March 25, 2012 Gospel: John 12:20-33 Psalm 51:1-12
1st Reading: Jeremiah 31:31-34 2nd Reading: Hebrews 5:5-10
We’ve come to the last of our sermon series on “returning.” We’ve covered returning to the self, to relationships, to religion, to the earth, and today I’m hoping to tackle “Returning to God.” It’s kind of a big topic, the whole point of faith, one could argue. Isn’t that why we come here—to return to God, to be in relationship with God? Isn’t that what the whole Bible is about, God’s people returning to God? Isn’t that what God wants of us—a return to relationship, to love, to commitment?
And yet Martin Luther said that all we could ever do was to turn away from God. Humans by our own power can’t turn back to God. Only God can turn us back toward him.
I think of little children, as I often do, and their attention spans. They want to see and explore. They want to greet the dog and grab the toy from the other child and roll around in the yard and chase the butterfly and on and on. I’m looking at baby proofing my house, trying to think like a little guy. We’ll need to cover the outlets and secure the kitchen cupboard doors. We’ll have to get gates to put up. We’ll have to feed the cats outside—in fact maybe the cats can spend the whole summer outside so we can ditch the litter box and the nightmare that will be with a curious baby crawling around. Then there are Nick’s records, the glass doors on the credenza, all kinds of places to bump a head, teetering lamps. And that’s just at home. I have nightmares about the stairs here at church. I wonder if he will curl up under a pew one day and I won’t be able to find him.
I know that exploring and curiosity is the way kids learn and grow. I know I can’t protect him from every scrape and bump and to do so would limit him too much. He’d never learn the things he needs to learn about the shape and size of his body and that dust bunnies and dead bugs are not that tasty. But I hope that as he explores and gets hurt, physically and emotionally he will come back to me sometimes to cuddle and to have a listening ear as he gets older and that we will sustain a strong relationship through the years.
And I think that is what God wants of us. God wants us to return to him, even though we are bound to wander and explore, to share love and stories and relationship.
So how do we return to God? Or how does God return us to relationship and covenant with him?
Sometimes I feel such a chasm between myself and God. God’s perfection is so distant. His glory is something I can’t comprehend. God’s love is so big. God’s creativity is so huge. God is beyond all understanding. We’ve got a lot about God’s glory in the readings for today. Do you remember the story of God inviting Moses to look upon his glory? Moses had to hide his face or he would be destroyed by that glory, it was such a strong and powerful force. And still he glowed afterward!
God sensed that distance and decided to create a new covenant with us, one in which the love of God would be written on our hearts and we would instinctively know God from the least of us to the greatest. God wanted to create a connection point between us to bridge the separating. God wanted to experience relationship, atonement, a coming together of the divine and human. So God sent Jesus Christ, a God-human combo or hybrid, completely human, completely God, all at the same time.
I was recently doing some plumbing, replacing a cabinet in the bathroom and all the stuff underneath. We discovered at 9:50 pm that the hose was too short between the faucet and where the water comes out of the wall below so I had to rush to Home Depot to find the correct connector. I rushed over there with 3 minutes to spare. The front door was locked so I snuck in the out door and a nice young man showed me where to find the piece to fit the two together. Jesus is that connector piece between God and humanity. We also know that Jesus is God’s son, an extension of God rather than something separate and new, so we could say that God adapted God’s connector so that humanity could see that there was a connection point, so we wouldn’t just see God as far away, but that God would be within our hearts and nearer to us than we are to ourselves.
In order to be a good fit with us, so that we would trust Jesus, Jesus had to be like us in some important ways. One of the most important is that he take on human limitations. How could we trust someone who doesn’t know what it feels like to be us? We could only identify with someone who has walked in our shoes. So God took on limitations. God came as a baby with the helplessness that comes along with it. He grew up just like a regular person, because he was a regular person. He scraped his knee, argued with his parents, made mistakes on his math test, hurt other people’s feelings, experienced sore muscles and headaches, bug bites, he misunderstood people, he didn’t meet people’s expectations. He took human limitations on himself as Jesus. He was a person.
John is focused on this human aspect of God as broken, self-limiting, wounded. It isn’t a new concept. We see in the Old Testament how God is hurting because Israel broke the covenant. “I was your husband,” cries God, humiliated, betrayed, wounded. Because God loves so deeply, God’s heart can be broken. God can get hurt.
Throughout the Gospels, Jesus weeps, sometimes he gets angry, he gets frustrated with his own failed attempts to make his point to his disciples about inclusion and love and what the Kingdom of God is like. Of course he suffers on the cross and his body is broken and he experiences death. John’s Gospel is the only one where Jesus appears after the resurrection with his wounds still visible. He could have been raised with a perfect, whole body. But instead his wounds are raised with him and he shows them to the disciples.
It is Jesus’ wounds that draw us all to him, that return us to him. There is beauty in the broken. Our beautiful Mt. Hood is a pile of broken rocks, the results of broken tectonic plates rubbing up against one another. Fabric must be cut, broken, to be sewn back together to make a beautiful garment. We break our earlobes (and sometimes noses, lips, eyebrows, or tongues) to put decorations in them. Jesus’ wounds were something that he wanted to keep. They were an important part of who he was. They were a connection point between himself and human kind. They showed that he knew what we went through. They showed how far he was willing to go to return us to God. They showed a relationship deep enough to survive betrayal and hurt and keep on loving.
I invite you to look upon the cross here in our sanctuary. See the cross shapes on Jesus’ hands? They indicate the wounds he received for our sake. Here he is being lifted up both as on the cross and at his ascension. This isn’t a gruesome depiction of Christ on the cross, even though it shows his wounds. It is him with his brokenness, not hiding it as he draws all creation to himself.
“We wish to see Jesus,” the Gentiles say, and we come with the same wish. And we can see him. “I was in prison and you visited. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.” He has promised to be in the poor, the hungry, the imprisoned, the vulnerable, the wounded, the limited. It is a matter of if we will look for him there in the face of the needy and see him in the tears of those who are suffering and look for him in the scars of those who have been wounded.
And we can hear God, too, in the dead calm after the tornado, in the thunder, in the voices of his angel messengers, if we train our ear to be alert to that voice.
We are wounded. We cry out. God is wounded. God cries out. We hear each other and return and find wholeness where brokenness meets brokenness and we understand each other and experience love and relationship.
Showing posts with label 2012. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2012. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Sermon for March 4, 2012
March 4, 2012 Gospel: Mark 8:31-38 Psalm 22:23-31
1st Reading: Genesis 17:1-7; 15-16 2nd Reading: Romans 4:13-25
“Wherever two or more are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” No, we did not hear these words in any of today’s readings, yet they apply, because anytime two or more are gathered, you’ll have at least that many opinions and the opportunity for conflict. In fact, the next verse after this one from Matthew, Peter asks Jesus how many times he must forgive his neighbor.
In this morning’s Gospel readings, Peter and Jesus have a disagreement. They have a difference of opinion on what Jesus’ role should be and how his life should play out. They have a fight.
There may be nothing that terrifies congregations more than conflict. I recently attended a training called “Transforming Church Conflict” and got more than a few funny looks when I said I planned to go and invited the council to attend with me. Church conflict? Here?
A lot of how we each deal with conflict, has to do with how we learned to deal with it growing up. I don’t want to generalize too much, but if we look at the Scandanavian way of handling conflict, a category that a good number of members of King of Kings fall into—we know this group tends to be on the reserved side, showing little emotion. Think if you grew up in a colder climate, stuck indoors for months on end, you’d probably find a way to avoid conflict just to get through. Those patterns get passed down. I’ve learned German stubbornness or else it is in my DNA. I like to be right. But I also grew up in an abusive house, so conflict is a very scary thing to me, because it can end up in physical injury. We all have different experiences of conflict that affect how we see it and what we do when we are in it.
Doesn’t this just make you so curious to know more about Jesus’ family of origin dealing with their conflicts? Jesus doesn’t shy away from conflict. In fact, he seems to pick fights. He says what is on his mind. He is self-assured. He doesn’t let things fester. And yet, for Jesus, a conflict is just part of life. He doesn’t push anyone away from him because of a conflict. He is just as loving and kind after he argues with you as before.
This workshop that I attended with Winston and Mary, reminded us that conflict is not failure. We often think of it that way. Jesus said we are to be peacemakers, why can’t I get along with so and so? Many of us will do almost anything to avoid conflict—even lie. We just “smile and nod,” right? We listen, then ignore. We pretend to agree with people just so we don’t have to get into it with them.
Another reason we see conflict as failure is because we think in conflicts there must be winners and losers, right and wrong. Especially in the political climate we’re in, we see those with one opinion vilifying those with a different opinion, making the other side out to be monsters. We don’t see a lot of healthy conflict resolution playing out in the media. Where do we get healthy role models for conflict? None jump readily to mind. We may need to seek them out so that we as Christians can help model that.
We learned at the workshop that rather than being a failure, conflict is a result of the wonderful variety that God made amongst people. We vary in ways that we can see, such as age and gender. But most of the ways we vary are hidden, like the way we handled conflict growing up, our profession, our wealth, our status in the congregation. It would be boring if we were all alike, and because we’re different, we will see things differently and disagree about them.
Let’s look again at this argument in the Gospel. Peter and Jesus had a difference of opinion. Jesus is saying things that the disciples don’t want to hear about what is going to happen to him. Peter says, “Jesus, don’t talk like that!” It is wonderful that Peter and Jesus have a strong enough relationship that Peter feels that he can share his views. Think if Peter kept those feelings to himself. They would just grow stronger. Maybe he’d have trouble sleeping or get an ulcer. Maybe he’d go to the other disciples and start complaining about Jesus. There are a lot of unhealthy things that could happen. But Peter feels the relationship is strong enough that he can say what is on his mind.
