The lectionary texts for the first Sunday in Lent this year include Genesis 3:1-7 (“The Fall”) and Matthew 4:1-11(the Temptation of Christ). What a perfect contrast these two Scriptures give us of human frailty and divine strength. In the former Eve and Adam fall like a ton of bricks for a couple of lies from a talking snake! And in the latter the New Testament version of the serpent promises Jesus food (after a 40-day fast!), divine glory and protection (for bungee jumping off the temple without a bungee), and worldly power (over all the kingdoms of the world, including Greenland and Venezuela).
And Jesus, with impeccable theology, politely tells Satan to go fly a kite all three times. And, of course, Peter reprises human frailty again at the end of this drama by denying Jesus three times. Adam, Eve, and Peter all are marked with the Ash Wednesday reminder that we are all dust, and to dust we will return. But Jesus is the Way, Truth, and Life.
These stories remind me of my need again this Lent to examine and resist by own human weaknesses; to be a little less fearful and self-centered, and more faithful to the sacred burden I carry as one created in the image of God. “I believe, Lord. Help my unbelief.” (Mark 9:24)
Nadia Bolz-Weber has shared in her Substack that she is going to observe Lent this year by looking for and recording 40 days of good “stuff,” which if you know Nadia you know she describes that exercise more graphically! As a glass-half-empty kind of person I need all the help with gratitude I can get, especially in these days of doom-scrolling doldrums. So I have decided to launch my own discipline of being aware of at least one good or beautiful thing each day of Lent.
My good stuff for today was seeing a beautiful red headed woodpecker at our bird feeder. The big red head is a gorgeous bird, and I feel especially blessed that we see one fairly regularly at our house. The habitat for the big woodpeckers is being destroyed by urban sprawl, but at least for now we still have enough wooded land around us that the developers haven’t snarfed up that we get to enjoy this one I call Woody. The bad news is he/she doesn’t stay at our feeder very long; so I wasn’t able to get a picture today.
I googled the Red Headed Woodpecker today just for fun and was rewarded with some great Lenten news. What I found is that for some indigenous people the RHW represents the spiritual values of determination, strength, and perseverance. Those seem like exactly the values lacking in the Genesis 3 story which are on full display in Jesus’ replies to Satan in the wilderness.
Humans in paradise still aren’t satisfied with all the blessings they have and are greedy for more. But the Son of God, starving in the wilderness, knows that faith alone is enough to get us through any and all trials and tribulations life throws at us.
As church tradition dictates our excellent sermon today by Pastor Mebane McMahon on this last Sunday before Lent was based on the Transfiguration story in Luke 9. My takeaway today after hearing this text from one of the synoptic Gospels annually for at least 57 years was the need to surrender my great desire to cling to glory and homestead on the mountaintop.
We all need special moments of spiritual inspiration more than ever these days, but Jesus followers can’t stay on the mountain top. Jesus sets his face toward Jerusalem, straight back into the valley of the shadow of death, and yes, he says, “deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me!”
Of all the hard things I wish Jesus hadn’t said, that’s one of the toughest for sure. For me right now as I prepare to enter my 80th season of Lent, one of the hardest things for me to surrender is my overwhelming desire to go back – back to a time when I could carry a bundle of shingles up a ladder onto a roof. Or back to a time when I could run 5 miles in under 40 minutes, or even just walk out to my mailbox without pain. Every time I see a recent picture of myself unable to stand up straight I want to give up all photo ops for Lent.
I’ve never been a great athlete, but I have enjoyed participating in a good variety of sports over the years. I know it can’t happen, but I would sure love to soak in the view one more time before skiing down from the top of Peak 9 at Breckenridge in Colorado, or enjoy the fellowship of playing one more game with my old church softball team, or a rousing game of basketball with my son. Those memories are wonderful, but they will never replace actually being there. So I don’t want to accept those days are no more.
Diana and I had the pleasure of attending a wonderful high school performance of the Broadway musical version of “Frozen” yesterday in which our great niece Ava Tobin starred as Elsa. The whole performance was amazing, but Ava’s powerful rendition of the song “Let It Go” moved me the most. And it tied in beautifully with the Transfiguration story’s message to let go of the glory of the mountain top and follow Jesus into the valley of Lent.
One of the lines in “Let It Go” says “the past is past,” and that is part of surrendering for me. I’m not the 40 year-old runner or skier or softball player I was 40 years ago. That past is past, and I need to let it go so I can live fully in the present reality of my 79 year-old body.
There’s a breath prayer I learned a few months ago that I’ve been wrestling with ever since. It says, “Show me who to be, and what is mine to do.” I keep meditating on that, but what I’ve heard so far as I pray that prayer is this: I am to be the best Jesus follower I can be, and what that looks like changes with the seasons of life.
I can’t preach much anymore or teach classes. I don’t have the stamina to do that. I can’t go to protests and marches because I can’t stand or walk for any length of time. But I can still read and learn and share my ideas and insights through my writing.
When I get depressed about all the things I can’t do anymore I have no energy to do the things I can still do; so I need to let the past be past and let it go.
I am reluctant to share this as I don’t want to boast, but I got a notification recently from Word Press, the site that hosts my blog, that since I launched this blog in 2011 there have been 100,000 views of my posts. I am humbled by that number and by the fact that those views have come from dozens of countries on 6 continents.
I have no idea how those 100K readers have responded to anything I’ve written except for few comments I’ve gotten over the years. My hope is that it’s like the parable of the sower. We scatter our seeds and never know where or how the seeds grow.
