February 21, 2021

 This is a test of the emergency broadcast network.  Please stand by.  ERRRRRRR!   ERRRRRRR!   ERRRRRRR!  This was our experience as a congregation on Friday.  Bonnie and Marvin had a small fire at their house.  They were without water and electricity.  The calls and emails went out.  Everyone sprung into action.  People offered generators, food, to prepare and deliver food.  They offered their homes.  Called to see if a wheelchair was available.  It was all hands on deck.  This is one of my favorite things about church, when there is a need, everyone responds with all their gifts.  Bonnie and Marvin got their power and water back on later that evening, so in some ways it was only a test, but a very telling test that warms my heart.

I had a little time of evaluation with a couple of you afterward and we decided together that it went well, that there were good outcomes.  Not only did the congregation respond quickly and warmly, but connections were made between people that wouldn’t normally happen organically, people who had been previously irritated with each other, threw out all past offenses and communicated and wished one another well.  It was good for us all to be needed, to feel useful, and to have an excuse to be in contact with each other.  This event knit our congregation together and it told me loads about who you are and what to expect going forward.

It occurred to me that God made us into a vessel to carry one another’s burdens.  We emptied ourselves of whatever else was on our schedule.  We opened ourselves to receiving instructions.  We prepared to act.  I imagine this scenario has played itself out over and over.  This congregation is no stranger to the Lenten wilderness, need, crisis, opportunity.  Many times we have been driven out in the wilderness to reflect and turn around and be changed by God into a vessel to contain the pain and need of our neighbors.  Even the wilderness could be considered a vessel, empty and quiet, a vessel to hold the grace of God with plenty of room for the world’s heartaches, as well as for the Son of God and the people of God to reflect, put God at the center, and listen for God’s voice. 

At Lent we are reminded, you are dust and to dust you shall return.  This dust is made into clay and fashioned into a vessel, a bowl, a pitcher to hold one another’s need and respond.  God is the potter, always shaping the clay.  We want to be flexible, so that we can respond to each need with openness to take different forms depending on the situation.  Sometimes we like to think our pottery was fired in the reformation, that we got it right once.  Sometimes we want to stay the same and say that we’re just right the way we are.  But God constantly is reshaping us.  Reformation is ongoing.  We are always being made and remade.  So how do we open ourselves and be flexible to God shaping us?

God is here to shape us.  This is what Lent is for.  God is here to help shape us in the desert, to empty us, to focus our priorities, to slow down and look at what is really going on, to see things differently than we did before.  God loves us too much to let us stay static. 

            God was creating a vessel in the time of Noah.  God looked around and saw evil everywhere, that the vessel God had made had been corrupted.  Noah had to be flexible and responsive over years.  He laid aside all his other priorities. The whole focus of his life changed to crafting the rescue vessel and preparing it to house his family and the animals he knew to be necessary for life.  What I love about Noah is he that he appreciates the interconnectedness of all life.  He knows that he can’t survive without the animals and they can’t survive without other animals.  He understands what each animal needs to eat and to live, their habitats, their needs.  Did he start thinking of that just when God warned him about the coming flood, or was that how he thought of all of life? 

            My favorite part of this story, is that God shows us that God is willing to change.  Sometimes we think of God as a rock, never changing.  “Thou changest not, thy compassions they fail not.  As thou hast been thou forever wilt be.”  A lot of God being a rock language in the Bible comes from King David, who hid in rocks and caves when he was hiding from people who didn’t want him on the throne.  To me, the image of a rock is so cold and hard—very difficult to relate to.  I can relate to God in Genesis who regrets sending a flood.  God regrets using destruction and violence to start over.  God regrets that the vessel was too small to accommodate people who went off track.  So God hangs up the weapon, the bow, in the clouds, making a rainbow to remind God that isn’t the way, and reminding humankind that this won’t happen again.  God reflects on God’s actions, evaluates them, and decides to do something different going forward, to try to work with humanity and offer grace and forgiveness, to help mold them into the people God knew they could be.

            1 Peter is a letter of Jesus being a vessel who emptied himself and opened himself .  Jesus had room for the sins of humanity and took them on himself.  The vessel of Jesus’ body was destroyed and the sins with it.  Now that Jesus has risen to new life, he takes us with him to live abundant.  It used to be that death was the end, but God gave us Jesus and baptism to open us, to give us life. God gave us seasons and practices to help reshape us, wipe our slate clean, and start over without having a huge destructive event like a flood.  Jesus showed us that flexibility and openness is necessary to pay attention to the poor, to free the captives, and to free ourselves from selfishness and fear to live abundantly.