Next Jesus turns to all the disciples. He knows that what one is thinking, likely several of them are thinking. When Peter contradicts Jesus, he isn’t just speaking for himself but he’s expressing what others are also thinking. In the same way, when you have a question about something here at church, there is no need to feel shy about bringing it up. Maybe you feel stupid, like you’re the only one who doesn’t know why we do things a certain way or what a lectern is. Or sometimes just asking the question of why might seem like an attack in itself, when it is really just curiosity. I invite you to ask those questions. There are likely others who have the same question. And if you have a different opinion, there are probably others who do, too, and by bringing it up you are helping a whole group of people give voice to another point of view. And if we are doing something just because that is the way we’ve always done it and it is inefficient or counterproductive, it might be time to change it for the good of the community. Ask the questions, not just for yourself but for the sake of others.
Sometimes conflict feels like the end of the world. But after this conflict, Jesus and the disciples don’t break up. They continue in relationship and ministry together. There are many other times the disciples don’t get it, but they keep working at the relationship and learning from their disagreements and interactions and we know that Peter eventually does get it since he goes and spreads the good news after Jesus’ death and resurrection and eventually becomes a martyr. If they never brought up their differences, they might never have the chance to learn from one another and from Jesus and grow in their faith and maturity and understanding.
This congregation has experienced some pretty difficult conflicts over the years and even more recently we’ve faced differences of opinion among us and poor communication that has led to misunderstandings. This congregation is not immune from conflict. The better we can understand what is happening when we go through conflict, the better we can learn and grow from it, rather than it pulling us apart. In thinking of a conflict a few years ago, the council evaluated what we could have done better and created a policy so that we would better communicate in the future. I don’t want to sound naïve, but there are ways we can all win, when we experience conflict, and that is when we learn something about ourselves and those with whom we disagree. When you come through a healthy conflict experience, often you’ll find a deeper bond. A strong friendship transcends the differences between us and will last through even the toughest difficulties.
In the Old Testament Reading for today, God enters into a covenant with Abraham. It is an agreement between the two, almost like a marriage. God will be God to Abraham and his many descendents and they will be God’s people. Yet God and Abraham are very different. They are going to disagree. Abraham will make many mistakes, but that will never come between them and their relationship. They are going to keep working at this relationship, no matter what trying times come. Abraham will disagree with God and he will let his opinion be known. God will disagree with Abraham and let him know. Yet they will continue to be in relationship with one another and they will build a common story together that will bind them closer together in relationship.
Sometimes when we disagree, it seems like everything is out of balance. However, our unity must go beyond our differences, because the source of it is God. Think of God who made each of us and loves us all. We are all made and loved by the same God who wants to be in relationship with us and wants us to be in relationship with each other. We have our savior Jesus who was constantly teaching the disciples to be among those different from themselves—children, lepers, women, those of different religious affiliations, foreigners, tax collectors. He knew the value in exposing yourself to all different kinds of people, that it helped you know who you are and what is important to you, it helped you to see beyond yourself to the needs of others, it helped you to learn and grow as a person, it helped your relationship with God who is also different from us, and it helps to grow God’s Kingdom (otherwise known as “kin-dom,” or relationship), God’s web of relationship and love that no one is outside of.
So, your council is a little better prepared to deal with conflict. We’re still practicing and won’t be perfect, but if you help us practice we will learn to use the skills from this workshop. We’ll encourage you to speak up. We’ll help assemble the different voices so that people can weigh in. We’ll encourage the sharing of stories so that we can understand more deeply where each other is coming from. We’ll affirm the unity we do have, even when we disagree. And we’ll try to learn and help the community learn and grow in love and relationship to one another and to God just like God’s people have throughout the ages. Let us return to community and relationship so that we can serve God together despite our beautiful differences.
Jesus didn’t argue just to be difficult. He stood firm about justice for the poor, food for the hungry, and help for the sick and imprisoned. Because he stood up for those who were hurting, he butted heads with those who liked the system as it stood and he gave his life, making sure that everyone had access to life abundant.
1st Reading: Genesis 17:1-7; 15-16 2nd Reading: Romans 4:13-25
“Wherever two or more are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” No, we did not hear these words in any of today’s readings, yet they apply, because anytime two or more are gathered, you’ll have at least that many opinions and the opportunity for conflict. In fact, the next verse after this one from Matthew, Peter asks Jesus how many times he must forgive his neighbor.
In this morning’s Gospel readings, Peter and Jesus have a disagreement. They have a difference of opinion on what Jesus’ role should be and how his life should play out. They have a fight.
There may be nothing that terrifies congregations more than conflict. I recently attended a training called “Transforming Church Conflict” and got more than a few funny looks when I said I planned to go and invited the council to attend with me. Church conflict? Here?
A lot of how we each deal with conflict, has to do with how we learned to deal with it growing up. I don’t want to generalize too much, but if we look at the Scandanavian way of handling conflict, a category that a good number of members of King of Kings fall into—we know this group tends to be on the reserved side, showing little emotion. Think if you grew up in a colder climate, stuck indoors for months on end, you’d probably find a way to avoid conflict just to get through. Those patterns get passed down. I’ve learned German stubbornness or else it is in my DNA. I like to be right. But I also grew up in an abusive house, so conflict is a very scary thing to me, because it can end up in physical injury. We all have different experiences of conflict that affect how we see it and what we do when we are in it.
Doesn’t this just make you so curious to know more about Jesus’ family of origin dealing with their conflicts? Jesus doesn’t shy away from conflict. In fact, he seems to pick fights. He says what is on his mind. He is self-assured. He doesn’t let things fester. And yet, for Jesus, a conflict is just part of life. He doesn’t push anyone away from him because of a conflict. He is just as loving and kind after he argues with you as before.
This workshop that I attended with Winston and Mary, reminded us that conflict is not failure. We often think of it that way. Jesus said we are to be peacemakers, why can’t I get along with so and so? Many of us will do almost anything to avoid conflict—even lie. We just “smile and nod,” right? We listen, then ignore. We pretend to agree with people just so we don’t have to get into it with them.
Another reason we see conflict as failure is because we think in conflicts there must be winners and losers, right and wrong. Especially in the political climate we’re in, we see those with one opinion vilifying those with a different opinion, making the other side out to be monsters. We don’t see a lot of healthy conflict resolution playing out in the media. Where do we get healthy role models for conflict? None jump readily to mind. We may need to seek them out so that we as Christians can help model that.
We learned at the workshop that rather than being a failure, conflict is a result of the wonderful variety that God made amongst people. We vary in ways that we can see, such as age and gender. But most of the ways we vary are hidden, like the way we handled conflict growing up, our profession, our wealth, our status in the congregation. It would be boring if we were all alike, and because we’re different, we will see things differently and disagree about them.
Let’s look again at this argument in the Gospel. Peter and Jesus had a difference of opinion. Jesus is saying things that the disciples don’t want to hear about what is going to happen to him. Peter says, “Jesus, don’t talk like that!” It is wonderful that Peter and Jesus have a strong enough relationship that Peter feels that he can share his views. Think if Peter kept those feelings to himself. They would just grow stronger. Maybe he’d have trouble sleeping or get an ulcer. Maybe he’d go to the other disciples and start complaining about Jesus. There are a lot of unhealthy things that could happen. But Peter feels the relationship is strong enough that he can say what is on his mind.
Next Jesus turns to all the disciples. He knows that what one is thinking, likely several of them are thinking. When Peter contradicts Jesus, he isn’t just speaking for himself but he’s expressing what others are also thinking. In the same way, when you have a question about something here at church, there is no need to feel shy about bringing it up. Maybe you feel stupid, like you’re the only one who doesn’t know why we do things a certain way or what a lectern is. Or sometimes just asking the question of why might seem like an attack in itself, when it is really just curiosity. I invite you to ask those questions. There are likely others who have the same question. And if you have a different opinion, there are probably others who do, too, and by bringing it up you are helping a whole group of people give voice to another point of view. And if we are doing something just because that is the way we’ve always done it and it is inefficient or counterproductive, it might be time to change it for the good of the community. Ask the questions, not just for yourself but for the sake of others.
Sometimes conflict feels like the end of the world. But after this conflict, Jesus and the disciples don’t break up. They continue in relationship and ministry together. There are many other times the disciples don’t get it, but they keep working at the relationship and learning from their disagreements and interactions and we know that Peter eventually does get it since he goes and spreads the good news after Jesus’ death and resurrection and eventually becomes a martyr. If they never brought up their differences, they might never have the chance to learn from one another and from Jesus and grow in their faith and maturity and understanding.
This congregation has experienced some pretty difficult conflicts over the years and even more recently we’ve faced differences of opinion among us and poor communication that has led to misunderstandings. This congregation is not immune from conflict. The better we can understand what is happening when we go through conflict, the better we can learn and grow from it, rather than it pulling us apart. In thinking of a conflict a few years ago, the council evaluated what we could have done better and created a policy so that we would better communicate in the future. I don’t want to sound naïve, but there are ways we can all win, when we experience conflict, and that is when we learn something about ourselves and those with whom we disagree. When you come through a healthy conflict experience, often you’ll find a deeper bond. A strong friendship transcends the differences between us and will last through even the toughest difficulties.
In the Old Testament Reading for today, God enters into a covenant with Abraham. It is an agreement between the two, almost like a marriage. God will be God to Abraham and his many descendents and they will be God’s people. Yet God and Abraham are very different. They are going to disagree. Abraham will make many mistakes, but that will never come between them and their relationship. They are going to keep working at this relationship, no matter what trying times come. Abraham will disagree with God and he will let his opinion be known. God will disagree with Abraham and let him know. Yet they will continue to be in relationship with one another and they will build a common story together that will bind them closer together in relationship.