That’s true of teaching, preaching, ministry, and just life. We don’t know what influence our words and actions have on others. All we can do is speak and live our truth to the best of our ability because it is right thing to do and trust God to do the rest. That’s surrender!!!
Let it go! The past is past. Forgive recklessly, including oneself. Love foolishly, including oneself, and walk humbly seeking no glory or riches – just integrity.
This message for this first Sunday in Advent in Matthew’s Gospel is also the motto of the Boy Scouts – “Be prepared.” As an Eagle Scout one could assume that it would fit my life style. I wish it did, but in crisis or stressful situations I’m not at my best. When I was about 14 or 15 my Explorer Post took a canoe trip on an old abandoned canal called the Whitewater Canal in southern Indiana. The name was misleading since there was no white water there, but there was one tricky spot in the concrete remains of an old lock.
Because the current got faster as it narrowed into the lock there was a sign telling canoeists to portage around the lock. Portage means to pull over to the bank, get out, and carry your canoe around to the other side of the lock where it’s ok to put back into the water. The problem was that the portage sign was so close to the lock that there was little time, especially for inexperienced paddlers, to exit the water before being sucked into the lock. The portage sign was on a cable stretched across the water and the first reaction to seeing that sign when it was too late to portage was to grab the cable and try to stop. The problem was the person grabbing the cable stopped, but his canoe didn’t.
Some of us who made the canoe trip in the first of two groups had found out the hard way how this worked and had a good laugh as we scrambled to retrieve our runaway canoes. So, rather than being good Scouts and warning our friends in the second group about this hazard we secretly hiked down to the lock while group 2 was getting ready to set off so we could see how many of them ended up in the drink like we had. Some did, of course, and we had a good laugh until we realized that our Scoutmaster in one of the tipped canoes had gone under and not come back up. He was trapped under the current.
It was truly a life and death moment, and I was frozen in fear. I remember yelling for someone to do something, but it felt like my feet were nailed to the ground. Thank God two of my fellow Scouts did act courageously. They jumped the 8 feet from the top of the lock to the water and pulled our sputtering Scoutmaster to safety. They were both honored for their bravery, but I was not prepared to act.
In less dramatic ways I was not prepared to leave home for college and spent an entire quarter terribly homesick. I was not ready for marriage at age 21 or for parenthood 3 years later – but then who is ever really ready for that responsibility. And now in my “golden years” I am certainly not ready for the challenges of aging!
So if it’s that hard to be prepared for “normal” life events that we know are coming, what in the world can we do to be prepared for the coming of the Lord? Matthew says, “Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” (24:44). That verse is about the second coming, but Advent is our warning that we need to be prepared not just for the celebration of Christ’s birth but for the big surprise of his dropping in again any time he feels like it.
Sorry, Lord, I don’t like surprises. I don’t even like unexpected changes to my daily routine. And my weird sense of humor suddenly turns to the lyrics from an old song by Eileen Barton:
“If I knew you were comin’ I’d’ve baked a cake, baked a cake, baked a cake
If I knew you were comin’ I’d’ve baked a cake
Howdya do, howdya do, howdya do?
Had you dropped me a letter, I’d a-hired a band, grandest band in the land
Had you dropped me a letter, I’d a-hired a band
And spread the welcome mat for you
Oh, I don’t know where you came from
’cause I don’t know where you’ve been
But it really doesn’t matter
Grab a chair and fill your platter
And dig, dig, dig right in.”
It’s like dating or meeting someone important for the first time. We can put our best foot forward and be on our best behavior when we are prepared. Even I can clean up pretty well when I am forewarned. I can even tidy up the house when I know when my wife is returning from a trip, but “at any hour you do not expect!” That’s not fair.
But timing is not really the issue. God has known when we’ve been naughty or nice long before Santa or security cameras started tracking us. And it’s not rocket science. Being prepared for Christ is like an open book test. The Book has been telling us for 2500 years what God expects to find when he/she drops in unexpectedly. “He has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)
That’s pretty straightforward, and yes, much easier said than done. But please notice that last line – humility is the way to grace and mercy. God knows all too well we all flunk at doing justice and loving kindness way more than we like. But as 1 John tells us, “If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” (1:9-10). That first part is humility, the second not so much.
And there’s another wonderful summary of being prepared for Christmas or any Christ coming. The whole Bible is a lot of stuff to digest. There’s not just 10 Commandments but hundreds in the Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament. So Jesus boiled it all down for us. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest? He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:36-40)
Simple – love God and all your neighbors and yourself! Do that and you will be prepared. I hear you, but, Steve, how can we do that? We’re just fallible human beings after all! So, here’s the secret I’m counting on, and maybe you should too. “But Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26)
“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Surely that faith cannot save, can it? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” James 2:14-17
The epistle lesson for this coming Sunday is the familiar “Faith without works is dead” passage from James 2. How often when I pass by a person begging for money on the street do I feel guilty and worry that my faith is dead or dying? Thanks, James. There must be more value to these verses than humbling me if I am dwelling in a glass house of self-righteousness.
But maybe that’s all these verses need to do. Causing you or me to stop and look in the mirror is really quite an important thing for a spiritual encounter to do. To pause from our busy lives for a bit of self-examination is much more helpful than the far more common way this passage is used, namely to put others down by pointing out the hypocrisy of their holier-than-thou rhetoric and lack of empathy or meaningful service to meet the real needs of their neighbors.
One of the bishops I served under had a memorable way of keeping us clergy humble. He was fond of saying that things always worked out well when he was appointing clergy to serve in the churches under his supervision. He said the numbers always came out even because there “are always as many perfect churches as there are perfect pastors.”
James employs a similar tactic earlier in chapter 2. In verses 8-10 we find these words: “If you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you do well. But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.”
Does that mean God doesn’t grade on the curve? That nothing but a perfect score is good enough to live up to God’s standards? No, who could ever stand before such a God? Such a God would never send a Messiah to save us from ourselves. Such a Messiah would never welcome lepers, tax collectors, and all manner of societal outcasts into God’s beloved community.
James is simply warning us that our faith journey is a marathon, not a sprint. James is alerting us to the danger of thinking we’ve got it all figured out or that our work is ever done. I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a long way to go to love my enemies or to turn the other cheek. This side of heaven there will always be more neighbors to love, more poor who are with us always. God’s love is eternal and so are the tasks of discipleship for those who have decided to follow Jesus.
“So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet. As the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal daughter of Saul looked out of the window, and saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD; and she despised him in her heart.” 2 Samuel 6:15-16
“Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying, ‘Amos has conspired against you in the very center of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words. For thus Amos has said, ‘Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel must go into exile away from his land.’ And Amaziah said to Amos, ‘O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there; but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.’” Amos 7:10-13
“For Herod himself had sent men who arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because Herod had married her. For John had been telling Herod, ’It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.’ And Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him. But she could not.” Mark 6:17-19
At a time when I am beyond discouraged by the political mess my country is in I find it very interesting that all three Scripture excerpts (emphasis added) above are from the lectionary selections for this week. Each one in order describes the life-threatening peril David, Amos, and John the Baptist are in because of their political enemies. For me those three different narratives from different times and situations are a reminder that the political hatred we see today here in the U.S., in Israel and Gaza, in Moscow and Ukraine, in North and South Korean, or between Beijing and Taiwan are not unique to our particular context.
Throughout all of recorded human history people have resorted to violence as the primary solution to disagreements. Rather than use our innate ability to be co-creators of a beloved community, the loudest and most insecure among us have usually risen to positions of power and put human ingenuity to work building bigger and better ways to kill one another. And the vast majority of people are never taught how to critically reflect on the absurdity of the violent approach to life. Not knowing how to face and deconstruct the dark side of human history those people are condemned to believe that the way things have always been is the way they have to remain.
Democracy as a way of governance will only work if our education systems create a well-informed population that can choose leaders wisely. Unfortunately those education systems have failed to produce a critical mass of informed citizens, and the gaps in the curricula of schools and universities have been filled by religious zealots, anti-intellectual politicians, and right-wing media owned and controlled by those who want their politicians to keep in place unjust legal and economic systems that line their pockets.
That system leaves no room for prophets like Amos and John the Baptist to safely challenge the status quo. It leaves no room for visionaries and critical thinkers to combat the destructive forces of the military-industrial complex or the fossil fuel conspirators from destroying our planet. In the rural county where I live there is huge organized opposition to solar farms being built in our area. The solar opponents cite the loss of agricultural land as their rationale for opposition, but instead we are seeing that same farm land sold to developers who smother the earth in asphalt and fill those fields with houses that attract urban sprawl which overwhelms infrastructure and overcrowds schools. How does that make any sense?
Obvious climate crisis evidence like earlier and stronger hurricanes, floods, wildfires, tornadoes, and heat domes higher and earlier than ever experienced is ignored by short-sighted and greedy politicians who just want to continue our planet killing lifestyle and “drill baby, drill.” And those incapable of critical thinking for themselves believe what they are told and/or are distracted by fear-mongering racist political speeches.
In the recent Presidential debate I lost track of how many times Donald Trump ignored the questions posed to him by the moderators and blamed almost every problem facing our country on migrants crossing our southern border. Yes, there is a problem there that needs to be addressed, but the same Donald Trump is the one who killed the best bipartisan immigration bill ever proposed with one simple message to his minions in Congress, and he didn’t even attempt to hide his motives for that despicable act. He proudly admitted he didn’t want the immigration problem solved because he wanted to continue to use it as a campaign issue. And his worshipful followers were either unable or unwilling to see the total hypocrisy in that action.
Our myopic society reminds me of a line in a wonderful Ray Stevens song that says, “There is none so blind as he who will not see. We must not close our minds. We must let our thoughts be free.” (“Everything is Beautiful,” Ray Stevens, 1970).
But a Google search of that quote revealed a much richer and older history. “According to the ‘Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings’ this proverb has been traced back to 1546 (John Heywood), and resembles the Biblical verse Jeremiah 5:21 (‘Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not’). In 1738 it was used by Jonathan Swift in his ‘Polite Conversation’ and is first attested in the United States in the 1713 ‘Works of Thomas Chalkley’. The full saying is: ‘There are none so blind as those who will not see. The most deluded people are those who choose to ignore what they already know.”
And so yet another great Hebrew prophet, Jeremiah, reinforces the observation that our problems today are part of the age-old human condition. I find little comfort in that knowledge. In fact it adds to my frustration and despair to know that we are either hard-wired that way, or we are perpetually taught to behave in such self-destructive ways. I refuse to believe the former. I am convinced our individual and collective behavior is socially constructed which means it can be deconstructed and replaced with a more loving and compassionate society.
That is a monumental task but one that is necessary to avoid multiple existential threats to the future of the human race. The problems we have cannot be solved by the educational, economic, religious, and political structures that have created them. The question is do we have the vision, tenacity, leadership, and courage to take on that kind of transformational rebuilding of our communities, nation, and world? The effort has to begin with individual relationships, but it must also include widespread systemic change at every level of our communal life.
For multiple reasons I have been AWOL when it comes to new posts on here in the last few months. The reasons for that are complicated: multiple health issues which have caused a loss of energy to do anything that is not absolutely necessary to just maintain our home; normal slowing down of being 77.5 years old; a sense of hopelessness and depression over those personal losses; a painful family conflict that has been going on for months; and finally just being overwhelmed by the scope of the socio-political issues hanging over everything else.
As one who preached regularly from 1969-2018, a time which included some pretty trying days – civil rights, Aids and LGBT persecution, Viet Nam War protests, Watergate, and the arms race of the Reagan years, Iran Contra, 911, U. S. Attacks on Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan, the Clinton impeachment trial, the epidemic of mass shootings in schools and other public places, and the divisiveness of the Trump brand of politics – I find myself reflecting on how I preached the Gospel in a relevant and authentic way that addressed current social realities that we all have to navigate.
That task was informed and made more urgent by my PhD research on narrative rhetoric and moral and faith development, as well as 20 years of teaching preaching classes to seminary students as a part-time Adjunct Professor. The basic ingredient of the way I was taught to preach and how I taught is grounding sermons on biblical texts, normally by choosing a text from the four texts for each Sunday listed in The Revised Common Lectionary. That lectionary is a three year cycle of texts chosen to correspond with the liturgical seasons of the church year. My reflection on my current silence also reminded me that I started this blog in 2011 to offer reflections on lectionary texts for the weeks coming up in the church calendar. So, as often happens, I am circling back to my roots and will see what wisdom for our current season of life might emerge from studying the lectionary texts for the next week or two.
The timing seems right to do this as I am recovering from some surgery and have extra time to write. Stay tuned.
Paul tells us that suffering produces endurance, which produces character, which produces hope. Even though this winter has been mild I figure having lived through 77 Ohio winters; I should be one of the most hopeful characters in captivity.
Suffering is not my favorite thing about being a Christian. In fact, if we were to do a top 10 list of my favorite things about being a Christian, suffering wouldn’t even be on it. I really identify with the Disciple Peter who argues with Jesus in Mark 8 when Peter tries to talk Jesus out of his need to suffer and die, remember what Jesus says to him – “Get behind me Satan, you re on the side of men not of God?” Pretty harsh reply from Jesus, don’t you think. But if we look more carefully at that story Jesus goes on to say, “take up your cross and follow me…” you see, following requires that we line up behind the leader. Remember those days in elementary school when you lined up to go everywhere, and this leader that we profess to follow, whose name we claim as Christians, makes it clear over and over again that cross bearing is part of what we have signed on for at our baptism.
For Christians, suffering goes with the territory, unless we want to give up the reward for genuine suffering, which is eternal life here and forever. In Romans 8, Paul says, “We suffer with Christ so that we may be glorified with him.” But we still wish it wasn’t so, don’t we? When I first heard a story about a Good Friday cross walk several years ago when the faithful from several churches gathered in Dublin, Ohio for their walk and realized they had no cross with which to walk, I said, “That’ll preach!” Wouldn’t we love to have Easter without the suffering and pain of Good Friday and the Garden of Gethsemane? –the betrayal and denial that break Jesus’ heart long before the executioners break his body?
I would. I am not a fan of the” no pain no gain” school of exercise or theology. If there is an easier way to get in shape than sweating and having sore muscles, I’m all over it. And if someone can find an easy path to salvation, I’ll be the tour guide. But, oops, there’s that nasty verse in the Sermon on the Mount, Mt. 7:13-14 that says the wide easy freeway leads to destruction, and that’s the one without the cross, the one most people choose, because it looks easier and lots more fun in the short run. But when it comes to matters of faith, don’t we want to focus on goals and consequences for eternity, not just for today?
There are different kinds of suffering, and some are easier to explain or to deal with than others. First, and easiest in some ways, is the kind of suffering we bring upon ourselves. Kanye West and Will Smith come to mind as two of this year’s nominees in that category. Or anyone who was injured trying to take a selfie in a dangerous place? You can think of other nominees, less famous ones, perhaps, and if we’re honest we could all be on that list at one time or another.
The difference for most of us is that we aren’t celebrities. Our screw ups usually don’t show up on channel 10 news or in big bold tabloid headlines for the world to read in the checkout line at Kroger’s. But that doesn’t mean they are any less painful or hard to live with. Mistakes have consequences, which mean they usually hurt us and/or other people, and hurting is a form of suffering. We all make bad choices, it goes with our free will that none of us want to give up. We make bad choices that impact our health; we drive when we are distracted by electronic gadgets or when our judgment isn’t 100%; we say things in anger that we regret; we break promises to people we love. We give into worldly pressure to succeed or cut corners, knowing we’re violating our own values, and we may get away with it for awhile, or think we have; but sooner or later, our chickens come home to roost and we suffer.
That kind of suffering is very painful and hard to deal with, in part because we know there’s no one else to blame but ourselves, but at least self-inflicted suffering makes some sense. We can understand where it comes from and why.
The second type of suffering makes less sense to me. It’s been 12 years now, but I still remember the heart-wrenching and horrifying images of the Tsunami in Japan in 2011. Innocent, helpless people, thousands of them, minding their own business one minute who were suddenly swept up in what looked like science fiction movie about the end of the world the next. Or name any mass shooting or the inhumane brutality of Putin’s now year old war on Ukraine. Suffering type number 2 is the kind caused by natural disasters or criminal attacks or lung cancer in someone who has never smoked a cigarette; the kind for which there is no justification or satisfying explanation. Innocent children who are physically or emotionally or sexually abused. Faithful spouses who are cheated on, taken advantage of and left with nothing to sustain life. You get the picture.
This is a good place to clarify what suffering isn’t. Shortly after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, the governor of Tokyo made a public pronouncement that he believed this disaster was divine retribution on the people of Japan for their greed. This gentleman is a follower of the Shinto religion, and I have no knowledge whatsoever of what Shinto theology is or believes. I do know there are those tempted in most religions to resort to blaming God for things when we can’t figure any other way to justify or explain why bad things happen. Christianity is not exempt from such bad theology, and I remember there were Christian preachers who claimed that hurricane Katrina devastated the gulf coast in 2005 because of the sin and wickedness of the Big Easy.
Please understand, I’m not saying actions don’t have consequences or that sin doesn’t cause suffering – those things are built into the natural order of things. But that does not mean that the loving God I know and worship would kick people when they are down by saying “Gotcha” or “Take that, sinner” over the broken and shattered ruins of a devastated life or city or nation. When we need God’s comfort and strength and presence the very most, in times of tragedy and loss and despair, would God choose that time to teach us a lesson? NO, that is the time that Emmanuel, God with us, carries us and comforts us. When we suffer God is close enough to us to taste the salt of our tears.
Now, I know you can find plenty of places in the Bible where we are told that God punishes sinners with plagues and boils and hell fire and damnation, and we need to deal with that problem head on. Even in our text for today Paul says we need to be saved from the wrath of God. The Bible was written over centuries by lots of different authors who were trying to answer the hardest questions and mysteries of life. Those who experienced God in their suffering as punitive and judgmental wrote about that experience, and almost all of them did so without the benefit of knowing Jesus Christ, who is the best revelation possible for the loving, forgiving, grace-full God we have come to know and love through Jesus.
We need to remind ourselves that the Jews who wrote their Bible, which we call the Old Testament, also knew the loving, merciful side of God, too. That compassionate part of God’s nature had just not come into clear focus for them as it did in the incarnation of God in Jesus’ human form. We sometimes forget that most of our great images of God, like the good shepherd of Psalm 23, or God as a mother hen gathering her chicks about her all come from the Hebrew Scriptures. The essence of Jesus’ teaching, for example the Great Commandments to love God with all one’s heart, soul, strength, and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself are straight from the book of Deuteronomy.
Paul tells us that suffering produces endurance, character and hope. We can see how these first two kinds of suffering can build endurance and maybe character, but what about hope? We need a third kind of suffering to build Hope, and that is what followers of Jesus do when we voluntarily take on suffering as an act of sacrificial compassion. The reason Christians embrace and even boast about suffering, as Paul describes it, is that com-passion is essential to the Christian faith, and the word “compassion” comes from two Greek words that mean to suffer with. Compassion is the kind of love Jesus came to teach and live. Compassion is the love we feel for neighbors and enemies we don’t even know, simply because we share a common human condition. Compassion is what we feel for the people of Ukraine because we identify and empathize with them and share their suffering as fellow members of the human family. God doesn’t have grandchildren – just children – so our fellow human beings are not cousins once or twice removed, but are all our siblings – brothers and sisters together with Christ.
Compassion is a key to God’s very nature. Why else would God allow Jesus to suffer and die for us while we are yet sinners? When John tells us that God so loved the world that he gave us Jesus – that’s compassion and empathy to the max. God becomes one of us in human form to share our existence, including our suffering.
The cross of Jesus is often misunderstood as a necessary sacrifice or punishment for the sins of the world, but when we experience the cross of Christ as an act of compassion and sacrificial love it is much easier to embrace and to imitate in our own lives. The suffering of the cross for Jesus is an example writ large about how a person of faith handles suffering. Jesus doesn’t repay evil for evil; he doesn’t lash out in violent anger when he is suffering. He continues to live life in harmony with the will of God, bearing the ultimate suffering in love, compassion and forgiveness – staying true to the way of love which is the essence of life and of God. How can we follow Christ’s example and take on the suffering of life with character and hope? Paul says, “Hope does not disappoint us [even in the worst of times] because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” We can’t do it, but God living in us can.
The cross is both a symbol of suffering and hope, because if Jesus’ life ended on Good Friday, suffering would be the final fate of human kind. Death would define our existence. But hold the phone; we know the rest of this story. “Suffering produces endurance and character and hope, and hope does not disappoint.” For those who don’t give up and leave the ball game when the score looks hopeless, there is good news. We’ll experience that in its fullness in a few weeks on Easter morning, but for those of us fortunate to be post-resurrection people we already know that suffering and death are not the final chapter in our story. Thanks to God’s ultimate, victorious will, we can endure suffering and even embrace it because we know it builds our character and makes us people of hope with Easter in our eyes.
Two mountain-top experiences in Judeo-Christian Scripture are highlighted in the texts for February 19, the last Sunday before Lent, aka Transfiguration Sunday. Because of that latter designation I have usually focused on the Gospel lesson when preaching on that Sunday. As Matthew’s Gospel puts it, “Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves.” This year I also noticed the text from Exodus 24 involves being led by God to a time of solitude by climbing a mountain in response to a divine call.
