
Why, God? If you can do anything, why was my child born with a mental handicap?
Why did my father have to die so soon?
Why did the tornado hit my house?
Why can’t I get through one day without feeling lousy?
Why cancer, God?
Why earthquakes, God?
Why the holocaust, God?
Why can’t I have a normal life, my God?
My God, why have you forsaken me, God?
Jesus’ “WHY” wasn’t the first human “WHY” and it certainly wasn’t the last. But it was definitely was a human why. Which brings us to the heart of it all—that Jesus was human. Really human. God with us. God, yes—but one of us. A walking, talking, eating, sleeping, laughing, crying, feeling joy, feeling pain human being. Prone to sadness and misery, prone to defeat and heartache—human.
Jesus was NOT God in a human costume, parading around for roughly three decades, pretending to know what it’s like, pretending to struggle with the confines of an earthly body, thinking all the while, “Gosh, it’ll sure be great to get back up to Heaven with Dad so I can lose this goofy human body.”
The story of Jesus isn’t a story of God masquerading as a human being—pretending to feel pain, pretending to catch a cold, pretending to grieve when John the Baptist died, pretending to know what it’s like to feel so undeniably human all the time. The story of Jesus is the story of Emmanuel—God with us, truly with us, one of us, one with us. Living with us and, in the end, dying as one of us.
And when Jesus cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” it’s not a show. It’s not a desperate plea for posterity’s sake. It simply is what it is. A real man, hanging on a cross, wondering just where in God’s name God is. Feeling alone, abandoned, forsaken. And, when you think about it, what else is there to say? Love. Pure, unadulterated love, is being betrayed, denied, and murdered here. Flushed down the toilet of humanity’s wasteful greed and ignorance.
And thus the cross comes into focus and we see more of what’s going on. God is with us. With us in our living, and with us in our dying. With us in our suffering. With us in our abandonment.
God with us in that feeling we get that God is nowhere to be found. That is how Jesus died.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Evotional - Oscar Romero
Today is the thirty year anniversary of the death of Oscar Romero, once the Archbishop of El Salvador who, inspired by his faith, confronted that country’s oppressive and often violent government through nonviolence. Romero worked diligently to promote peace and justice among the people of El Salvador, but he was assassinated by the military.A few Oscar Romero quotes, then...
“If we are worth anything, it is not because we have more money or more talent, or more human qualities. Insofar as we are worth anything, it is because we are grafted on to Christ's life, his cross and resurrection.
That is a person's measure.”
"Peace is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violent repression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all. Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity. It is right and it is duty."
And then, shortly before his assassination, Romero wrote these words:
“It helps now and then, to step back and take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection, no pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church’s mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about: We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capability.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.”
As we move through Holy Week and towards the cross, may we be mindful that our lives are grated onto Christ’s own. And may we take “the long view” as we let God’s kingdom find its way into our lives and our world.
Peace,
Ben
Monday, March 22, 2010
Abundant Living - John 12:1-8
Sermon on Sunday, March 21Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair.
Today is the fifth Sunday in Lent and that means a few things. It means that next week is Palm Sunday and the following week Easter. Our Lenten vigil is drawing to a close, making way for shouts of “Hosanna,” Holy Week, the empty tomb, and an Easter egg hunt. For the past five weeks, we’ve been leaning toward the cross—toward those moments when Jesus is betrayed, arrested, denied, and crucified.
But first Jesus pays a visit to a family—sisters Martha and Mary and their brother Lazarus. At first, one might think of this simply as a follow-up visit. Just days earlier, Jesus had performed a miracle at their home. Lazarus was dead, you’ll recall—dead for four long and lonely days—dead and gone long enough for all hope to be lost. By the time Jesus had arrived at their house, Martha had said as much: “Don’t roll away the stone, Jesus—there’s a stench.” But the stone was taken away from the tomb, and Jesus cried out, “Lazarus, come out!” And out walked this man, their brother Lazarus, still bound in bands of burial cloth, undoubtedly a bit dazed, wondering what had just happened to him.
Jesus doesn’t schedule too many follow-up appointments in the gospels, but you could argue that this was a special case. Maybe that’s what Martha and Lazarus were expecting. Maybe they thought Jesus would ask a few questions, run a few tests, and maybe prescribe some physical therapy. Being dead for four days, after all, must have some serious side effects. But not much is said about Lazarus in this story—he’s just sitting there, ready to eat with his sisters and with Jesus. We can well imagine that the world is a pretty fantastic place for Lazarus at this point. Dead for four days and now alive! Air, food, water, conversation—it all tastes like new life to him—like a second life he didn’t know he had coming.
Martha, meanwhile, gets busy preparing a meal. After all, how do you thank a man who raised your brother from the dead? You can’t respond in kind. You can’t return the favor. If you offered money you would only cheapen the gift of that miracle. And so Martha does what a lot of people do when they don’t know what to say or how to say it: she cooks. I imagine her cooking up a storm, having lovingly planned a meal for this man who brought her brother back to her from death. She’s back in the kitchen, pulling out all the stops, making everything just so, getting ready to communicate her loving thanks through food. Martha would have made a good Presbyterian.
And then there’s Mary. When Jesus had seen her weeping at Lazarus’ tomb, it moved him and he wept too. And now here they are again. And unlike Martha and Lazarus, and unlike the disciples, Mary seems to have a sixth sense about what’s going on. Jesus isn’t going to make it. She knows it. She saw what happened after he raised Lazarus from the dead. She knows what a threat Jesus has become to the religious establishment. And she’s heard the word going around: that anyone who knew where Jesus was should report it to the chief priests and Pharisees so that he might be arrested. In Mary’s mind, the clock is ticking. She doesn’t have much time because, in fact, Jesus himself doesn’t have much time.