Sometimes when we disagree, it seems like everything is out of balance. However, our unity must go beyond our differences, because the source of it is God. Think of God who made each of us and loves us all. We are all made and loved by the same God who wants to be in relationship with us and wants us to be in relationship with each other. We have our savior Jesus who was constantly teaching the disciples to be among those different from themselves—children, lepers, women, those of different religious affiliations, foreigners, tax collectors. He knew the value in exposing yourself to all different kinds of people, that it helped you know who you are and what is important to you, it helped you to see beyond yourself to the needs of others, it helped you to learn and grow as a person, it helped your relationship with God who is also different from us, and it helps to grow God’s Kingdom (otherwise known as “kin-dom,” or relationship), God’s web of relationship and love that no one is outside of.
So, your council is a little better prepared to deal with conflict. We’re still practicing and won’t be perfect, but if you help us practice we will learn to use the skills from this workshop. We’ll encourage you to speak up. We’ll help assemble the different voices so that people can weigh in. We’ll encourage the sharing of stories so that we can understand more deeply where each other is coming from. We’ll affirm the unity we do have, even when we disagree. And we’ll try to learn and help the community learn and grow in love and relationship to one another and to God just like God’s people have throughout the ages. Let us return to community and relationship so that we can serve God together despite our beautiful differences.
Jesus didn’t argue just to be difficult. He stood firm about justice for the poor, food for the hungry, and help for the sick and imprisoned. Because he stood up for those who were hurting, he butted heads with those who liked the system as it stood and he gave his life, making sure that everyone had access to life abundant.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Sermon for February 19, 2012
February 19, 2012 Gospel: Mark 9:2-9 1st Reading: 2 Kings 2:1-12
Psalm 50:1-6 2nd Reading: 2 Corinthians 4:3-6
When I was growing up, since there were no VCRs, we looked forward to watching the Wizard of Oz once a year on television around Thanksgiving or Christmas time. We always watched so closely during the part when Dorothy goes from the inside of her house into the land of Oz, when the film goes from black and white to color. We’d watch with anticipation through the whole first part of that film, eager to see the colorful costumes of the munchkins, the vivid lollipops, and of course, the yellow brick road! What an exciting transition that was! I’m going to call that the Transfiguration moment of the Wizard of Oz.
And that moment “colors” the rest of film. There are the red apples and poppies, the Emerald city, the green witch, the horse of a different color, and the Ruby Slippers. I don’t know if this film could have been made without color, it is so crucial to the characters and plot. If the whole film had been in color, it would not have been so dramatic, but that moment of transition makes you realize how special it is to get to see all the colors.
When we go through transitions, it can be disorienting. Sometimes it is that our eyes are opened to what was right there in front of us. Sometimes something new comes into view and changes how we see everything after that. In those transfiguration moments, we are changed, our view is changed, and we’ll never be the same.
Maybe you’ve sat with someone who was dying and held their hand. Those are holy Transfiguration moments, and you will never be the same after that experience. The same goes of being at a birth. It changes you forever. Or maybe you’ve had a religious experience, seen an angel, or heard the voice of God. Or if you’ve overcome addiction or come through a serious illness, you know what transfiguration is. Sometimes it is a moment of seeing something beautiful in nature—a mountain shining in the sun, a fall tree on fire with the sun blazing through the leaves, a formation of clouds so dramatic and stunning—when that image sticks with you for the rest of your life and colors how you see the world around you.
Peter stood in that moment and was disoriented, as we all are in moments like that. At this transfiguration, this disorienting moment, he sought to orient himself and try to steady himself. He was trying to make sense of this holy experience. He didn’t know what to do, but he knew he wanted to capture this moment forever. That’s why he suggested building some tents for Moses, Elijah, and God and keep them all there. That’s the thing about transitions, they don’t last. They are a link between the past and present, moving us from one to other.
We could see this transition a couple of different ways. We could see Jesus as replacing Moses and Elijah. We could see this as Jesus getting the approval of those important people who came before: His story a continuation of what they had started. We could see this story as providing a vision of what is to come, giving hope for a future when God’s glory will be revealed.
Immediately after this Jesus is making a bee-line for Jerusalem, where he will be arrested and killed. This moment of seeing where he came from, and being reminded that he is God’s beloved son, would sustain him for what he was about to face: the cross, great suffering, rejection, and the grave. The disciples, too, will face a very difficult time. Maybe that vision will sustain them, too. In a way, the Transfiguration gives a glimpse of the end of the story that gives strength to get through the hardest part.
In the same way, the transfigurations we experience, those holy moments when we are reminded that we are God’s and God is with us, can give us the push we need to go do what needs to be done, the strength to move forward to face difficulties that we must encounter, and to move into the future with hope, and to be bearers of God’s Kingdom into this world. We know the end of the story, that we are God’s and God has the last loving word, so everything else no matter how hard can be seen as leading to that good outcome of new and abundant life.
I was wondering who might be the Moses and Elijah of our congregation, who we might picture as the matriarchs and patriarchs of our community and what they would say to us about our future. Maybe it would be Lovetta and John Wittrich and maybe John Morris. What if they suddenly materialized out of thin air here in the sanctuary? What would they say to us? Would we invite them to pull up a chair and stay a while and get them a cup of coffee? Do we see our forefathers and matriarchs casting a vision of what will be, urging us on to be who we need to be in this changing world and that it is okay to go to the cross, to take risks for the good news to be meaningful and heard by a new generation of potential believers?
Jesus didn’t have the choice to stay on the mountain. He had a mission to fulfill—a purpose from God to draw us all to himself, to show us love, to make us one. It is a false choice for us, too, because of course we can’t go back. Really I think we are all aware of that, only we don’t know how to move forward into unknown territory. There is no yellow brick road to show us the way. More important than which direction we go, is that we move forward. There is no harm in remembering and learning from where we’ve been just like remembering what Moses and Elijah came to do and that was to lead the people forward. There is more than one road we can take to get where we’re going. The important thing is to move forward, trusting that God is with us on the journey, looking to God for guidance, and remembering that we belong to God as beloved children, and knowing the end of the story that God’s love endures.
In The Wizard of Oz, I was always afraid of the flying monkeys. There is just something terrifying about that. But because I knew the end of the story, I was able to make it through the scary parts with that vision of Dorothy clicking her heels together and finding her way home.
Dorothy always wanted to get back home and she was finally able to do so. Maybe it seemed she went back to life just as it was before, but she was changed forever by her experiences in Oz. She had stood up to the Witch. She had asked for what she needed from the Wizard. She had made new friends and helped them. She had overcome many obstacles. She had done a lot of growing up. Now she was more prepared for adulthood and the obstacles she would face as a young woman.
When we go through transfiguration moments, we, too, are changed. We may head straight back into ordinary life and all the hubbub, but always with a renewed spirit, recommitted to our goals, aware of our status as children of God no matter what, able to see God all around us—not that God is sometimes there and sometimes not, but that God is always with us, just now we are more aware of it because we have seen a vision of his glory and been transfigured.
Have you ever had a transfiguration moment? What was it like?
Psalm 50:1-6 2nd Reading: 2 Corinthians 4:3-6
When I was growing up, since there were no VCRs, we looked forward to watching the Wizard of Oz once a year on television around Thanksgiving or Christmas time. We always watched so closely during the part when Dorothy goes from the inside of her house into the land of Oz, when the film goes from black and white to color. We’d watch with anticipation through the whole first part of that film, eager to see the colorful costumes of the munchkins, the vivid lollipops, and of course, the yellow brick road! What an exciting transition that was! I’m going to call that the Transfiguration moment of the Wizard of Oz.
And that moment “colors” the rest of film. There are the red apples and poppies, the Emerald city, the green witch, the horse of a different color, and the Ruby Slippers. I don’t know if this film could have been made without color, it is so crucial to the characters and plot. If the whole film had been in color, it would not have been so dramatic, but that moment of transition makes you realize how special it is to get to see all the colors.
When we go through transitions, it can be disorienting. Sometimes it is that our eyes are opened to what was right there in front of us. Sometimes something new comes into view and changes how we see everything after that. In those transfiguration moments, we are changed, our view is changed, and we’ll never be the same.
Maybe you’ve sat with someone who was dying and held their hand. Those are holy Transfiguration moments, and you will never be the same after that experience. The same goes of being at a birth. It changes you forever. Or maybe you’ve had a religious experience, seen an angel, or heard the voice of God. Or if you’ve overcome addiction or come through a serious illness, you know what transfiguration is. Sometimes it is a moment of seeing something beautiful in nature—a mountain shining in the sun, a fall tree on fire with the sun blazing through the leaves, a formation of clouds so dramatic and stunning—when that image sticks with you for the rest of your life and colors how you see the world around you.
Peter stood in that moment and was disoriented, as we all are in moments like that. At this transfiguration, this disorienting moment, he sought to orient himself and try to steady himself. He was trying to make sense of this holy experience. He didn’t know what to do, but he knew he wanted to capture this moment forever. That’s why he suggested building some tents for Moses, Elijah, and God and keep them all there. That’s the thing about transitions, they don’t last. They are a link between the past and present, moving us from one to other.
We could see this transition a couple of different ways. We could see Jesus as replacing Moses and Elijah. We could see this as Jesus getting the approval of those important people who came before: His story a continuation of what they had started. We could see this story as providing a vision of what is to come, giving hope for a future when God’s glory will be revealed.
Immediately after this Jesus is making a bee-line for Jerusalem, where he will be arrested and killed. This moment of seeing where he came from, and being reminded that he is God’s beloved son, would sustain him for what he was about to face: the cross, great suffering, rejection, and the grave. The disciples, too, will face a very difficult time. Maybe that vision will sustain them, too. In a way, the Transfiguration gives a glimpse of the end of the story that gives strength to get through the hardest part.
In the same way, the transfigurations we experience, those holy moments when we are reminded that we are God’s and God is with us, can give us the push we need to go do what needs to be done, the strength to move forward to face difficulties that we must encounter, and to move into the future with hope, and to be bearers of God’s Kingdom into this world. We know the end of the story, that we are God’s and God has the last loving word, so everything else no matter how hard can be seen as leading to that good outcome of new and abundant life.
I was wondering who might be the Moses and Elijah of our congregation, who we might picture as the matriarchs and patriarchs of our community and what they would say to us about our future. Maybe it would be Lovetta and John Wittrich and maybe John Morris. What if they suddenly materialized out of thin air here in the sanctuary? What would they say to us? Would we invite them to pull up a chair and stay a while and get them a cup of coffee? Do we see our forefathers and matriarchs casting a vision of what will be, urging us on to be who we need to be in this changing world and that it is okay to go to the cross, to take risks for the good news to be meaningful and heard by a new generation of potential believers?
Jesus didn’t have the choice to stay on the mountain. He had a mission to fulfill—a purpose from God to draw us all to himself, to show us love, to make us one. It is a false choice for us, too, because of course we can’t go back. Really I think we are all aware of that, only we don’t know how to move forward into unknown territory. There is no yellow brick road to show us the way. More important than which direction we go, is that we move forward. There is no harm in remembering and learning from where we’ve been just like remembering what Moses and Elijah came to do and that was to lead the people forward. There is more than one road we can take to get where we’re going. The important thing is to move forward, trusting that God is with us on the journey, looking to God for guidance, and remembering that we belong to God as beloved children, and knowing the end of the story that God’s love endures.
In The Wizard of Oz, I was always afraid of the flying monkeys. There is just something terrifying about that. But because I knew the end of the story, I was able to make it through the scary parts with that vision of Dorothy clicking her heels together and finding her way home.
Dorothy always wanted to get back home and she was finally able to do so. Maybe it seemed she went back to life just as it was before, but she was changed forever by her experiences in Oz. She had stood up to the Witch. She had asked for what she needed from the Wizard. She had made new friends and helped them. She had overcome many obstacles. She had done a lot of growing up. Now she was more prepared for adulthood and the obstacles she would face as a young woman.
When we go through transfiguration moments, we, too, are changed. We may head straight back into ordinary life and all the hubbub, but always with a renewed spirit, recommitted to our goals, aware of our status as children of God no matter what, able to see God all around us—not that God is sometimes there and sometimes not, but that God is always with us, just now we are more aware of it because we have seen a vision of his glory and been transfigured.
Have you ever had a transfiguration moment? What was it like?
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Sermon for February 5, 2012
February 5, 2012 Gospel: Mark 1:29-39 Psalm 147:1-11, 20c
1st Reading: Isaiah 40:21-31 2nd Reading: 1 Corinthians 9:16-23
“In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him.” I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I used to enjoy hunting with my family. We learned, even as little kids, how to move through the trees and sagebrush quietly. If we were going to have deer to eat that winter we’d have to be. We’d watch where we stepped. And while we were watching our feet, we could look for deer sign, footprints and droppings that could tell us how long ago a deer passed by that way.
Hunting involved a fair amount of walking, but it also involved a lot of waiting. We learned to sit quietly. Maybe hunting was good practice for church and church good practice for hunting.
In the Old Testament lesson, the Israelites had been taken into exile. They were complaining against God. And God answers them. “Don’t you people know anything!? I am in charge,” God says. God reminds them of everything he’s done, such as stretching the heavens and other important jobs. God reminds them that God is powerful and strong. God reminds them that they are faint, weary, and powerless. But God’s power is relational, it is for sharing. It is love. “Those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Those that wait quietly and watch for God will see God’s power and receive it. Power is for sharing. If you read about how the Israelites got taken into exile, you’ll see that they had been powerful, but they misused their power, so God took it away. Now that they find themselves powerless and calling on God, even in an accusing way, God will respond and share power to tip the power balance back to them.
Their waiting was a long process. Most of those who were taken died before they could come back into the land of Israel. Much like the waiting and wandering that happened in the wilderness before the Israelites came into the land of Canaan, where the generation that left Egypt was not the one that inherited the land.
Waiting is more than just wasted time. It has taken a long time for me to learn that and I am still learning it. I was the one who loved geometry because it showed the shortest line between 2 points. I do not take the scenic route, I take the fastest route. There is A and there is B and I just want to get from A to B. I married someone who doesn’t even have A or B in his awareness. Where is the car parked? Who cares? If you wander the parking lot long enough you’ll remember or stumble upon it. Nick enjoys the process. I gain a lot from being around him since I am the opposite. I try to think like him when I am stuck in traffic or in line at the grocery store. It isn’t just about getting from here to there, but I try to see what else is happening in that moment. Maybe I’m supposed to pay attention to a frazzled clerk at the store and offer a cheerful hello. Maybe I’m supposed to hold the door for someone or pick up a piece of litter. Maybe I’m being delayed so I miss a car accident later in the day. Believe me, sometimes it is a stretch to understand why I can’t get from here to there in the quickest way. Maybe I’m meant to see a rainbow or a sunset or a clump of clouds that reminds me that I’m not the center of everything, that there is a bigger plan and a powerful one that is looking out for the powerless and frazzled.
In Paul’s letter, he is also waiting and watching. He has the Gospel to proclaim, the good news to tell. He could jump right in with his stump speech, but instead he looks around him. He thinks about what would make the good news make sense to a certain group of people. He listens to their stories. He finds out what is important. He takes on characteristics that people will identify with. Then he shares the good news.
Some might call that flexibility “flip flopping.” But Paul knows himself and his bottom line. He’s got to get this most important message across. The rest is just window dressing. How you share it doesn’t matter to God, nor does what you eat or what silly rules you follow, or what culture you are part of. I can just imagine Paul trying on different accents, different clothes or disguises. But he’s not trying to trick anyone. He’s just trying to fit in with and understand another person’s thought process in order to help them connect with God.
Often the church says we want young people to come. Using Paul’s example, maybe we ought to dress the way they do, with our jeans falling down or tramp stamp showing. Maybe we ought to try to talk the way young people do. That wouldn’t be authentic. And we would be doing it for the wrong reasons, because we want our church to grow, which is selfish. Paul did it because he wanted other people to hear a word of hope and love. He was doing it for the sake of the other person. But that doesn’t mean we couldn’t use more accessible language, so that people who came here wouldn’t need a translator to understand what was going on, but would immediately know God’s love plain and pure?
Simon’s mother-in-law knew what it was like to wait. She had likely been suffering from Malaria for ages. This is a disease that, once you get it, it keeps coming back when you’re tired or worn out. Malaria kills about 1800 people every day and yet it is preventable with nets around the bed. The Lutheran Church has recently rejoined the malaria initiative. We’re so good at this that The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation works with us to get mosquito nets to countries where malaria is prevalent. We could go in to these places and preach all we wanted, but people would continue to die. The good news in this situation, looks like a net, so we become nets, we bring nets to protect people.
The people who were sick in the town waited. If you had been in Capurnaum that day, you would have kicked yourself if you hadn’t gone to Simon’s mother-in-law’s house and waited, even if a hangnail was all you could come up with as a reason. And Jesus healed many people, and gave them a certain level of new life. Jesus could have stayed there in Capurnaum and healed everyone. I would probably have been one of the ones complaining that he didn’t. But if he wanted to turn around the system of oppression that caused so much illness and vilified people with certain illnesses, he couldn’t stay there. He had to move on. He had bigger systems to address, leaders to confront, tables to overturn. There were people waiting for a deeper healing—for justice and hope. And if he wanted to extend new life to go beyond the grave and not be limited in time, he had to cross that boundary into death itself and shine the light of life and love there also. And if he wanted to have anything to offer people, he needed to do a kind of waiting, too. He headed out when it was still very dark to pray, to communicate with God, to wait on God instruction, to meditate on a saving word.
Even Jesus had to wait. Maybe that’s what I’ll remind myself with next time at the grocery store. Jesus surely waited with his mother at the market. He waited until he was older to learn the carpenter’s trade. He waited until his 30s to start his public ministry. Jesus even waited on the cross. He made the most of that time with prayer and by reaching out to two criminals on either side of him . Waiting is a fact of life. It isn’t if we will wait, but how we spend that waiting time that makes the difference. We can spend it complaining. We can spend it balancing time alone with God and helping others and we will find God helping us, too, through others.
What are you waiting for from God? What might God be waiting for from you?
1st Reading: Isaiah 40:21-31 2nd Reading: 1 Corinthians 9:16-23
“In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him.” I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I used to enjoy hunting with my family. We learned, even as little kids, how to move through the trees and sagebrush quietly. If we were going to have deer to eat that winter we’d have to be. We’d watch where we stepped. And while we were watching our feet, we could look for deer sign, footprints and droppings that could tell us how long ago a deer passed by that way.
Hunting involved a fair amount of walking, but it also involved a lot of waiting. We learned to sit quietly. Maybe hunting was good practice for church and church good practice for hunting.
In the Old Testament lesson, the Israelites had been taken into exile. They were complaining against God. And God answers them. “Don’t you people know anything!? I am in charge,” God says. God reminds them of everything he’s done, such as stretching the heavens and other important jobs. God reminds them that God is powerful and strong. God reminds them that they are faint, weary, and powerless. But God’s power is relational, it is for sharing. It is love. “Those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Those that wait quietly and watch for God will see God’s power and receive it. Power is for sharing. If you read about how the Israelites got taken into exile, you’ll see that they had been powerful, but they misused their power, so God took it away. Now that they find themselves powerless and calling on God, even in an accusing way, God will respond and share power to tip the power balance back to them.
Their waiting was a long process. Most of those who were taken died before they could come back into the land of Israel. Much like the waiting and wandering that happened in the wilderness before the Israelites came into the land of Canaan, where the generation that left Egypt was not the one that inherited the land.
Waiting is more than just wasted time. It has taken a long time for me to learn that and I am still learning it. I was the one who loved geometry because it showed the shortest line between 2 points. I do not take the scenic route, I take the fastest route. There is A and there is B and I just want to get from A to B. I married someone who doesn’t even have A or B in his awareness. Where is the car parked? Who cares? If you wander the parking lot long enough you’ll remember or stumble upon it. Nick enjoys the process. I gain a lot from being around him since I am the opposite. I try to think like him when I am stuck in traffic or in line at the grocery store. It isn’t just about getting from here to there, but I try to see what else is happening in that moment. Maybe I’m supposed to pay attention to a frazzled clerk at the store and offer a cheerful hello. Maybe I’m supposed to hold the door for someone or pick up a piece of litter. Maybe I’m being delayed so I miss a car accident later in the day. Believe me, sometimes it is a stretch to understand why I can’t get from here to there in the quickest way. Maybe I’m meant to see a rainbow or a sunset or a clump of clouds that reminds me that I’m not the center of everything, that there is a bigger plan and a powerful one that is looking out for the powerless and frazzled.
In Paul’s letter, he is also waiting and watching. He has the Gospel to proclaim, the good news to tell. He could jump right in with his stump speech, but instead he looks around him. He thinks about what would make the good news make sense to a certain group of people. He listens to their stories. He finds out what is important. He takes on characteristics that people will identify with. Then he shares the good news.
Some might call that flexibility “flip flopping.” But Paul knows himself and his bottom line. He’s got to get this most important message across. The rest is just window dressing. How you share it doesn’t matter to God, nor does what you eat or what silly rules you follow, or what culture you are part of. I can just imagine Paul trying on different accents, different clothes or disguises. But he’s not trying to trick anyone. He’s just trying to fit in with and understand another person’s thought process in order to help them connect with God.
Often the church says we want young people to come. Using Paul’s example, maybe we ought to dress the way they do, with our jeans falling down or tramp stamp showing. Maybe we ought to try to talk the way young people do. That wouldn’t be authentic. And we would be doing it for the wrong reasons, because we want our church to grow, which is selfish. Paul did it because he wanted other people to hear a word of hope and love. He was doing it for the sake of the other person. But that doesn’t mean we couldn’t use more accessible language, so that people who came here wouldn’t need a translator to understand what was going on, but would immediately know God’s love plain and pure?
Simon’s mother-in-law knew what it was like to wait. She had likely been suffering from Malaria for ages. This is a disease that, once you get it, it keeps coming back when you’re tired or worn out. Malaria kills about 1800 people every day and yet it is preventable with nets around the bed. The Lutheran Church has recently rejoined the malaria initiative. We’re so good at this that The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation works with us to get mosquito nets to countries where malaria is prevalent. We could go in to these places and preach all we wanted, but people would continue to die. The good news in this situation, looks like a net, so we become nets, we bring nets to protect people.
The people who were sick in the town waited. If you had been in Capurnaum that day, you would have kicked yourself if you hadn’t gone to Simon’s mother-in-law’s house and waited, even if a hangnail was all you could come up with as a reason. And Jesus healed many people, and gave them a certain level of new life. Jesus could have stayed there in Capurnaum and healed everyone. I would probably have been one of the ones complaining that he didn’t. But if he wanted to turn around the system of oppression that caused so much illness and vilified people with certain illnesses, he couldn’t stay there. He had to move on. He had bigger systems to address, leaders to confront, tables to overturn. There were people waiting for a deeper healing—for justice and hope. And if he wanted to extend new life to go beyond the grave and not be limited in time, he had to cross that boundary into death itself and shine the light of life and love there also. And if he wanted to have anything to offer people, he needed to do a kind of waiting, too. He headed out when it was still very dark to pray, to communicate with God, to wait on God instruction, to meditate on a saving word.
Even Jesus had to wait. Maybe that’s what I’ll remind myself with next time at the grocery store. Jesus surely waited with his mother at the market. He waited until he was older to learn the carpenter’s trade. He waited until his 30s to start his public ministry. Jesus even waited on the cross. He made the most of that time with prayer and by reaching out to two criminals on either side of him . Waiting is a fact of life. It isn’t if we will wait, but how we spend that waiting time that makes the difference. We can spend it complaining. We can spend it balancing time alone with God and helping others and we will find God helping us, too, through others.
What are you waiting for from God? What might God be waiting for from you?
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Sermon for January 29, 2012
January 29, 2012 Gospel: Mark 1:21-28 Psalm 111
1st Reading: Deuteronomy 18:15-20 2nd Reading: 1 Corinthians 8:1-13
When I was in High School, our Sunday School teacher was Mike Fish. Each Sunday my mom would ask us what we learned in Sunday School we’d tell her that we didn’t do our lesson. Instead we went out for donuts. My mom thought we were taking advantage of Mike. Certainly it cost him a few bucks to buy us all donuts. This was hardly Christian Education in my mother’s mind. But if I had known my Bible better, I would have been able to quote to her what it says in 1 Corinthians, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”
Our outing to Dunkin Donuts was more than just an exercise in poor eating habits and more than just taking advantage of poor Mike Fish—it was a time of building relationships. Mike wasn’t just driving us across town, he was conversing with us about our week. He was helping us make the connections between our lives and our faith. He was helping us to see that our faith helped us make decisions in school and at home. He helped to see and name God’s grace in our lives. And he was showing us that he cared and that didn’t take any kind of curriculum at all. We didn’t know it, but we had learned something in Sunday School on those days we went out to donuts with Mike Fish and he was building us up with his love for us. I have to say, I think he was as relieved as we were that he wasn’t teaching that boring curriculum.
I want to encourage you to share a time someone built you up. Maybe it was a compliment or some assistance of some kind or just someone loving you. Please turn to someone near you and share a time when someone built you up. Would anyone be willing to share with the whole group?
In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians this morning, he tells us that what matters most is what builds people up, and what builds up the body of Christ, the community of believers. Even though all things are lawful and God will love us no matter what, we still need to be careful of what might lead another astray. We need to love one another and do what is best especially for the most vulnerable members of the body who might misunderstand. Thankfully we don’t have this issue anymore about eating food offered to idols because it sounds a little contentious. Much of the food in the marketplace would have been first offered to idols. There was also the issue of eating in the temples of idols. You and I and Paul know that these idols don’t exist and don’t have power, but a new believer might not know that and might follow the example of a more experienced believer and get led astray.
Even though we don’t have this specific problem in our context, we can still learn something from this reading and that is that all our actions ought to be based on what is loving, especially to the most vulnerable. The loving thing to do for someone who is just coming to faith or weaker in the faith is what is going to be most helpful to them to help them keep on track. It isn’t just about my faith, or what is lawful or helpful for me, but we have to look out for others.
This reminds me of how young people often fall away from the church, but when they have kids, sometimes they come back. They look at these new little people and want to share something of what they had when they were a kid. They want to give these vulnerable little children a foundation for their faith. Even though they didn’t choose for themselves for several years to go to church, for these little ones, they go out of their way to go to church and often take what they learn there into daily life—into prayer, into service, into interactions with the homeless or elderly. Sometimes we get to put aside our own preferences in favor of love and relationship.
In the Gospel reading for this morning, Jesus finds himself in the Synagogue. This is one of the first things he does in the Gospel of Mark. Suddenly there was a man with an unclean spirit. If Jesus hadn’t been there, certainly the people there would have thrown the man out. That seems like the right thing to do because it is what is best for the community. This man is disruptive. No one can hear or pray because he’s interrupting the service. But Jesus doesn’t do that. He doesn’t just go right on with his teaching, either. He stops and acknowledges the man and the spirit within him. But he thinks creatively. He needs to value the man—he is one of God’s children. He is one of the vulnerable that needs protection. But he also has this unclean spirit. It may be disruptive to the community, but think what this poor man is going through. The spirit is ruining every minute of his life, not just during church hour. So Jesus uses his authority to separate the man from his demon and get rid of the one causing the problem.
When we read this, we may believe that this man had schizophrenia or another mental or physical illness. It might mean addictions. It is hard for us to interpret “demons” on our own context. There are evils in this world that we can name—oppression, injustice, greed, etc. Maybe Jesus cast them out. Maybe the man was a victim of other people’s rumors and bullying. Maybe Jesus cast that out just by valuing him with his time and helping him. What bad things could other people say about him after that?
We, the church, believers gathered together, are Christ’s body in the world. Jesus had the authority to value and love people and so do we. He had authority and he used it to help people, especially the most vulnerable, and that’s our job, too. We are so used to a majority-rules perspective, but God’s way is counter-cultural so that we are especially called to look out for the minority and the weak.
On Reconciling in Christ Celebration Sunday, we remember our welcome statement that we welcome all people regardless of any differences. It is written there at the beginning of your bulletin. A couple of years ago we added “regardless of sexual identity” to our list. Fifty years ago, race was a bigger factor in what divided us. Today, perhaps income is one thing that is dividing us. So many things can divide us. But God commands that we love, that we be united, especially with people we might especially like not to be. It isn’t just about feeling good, but about being honest about how we participate in oppression and how we do let our prejudices keep us apart. A word from God isn’t always easy to hear, but we can be sure it is based in love and all about building up which is good for everyone. If we are members of the body of Christ, we want the weakest members to be strong, too, because that is good for everyone.
What is Jesus casting out of your life? What is Jesus casting out of our community? Are we ready to let it go? What is life-giving in our world? What is death-dealing and how do we participate in it? Let us instead participate in Jesus’ building up work of love.
1st Reading: Deuteronomy 18:15-20 2nd Reading: 1 Corinthians 8:1-13
When I was in High School, our Sunday School teacher was Mike Fish. Each Sunday my mom would ask us what we learned in Sunday School we’d tell her that we didn’t do our lesson. Instead we went out for donuts. My mom thought we were taking advantage of Mike. Certainly it cost him a few bucks to buy us all donuts. This was hardly Christian Education in my mother’s mind. But if I had known my Bible better, I would have been able to quote to her what it says in 1 Corinthians, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”
Our outing to Dunkin Donuts was more than just an exercise in poor eating habits and more than just taking advantage of poor Mike Fish—it was a time of building relationships. Mike wasn’t just driving us across town, he was conversing with us about our week. He was helping us make the connections between our lives and our faith. He was helping us to see that our faith helped us make decisions in school and at home. He helped to see and name God’s grace in our lives. And he was showing us that he cared and that didn’t take any kind of curriculum at all. We didn’t know it, but we had learned something in Sunday School on those days we went out to donuts with Mike Fish and he was building us up with his love for us. I have to say, I think he was as relieved as we were that he wasn’t teaching that boring curriculum.
I want to encourage you to share a time someone built you up. Maybe it was a compliment or some assistance of some kind or just someone loving you. Please turn to someone near you and share a time when someone built you up. Would anyone be willing to share with the whole group?
In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians this morning, he tells us that what matters most is what builds people up, and what builds up the body of Christ, the community of believers. Even though all things are lawful and God will love us no matter what, we still need to be careful of what might lead another astray. We need to love one another and do what is best especially for the most vulnerable members of the body who might misunderstand. Thankfully we don’t have this issue anymore about eating food offered to idols because it sounds a little contentious. Much of the food in the marketplace would have been first offered to idols. There was also the issue of eating in the temples of idols. You and I and Paul know that these idols don’t exist and don’t have power, but a new believer might not know that and might follow the example of a more experienced believer and get led astray.
Even though we don’t have this specific problem in our context, we can still learn something from this reading and that is that all our actions ought to be based on what is loving, especially to the most vulnerable. The loving thing to do for someone who is just coming to faith or weaker in the faith is what is going to be most helpful to them to help them keep on track. It isn’t just about my faith, or what is lawful or helpful for me, but we have to look out for others.
This reminds me of how young people often fall away from the church, but when they have kids, sometimes they come back. They look at these new little people and want to share something of what they had when they were a kid. They want to give these vulnerable little children a foundation for their faith. Even though they didn’t choose for themselves for several years to go to church, for these little ones, they go out of their way to go to church and often take what they learn there into daily life—into prayer, into service, into interactions with the homeless or elderly. Sometimes we get to put aside our own preferences in favor of love and relationship.
In the Gospel reading for this morning, Jesus finds himself in the Synagogue. This is one of the first things he does in the Gospel of Mark. Suddenly there was a man with an unclean spirit. If Jesus hadn’t been there, certainly the people there would have thrown the man out. That seems like the right thing to do because it is what is best for the community. This man is disruptive. No one can hear or pray because he’s interrupting the service. But Jesus doesn’t do that. He doesn’t just go right on with his teaching, either. He stops and acknowledges the man and the spirit within him. But he thinks creatively. He needs to value the man—he is one of God’s children. He is one of the vulnerable that needs protection. But he also has this unclean spirit. It may be disruptive to the community, but think what this poor man is going through. The spirit is ruining every minute of his life, not just during church hour. So Jesus uses his authority to separate the man from his demon and get rid of the one causing the problem.
When we read this, we may believe that this man had schizophrenia or another mental or physical illness. It might mean addictions. It is hard for us to interpret “demons” on our own context. There are evils in this world that we can name—oppression, injustice, greed, etc. Maybe Jesus cast them out. Maybe the man was a victim of other people’s rumors and bullying. Maybe Jesus cast that out just by valuing him with his time and helping him. What bad things could other people say about him after that?
We, the church, believers gathered together, are Christ’s body in the world. Jesus had the authority to value and love people and so do we. He had authority and he used it to help people, especially the most vulnerable, and that’s our job, too. We are so used to a majority-rules perspective, but God’s way is counter-cultural so that we are especially called to look out for the minority and the weak.
On Reconciling in Christ Celebration Sunday, we remember our welcome statement that we welcome all people regardless of any differences. It is written there at the beginning of your bulletin. A couple of years ago we added “regardless of sexual identity” to our list. Fifty years ago, race was a bigger factor in what divided us. Today, perhaps income is one thing that is dividing us. So many things can divide us. But God commands that we love, that we be united, especially with people we might especially like not to be. It isn’t just about feeling good, but about being honest about how we participate in oppression and how we do let our prejudices keep us apart. A word from God isn’t always easy to hear, but we can be sure it is based in love and all about building up which is good for everyone. If we are members of the body of Christ, we want the weakest members to be strong, too, because that is good for everyone.
What is Jesus casting out of your life? What is Jesus casting out of our community? Are we ready to let it go? What is life-giving in our world? What is death-dealing and how do we participate in it? Let us instead participate in Jesus’ building up work of love.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Sermon for January 15, 2012
January 15, 2012 Gospel: John 1:43-51 Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18
1st Reading: 1 Samuel 3:1-20 2nd Reading: 1 Corinthians 6:12-20
When I was growing up, we lived in Albany and my grandparents lived in Lebanon. It is about a 20 minute drive between the two. About once a week we’d go to my grandparents’ house for dinner. What a blessing to live that close to family! We’d drive home at what seemed like late at night but was probably more like 8 pm. It was so dark on Highway 34. My dad always made us feel safe, driving us carefully home—our car full of sleepy children. I always wondered how he did it on those dark nights. He always kept his eye on the white line on the side of the road. But even better was when he could get behind another vehicle and let them lead the way.
Jesus said, “Follow me.”
In today's Old Testament reading, Samuel is called to be a leader. Sometimes we might be reluctant to call ourselves leaders—at church or in our communities. We are humble. We can think of a hundred reasons why not to be. Many people feel uncomfortable speaking in public. In fact, that is one of the greatest fears people face. We’re afraid of letting other people down—that maybe we can’t meet their expectations or we might not be able to get everything done that we’re committed to. No one can anticipate every possible situation we might face, so it isn’t possible to be prepared for anything and everything. Being a leader means thinking on your feet.
But I would argue that we are all leaders. Some of you serve on church Council or Mutual Ministry or Endowment Board or one of our committees. I would count parents as leaders, too. And grandparents are leaders. There isn't one of you that I haven't seen being a leader at one time or another.
Some people have used the phrase, “What would Jesus do?” I don’t think it could hurt anything to think of that phrase when making decisions. Maybe it got thrown around a little too much and may have become a little trite. I started seeing jewelry with it written on there, “WWJD?” I thought to myself that if you want to ask what Jesus would do, you could start with Jesus certainly wouldn’t wear that bracelet!
I could never have become a pastor if I thought I’d be expected to do what Jesus would do. There are probably some people that expect that of me. And I think of that sometimes when I see someone asking for money on freeway overpass and other times I am not as generous as I’d like to be. It is an expectation that I will never live up to, not even for a moment.
If we could do what Jesus did, why would we need Jesus? And Jesus doesn’t ask us to be him. But he does ask us to follow him.
I think there is a difference. For one thing, he’s already been there, so we’re not alone. Jesus probably felt alone at certain times in his life, especially as he cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
“WWJD?” comes a little close to works righteousness. If we could just do as Jesus would do, we might think we could save ourselves—from regret, from despair, from the fires of hell. But Jesus did as Jesus would do, and he still endured suffering. He descended into hell according to some. He even occasionally had regrets. If we could just do as Jesus would do, we might think we could save others—from hunger, from suffering. Jesus did as Jesus would do although he did some miracle healings and casting out demons, he did not eradicate disease and pain. That was one question that Dick Morris asked me plenty of times. If Jesus said, “You will do greater things than these,” why can’t we just go cure hospitals full of people? He was really grappling with this gift of healing because he’d seen it working in India, but it wasn’t always immediate or complete like he thought it would be. Instead of eradicating all diseases and pain, Jesus promised to accompany us on our journey through pain and disease and suffering. Jesus promised to be with us through that and to bring us through that to new life.
Maybe a better question would be, “What would Jesus have us do now that we have new life because of him?” Or Martin Luther would put it this what, “What are we freed for? Now that we are free because of God’s gift of love and grace, who are we freed to be?” We are partly freed to be a follower.
Freedom was a word that meant a lot to Martin Luther King, Jr. The slaves had been freed long before, God had freed Christians through Jesus death and resurrection, and yet the freedom he experienced, as an African American was limited because of unjust laws in this country. Some call him a prophet. We would all think of him as a leader who took this country forward toward justice and equality.
But I think he was only doing what Jesus asks this morning, following him. Even Martin Luther King, Jr. was unable to do what Jesus would do. We know he had affairs. He hurt his family. He sinned. He took advantage of people who respected him. He put himself above the rules.
But despite his shortcomings and failures, Martin Luther King, Jr. did follow Jesus, experience God’s grace and forgiveness, and become a leader who I would say walked with Jesus as his follower. It was because he was following Jesus that he took a non-violence approach. It was because he was following Jesus that he wasn’t afraid to be arrested for standing up for what was right. It was because he was following Jesus that he took risks to go where he wasn’t welcome and to say what wasn’t popular to say. He faced the authorities and he wasn’t alone, because he was following Jesus.
When you are following someone, you don’t always know where it will lead. Jesus says later to pick up our cross and follow him. As a follower, we don’t know what that cross might be. For Jesus it was literal. For the rest of us, we won’t be sure what our particular cross is until we find ourselves carrying a heavy burden and great suffering. Following Jesus also means following him through the grave to eternal life, to great joy, and to relationship with him and all of God’s Creation. Maybe we focus on the cross too much, but certainly Jesus experienced great joy in life and satisfaction and pleasure, too—he liked a good party as much as anyone, especially when he was providing the good wine.
Phillip also extends an open-ended invitation. He says, “Come and see.” He doesn’t tell us what to expect. He doesn’t say what a life of faith looks like because it is different for every person. He just extends the invitation and leaves it open so that whatever happens happens. A life of faith means coming and seeing and being open to whatever happens. And it means extending the invitation to others. It might mean inviting people to church, but more than that it is inviting them into relationship and connection, just as God has invited us into relationship and connection. That’s what I often think of as I pass those people holding signs by the freeway off ramps—not about the money I’m not giving them, but about the conversation I am not having with them and the relationship I’m not building. But there are other places where I can build those connections in a safer environment, like the pantry or with folks that call the church asking for help and maybe that it is more appropriate.
Jesus calls us today to follow him. He is saying to you, “Follow me.” As we leave this church this morning, Jesus is saying to you, “Follow me.” I can’t tell you what that looks like, because he’s saying it to you. It is your life. It is your particular context. But know that when you’re driving those back roads, your stomach full from the generous table God provides, and your hearts full from time with family and friends, to give thanks to God. And when the night is dark, and you’re afraid you might go off the road, to let God light the way home and to be the kind of leader that is also a follower.
1st Reading: 1 Samuel 3:1-20 2nd Reading: 1 Corinthians 6:12-20
When I was growing up, we lived in Albany and my grandparents lived in Lebanon. It is about a 20 minute drive between the two. About once a week we’d go to my grandparents’ house for dinner. What a blessing to live that close to family! We’d drive home at what seemed like late at night but was probably more like 8 pm. It was so dark on Highway 34. My dad always made us feel safe, driving us carefully home—our car full of sleepy children. I always wondered how he did it on those dark nights. He always kept his eye on the white line on the side of the road. But even better was when he could get behind another vehicle and let them lead the way.
Jesus said, “Follow me.”
In today's Old Testament reading, Samuel is called to be a leader. Sometimes we might be reluctant to call ourselves leaders—at church or in our communities. We are humble. We can think of a hundred reasons why not to be. Many people feel uncomfortable speaking in public. In fact, that is one of the greatest fears people face. We’re afraid of letting other people down—that maybe we can’t meet their expectations or we might not be able to get everything done that we’re committed to. No one can anticipate every possible situation we might face, so it isn’t possible to be prepared for anything and everything. Being a leader means thinking on your feet.
But I would argue that we are all leaders. Some of you serve on church Council or Mutual Ministry or Endowment Board or one of our committees. I would count parents as leaders, too. And grandparents are leaders. There isn't one of you that I haven't seen being a leader at one time or another.
Some people have used the phrase, “What would Jesus do?” I don’t think it could hurt anything to think of that phrase when making decisions. Maybe it got thrown around a little too much and may have become a little trite. I started seeing jewelry with it written on there, “WWJD?” I thought to myself that if you want to ask what Jesus would do, you could start with Jesus certainly wouldn’t wear that bracelet!
I could never have become a pastor if I thought I’d be expected to do what Jesus would do. There are probably some people that expect that of me. And I think of that sometimes when I see someone asking for money on freeway overpass and other times I am not as generous as I’d like to be. It is an expectation that I will never live up to, not even for a moment.
If we could do what Jesus did, why would we need Jesus? And Jesus doesn’t ask us to be him. But he does ask us to follow him.
I think there is a difference. For one thing, he’s already been there, so we’re not alone. Jesus probably felt alone at certain times in his life, especially as he cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
“WWJD?” comes a little close to works righteousness. If we could just do as Jesus would do, we might think we could save ourselves—from regret, from despair, from the fires of hell. But Jesus did as Jesus would do, and he still endured suffering. He descended into hell according to some. He even occasionally had regrets. If we could just do as Jesus would do, we might think we could save others—from hunger, from suffering. Jesus did as Jesus would do although he did some miracle healings and casting out demons, he did not eradicate disease and pain. That was one question that Dick Morris asked me plenty of times. If Jesus said, “You will do greater things than these,” why can’t we just go cure hospitals full of people? He was really grappling with this gift of healing because he’d seen it working in India, but it wasn’t always immediate or complete like he thought it would be. Instead of eradicating all diseases and pain, Jesus promised to accompany us on our journey through pain and disease and suffering. Jesus promised to be with us through that and to bring us through that to new life.
Maybe a better question would be, “What would Jesus have us do now that we have new life because of him?” Or Martin Luther would put it this what, “What are we freed for? Now that we are free because of God’s gift of love and grace, who are we freed to be?” We are partly freed to be a follower.
Freedom was a word that meant a lot to Martin Luther King, Jr. The slaves had been freed long before, God had freed Christians through Jesus death and resurrection, and yet the freedom he experienced, as an African American was limited because of unjust laws in this country. Some call him a prophet. We would all think of him as a leader who took this country forward toward justice and equality.
But I think he was only doing what Jesus asks this morning, following him. Even Martin Luther King, Jr. was unable to do what Jesus would do. We know he had affairs. He hurt his family. He sinned. He took advantage of people who respected him. He put himself above the rules.
But despite his shortcomings and failures, Martin Luther King, Jr. did follow Jesus, experience God’s grace and forgiveness, and become a leader who I would say walked with Jesus as his follower. It was because he was following Jesus that he took a non-violence approach. It was because he was following Jesus that he wasn’t afraid to be arrested for standing up for what was right. It was because he was following Jesus that he took risks to go where he wasn’t welcome and to say what wasn’t popular to say. He faced the authorities and he wasn’t alone, because he was following Jesus.
When you are following someone, you don’t always know where it will lead. Jesus says later to pick up our cross and follow him. As a follower, we don’t know what that cross might be. For Jesus it was literal. For the rest of us, we won’t be sure what our particular cross is until we find ourselves carrying a heavy burden and great suffering. Following Jesus also means following him through the grave to eternal life, to great joy, and to relationship with him and all of God’s Creation. Maybe we focus on the cross too much, but certainly Jesus experienced great joy in life and satisfaction and pleasure, too—he liked a good party as much as anyone, especially when he was providing the good wine.
Phillip also extends an open-ended invitation. He says, “Come and see.” He doesn’t tell us what to expect. He doesn’t say what a life of faith looks like because it is different for every person. He just extends the invitation and leaves it open so that whatever happens happens. A life of faith means coming and seeing and being open to whatever happens. And it means extending the invitation to others. It might mean inviting people to church, but more than that it is inviting them into relationship and connection, just as God has invited us into relationship and connection. That’s what I often think of as I pass those people holding signs by the freeway off ramps—not about the money I’m not giving them, but about the conversation I am not having with them and the relationship I’m not building. But there are other places where I can build those connections in a safer environment, like the pantry or with folks that call the church asking for help and maybe that it is more appropriate.
Jesus calls us today to follow him. He is saying to you, “Follow me.” As we leave this church this morning, Jesus is saying to you, “Follow me.” I can’t tell you what that looks like, because he’s saying it to you. It is your life. It is your particular context. But know that when you’re driving those back roads, your stomach full from the generous table God provides, and your hearts full from time with family and friends, to give thanks to God. And when the night is dark, and you’re afraid you might go off the road, to let God light the way home and to be the kind of leader that is also a follower.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
January 1, 2012
January 1, 2012 Gospel: Luke 2:22-40 Psalm 148
1st Reading: Isaiah 61:10-62:3 2nd Reading: Galatians 4:4-7
This has been an interesting year for me, pregnant most of the year and now a new mother. I’ve really enjoyed hearing everyone’s stories. The book “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” has a little advice to parents who receive too much advice, to either just ignore it, or if someone is being especially obnoxious, and repeatedly tearing you down, you might need to say something. I have received very little advice, a few sideways looks about being a vegetarian, but what else is new? Instead I got to hear about a part of people’s lives that most people hadn’t told me about before. Through the years I’ve heard many of your faith stories, stories about growing up, about work and family and illness and loss and marriage and divorce. This year I’ve really enjoyed hearing pregnancy stories and birth stories and parenthood stories, which make up a big part of people’s lives. I discover this as I’m acquiring stories of my own and have very little else I care to talk about than boast about my happy, genius infant. It has really been a privilege to hear these stories and now to share the raising of my son with you as I bring him to church and activities and pass him around so that you too may eventually be part of his memories.
At this point we don’t have too many expectations of our baby. We hope he tracks objects around the room and spend much of our time with him trying to evoke a smile or a coo. We certainly have hopes for him. In not too much time he will be able to grab on to things, toys and hair and glasses. We look forward to him scooting and crawling and pulling himself up and eventually walking. Of course along the way he’ll fall a few times, there will be bruises and scrapes and tears from his injuries. We can picture him putting on his own socks, feeding himself, using the toilet, using sentences, going to school, riding a bike. We anticipate he will get his heart broken one day. He’ll do a lot of embarrassing things. He will get sick. He will get frustrated. Who knows what he’ll be when he grows up or what kind of professions will exist in 20-30 years or what kind of world we’ll live in.
