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.

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?

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

Living Into Hope

Sermon on May 30, 2010

Romans 5:1-5:

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 Christians 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.

1. Professor, author, and pastor Thomas Long tells this story in a sermon entitled "A Living Hope."

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

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

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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

Abundant Living - John 12:1-8

Sermon on Sunday, March 21

Mary 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.

E-votional - Steadfast

This past Sunday we sang, "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning, new every morning. Great is your faithfulness, oh Lord; great is your faithfulness.

Steadfast... This past week, the crocuses behind the house came up, pushing their way through the lingering snow. Part of the joy of planting bulbs is that by the time they come up, I've usually forgotten where I planted them, or that I even planted them at all. Crocuses are the first to arrive, defying winter's lingering grip and willing spring into existence. Poking through the snow, they seem to say, "We will not be denied!" And so it begins again: melting, thawing, growing, gardening, picnicing, playing...

Steadfast... Through Lent, we recall God's unwavering faithfulness. We remember that even as this season carries us relentlessly towards the cross, our faith blossoms from the mystery of resurrection - that sense that death never has the last word and that new life simply will not be denied. Thanks be to God for this enduring faithfulness, and for endless possibilities of new life!

Lost and Found - Luke 15:1-7

Sermon on Sunday, March 14

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stand Up - John 5:1-18

Sermon on Sunday, February 28

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

People stopped asking, “How you doing?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen.