Jesus' Kind of Peace 5/5/13

Leave-takings are often difficult.  We hurt when someone we love has to leave, and it’s also hard when we’re the one that has to leave - especially when we are good friends and have
shared meaningful times. Say we go on a special trip - we anticipate arriving at our friend's place and seeing them, then we enjoy good times together, then we find ourselves starting to count down - only 2 more days, only 1 more day, then that last day and it’s time to leave – it’s hard. Same with visiting a favorite spot, a favorite summer camp, a favorite relative’s house, seeing our grown children or grandchildren, moving from a house where we’ve spent happy years. Of course, it’s really only difficult to part when it’s been a good, enriching time, with good friends, with happy memories - we’re happy to leave when it’s that other kind of visit!
       Jesus knows what’s coming for him, knowing the difficult tests he will endure, and how his followers will feel bereft at his leaving. So he’s preparing himself and his followers for his approaching death, so they don’t lose their faith, so they won’t feel the bottom drop out of everything they had envisioned and imagined during their years together on the road, and in ministry. We've pointed out before that they really don’t get what he’s saying, so the tragedy of Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion do strike them to the core – and God raising him from the dead stuns them again. But they have his words to recall to mind, and more than that, they have Jesus’ very Spirit to keep the relationship going.

My peace I give you - & the Spirit
       Have peace, Jesus says, ahead of time. I’m not going to leave you orphaned. I’m saying this while I’m with you, and later you’ll have the Spirit, the Advocate, the Counselor, the One who walks alongside to help – and you’ll be reminded and taught even more. Don’t fear – I give you my peace. Don’t be troubled or afraid.
       Of course, they ARE troubled and afraid; confused, perhaps overwhelmed. They DO feel bereft, not understanding. Jesus’ death is a big shock, even though reading about it these 2,000 years later, we can see in the gospels that Jesus tried to tell them about it. But they had a different picture in mind, they expected a different outcome - Jesus triumphant, Israel reborn. So Jesus’ words didn't click beforehand.
       Then they began remembering, then Jesus breathed on them and gave his Spirit. Then that Day of Pentecost came, that we will celebrate in a couple weeks, with the explosion of God’s power and the beginning of the spread of the gospel. Jesus was still with them.

Scary things happen in this world
       Certainly if we had to face the challenges of life alone, it would be a fearsome thing. Scary things happen in the world and in life – they fill our headlines and our social media. A random maladjusted person takes out their feelings of helplessness and wrath on a grade school. A couple foreign students plant bombs at a great community event like the Boston Marathon. Angry people highjack planes, or send poisons through the mail. Trusted people high in reliable organizations decide to get rich in some nefarious and careless ways, and plunge the whole world into financial chaos. A parent can’t handle the stress in their life and take it out on their children, abusing them and scarring their souls for their life. A nice family dog attacks a kid out of the blue. Cancer happens. Sudden death happens. People we think are friends turn on us in scathing abuse. Cars wreck. Jobs get eliminated. Children experiment with drugs and get hooked. Freak accidents happen. Houses get robbed. Fires sweep through the nearby forests and take one house while leaving those on either side. 

There's varieties of what 'peace' means...
      What does Jesus mean about giving us peace? What kind of peace is it?
      We use the word peace is various ways. Our country calls its missiles “peacemakers” – in the sense that we have enough power to clobber you, so don’t rebel. I guess that's peace of a sort - no overt war, anyway....but it’s not a thriving situation for the powerless. And there’s the other sense that we’ll wipe you out and then you won’t be a bother and we’ll have peace. Some parents punish their children so severely that the kids live in fear of putting a foot wrong – not really a healthy relationship, although I guess there’s a peace of sorts. Not a peace where the children thrive.
       Politically, we call Peace the absence of war. Whatever else is hurting people, however else people are suffering, if there’s no war, it’s peacetime. Back in the hippie days, we wore peace symbols and everyone talked about peace, kind of an Utopian dream of everyone getting along, mainly because they were enjoying the rounded off edges with marijuana. Forget your troubles with an artificial high, drugs or booze whatever, and just be, man.

What Jesus' peace isn't
       The peace Jesus gives isn't about carrying the biggest stick, nor being the victims of those with the biggest sticks. The peace Jesus gives isn't about a sentimental or drug-induced version of peace, either. And certainly the peace Jesus gives doesn't mean the absence of trouble in our lives, or the psychological tension we feel when we wrestle with things. Christians certainly have as much human trouble as the next guy. Believing in God doesn't put a shield around us that trouble can’t get through, although sometimes we don't understand that.  Look at the Bible - The folks in the Bible stories certainly didn't live trouble-free lives – even King David, the great King of Israel’s glory. Our adult Sunday School class has been reading in 2 Samuel about David’s life – although he was a man of God and a great King, he certainly had his difficult times. Jacob, the founder of the Hebrew tribe known as Israel, had his named changed TO Israel because he “strived with God.” His son Joseph, also important to the story of God’s people, was thrown out by his own brothers, thrown in prison and lied about – he landed on his feet, but he had troubles. The disciples were beaten, stoned, imprisoned, and some were martyred. Jesus himself was betrayed, lied about and killed by the state.
       I know there are some preachers and churches that seem to tell people that if only they’d come to God, get right with God, all their troubles would be over. That illness and trouble come because of sins. That’s just simply not true. We don’t cease being humans and participants in the human condition just because we have trusted in God. There’s a verse in the OT that says that when it rains, it rains on the just and the unjust. You can take that 2 ways – one, that when God sends the blessing of rain, it helps the crops of the bad guys as well as the good guys. Two, when trouble comes, it doesn't just affect the bad guys. In any event, it seems to say we are all part of humanity, and prone to the things that befall humanity.

So...what IS Jesus' peace?
       Like those other fruits of the Spirit, love and joy and kindness and long-suffering, the peace Jesus gives is a deep inner certainty that we are God’s beloved, and in God’s hands. The Hebrew word “Shalom,” which is often translated “peace,” actually carries a concept of wholeness, well-being, and inner security that we know the One who is the Beginning and the End – and everything in between.
       So in troubles, we know that we are not out of God’s hands, and we have not been abandoned. We remember that God is with us, and even if things are dire, our lives are safe in God’s larger plan. The peace of God is a deep-seated sense of well-being that comes from one’s experience of the Divine in daily life. Our hearts are not perturbed, even if the seas roar around us. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. We do not live in existential loneliness - rather our reality is that place where God’s will is being done and God’s promises are being fulfilled, where the Spirit of God lives in us and connects us to the ultimate reality of Being Itself. Jesus’ peace emerges from a sense of God’s nearness and an experience of the Spirit’s illumination. Peace enlivens the soul and widens our sense of self beyond the fragile and defensive self to embrace the Spirit of God moving in all things. The fearful self, worried about its survival, gives way to a self that sees all things in God, including its individual unfolding, and God in all things. We remain mortal and finite, but our mortality is no longer demoralizing; our mortality is embraced in our relationship to a trustworthy and faithful God. (from Bruce Epperly’s blog, http://www.patheos.com/blogs/livingaholyadventure/ 2013/ 05/the-adventurous-lectionary-the-sixth-sunday-of-easter/)

God makes a home in us
       Jesus promises in these verses that we who love God will keep God’s words, and God will come and make a home within us. John’s word for this is often translated, “abide.” God will abide in us if we abide in God. The gospel of John uses this word 40 times, so it’s a significant concept in John. Abide signifies to stay, to remain, to dwell, to lodge, to last, to persist, and/or to continue. At the spiritual level, it describes what God does in our lives. God abides in Jesus and Jesus abides in God (14:10). Jesus abides in and with us (6:56). We bear fruit because Jesus abides in us (15:5). Jesus' words abide (15:7). The Holy Spirit abides with Jesus (1:32-33). Therefore disciples abide with or in Jesus (8:31, 35, 12:46, 15:4-5, 7, 9-10). (from webpage blog, http://www.patheos.com/Progressive-Christian/Home-Alone-Alyce-McKenzie-04-29-2013)
       God makes a home within us. Isn’t that a delightful promise? No wonder we can have the peace of God – we are in an ongoing relationship with the Divine. We live together with the God of the universe. Not only does that give us peace, it also says we are never alone when we face the troubles of the world. God is with us. What a remarkable assurance – and a remarkable peace. AMEN.

Text - John 14: 23-29

God Speaks Our Language 5/19/13

       At my conference this past week, there was this poor guy who had the job of
standing up after either the worship service or lecture and doing announcements. I say
“poor guy” because there were about 1700 preachers there, and when the closing song was
sung, we got up like it was the end of church and time to head for the snacks in the
fellowship hall. He tried to talk over the sound of babble, babble, babble, but some folks
were into their conversations and really didn't pay attention. That he spoke softly didn't help. The second time, he leaned in close and said, “I have gifts to give out,” which helped, but still people were talking on the way out the door. By the next day the group learned to wait & listen, thank goodness - but the first day must have been totally embarrassing for him. Having been working on this sermon, I was struck by the noise of babble, babble, babble. We preachers can really talk.
      Was Babel a prequel for our Pentecost
       The mnemonic thing in English about "babble, babble, babble" is a neat trick in English to remember the story and the name of the tower. Of course the name of Babel in the Genesis text later becomes “Babylon,” the Sumerian civilization.  It actually did grow from a travelling population, built cities and tall towers called ziggurats as temples to connect earth and heaven, did come up with baking bricks rather than just sun drying them, and used bitumen to hold them together. They were a powerful empire, and enforced a one language rule to unite and strengthen their society. And they were eventually thrown down by invading forces from several directions at once, which brought their various languages as well as carrying captives off where other languages were spoken. This is the pre-story, the pre-quel , for the story of Abraham, introduced as Abram before his name is amended by Jehovah God, who sets out on his journey and becomes the ancestor of Israel.

Compare & contrast - that is so God!
        This text is often paired in our common lectionary with the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, seeing the two stories as a reversal of each other. The situations are similar – the Roman Empire, like the Sumerian Empire, was a powerful civilization, and also enforced a one-language rule over the peoples they either conquered or did business with – much like people kinda have to speak English today to deal with the powerful empire we live in. And in both situations, suddenly there are multiple languages in town. The difference is that in Sumer, the language was a result of the overthrow of the Empire, and the confusion of the people was
result of what tore the down. Whereas in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, the Spirit of God enabled the disciples to spread the good news of Jesus Christ in people’s native languages…. and so subvert the edict of Rome at the same time. In Sumer, the people said “Let’s make a name for ourselves,” setting themselves up to challenge God; and God threw them down in a confusion of languages. In Rome, who had done the same things, God now undercut their enforced unity with speaking to people in their own language, using this miracle of talking to folks each in their own language.
      THAT IS SO GOD!
      In Sumer, God scattered the empire that tried to be settled themselves and worship a false god; in Jerusalem, God comforts these unsettled and far-flung Jews who had come to worship the true God by speaking to them in their words of home. 
       THAT IS SO GOD!
        We can imagine what it must have been like for the faithful Jewish people in that day, under the thumb of Rome, a conquered people, scattered, dispersed; coming back to their own holy city for one of their own holy festival days, and forced to speak in the language of the oppressor, use the money of the oppressor, walk by the soldiers of the oppressor. But then they hear the language of home, the language they know best – and they hear about the new activity of their God, the mighty works of God in Jesus Christ. Yeah, some scoffers think it’s just a bunch of babbling drunks, but many, many people there hear the gospel news and believe. This miracle on Pentecost sent the faith in Jesus as the Christ of God, the Messiah of God, all over the Mediterranean region as these folks returned to their own countries - we sometimes call it the birthday of the church.

God speaks to us in the words of home...
        IT IS SO GOD to speak to us in the words we know, in the words of home – literally
and metaphorically the words of home. God speaks to us in ways we can understand, our
own language, speaks straight to our heart the words we need to hear, the words of
deliverance, forgiveness, salvation. Through the Spirit, God speaks words of comfort, words of call, words of wisdom. In fact, in Jesus Christ, God spoke THE WORD in the flesh of a human person like us, our human language, in one who was born like us and lived like us and died like us – Yet the new WORD spoken in joy was that God raised Jesus up in a new creation, which we are invited to also share.
       Don’t you just hate being misunderstood? Sometimes, even all speaking English, our native language, we can be misunderstood. Communication takes effort – we have to metaphorically speak the same language. Right now in our poor country, if we speak about the economy, some people hear that the Republicans keep causing all sorts of problems, and others hear that those darn Democrats did it. In our Christian religion, we might all say we’re following Jesus, yet we go in different directions. In our close relationships, sometimes what we try to communicate isn’t heard – there’s a popular book about love languages – some people evidently speak “action” and others speak “kind words.” Even all speaking English we can have miscommunications.
       It’s good to know that the Spirit of God speaks OUR language. God communicates with us deep in our souls with the Holy Spirit, who knows who we are, knows what we intend, what we feel, what we think – and when necessary can even speak to us below the level of words. Our conversations with God don’t need a translator.
       Part of the fun of my conference was that we all spoke “preacher,” and could talk together about shared experiences and shared struggles - and laugh together at preacher jokes – and hear sermons and talks aimed towards our joint profession. It’s great to be understood in that way. Colleagues are important.

Closing
       On my flight home, I sat next to a nice man who unfortunately only spoke Spanish – his English was limited to “Coca-cola,” when the flight attendant came by with the cart. He didn't understand pretzel, peanuts or cookies, though, so he pointed to what I had. When the announcement came on that it was time to put your trays up and get ready for landing, he saw me do it and so did it, too. I saw him waiting at the wrong carousel for his bag, so went over to him and pointed to the right one. But did his face light up when his family found him and they began to talk and hug! They spoke Spanish, and they also spoke love. He was understood.
Friends, God is like that – God speaks our language. We are understood, and we can understand. God comes to where we are. God communicates love, acceptance, wisdom,
inspiration – whatever it is we need for our journey. Let us praise today for the miracle of the Spirit and Pentecost. AMEN.

Musings on this Trinity Thing 5/28/13

       Why did Jesus, Moses, Mohammed and the Buddha Cross the Road? is the catchy title of Brian McLaren’s most recent book, which is about how to be a Christian in our multi-faith world. I got to hear him speak at the conference I just attended, where he expanded on a latter part in the book, asking us to re-look at the way our doctrines have been used in a hostile way against each other as well as others in the world, not promoting dialogue but drawing lines and barriers between “us” and “them.” Is there a way, he asks, that we can reimagine our doctrines so that they become agents of healing and understanding? It’s an intriguing thought on this Trinity Sunday. Let’s talk about that.
       

Brief history aside....
       The doctrine of the Trinity has been one of those hard-to-understand but fiercely fought over doctrines. People within Christianity have fought over just how to word things, and people of other faiths misunderstand the doctrine and think we have 3 gods.
       In the early centuries of Christianity, our faith forbears tried to work out in precise detail just how Jesus was connected to God – the early apostles had experienced God in him in a unique way, and were saying he was God incarnate, a strange idea to these Jewish monotheists.The Hebrew Scriptures did talk about God’s Spirit, and some of the older stories seemed to imply that the 3 strangers Abraham encountered, for example, or the dark man Jacob wrestled with, were somehow Divine encounters. But to have God in human flesh was something different. People fought each other over defining how God as Trinity works, calling each other heretics, excommunicating each other, and the like. No one could come up with a universally accepted explanation of how the God of the universe could have three distinct “persons” and still be one God. Eventually, though, those who wrote arguments this way or that way each had to say, “It’s a mystery.” And how do you define and explain a mystery? If we can define and explain it, it’s no longer a mystery, is it?
     It was the Emperor Constantine who made all the leaders sit down and hammer things out into words they could all be united about – they came up with the carefully worded Nicene Creed, which we will read later as our creed. Constantine wanted to make Christianity his state religion, so he wanted the Christians to be united on their beliefs & spell them out.

IMHO...
I read about and studied the arguments and definitions in seminary, and I have to admit, it all sounds arcane at this point in history; it’s just not a hot-button issue any more for me and many others. The explanation that works for me about the concept of the Trinity, is that God is experienced in different ways by people of faith, and that a reminder of God’s mystery and freedom is a good thing in a day where Christians who make the news seem to have put God into a little box to which they alone have the key. God can do what God wants, appear how God wants, be present how God wants and communicate how God wants. That's always been true. And it’s all God.
       God is far more than what we can understand in the first place, so if God wants to send the Spirit, great; and if God wants to live as a human, great. God is not A being, like we understand “beings;” God is being itself – Matthew Fox used the term “isness” – God just is. Theologian Paul Tillich called God the “Ground of Being;” the Way, the Truth, the Life – good metaphorical and philosophical terms (and mystery terms, btw) that try to capture the immensity of what we somehow intuit as God.
       I think of God sometimes as being like a well-cut diamond - with many facets, or faces, each one catching light and refract it in a certain way, making the diamond sparkle. Each facet reflects light a different way, but they are a part of the one diamond, and all contributing to the glory. God could be a trinity or more.

God self-reveals, and in ways we can take in
       God wants us to understand as much as our brains can take in. God has continually tried to reveal Godself to us – in creation, in the Law, and then in Jesus. In the wonder and majesty of creation, God reveals eternal truths and aspects about the God who is Life itself. It’s not a perfect revelation, but we can see truth about God in creation - it’s a start. In the Law of the OT, God reveals more about the life humans are to live – acknowledging God, living in right relationship with each other as well as God, with certain ethical and moral standards that will make us live together most effectively and efficiently.
       Then God decided to speak “human” to us in a living human, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus is what a perfect human life looks like, lived in the realm of God and in perfect unity of relationship with God.

How in the world can we comprehend God anyway?
       I mean, think about it – how can we mortal beings comprehend the vastness and “otherness” of God? Here’s a homely analogy:

•  How can my cat think she understands me, her human? True, she can learn certain things about me and have some experience of me; but she can’t come close to understanding all the complexities of my existence. She doesn't know where I go when I leave, she doesn't know why I take her to the vet, she doesn't know why I read books or type on the computer – or what I’m talking about as I type.
• If you've read Madeline L’Engle’s trilogy, in the one A Swiftly Tilting Planet we get the illustration of the mitochondria (real things, actually) in the cells of a main character decide to rebel against doing their job – they have no comprehension of the whole body of which they are a minute part, they don’t realize that their rebellion is endangering the death of their whole universe (the person). How can a mitochondria understand the whole body of that character and what part they play? It’s a cool sci-fi book.

       Like those little illustrations, we have some interactions with God, some relationship with God. At some point, however, we hit the wall, we run out of RAM - we can’t even begin to conceive of God’s point of view, God’s big picture, God’s purposes. God tells us about Life and Truth and Faith and Eternal things – we basically have to affirm God’s love for us and go with that, and trust what God says about life and relationship and faith.

Faith is more than right formulas
        Why do we have to define and figure out the way God works / is/ lives/exists? How does knowing the right formulas and correct wordings grow our faith and trust? Mostly it doesn't  Sometimes it’s important to sort things out, especially if we start going out on a limb somewhere too odd for others to follow.
       Remember, doctrines are not the same as faith. Doctrines are how we try to organize our experiences of God in a coherent way. The experience with God, the relationship with God – THAT is the vital part of faith. How we try to order those common experiences end up as doctrine. The impetus for the doctrine of the Trinity came from how the disciples – and other early believers – experienced God in Jesus, and experienced God in the Spirit that flowed into them.

So - for today....
       So what does the Trinity of God have to do with tornadoes that ravage yet another town? With an English patriot being attacked in broad daylight in London? With teenage pregnancies? With a sluggish economy? With suffering, health crises, divorces, grief? With finishing school, getting a job? I asked this on my Facebook page but didn't get much response - I guess that question is pretty much a stumper. 
       My answer is that thinking about the mysterious and unexplainable nature of God leads us back to the fact that we are a part of a larger work God is doing, that God loves us, and that God has sought us and found us and made a way for us to be in relationship. It leads back to gratitude for the way God has sought to be known to us humans. It leads us to remember that God is greater than anything we can imagine, and that God’s purposes are ultimately good (though often unclear). Thinking about God lifts our minds from getting stuck in our miseries, to looking outside the box for what God might have in store. Realizing God’s presence can come to us in so many ways helps us look around for how God may be coming to us even now, because God does seek us and come to us, for which we give thanks and praise. AMEN.

Fallibility...Was Jesus Fallible? 6/30/13

       Well, there’s yet another Superman movie out.  This is what, the seventh? Ninth?  I looked it up on Google, and folks disagreed on their lists. At least seven, anyway. And TV shows back to the 50s, with some as recent as a few years back. And comic books – whoops, I’m now supposed to say ‘graphic novels.’  Little history of Superman blurb – two high school guys from Cleveland are credited with the first idea back in 1933. They had a background history for him, but basically focused on his adult super-human powers that were used for good. 

       Superman is an iconic figure in our culture – everybody knows who he is.  If I say Superman, most of you could say back, “Truth, justice and the American way.” Everybody knows that kryptonite is his weakness, his Achilles’ heel – an image from another time in history. Most everybody knows Lex Luthor and Lois Lane, the Joker and the Riddler. 

       We are fascinated SO with Superman! In our age of wanting to understand the motivations and psychology of a figure that has attained mythological stature, we make movie after movie and TV series after TV series to wonder what it must have been like for him growing up, wondering when he came into his powers and how he dealt with it, how he handled his teenage angst, we ponder if he is tempted to use his powers to win football games or save Lois’ life.  We like to think about these things. And the movies are usually a hit. 

Lack of details about Jesus is frustrating 

       This kind of inner exploration of thought and motive is we’re used to in writings of our time.  I read a troubling book recently whose main characters were a son who became a school shooter and his mother. It was difficult to read, but I couldn't put it down. (That troubled me, too.) We wonder how these young people get formed this way, what made them turn out like this. And it’s not just the psychology of serial killers that intrigue us, because there are even more biographies and autobiographies of good people, exploring how their early lives formed them. 

       So the brief and terse accounts of Jesus’ life are frustrating to us. We want things explained more fully. We want historical accuracy and footnotes. We want more details, more analysis of his time and culture and his place in it. We base our faith on Jesus, and we want to understand more about him. Jesus is the center of our salvation story, and we have lots of questions. Of course there are lots of plays and movies about Jesus as well, and libraries full of historical and cultural analyses of his time, how his Jewishness interacted with the Roman Empire, various suggestions put forward as to how to hear his words. And there are many, many sermons. 

The can he sin or can't he sin question

       This morning’s suggested topic is one of those questions that attempt to fathom who Jesus is and what he is. The question submitted asked, “Was Jesus Fallible?” Our knee-jerk, gut reaction is, “Of course not!  He was God!” I can play out how the debate goes in my imagination, “Then how could he be fully human and know about sin, and how could it be a virtue that he resisted it?”  Ah ha! We affirm in our creeds and doctrines that Jesus was also fully human, that he was tempted as we are, yet without sin. So Jesus must have been able to sin, he must have been fallible. But those same creeds and doctrines affirm that Jesus was also fully God, and God can’t sin. “So,” responds our arguing friend, “we can’t compare Jesus to ourselves because he had this built-in advantage all the time. And we can’t expect ourselves to resist like he did.” So the question is actually asking, how can Jesus be human and Divine at the same time? Systematic theology and our creeds have tried to answer this paradox. But an even deeper layer of the question is pastoral, and it’s about my relationship with Jesus - does Jesus really know my struggles?   Our struggles?   Did God really take on the human condition and know our pain? Can God really understand?

       The short answer is "Yes." The passage we read from Philippians 2 lays it out for us.  Here it is from The Message: 7-8 When the time came, Jesus set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.

       I think that’s pretty clear that Jesus was fully human.  And felt the things we feel.  And was tempted in the ways we are. Evidently we can’t excuse ourselves for falling prey to temptation by saying Jesus had a special grace and that’s how HE did it.  We can’t let ourselves off the hook for striving towards the same kind of spiritual life, obedience, faithfulness and insight Jesus had.

No question about us being fallible...   

       We CAN have the assurance, however, that Jesus understands the struggle we have with fallibility.  Let's use the old-fashioned word - sin.  An understanding of ourselves as sinners is so crucial that we incorporate a common confession and assurance of pardon in every worship service.  We can’t approach the Divine without realizing we are created creatures, limited not only by the confines of our mortal life between birth and death, but also limited in understanding, compassion, submission. My favorite verse in the Bible since way back in my teen years has been just a few verses further in Philippians 2 - ¹³ for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.  I've taken much assurance from the fact that God is working in me even when I WILL to do righteous things, because God knows I don’t always live up to even what I know is right.  And I am also aware there’s much I don’t comprehend even beyond that.

       We see evidence of human fallibility daily in the news. Our creative minds that bring about arts and inventions and scientific inquiry and exploration of the creation, are equally creative when it comes to doing evil and serving death. Our compassionate hearts that reach out to assist are equally able to close off and not care. We are incredibly fallible.  

        And not only are we great at sinning, we are also great at deceiving ourselves about our fallibility.  It’s no fun to look at our fallibility, and it’s even less fun to see that choice is involved.  Yet this is the very path of salvation – the inner work of knowing ourselves, the corners of our hearts – seeing and acknowledging and repenting – and humbly accepting God’s love and forgiveness. 

Forgiveness & healing

     The spiritual life involves seeing more and more of just how fallible we are, and letting God’s forgiveness restore us, heal us, at a deeper and deeper level.  Things happen to us and we see truths about ourselves we’d really rather not have seen; people come into our lives for good and for ill, and we learn more about ourselves that we’d really rather not have known.  Most of us would much rather be challenged to go do some helpful things, some missions that make us feel good about ourselves perhaps, some recognition that we are trying hard to be pleasing to God.  We want to think well of ourselves – that’s human nature.  We don’t like admitting that less than wonderful parts of ourselves exist. 

       Sometimes those unacceptable places in ourselves get pushed down so deep that we think they’re gone – that's our Dr. Jeckyll.  Except we also have our Mr. Hyde – those unacceptable parts get triggered and come around like a scorpion tail to hurt. Sometimes we project those negative things out onto someone else and get mad at them, punish them, we make them a scapegoat. Sometimes we do this to whole groups of people, a whole race, or a whole gender, or a whole socio-economic class – or a whole political party. Anybody but me!   Then we can righteously be vindictive and mean to those people, like we would like to do with those unseen parts of ourselves.  We are a complex people.

       Yet before we can be healed, the truth God reveals is that these things are realities of our own lives, things we have to let God’s light shine on, and humbly repent, giving up that false persona and becoming real again. 

       Jesus, unique person that he was, did this perfectly – he was so much in tune with God and one with God that he fulfilled the whole Law, and walked in the kindom of God even as he walked on earth.  And we have declared ourselves to be his followers, his disciples. That means we are seeking to be like him. This week, may we be challenged to recognize these impulses and resist them as true disciples of Christ, who was tempted in every way like as we are, yet without sin.  AMEN.

Is 'Father' God's Real Name? 6/16/13

       This timely question (as its Fathers' Day!) was submitted as a topic in our ongoing series of ideas you all submitted.  I know this formulation of the question is floating around because I've heard it from a couple young men seeking ordination and membership in this presbytery & my last one. And its a question that is close to my heart as a clergywoman who has sought in my whole 30-year ministry to open people to the concept that NO, 'Father' is not God's real name but is among the many metaphors in Scripture for understanding our experiences and relationships with the Divine. It's a rather awkward topic for this day when we remember and honor our fathers, because I need to walk that line between appreciating good fathers, appreciating how the metaphor of 'Father' is a meaningful one for this special relationship with the Divine, and still emphasize that it's not God's 'real' name at all.

Being a parent is amazing

       Being a parent is an amazing experience for us, isn't it? We've all read about 1st-time fathers saying how their hearts opened up, or their appreciation for the mystery of life was kick-started, at the sight of their first child.  Of course, being exhausted after the heroic (sheroic?) journey of labor and delivery, my own reaction was a little different than the fathers' experiences, yet I dare to think that the amazement and wonder are close to the same.  And also similar to the glow in the hearts of adoptive parents. Our love for our children changes every perspective on life. It’s quite the responsibility, bringing up another human: watching those new little people and their distinctive personalities and gifts grow and develop; helping to form their take on the world & their outlook on relationships; modeling being a whole person who is functional and reflective and as whole as we can be at the time; introducing them to God and faith. Not that they don’t soon have their own opinions…. and their own reflections on their unique experiences…and think ours are lame!  

     Because we have been children, and we have often also been the parent, 'Father' is a deep and wonderful metaphor for understanding our experience of relationship with God, especially if we are fortunate to grow up with a  father who loves us and treats us well. 'Father' is not the only metaphor for our relationship with the Divine, and it doesn't encompass ALL that we experience of God.... yet it is still a vital component. 

Seeing ourselves as made in God's image

       I admit that, in my own journey, it was vitally important to my understanding of myself as a woman to explore other metaphors for God, and expand my understanding and appreciation of the hugeness and ultimately totally-beyond-me nature of God.  In fact, that is probably a good journey for ALL of us to take, men as well as women.  Then returning to this metaphor of 'Father' that is in our Scriptures so much, we can appreciate it again without falling into the idolatry of  making this the SOLE relationship and experience of God we can have.    

       It’s important for EACH of us to know that we are made in God’s image, that it takes male and female creation to be the image of God, it takes relationship to be the image of God, it takes dissimilarity as well as similarity to be the image of God.  Men and women both grow from embracing the metaphor of God as Father; women and men both grow from embracing the metaphor of God as Mother.  It honors our differences as well as our same humanity for us to examine and experience how it feels to use these metaphors, and how that enriches our experience of God. 

       I don’t want to get into a gender thing where we say male equals this set of qualities and female equals that set of qualities.  There’s such a wide spectrum for each gender.  But in a culture that still tries to stereotype females as being one way only, and males as being one way only, its healthy for both male and female to see ALL those qualities as part of the Divine.  It was never the intent of the Christian feminists to take away from God as Father; rather it was – and is - to invite a broader understanding of God.  Some use the word “Parent” for worship, which can be mom, dad, adoptive parents, anyone who parents.  I like to bring in all the biblical names for God we can, and more.  It’s only by using the great variety of experiences of God that we let God be God, and don’t stick God in a box of one experience only. 

A few other metaphors for example

       To illustrate metaphors, let’s hear some I Googled for us:

   -Fishing for a compliment –she’s not standing there with a literal rod and reel and a baited hook, no, she’s saying things where the polite answer would be, Oh, but your hair is pretty! or something like that.

   - Our hearts go out to him – do hearts literally go out of our bodies somehow?  No – we’re trying to picture in language the feelings of empathy we have for a person, and the longing to be able to comfort.

   - Emotional rollercoaster -  certainly not a literal rollercoaster, but a reference to rapidly changing emotional states.

   - Feeling blue – what shade?  Not a literal color

   - You light up my life – not a literal lightbulb!

   - She broke my heart – hearts don’t break like that, although they do get disease…

   - He’s the apple of my eye – sure hope that's not literal 

   - And my favorite- let’s get on the ball here!  - on the ball?  Like at a circus? 

       Metaphors suggest that dissimilar things have something in common, and enhance the more unknown thing trying to be communicated, by using another, usually more known thing.  For our sermon purposes today, God is the more unknown thing, the experience of which we are attempting to describe through the use of more common human experiences. There’s a quality of God we are trying to explain, capture, communicate.  God our rock – we’re not saying God is a rock, we’re saying God is strong like a rock, enduring like a rock, unmovable like a huge rock.The good shepherd – that brings in the experience of God as protecting and leading. The bread of life – not literally a loaf of bread, but pointing out the similarity of how God nourishes our life, sustains our life, is necessary to life.

Jesus calls God 'Father' a lot. 

       Jesus obviously chose the relational metaphor of “Father” in the gospels to be his main metaphor.  The question is, how did he mean us to take it?  Since God is a Spirit, God is not literally a male, female or a human of any gender, so those can't be the meaning.  Since male and female are both made to image God, it can't be that the maleness is the point of the metaphor.  Ah - perhaps Jesus is pointing out in a human way that sense of family, kinship, connectedness,  intimacy and closeness in good familial ties!  That, indeed, is a vital understanding of God that fits with Jesus' teachings about God's welcome of us, God's deep love for us, and God's desire for relationship with us.  It's also a corrective to the common understanding of God as a remote, punitive figure that tells us the rules and coldly punishes us for disobedience.  In the relationship of Jesus with God the Father, love and unity of purpose are intertwined - and we are called into the mix.  That is indeed very good news.

       Our Christian forbears have made some mistakes in understanding this metaphor that Jesus uses.  We have taken the cultural understandings of 'father' from Jesus' time and other times to be literal, and missed the great thing Jesus was telling us about kinship and relationship with God. We've taken the whole business of human fathering literally - I've actually heard people argue that God must be male because he made Mary pregnant. That's among the silliest things I've heard people say, and I've heard some doozies.  We've even taken the word 'Father' and said it is NOT a metaphor but God’s very name, like the mysterious name YHWH in the Old Testament.  

What Jesus is saying with this vital metaphor'

        So what qualities about “Father” was Jesus using to explain God’s mystery?

       Jesus’ actual word in Hebrew was the young child’s word, Abba- like Dada, Daddy.  If you’re an NCIS fan, which by the way is still the #1 show on TV with 12 seasons so far, you might remember the emotional episode when Ziva’s father was shot and killed – even with all the mixed emotions of their relationship, what does she call out when he’s shot?  Little Ziva cries out that first name of her childhood, “Abba, Abba.”  The little child to her daddy, a connection of deep love. 

       That same love is the key feature in the parable we read as our text this morning, where actually the father of the story is the first mentioned and key figure, not either of the sons.  And the father’s love for his sons, plural, is the main feature of the story, no matter what they did – to go off and be profligate, or to stay and be obedient and sour.  The connection of God as Father is God’s love for us, which is at least as deep and intense as our love for our own babies.  And it invites us to love God back in that way as well. 

Jesus’ choice of this familal love as his central metaphor while on earth is for the purpose of the deep connection, the deep love, the family ties, the kinship and strong connection of God for us.  On OUR part, there is that deep and primal love back, the knowledge of our origin in God’s family, knowing who we are in God; there’s that utter dependence of a human child on its parents for survival and for teaching; and although we gradually grow more self-sufficient as human adults, that tie to the parent is always there.  Note the many, many, many books and movies focusing on the relationship of a child to a father or mother – good, bad, in-between, but always central and straight to the heart. 

So...human fathers?

     It’s quite a compliment to human fathers that Jesus chose this earthly relationship as a central metaphor about God.  Jesus must have had a very positive experience with Joseph, for one thing.  Knowing that most Christians reading the Scripture will first picture their experience of their earthly father and reach for connections to God’s loving relationship, we see it's also quite a challenge to human father.  I’d think it is also rather quite humbling to realize we are not always up to the comparison…yet quite encouraging for us to be so. It might make the parental relationship to a child almost holy, as we get to participate in a relationship that Jesus used to communicate about God.

      Our human experiences and our human concepts are what we have to work with as we speak of God – as we try and express the divine in mortal terms. Instead of the common mistake of taking our cultural ideas of fathers and putting them on God, let's take the picture of God from the Scripture and attempt to live into that as fathers and mothers.  Let's take God's acceptance, forgiveness, welcome, love and gentle teaching as models for how we can accept the challenge of this metaphor on this Fathers' Day.  AMEN

What Would Jesus Have Us Do? 6/9/13

This week's suggested sermon topic was that slogan WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) that’s been on bracelets and tee-shirts and other Christian items for several years now. I found this a rather nebulous suggestion, so decided to do what a colleague suggested, and put the question out on Facebook. A couple folks responded to the stereotype of people using this to justify their own theology, or being rather shallow in their faith. Someone suggested looking at what Jesus actually DID, and asking if we really felt called to do that.  Another suggestion was to tweak the question to the title I've used here, What Would Jesus Have US Do?  So I sat and thought.

What Jesus actually did...

       I decided to go through the gospel of Matthew and make a list of the things Jesus actually did, as suggested. Not that I haven’t read Matthew a bunch of times, but this was the first time I made a list.  Wow! Somewhere around 30 years old, he was baptized by his odd cousin John in the desert, and then went on a 40-day vision quest where he talked to the Devil and got solidified in his purpose. From that baptism, Jesus was a three-year whirlwind until his death -  & resurrection. The message he solidified in the desert was, “Repent, for the realm of God is at hand.” From the moment he came back, he was focused and centered in this call. He told this good news everywhere: talking and teaching, stunning people with healings, making the blind see, making lame people walk, casting out demons, feeding thousands at a time, eating with people most others considered beneath their notice.  Along the way he really ticked off the more respectable religious leaders. It’s not that they didn't hear his message – they heard it in all its subversive and overturning meaning, it’s non-traditional but vital view of God as merciful and welcoming. They heard it – and were threatened.

       Now the poor and powerless embraced Jesus' message with open arms and ears – but most of the establishment resisted the message and went after the messenger. In fact, one way of looking at Jesus’ three years is that the religious establishment won – they got him executed – a very final solution. This is a phrase  I've heard about what the call to ministry entails, which sums up Jesus’ ministry, too: “Comfort the afflicted……and afflict the comfortable.” 

       While crowds flocked to him in the regions where he went, the religious establishment recognized the challenge he presented to the way things had always been done and the control they had on the practice of faith.  They asked him trick questions - and he always bested them. When they said, you are breaking tradition, he said, “YOU are using tradition to break the meaning of the Law!” He taught using multi-leveled stories (parables) that turned things upside down even more when you unpacked them.  He pulled together a posse of followers and taught them more intently, so they could carry on his work and message – he pretty much knew that the word of God stirs up opposition, and threatened people who liked control better than mercy and law rather than grace. So they would be out to get him. 

        Jesus got three years before the fear in humankind rose against him and killed him.  God’s purposes, however, were greater than this – Jesus was raised from the dead, the perfect servant of God, and became the first of the new creation of God, and opening the door for this good news to spread and spread. 

       Looking at what Jesus DID, do we really want to use what he did as our model?  Asking 'What Would Jesus Do' and intending to copy it is rather scary.  

Jesus had his own special call - and gifts

       Fortunately, we don’t have to be God's Messiah, because that’s already been done.  I think it took someone who was also God to resist all the temptations inherent in what he had to do.  The power thing is really heady - lots of Christians like to imagine themselves heroically cleansing the Temple and calling church leaders a brood of vipers and white-washed graves. A certain kind of person thinks its fun to expose people's clay feet and bring them down...they make room for the devil in their heart because they like that kind of thing.  The “I’m the great provider” pose is tempting, too – I can work wonders; look at me, I can save the world, I am the great and generous host to all you lesser mortals. That lets the devil in your heart, too. In fact, those are some of the temptations Jesus resisted in the desert before he started.  The megalomania of thinking we are God and above everything and everyone else, is a place the devil can exploit. What Jesus did was supremely difficult I’m glad God didn't ask me to do what Jesus did.

So what of Jesus CAN we follow?

       I looked all over Matthew for Jesus doing things we might copy if we asked, “What Would Jesus Do?” in some circumstance of our life.  If we wanted to follow Jesus’ example of identifying all the world as kin, God’s beloved people, we would see our inter-relatedness with all people and offer ourselves to work for the common good.  Jesus called those who followed him his mother, father, sister and brother – in place of his birth family. Yes, he mainly preached to the larger kinship tribe of the Jews, but he did reach outside that to the larger kinship tribe of all people – and he saw his work as for all. 

       If we wanted to follow Jesus’ example of humility, setting aside his godliness and identifying with the common person, we would hold possessions very lightly and go out to the world with little, like he did.  Jesus became an itinerant, with no place to lay his head; he had no home or steady job or wages, no furniture or cars or other “things” to hold him back. He challenged the 'rich young ruler' on this – so you kept all the rules – did your passion for God take your whole heart?  Where is your treasure laid up?  What would we give for that pearl of great price?

       If we wanted to follow Jesus’ example of compassion and mercy, we could stand in solidarity with those considered unworthy by polite society, seeing their worth to God, and advocating for them in our government policies as well as meeting the emergency needs as they fall through the cracks. We would run to forgive those who long to return home to God, and shower them with feasting and rejoicing. We wouldn't begrudge them any welcome and healing, like that elder brother of that parable. We would be about the kinds of work Jesus did – healings of all kinds, restoring wholeness, restoration to community, selflessly working for the common good.

       If we wanted to follow Jesus’ example of true obedience and perfect worship, we would submit ourselves to God’s goal for the world, setting aside self-aggrandizement, self-indulgence and self-centeredness for the life held up in the Scriptures, trusting in God’s promises, giving ourselves to God daily through spiritual practices like prayer and worship. 

       Beware, though, Jesus said.  He told his followers that if they followed him, they’dget the same treatment he got - suffering, persecution, being reviled and called names, and that they’d never make everybody happy.  JESUS obviously wasn't trying to please people or grow the largest church in town. Disciples aren't higher than their master, he said – what reception he got will be our reception, too. 

 Jesus' actual instructions... 

      Jesus’ instructions are more in general than specific, often hidden in his parables, and often not real detailed.  He told us not to worry about food and clothes and stuff – just ask God for our daily bread, basic needs. He told us to go in to the world and tell about the realm of God, where the first will be last and the last will be first and all sorts of injustices in the world will be righted.  He told us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and give water to the thirsty. Jesus was interested in the here and now world, and doing the works of God's realm NOW.  Jesus’ salvation wasn't the personal, fuzzy, feel good religion – it was the salvation of the world through God’s will being done on earth – social righteousness, right relationships to creation and humanity. He told us to baptize in God’s name and teach what God was like – generous, forgiving, and compassionate.  He said this is God’s table where all who believe are welcome – the feast of creation and the feast of God’s abundance is for us from the God who loves us so much that he died for us.  HOW to carry these instructions out is left to us.

A good thing about WWJD after all -

       If there’s a good thing about the WWJD question, it would be that perhaps it causes us to stop and reflect a moment before we just let go and do stuff without thinking. People sometimes talk about connecting their brain to their mouth  - - Christians also want to connect their heart-felt faith in there, too. If the WWJD questions makes us stop and consider, pray even, and remember God’s love, forgiveness and compassion – that’s good.  If the bracelet that reads WWJD helps us question our own intents and our own actions – that’s a good thing.  If it manages to help us correct ourselves, stop ourselves from meanness; wrestle in prayer over our hurts and desires for revenge – then it’s a good thing.  For a moment, I remember that I want to be a Christ follower; that I have publicly professed my deep faith and my desire to live for God.   I may ask myself, “Will people be able to look at my actions and notice how much we Christians love one another?  Will people be able to see the care of God through my own generosity and caring?  Will they be invited into the kingdom of God through my example?” 

       Those aren't bad questions for measuring our daily and hourly choices. 

Closing

       This week – and longer, hopefully – let’s remember Jesus before we just react; let’s recall the words of God before we write someone off, be unthinking or rude in our responses, overlook the person waiting on us, let fly with words we can’t take back, try to make a quick buck from someone because “everyone dies it,” - - - and consider whose we are and whom we serve.   May the presence of the Spirit in us call Jesus to mind as we walk through our daily lives.  AMEN.  