The closest I’ve come to mountain climbing in recent years has been to walk up a paved path to an observation tower on Clingman’s Dome in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 6643 feet, Clingmans’s Dome is the highest point in the Smokies, but in full disclosure, as with most tourists visiting there, I only hiked the final half mile which is a gain of 332 feet in elevation. That doesn’t sound like much, but it is a fairly steep climb that requires some effort; even though it would never be confused with scaling Mt. Everest. The question these two texts raise for me as we approach the season of Lent again his year is “How much effort am I willing to make in order to put myself in God’s presence?”
Moses responds to God’s call and scales Mt. Sinai, which at 7497 feet is just a bit higher than Clingman’s Dome. Exodus does not give any details on how hard that climb was for Moses, but I am struck by two things it does say. First, after Moses climbs the mountain he has to wait 6 days before God appears. I get really frustrated if I have to wait 30 minutes in a doctor’s waiting room. So what does that faithful, patient waiting tell us clock-driven Americans about what it takes to experience the Holy?
Isaiah tells us that “Those who wait for the Lord will renew their strength,” but that text doesn’t say how long that wait will be. It may just mean that we have to surrender our own agendas if we want to be fully in God’s presence. The final sentence in the Exodus text says Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights. We know that’s Bible speak for a very long time. In other words we don’t measure our time with God in chronos or clock time. Those mountain top experiences can only be described in Kairos time, which means in God’s good time and as long as it takes.
On a clear day you can see for 100 miles from Clingman’s Dome, but Moses got no such photo op on Mt. Sinai; and that’s the second detail that got my attention from the Exodus account. It says, “Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. The glory of the LORD settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the cloud.” Moses is totally enveloped by God’s Holy presence. There’s no multi-tasking if we want to feel God’s manifestation. We have to be fully committed and open to whatever God is calling us to do and become.
I get a lot of inspiration from music lyrics, and the song that I’m hearing as I ponder these biblical stories is “Climb Every Mountain” from “The Sound of Music” by Richard Rodgers, and Oscar Hammerstein. The lyrics to that song say,
“Climb every mountain,
Search high and low,
Follow every byway,
Every path you know.
Climb every mountain,
Ford every stream,
Follow every rainbow,
‘Till you find your dream.
A dream that will need
All the love you can give,
Every day of your life
For as long as you live.”
If you remember the story this song is sung by the Mother Superior to a young Maria who is wrestling with her vocation, her call from God which seems to be pulling her away from the religious life in the convent to a totally different purpose. To surrender to God may take us in very surprising directions, but whatever that path is it will require struggle and effort, not just one mountain-top experience. The song says climb every mountain, search high and low, and follow every rainbow to pursue a dream that requires “all the love you can give, every day of your life for as long as you live.” Every mountain. All the love. Every day. As long as you live. God doesn’t ask more of us than we can give, just all we have.
Lent is a great time to ponder such things. Jesus translates that all-in commitment to “Let the dead bury the dead.” “ Leave your nets.” “Take up your cross and follow me.” We need mountain-top experiences to refuel and renew our souls, but we don’t live on the mountain top. Moses had to come back down to his golden calf worshipping flock. Jesus and the disciples had to come back down the mountain and set their faces toward Jerusalem. We need solitude and close encounters with God to empower us, but we live in the lonesome valley of dry bones and the shadow death.
Spend time alone with God this Lent, as much time as it takes, and wrestle with whatever is on your heart about what God requires of you in this time and place.
Here we are, nine days into a new year. We’ve changed the numbers on the calendar, but things look the same as year one and two of what one young child calls the Pandamnic. We’re still wearing masks, the Omicron numbers are scary high. New Year’s used to be more a time of out with the old and in with the new, but 2022 feels a lot like the movie Groundhog Day, like we’re stuck in a very deep rut.
You may have seen the cartoon of a baby talking on a cell phone about her baptism. She says, “I tell you this guy in a dress tried to drown me, and my family didn’t do anything but stand around and take pictures!” I saw another one where Jesus is complaining to John the Baptist that he was trying to drown him. John replies, “Sorry, if you wanted to be sprinkled you should have gone to John the Methodist.”
How many of you were baptized as infants or as a small child? For that many of us at least we have no conscious memory of that important event that was a major force in shaping our faith journey. That’s one reason this Sunday after Epiphany is called the Baptism of the Lord; so we can all reflect on the promises that we made or were made for us at our baptism.
One of the best things about studying the Scriptures to prepare to preach or doing Bible study is noticing things we’ve not seen before in familiar stories. All of us are somewhat guilty of making what a friend of mine calls Gospel Stew. We take the different accounts of Jesus’ life and mix them all up together into one almost Bible narrative. But each of the Gospels is a unique testimony by its author, and it’s important to take time to focus on each one to see what treasures we can find when we do just that.
For example the account of Jesus’ baptism in the Gospel of Luke we read today has one big difference from the other three Gospels. Did you notice it? Listen again to these words from verses 19-21: “…because of all the evil things that Herod had done, added to them all by shutting up John in prison. [pause] Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized…”
In the three other accounts in the Gospels John plays a much more central role in baptizing Jesus. John’s role is implied here, but Luke seems to make a point of getting John out of the spotlight in prison before Jesus hears the heavenly voice proclaiming his belovedness.
Luke gives John a lot of time on stage prior to this, but now it’s time for a new beginning for putting away the old wine skins that can’t contain the Gospel of Grace that God has come in Jesus came to proclaim. Now, it’s a new year and time to clean out the old to make room in our hearts for the incarnation of God’s spirit. The Holy Spirit comes not just in Jesus, but in all of us who have been claimed as God’s beloved.