            Even Jesus is being shaped.  He’s been preparing to be a Rabbi.  Now he is baptized—washed and ready.  He hears the voice of God telling him he is beloved.  He doesn’t have time to enjoy that moment.  He is driven into the wilderness, emptied of food of friends of other voices telling him who he is and isn’t.  In an instant, he is out there almost entirely alone, tempted, surrounded by wild animals like Noah.  While Matthew and Luke spell out the temptations in detail, Mark leaves it wide open.  I would think 40 days without food and water would be enough time for every temptation to cross Jesus’ mind.  We all have our own temptations—unhealthy desires and thoughts that come to us again and again, especially in times of stress.  In the pandemic we may find some new ones creeping in—some people are feeling tempted to eat all day, or to drink more alcohol earlier and earlier in the day.  Whatever temptations we experience, we can imagine that Jesus felt something similar.  Did he wonder what was his worth in God’s eyes?  Did he consider living a conventional life instead of one of a Savior?  Mark tells us simply that Jesus was tempted.  And yet God is calling him to become, to enter into ministry knowing who God is and who he really is and able to resist the temptations that constantly bombard us.  Jesus is embarking on a new project, to bear the good news to all people, regardless of obstacles or temptations, to die to his own desires to follow God’s path of new life for all Creation.

            You called me here to join in ministry with you—that’s openness right there for both of us and now I get to be part of this vessel with you.  I am your Pastor/Redeveloper.  I am your pastor to help you be open and flexible.  Why would you want to do that?  Aren’t you happy with who you are?  I guess God’s just not done with you yet, and I can tell for certain, God’s not done with me.  I still have a lot to learn—a lot of following to do, a lot of mistakes to make, a lot of people to encounter who will help me see the world in a different way.  We are, all of us, always being re-created into God’s image and Spirit of Life is no exception.  You are happy with who you are, how God has changed you over the years, and be open to the changes that are happening and coming, as God continues to create and recreate this community.

           

            Spirit of Life is something very special in this community and plays an important part in the healing of a lot of people.  You feed the poor and give the children a safe place to learn about how much God loves them.  And Spirit of Life is led by the Spirit.  The Spirit is driving us out to empty us of temptations to stay on the banks of the Jordan.  This church is named for the very Spirit that won’t let us stay the same.  The truth is, we are always being shaped, so let’s look forward to that reshaping—prepare for flexibility, prepare the way of the Lord, prepare the way for God’s people.  The world out there is changing—people’s needs are changing, their temptations are changing, their gifts are changing and we need our vessel to fit the pain and need of the world around us.  And so we embrace this Spirit that we are named for, trusting that God is with us, leading us and helping us.  God isn’t done with us yet—there is more to learn, a lot of following to do, God’s promises to be reminded of, a lot of mistakes to make and learn from, a lot of people to meet that will change the way we think about the world.  This church is alive with the Spirit and learning, yes, even growing.  New life is springing up in unexpected little ways.  God is reshaping us. 

             It’s ok to be a little leary, a little bit fearful.  There are wild beasts lurking.  There are dangers, although none of them is more dangerous than become stagnant, inflexible, and irrelevant.  God is reshaping us to reflect the love and openness and responsiveness of Jesus.  I imagine Noah and his family facing ridicule as they prepare the ark.  I imagine their fear as they boarded the boat and shut the doors and the rain began to fall, and then as the water lifted the boat up as the waters rose.  Our fear protects us from danger, but it can also keep us from following the strange and wondrous places God is leading. 

            God is showing us something new.  We are unfinished.  No matter how good we are, we know God has more to teach us.  We haven’t yet reached the Kingdom of God.  There isn’t anyone to blame or any shame to feel—only a wild ride to look forward to as God leads us and reshapes us ever more in God’s image.

What does it mean that God is here to reshape us?  Does it mean we will have to be uncomfortable?  Yes, we will.  But comfort isn’t the be-all, end-all.  Isn’t life more than comfort?  Isn’t church more than what works for any one group of people?  There’s a whole world waiting out there to teach us to be responsive and open, inviting us to join them in Kingdom work, calling us out to the highways and byways to encounter the love of God.

I’m excited for Lent and the call that God is extending.  It is a call to empty ourselves—of expectations, of comfort, of the way things have always been.  And it is a call to prepare to welcome, as the ark was prepared to welcome the animals.  We are being prepared to welcome awareness, joy, hope, a new identity not based on what society says is important.  We are preparing to receive people who want to share in the dream of being a responsive, stubborn, loving family.  We are being driven to the wilderness to reflect, and pray, and listen, and be waited upon by angels and to receive the Gifts of the wilderness:  Reflection, truth, recognition of need and openness to welcome, openness to God, reckoning with who I am and who God is, becoming who God is creating us to be.