And so Mary does the only thing that makes sense in her mind. She brings a container of costly perfume into the room. It’s made from nard, a precious ointment imported from the East. And she anoints Jesus’ feet with it. I wonder if at first Martha and Lazarus thought this to be a bizarre gesture—nice, maybe, but a little strange. But then Mary keeps going, she keeps anointing and keeps anointing. Finally she pours more and more than enough—too much, really—on Jesus feet. The aroma must have been suffocating. “Mary, dear, you’re using way too much.” But she won’t be stopped. She tips the jar over entirely, every last drop spilling out onto Jesus’ feet. And still somehow it’s not enough. And so she begins to wipe them with her hair. Weeping, cleaning, anointing. Dumping it all out—every last drop.
At last she finishes cleaning Jesus’ feet with her hair. And I imagine there followed then an awkward silence in the room. How does one break the ice after a woman intentionally tips a year’s salary’s worth of perfume onto Jesus’ feet and onto the floor? What do you say after such an embarrassingly intimate and public display of love and waste? What do you say to Mary, whose hair is now drenched with perfume and covered with dust? Lazarus might have said, “Well, ok! Now who’s hungry?” Martha might have said, “Let’s open some windows and air this place out.” Instead it was Judas who spoke, and he probably said what everyone was really thinking: “What a colossal waste! Why wasn’t this perfume sold?” In other words: “We’re all dirt poor, traveling around the country on a shoestring with resources few and far between. What in God’s name could have possibly gotten into you, Mary?”
But Mary knows. And Jesus knows. “Leave her alone,” he says. “She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.” Mary’s act was not an act of thanksgiving or even cleansing. She was doing what many of us do for our loved ones when they die—she was treating his body with care and respect and devotion—preparing it for burial.
Mary’s gift is a gift of extreme extravagance. It goes overboard—too far, in fact. Now there are a couple ways to look at that jar of perfume—the one that Mary dumped out at Jesus’ feet. One would be to say that it represents a nest egg—a foundation of wealth to be saved—a precious resource to hang onto, to use, maybe, gradually over the course of a lifetime—to sell in small volume, perhaps, during a rough year.
But Mary looks at that jar and says, “What else am I waiting for?” She may have thought to herself, “How many times in my life will I have a chance to be this crazy? Maybe never again.” I wonder if she said to herself, “If I can’t be generous and extravagant right now, it’s probably true that I’ll never really be generous or extravagant.” And so Mary treats that jar of perfume like she’s got a hundred others sitting in the back closet collecting dust.
Some people have the gift of being able to look at the world that way. Some people are simply blessed with the sense that nothing in this world is truly valuable if you can’t somehow turn it into a gift.
Not long before he raised Lazarus from the dead, Jesus said, “I have come that all may have life, and have it abundantly.” There’s an invitation there for us to wonder more about what it means to live abundantly—to adopt a world view that flourishes with an abiding sense of abundance.
Have you ever noticed that if you believe and behave like you don’t have enough time, then in reality, you don’t? And have you ever noticed that if you believe that you have plenty of time and behave like you have plenty of time, then most of the time you do?
Some people in this world operate out of a sense of scarcity and some out of a sense of abundance. Some people—some of us—move through this world like there’s never a minute to spare. There’s always “the next thing”—the next phone ringing, the next text message, the next event to plan, the next meal to prepare, the next day to worry about. And so we miss moment after moment after moment because time is a scarce resource.
But there are some people—some of you—who seem gifted with the ability to move through this world with plenty of time. Plenty of time to turn off the phone, to chat, to stop by with a casserole, to plant seeds, to look at the clouds moving in… plenty of time because time is an abundant resource.
Have you ever noticed that if a person believes that love in this world is scarce, then it is? And have you ever noticed that if you believe that love in this world is abundant, then it is?
Some people operate out of a sense of scarcity when it comes to love. And it’s hard for them to trust love because there isn’t enough of it. And so love itself is measured and conserved—received, perhaps, with suspicion and shared tentatively.
But there are some in this world who operate out of a sense of true abundance when it comes to love. They know that love is a renewable resource—strengthened when it is given and received. They never worry about running out of love simply because they never have. They know that there’s no such thing as loving too many people because love itself isn’t something you have to ration. It’s abundant.
We could say this about lots of things. If you believe goodness in this world is scarce, then it is; but if you believe that goodness is everywhere, you’re sure to find it in abundance. If you believe that true friendship is rare, then it can be scarce. But if you believe you’re friends are everywhere, then they often are!
How much of our perspective in this world is shaped either by our sense of scarcity or by our sense of abundance? Another exciting question for us to ask ourselves as a church is this: what does a sense of abundance do in terms of our mission and outreach in this world? What could a family of faith like this one do with an endlessly abundant sense of its resources—its time, its talent, its potential. The possibilities are endless if you think about them abundantly.
In many ways, this reflects a conversation that the leadership of this congregation has been having lately. We’ve been asking ourselves the question, “How are we uniquely gifted by God to serve this church at this time?” Sometimes this is a hard question to answer. Church life is full of to-do lists. We’ve got lots of things to do around here. People to reach out to, light bulbs to change, classes to teach, ministries to keep going… there’s always a lot to do. But the truth is this: we don’t want you here so that we can give you something to do. We want you here because we believe that each person who comes into this place is uniquely gifted by God to be a part of this family of faith.
A quote that I love comes from Howard Thurman, who wrote, “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.”
This week, I would invite you ask yourself: What makes me come alive? And how has God gifted me to be a part of the world? And may your response to those questions foster in you a true sense of abundance—that your life might spill over with extravagant love and grace. Amen.
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