When I was teaching a preaching class at the Methodist Theological School in Delaware one of my students, Mike Doak, dug into this text and did a really creative look at this story from the perspective of John the Baptist who is cooling his heels in jail when Jesus emerges as the Messiah John has been proclaiming.
My student imagined what it might look like if John the Baptist wrote us a Letter from the Jerusalem Jail:
“Stunned… I tell you I was stunned as these events unfolded. You could have heard a single drop of rain fall at that moment, in the midst of that gathering. As for me, one touch of a feather would have keeled me over. Where was the winnower, fork in hand, striding onto the threshing floor? What of the fire, the unquenchable fire, into which the chaff was to be cast? Was there no axe to be laid to the root? We expected a Messiah, a ruler grown from the tree of David would Lord it over Israel with a strong hand and a mighty arm. Why were there no trumpets to announce the coming king; why did thunder not clap as heavens rent open? What manner of king is coroneted with a dove in place of a crown? If I may appropriate a few of your own symbols, I preached Rambo but behold Gandhi. I expected God’s unparalleled judgment yet beheld God’s unparalleled grace. I preached unquenchable fire, but witnessed unquenchable hope. Self-doubt overtook me as days passed into weeks in the solitude of my prison cell. Though I had thrived in the wilderness all my grown life, I was then never so alone. How was it that one called “forerunner” could become “forlorn.”
John has been the star of the show. Huge crowds have come to hear him preach. Some people even think he might be the Messiah himself. That’s pretty heady stuff. But Luke makes it clear John is the forerunner, the warm up act, not the featured attraction. It’s time for a changing of the guard.
Have you ever resented someone who made the team while you got cut? Or some whippersnapper got the promotion you thought you deserved? Or becoming a big sister or brother and all of sudden not getting attention from Mom and Dad or your grandparents who only have eyes for this new little stranger who has invaded your home? If so we can understand how John might have felt.
John says he is preparing the way for Jesus, but Jesus doesn’t turn out to be the Messiah John and most of the Jews were expecting. John was a hell fire and brimstone preacher, a little on the wild and crazy side. He preached a Gospel of repentance based on fear of God’s wrath. He expected the bad dudes to get their comeuppance and the chaff of society to be burned and the sooner the better. We all have our own list of who those bad dudes and dudesses are don’t we!
But John didn’t find in Jesus what he hoped for and expected. This most unlikely carpenter’s son is named God’s beloved son, the one with whom God is well pleased. Baptism is all about new beginnings, but John’s new beginning is a stark reminder that God is the boss and we aren’t. No matter how much we want to pass judgment on people we think are sinners, that’s not our job. Our job is to be messengers of repentance and hope, the good news of new beginnings, and leave the judgment to God.
Baptism is still a sacrament of new beginnings, even in yet another Covid year. But it’s important to see baptism as a beginning and not the end of a journey. Baptized children are preparatory members and it’s the job of all of us– parents, teachers, grandparents, fellow church members – to be their village and help prepare them for full membership and claiming their belovedness for themselves. Now don’t go guilt tripping yourselves about your shortcomings or failures as parents because your kids or grandkids haven’t turned out as you hoped they would. Imagine how Elizabeth and Zechariah felt about this miracle child of theirs living in the wilderness eating locusts and wild honey! Our job as role models for the younger generation is to show them they are beloved even if they are covered in tattoos and have green hair. The rest is up to them and God.
I want to pause here to acknowledge everyone involved in the amazing children’s ministry here at Northwest. I’ve been part of 8 different congregations in my life and the amazing job Doris Ing and all her servant leaders do with our kids here is by far and away the best I’ve ever seen. Our children get a balanced spiritual diet of hearing the stories of the Bible, and then they practice those values by living them out working in the children’s garden alongside adults and a whole host of other service projects that teach them to treat all of God’s children as the beloved people they are.
Those kids grow up before our eyes oh so fast. Diana and I have been part of the Northwest family for almost 8 years now, and I am amazed when I see children who were toddlers back in 2014 who are now singing in the children’s choir, and teaching us elders what love in action looks like. They grow in wisdom and stature like Jesus to help deliver brown bag lunches and go on youth mission trips. One of my favorite projects in recent months came out of the concern from youth in our confirmation class about climate change. They’ve helped us implement new recycling opportunities and designed these wonderful reusable cups so we can stop adding to the problems Styrofoam cups cause for mother earth. And best of all they put on these cups words that remind us whenever we drink from it that “Love Has No Zip Code.”
I already knew in my head how unjust our society is based on which zip code you happen to be born into. But I really learned about that in a heartfelt way when I was working at Ohio State several years back. I was helping facilitate a partnership between OSU and Columbus City Schools. Many of us at OSU volunteered to be tutors and my school was Medary, one of the elementaries in the University District. At the same time my grandkids were in elementary school in the Olentangy School District. I loved working with the kids at Medary, but it hurt my heart when I would go from there to visit the Olentangy schools on grandparent’s day or other occasions. The differences between the new school buildings and the resources available to my grandchildren were like visiting another planet.
I am grateful for the amazing experiences my grandkids have had at Olentangy, but very troubled that the urban kids are not getting the same benefits.
I’m using Olentangy as an example, but we know the same stark differences apply to Dublin and Hilliard and other suburban schools. The way we fund education via property tax, i.e. by zip code, is inherently unjust. That system has resulted in the resegregation of our schools and perpetuated and widened the gap between the privileged and the marginalized. And those disparities have only been multiplied by Covid.