Temples For Bodies 6/2/13

       Well, here it is – my first summer sermon that was suggested by a one of you all!  The suggestion was to talk about how our bodies are the Temple of the Holy Spirit, and keeping them holy.  I think that for most folks, we've heard this verse mostly in the context of sexual behaviors...or rather, misbehaviors.  I thought that for this sermon I’d try and go a little deeper into the idea that our human, fleshly bodies have become temples of God, because we have the Holy Spirit of God’s very self living in us when we follow Christ. God abides in us. Jesus said that when we place our trust in his words and his work, God takes up living in us.   We become the place of God’s presence; well, each of us is A place of God’s presence. And when even a couple or three of us believers are together, Christ is in our midst – we become the body of Christ now in the world. That’s really quite an amazing thought –and quite a sobering thought – God is right here where I live.  That’s really quite a humbling thought ---  am I worthy to bear God in this body?  And that’s really quite a challenging thought ---  I will live now in recognition that God is present, and that I have a temple for a body. 

Not a building...

       It’s a kind of weird thought to imagine ourselves as temples of God, isn't it?  Individually or corporately.  We think of the Temple as that building in Jerusalem in the OT, or the 2^nd Temple in Jesus’ time. The Temple was the considered the place of God’s presence, and all the main religious festivals took place there.  For example, we may remember the story of Jesus at his Bar Mitzvah age going with his family to Jerusalem and surprisingly impressing the priests there with his wisdom and knowledge.  We may also remember the text from Pentecost, just a few weeks ago, when dispersed Jews of many nations were gathered back at Jerusalem for that feast, when the disciples were able to preach in all their languages and jump start the church. 
     We may remember that prophecy Jesus made that “destroy this temple and in three days it will be raised back up,” which his disciples later realized was referring to his own body.  So Jesus really was the first one to refer to his body as a temple – then Paul and others continued it to us believers. We might remember that the glory of God, the presence of God, traveled with the first nomadic worshipers, the early Jewish people.  God’s presence, in the Ark of the Covenant, could move where the people went. And instead of a building they had a tent, called the Tabernacle – so that could move, too. If we read the prophets, it wasn't God’s favorite thing to have a Temple built – one place, solid, unable to move around, so people had to come to it instead of the symbol of God’s presence coming to them. It’s interesting that in the birth of Jesus, the dwelling place of God came among us human folks, and able to move around again. And with the Spirit coming on the Day of Pentecost, God’s presence is now uniquely everywhere with us, and always with us. 

It was God who made us in bodies!

       The idea that our bodies are the temple of God from the Scriptures, as I inferred earlier, has usually been used to try and shame us about our creation as bodies. While worshiping God who created us purposefully and in God’s own image and who called our creation “good,” some among the early church got sidetracked by the Greek notion of how the earthly and bodily part of being human is bad, and the spiritual part of being human is higher and good.  If you remember the movie The DaVinci Code, there’s that scene where the albino monk is beating his back with a whip, and also wears that chain think around his thigh – all traditional ways to “mortify the flesh” through enduring bodily pain.  It sounds weird today – yet it was still around recently– I know a former nun who was taught similar practices in her early years to “deliver her” from fleshly sinful desires, and to set her mind on spiritual things. 

       We don’t do that stuff anymore, or even believe in it as a spiritual thing. We do, however, still have residual shame around our bodies that God made and called good.  Another residual from those days when Greek philosophy mixed in Christianity was the disdain for women. The celibate men forswore being around women, because we made them think “bad” thoughts - - they weren't asking, “How can we deal with our bodily life,” mind you, but decided we women MADE them think these things - it must be because we women were evil! We reminded them of their bodily existence, which they were wanting to escape to be more “spiritual.”  They never thought that learning to live in the temple of our body was perhaps a path of greater spiritual wisdom which God gave us from creation. Maybe women were an inferior creation in the first place, they thought; maybe we didn't even have souls. Maybe we were the devil’s gateway. Certainly we were not fit to serve at Christ’s table.

       Much of that thought has also been tossed out, thank God. Yet the residual of that kind of thinking is still floating around even in modern attitudes in our country – and is certainly more blatant in other countries.  We've moved towards a better acceptance of human creation as gendered persons, which is rightly a spiritual growth. 

      Unfortunately, we haven’t moved to a deeper spiritual understanding of our bodies now as temples of the Holy, or a respect for our creation as bodies; an honoring of our bodies as temples of God.  And even if we DO say the words, I don’t know that our living has encompassed all that it means.

Creation & Incarnation lift up bodily life

       Think about it – if our bodies are now temples, containers of the presence of God’s Spirit on earth, this really lifts up the value and respect for being human. Jesus came in flesh and blood, like us; God came close to us in a body. Theologically we call that “Incarnation,” and we celebrate it every Christmas.  Doesn't that elevate our view of living in and being a body?  Doesn't that make our creation something to be treasured and valued?  Shouldn't we therefore take care of our body, and use it wisely? 

       When we think about it, God made us as embodied creatures, so being embodied is intrinsic to who we are, not something to be escaped or overcome. Sometimes it’s hard to think about ourselves AS a body – it’s easy to fall into that way of thinking there’s an “I” and then there’s “my body” as a separate thing. Yet our creation is that we are bodies that have breath blown through us – enlivened bodies. Bodies brought to life with God’s breath. Of the earth, made of the same stuff.  Somehow, “I” AM a body, yet able to reflect on myself and my physical being. 

        So if we denigrate our bodily life, we denigrate the gift of God; and if we despise our bodies and long to escape them, we despise the creation God called “good.” Being a human is a gift. Being alive is a gift.   Being a body offers us a unique experience, a spiritual experience. In some way, we are the voice of creation looking at itself; not separate from the material creation, but material creation that has developed consciousness. That’s a mind-blowing thought.

Rethink what it means to be a body.
     So the invitation of the Scripture is to rethink of ourselves as made this way on purpose, not something unspiritual, but part of our creation that God intended.  And now as the very temple of the Holy Spirit, a dwelling place of God. Scripture, then, challenges us to live worthy of being a temple. Our Adventist sisters and brothers can teach us about this, holding up healthful eating, healing sleep and adequate exercise for the optimal life of our  bodies. Now they’re into organic farming and sustainable living in the ecological & world-wide sense, too. 
       We Presbyterians DO have a history of caring for whole persons – when we would come into a country to tell of Christ, we built 1 – a church, 2 – a hospital, and 3 – a school.  We have ministries of clean water, and are becoming more ecologically aware.  And yes, we uphold respectful and honorable sexual ethics.  So we do have some understanding of the goodness of bodies.  Yet we still have a distance to go. 

Closing
       Well, I hope this sermon provoked some thought, as well as some gratitude to God, for creating us this way, and for Jesus coming to live among us as a human body. I hope we will think on our bodies differently this week as we make choices about our food, our sleep, our exercise, the way we serve one another as fellow temples. May living as the temple of God give special insight to the whole practice of spirituality as Christians.  AMEN.

New Beginnings in Life & Faith 1/13/13

       Today, this first Sunday in a new year, we celebrate new beginnings!  Today we celebrate the baptism of Jesus and the beginning of his ministry here among us! Today we celebrate and remember our own baptisms, our inaugurations onto our spiritual journeys!  On this day of new beginnings we will ordain and install new elders and deacons into a new service; and after church I meet with the parents of new Confirmands who will become new church members on Palm Sunday.   There are lots of new beginnings to celebrate!

Spiritual beginnings & 'born again'

        (Come down to the font and pour water)  The waters of baptism are like the waters of birth – they remind us that a new person in Christ is coming into being.  Becoming a believer, answering God’s call, responding to the Spirit working in us – this is so dramatic that it’s like being born again.  I know some of our friends at school and neighbors in town throw around the term 'born again' to mean a specific date when you do and say specific things and are converted; I was raised in that kind of theology, too.  Over time, I grew to see that for most folks, that 'born again' experience became a end of their journey, a 'proof' that they were in and others were out, that they had it right and the rest were going to hell.  And it came to me that they had missed the whole point – being born is only the beginning of a long journey of life, not the end. 