Jesus, too, gets a trip to church. So take these stories and these expectations and insert baby Jesus. Insert Messiah. Simeon and Anna have been waiting their whole lives for this. Simeon can now scratch it off his bucket list. Anna never left the temple and as a result she didn’t miss the arrival of the Messiah there. Her devotion had been of one who was invisible, but here he was visible, in her presence. I’ve seen some people excited to see a baby, but this was more, this was seeing God.
I often think when I look at Sterling that I am seeing a miracle, the way that all the things I ate were reorganized by his DNA to make his little blood vessels that feed all his cells, the way my body makes all he will eat for six months—the perfect food for his needs, the way he develops a little more each day, now able to get his fist in his mouth on a regular basis, now able to vocalize pleasant sounds, now able to realize that when he hears our voices we are nearby and he isn’t alone, when all those things were impossible last week or even a day or two ago.
How much more of a miracle did this Messiah seem? Was his every move considered evidence of his wisdom, his holiness, his godliness? Did his parents look deep into his eyes to see God there—to see if they had heard right at his birth?
The miracle of Jesus is that miracles we might have ordinarily missed are brought more to our attention. Miracles happen every day right in front of us, reasons to be thankful and joyful. An old man lives to see his dream realized. An old woman devotes herself to God. A child is adopted into a new family. A slave is freed. People share a vision of hope. A sick person receives a transplant. A family who loses a loved one, knows that loss was not in vain but that someone was given new life because of a gift of an organ. Cancer is in remission for three people in our congregation. Grandchildren are born. Some find jobs. Some find purpose and hope. Some help each other. Some learn to care for others and to give of themselves.
There is a darker tone to Simeon’s prophecy, too. Jesus would do a lot of great things but he was destined for the falling of many nations, too. He will be opposed and a sword will pierce the soul. This is one way to know that Simeon isn’t just flattering them. He is telling a deep and scary truth. The Messiah has a lot of good things going for him, but no life is without controversy and trouble. That’s part of what it means to be human.
Sterling had a little cold last week. I was surprised how calm I felt—I guess I thought I might panic. He never had a fever or more than just a sniffle and cough or I might have been more upset. I told him that this was the first of many colds he’d have. There would be plenty more illnesses and most worse than this one. Our struggles shape us as much or more than our successes. We need the challenges so that we stretch ourselves, so that we learn to strive, so that we learn to appreciate when things go well.
Even God has challenges and struggles and God will take all these and make something good out of them. Certainly Jesus had difficulties, illnesses, scrapes, and embarrassing moments. I’m sure he learned from them that they aren’t the end of the world, to pick himself up, dust himself off, and keep going. So when the Pharisees started questioning him, when the disciples were particularly trying, when his mother didn’t understand him, when the centurions mocked him and told him if he was the son of God to get down off the cross, he didn’t falter and lose hope. Instead, sure of who he was and centered in God’s love, he endured and didn’t lash back in anger. He did what he needed to do, even submitting to torture and death to show us the way through to eternal life. Showing us that life’s difficulties don’t mean we’re alone, but instead, we’re in good company—God has been there after all. Our friends and relatives and even enemies have all been there—in times of suffering. We’ve all been there.
Simeon and Anna show a level of enthusiasm for this child that God has for all of us. In my new mom’s group there is one mother who has adopted a little baby girl. She and her husband waited a year and a half for this child. They had a few hours notice that this would happen. There are many proud mothers at this group. Can you guess who wears the biggest smile? It is that adoptive mother, of course. God had one of God’s own, Jesus Christ, and had big expectations for him, but prepared him well for his task. And God has also adopted the rest of us and is just as proud, with many hopes and expectations, calling us by name, wanting the best for us, raising us in God’s “forever family,” and loving us as if we were God’s own, because we are.
We get a lot of messages from the people around us about our value. Some people treat us with disdain as if we are less than. They thrive on tearing other people down. Others encourage us. Most of us have both kinds of people in our own biological family. Those encouraging, loving ones are the voice of God in our lives, the voice of adoption, the realistic voice, the positive voice of Simeon and Anna. I encourage you to find the Simeons and Annas in your life and to be the Simeons and Annas in the lives of those around you.
1st Reading: Isaiah 61:10-62:3 2nd Reading: Galatians 4:4-7
This has been an interesting year for me, pregnant most of the year and now a new mother. I’ve really enjoyed hearing everyone’s stories. The book “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” has a little advice to parents who receive too much advice, to either just ignore it, or if someone is being especially obnoxious, and repeatedly tearing you down, you might need to say something. I have received very little advice, a few sideways looks about being a vegetarian, but what else is new? Instead I got to hear about a part of people’s lives that most people hadn’t told me about before. Through the years I’ve heard many of your faith stories, stories about growing up, about work and family and illness and loss and marriage and divorce. This year I’ve really enjoyed hearing pregnancy stories and birth stories and parenthood stories, which make up a big part of people’s lives. I discover this as I’m acquiring stories of my own and have very little else I care to talk about than boast about my happy, genius infant. It has really been a privilege to hear these stories and now to share the raising of my son with you as I bring him to church and activities and pass him around so that you too may eventually be part of his memories.
At this point we don’t have too many expectations of our baby. We hope he tracks objects around the room and spend much of our time with him trying to evoke a smile or a coo. We certainly have hopes for him. In not too much time he will be able to grab on to things, toys and hair and glasses. We look forward to him scooting and crawling and pulling himself up and eventually walking. Of course along the way he’ll fall a few times, there will be bruises and scrapes and tears from his injuries. We can picture him putting on his own socks, feeding himself, using the toilet, using sentences, going to school, riding a bike. We anticipate he will get his heart broken one day. He’ll do a lot of embarrassing things. He will get sick. He will get frustrated. Who knows what he’ll be when he grows up or what kind of professions will exist in 20-30 years or what kind of world we’ll live in.
Jesus, too, gets a trip to church. So take these stories and these expectations and insert baby Jesus. Insert Messiah. Simeon and Anna have been waiting their whole lives for this. Simeon can now scratch it off his bucket list. Anna never left the temple and as a result she didn’t miss the arrival of the Messiah there. Her devotion had been of one who was invisible, but here he was visible, in her presence. I’ve seen some people excited to see a baby, but this was more, this was seeing God.
I often think when I look at Sterling that I am seeing a miracle, the way that all the things I ate were reorganized by his DNA to make his little blood vessels that feed all his cells, the way my body makes all he will eat for six months—the perfect food for his needs, the way he develops a little more each day, now able to get his fist in his mouth on a regular basis, now able to vocalize pleasant sounds, now able to realize that when he hears our voices we are nearby and he isn’t alone, when all those things were impossible last week or even a day or two ago.
How much more of a miracle did this Messiah seem? Was his every move considered evidence of his wisdom, his holiness, his godliness? Did his parents look deep into his eyes to see God there—to see if they had heard right at his birth?
The miracle of Jesus is that miracles we might have ordinarily missed are brought more to our attention. Miracles happen every day right in front of us, reasons to be thankful and joyful. An old man lives to see his dream realized. An old woman devotes herself to God. A child is adopted into a new family. A slave is freed. People share a vision of hope. A sick person receives a transplant. A family who loses a loved one, knows that loss was not in vain but that someone was given new life because of a gift of an organ. Cancer is in remission for three people in our congregation. Grandchildren are born. Some find jobs. Some find purpose and hope. Some help each other. Some learn to care for others and to give of themselves.
There is a darker tone to Simeon’s prophecy, too. Jesus would do a lot of great things but he was destined for the falling of many nations, too. He will be opposed and a sword will pierce the soul. This is one way to know that Simeon isn’t just flattering them. He is telling a deep and scary truth. The Messiah has a lot of good things going for him, but no life is without controversy and trouble. That’s part of what it means to be human.
Sterling had a little cold last week. I was surprised how calm I felt—I guess I thought I might panic. He never had a fever or more than just a sniffle and cough or I might have been more upset. I told him that this was the first of many colds he’d have. There would be plenty more illnesses and most worse than this one. Our struggles shape us as much or more than our successes. We need the challenges so that we stretch ourselves, so that we learn to strive, so that we learn to appreciate when things go well.
Even God has challenges and struggles and God will take all these and make something good out of them. Certainly Jesus had difficulties, illnesses, scrapes, and embarrassing moments. I’m sure he learned from them that they aren’t the end of the world, to pick himself up, dust himself off, and keep going. So when the Pharisees started questioning him, when the disciples were particularly trying, when his mother didn’t understand him, when the centurions mocked him and told him if he was the son of God to get down off the cross, he didn’t falter and lose hope. Instead, sure of who he was and centered in God’s love, he endured and didn’t lash back in anger. He did what he needed to do, even submitting to torture and death to show us the way through to eternal life. Showing us that life’s difficulties don’t mean we’re alone, but instead, we’re in good company—God has been there after all. Our friends and relatives and even enemies have all been there—in times of suffering. We’ve all been there.
Simeon and Anna show a level of enthusiasm for this child that God has for all of us. In my new mom’s group there is one mother who has adopted a little baby girl. She and her husband waited a year and a half for this child. They had a few hours notice that this would happen. There are many proud mothers at this group. Can you guess who wears the biggest smile? It is that adoptive mother, of course. God had one of God’s own, Jesus Christ, and had big expectations for him, but prepared him well for his task. And God has also adopted the rest of us and is just as proud, with many hopes and expectations, calling us by name, wanting the best for us, raising us in God’s “forever family,” and loving us as if we were God’s own, because we are.
We get a lot of messages from the people around us about our value. Some people treat us with disdain as if we are less than. They thrive on tearing other people down. Others encourage us. Most of us have both kinds of people in our own biological family. Those encouraging, loving ones are the voice of God in our lives, the voice of adoption, the realistic voice, the positive voice of Simeon and Anna. I encourage you to find the Simeons and Annas in your life and to be the Simeons and Annas in the lives of those around you.
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