       Yes, some people seem to have dramatic conversion stories – but the truth is, the Holy Spirit of God was calling them a long time before – doing that inner work of convicting, convincing, beckoning, wooing.  Poetically, one author said it was like being followed by the Hound of Heaven – God wouldn’t leave off calling.  And still, when he gave in and submitted to the call, it was a starting line, not a finish line.

       Others of us are raised among the stories and characters of Scripture, with the story of God seeking people through Israel and then through Christ swirling around us like good friends.  We know God’s Spirit long before we can name it as the Holy Spirit.  We’re more like the child Samuel, already serving in the Temple until hearing God’s voice is normal – our sense of call develops and evolves. 

       And it is no less dramatic, though perhaps the drama is stretched over some years.  Because the new birth of a soul is something bigger than anything else we will ever do, with longer lasting repercussions, and with deeper impact on who we, a transformative event that only can be described as a new birth.  It’s not like joining Rotary or Kiwanis; it’s not like joining the Scouts or a soccer team.   It’s more like becoming a citizen of a new country – the kindom of God, and taking on all the new values and history and future.  It’s more like, in the familiar words of Amazing Grace, suddenly receiving sight after having been blind.  God’s Spirit now births a new life, a new purpose, a new identity in us – and we know this was who God meant for us to be all along. 

Similes for baptism

       Baptism isn’t when that inner changing and being born as a spiritual person happens – baptism, or our confirmation, whenever we make that public profession of faith, is just that – a public profession -  a public declaration that the change has begun, and we recognize it, and we affirm it, and we celebrate it. 

        The waters of baptism are also like the waters of A GOOD BATH – getting clean.  We say in our public profession of faith that we TURN from sin and TURN to Jesus Christ.  The theological word here is “repentance” – we do a 180 from being just of the world & going along thoughtlessly with what our culture or era tells us is important or is our purpose. We get clean in claiming who we are.  We are not 'Born to Shop.'  We are not part of that losers and winners mentality.  We are not consumers, and our purpose is not to fulfill the economic growth of our political country.  We are not part of the me first, greedy mindset; we do not accept as our goal that climbing and clawing to the top; we are not those who take revenge into our own hands, and we do not discriminate between the people Jesus came to die for.  We embrace the teachings of Jesus and strive to understand them; we submit to letting Jesus wipe away what clings to us of the old ways – the lies, the hatreds, the divisions, the self-seeking. 

        When we go through the waters of baptism, we get a NEW IDENTITY – we are now Christ-ones, Christians.   It’s like Missourians who live in Missouri; we are Christians because we live in Christ.  

       We get a NEW FAMILY – we are now among the family of God.  Jesus says some difficult things about who are my mothers and brothers and sisters – Jesus says his family are those who do the will of God.  It doesn't matter any longer if your earthly family is prominent in town or from the wrong side of the tracks according to people who just see with human eyes.  In baptism, we are joined to God’s great family, sisters and brothers with Christ, children of God.  And a great family it is – all colors, all genders, all races, all ages, some from long ago in human history and some probably not even born yet in the future.  A family of people who in human lives are slaves as well as masters, poor as well as wealthy, educated as well as illiterate, from the upstairs as well as from the downstairs, from the jungles as well as from the cities as well as from the farms.  Being a Christian is the great egalitarian family, where nothing of our human estate matters; all that matters is how we love and serve God.  

       When we go through the waters of baptism we get a NEW COUNTRY.  We are no longer Americans or Chinese or Russian or Afghani or Mexican – we are citizens of heaven, citizens of God’s realm.  Many of us talk about how good it is to be home, to return home – when we are citizens of God’s realm, that’s the home we long for – where God’s will is done on earth as in heaven. 

        And when we are joined to this body of Christ called the Church, when we are joined to that new family of God, we get a NEW PURPOSE  - God calls us in order to complete the work of Christ, to pick up the mission Christ died for, to take that yoke with Christ in service to God.  We take on that new purpose to show that new realm of service where new life is possible, to show God’s love by sharing with the poor and needy, to show God’s justice and freedom by honoring all people, to exercise charity to one another as God has first loved us.  It is a noble and a high calling.

And it takes at least our whole life.  

       You know, when we go to school, we go through graduations to new things – there’s an end, at least a marking of some stage being completed.  We graduate from Middle School,. High School, college, we finish our graduate work or post-graduate work.  I admit that sometimes it FEELS like there’s no end to schooling…but there are endings along the way.  Actually, it’s a great thing to be a life-long learner, to never lose that curiosity or joy at new things. 

      I know of no one in the Christian journey that can honestly say they've graduated, or 'arrived.'  And unfortunately there really aren't any 'schools' to graduate from in terms of being a follower of Christ; there are no blue ribbons to mark winners of the race, or world records of spirituality, no classes at Hogwarts to mark our growing prowess.  So there’s really no objective way to measure how our faith is doing.  It’s really all between us and God.  Some people do seem to settle for getting just so far and calling it quits, and want to think they’re 'all that.’  Some people do seem to think that when they reach a certain age they are entitled to never change again.  Some people seem to think there comes a time when they've done enough, when their prayer life is sufficient, when their understanding of the Scriptures is completed, when their relationship with God needs no improvement – yet they've stopped too soon.

       Because how can we be a follower of Christ if we aren't seeing where Christ is going and following?  And how can we be a disciple if we aren't taking on spiritual disciplines?  And how can we take Jesus’ yoke and learn of him if we aren't studying what he said and did?  How can our minds be transformed by the renewing of our faith if we aren't immersed in spiritual things?  And how can we be joining Christ in the reconciling of the world unless we are working and serving in Christ’s name? 

Nothing is lost as we continually live into our baptism.

     Everything in our life from this moment forward is grist for the Holy Spirit.  We might memorize the whole Bible and be able to parrot back any verse – there’s still the living of it to comprehend.  We might attend Sunday School faithfully for 25 years and still not have a handle on our mean temper. We might know the words to all the hymns of the past and still resist following the Spirit into the future. We might have tithed regularly for 40 years and still be so tempted by power. There’s always something to be revealed, something that needs the light of Christ and the washing waters of baptism. Though I speak with the voice of angels, and have enough faith to move mountains, and give my body to be burned, and become a major figure in the church hierarchy, and write the definitive book on ancient Hebrew, if I have not love, I am nothing.

        How we've understood the world in our era may change, yet the zeal for God will be the constant.  How we carry out the goals of being the church may change, yet the growth in faith is a constant.  Living into our baptism, our new life in Christ will always be the mission.  Service to the world God loves will always call us on.  Every era has had its challenges to faith - and ours is no exception - yet we are all called into that new realm of God, that kindom of God, and seek to demonstrate it to the time we live.  Our life as baptized believers isn't just a nice sideline or a hobby for retirement; its not just another arena where we play out power games; its not a nice enrichment thing we do to be well-rounded persons.  This faith is our very life and our ground of being.  

     I thank God for each and every one here is on that journey of faith, whether we've formally professed our faith or are still seeking at some level.  May we each have ears, eyes and hearts open as the Spirit of God calls us along the next steps of our journey.  AMEN.