Climate change and education are just two of many injustices we are called to address. None of us can make a big difference in any or all of them, but we can start by asking God how we can make a difference wherever we are. Luke describes the baptism of Jesus in 2 verses and then devotes 12 verses to the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness that immediately follows. This warns us that we are all tempted forever as Jesus was to cave in to the seduction of worldly comfort and power, but because we are followers of Christ we can say no to Satan’s clever sales pitches.
I don’t know about you, but when we baptize cute babies up here I don’t pay much attention to the words of the baptism ritual. I’m just oohing and aahing over a precious beloved child of God. Babies are such a miracle that they melt our hearts. But there are important words in the ritual that we all need to hear. As a congregation we promise to help raise those children in the faith; so we shouldn’t just sign on for that important job like we click agree without reading all the fine print on a new app.
Listen to what one of those vows asks us to agree to: “Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?” That’s a heavy promise, and it comes before the next promise where we are asked: “Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior and put your whole trust in his grace…?” We can’t renounce and resist the forces of evil on our own. We can only do that through the power of the Holy Spirit descending on us and declaring we are God’s beloved children.
The last line of the baptismal vow says we “promise to serve him as our Lord, in union with the Church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races?” Brothers and sisters, all means all. Just as we can’t choose our relatives, even the crazy uncles and the weird cousins, we can’t exclude anyone from the body of Christ. I know how hard that is. The partisan paralysis in our government that has made this pandemic last so much longer than it needed to and taken so many beloved family members and friends from us makes me furious. But the Gospel message is that even those I vehemently disagree with about vaccines and masks, yes, even those people are God’s beloved children.
Baptism means we all belong to a great and mysterious God who created this vast universe long before any humans ever set foot on this tiny planet. God created us, male and female, and declared us good and blessed from day one. And no matter how badly we or anyone else screw things up, our blessedness doesn’t expire.
In one of those special God incidents, I got a wonderful idea for how we can all practice our baptismal vows and celebrate our blessedness every day. It came just yesterday in a daily devotion I get from Father Richard Rohr, and it suggests this simple practice.
The exercise goes like this; looking, really looking lovingly, not staring or seeing any flaws, look at yourself in a mirror or at another person, and as you breathe in and out pray silently these words:
Breathe in: I see you with love
Breathe out: gifted, cherished.
Breathe in: Grateful
Breathe out: for who you are. [Repeat this with congregation, looking at another or imagining someone]
And here’s the best part–Father Rohr goes on to say,
“We can also bring this practice out into the world. How often do we really see another person beneath their role, under our expectations? What if we paused at the grocery store and for a moment brought eyes of love to the stock clerk or the cashier. They don’t have to know what you’re doing. You don’t have to stare, just take in their image, then close your eyes for a moment, breathe, and bathe them with love. Pause and see the other person as beloved and beautiful as they indeed truly are.”
My beloved sisters and brothers, this is a day of new beginnings because God’s “Belovedness Knows No Zip Code.” Amen
Preached at Northwest UMC, Columbus, OH, January 9, 2022
What do tennis, hiking, golf, biking, jogging, working on a ladder, and skiing all have in common? They are all things I have had to give up in the last 10 years due to the aging process. I was talking to a friend my age who has given up even more things than I, and when I described my emotional state as “feeling empty” and not having anything to fill the space left by all I’ve lost. The words were barely out of my mouth when my friend said, “That’s exactly how I feel!” Like all of my friends, we have often joked in years past about old people always complaining about their aches and pains all the time, but more and more as we navigate our 70’s we find ourselves doing exactly the same thing.
I remember about 12 years ago asking an “older” gentleman what he was doing in retirement. Without missing a beat he said, “Going to doctor appointments and funerals.” I thought that was funny back then, but I’m not laughing anymore. When I told my friend that I was seeing a counselor about my feelings of emptiness and depression his response surprised me. After asking if the therapy was helping he said, “Thanks for sharing that. I always thought you had it all together. But knowing you are feeling the same things that I am makes me feel not so alone.” That wasn’t a “misery loves company” response; that was the blessing of letting down our armor and being vulnerable.
I’m not patting myself on the back, mind you. I have been good friends with this man for over 50 years. We have gotten together for golf and/or lunch monthly for decades until old age took our clubs away. Now like many oldsters we just go to Bob Evans. We’ve developed a trust over the years, but the fact that he still thought I “had it all together” means I’m either a better actor than I thought or I’ve been much less honest with him than I wish I had. I’m hoping this recent conversation will help us stay on a more vulnerable level going forward.
Here’s the good news. In addition to my therapist I am also working with a spiritual adviser, and when I shared this story with him he reminded me that until we empty ourselves of all the busyness and activities that keep our minds off our pain God can’t fill us up with anything else. A light bulb went on for me when he said that because when you hear truth it illumines things around and within you. He helped me realize that instead of resenting the emptiness I am feeling I can choose to embrace it as a gift from God. That doesn’t mean the UPS is going to arrive at my doorstep with God’s gifts anytime soon, and no that’s not because of a supply chain issue. Spiritual growth takes time and a willingness to sit with pain or emptiness awhile.
The Hebrews were in the wilderness for 40 years, not because it takes that long to travel from Egypt to Israel or because Moses refused to ask for directions. Even Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness wrestling with Satan because deep spiritual growth takes time to mature and ripen. The advice to “be still and know I am God” may sound really simple, but it’s not just a matter of shutting up for a few minutes so God can speak. It means prioritizing time for prayer and silence, and not the kind of prayer where we just tell God what we want or need.
Jacob wrestled with God all night long and was changed forever by that experience. Moses and Elijah both had to go up to Mt. Sinai/Horeb to hear God’s still small voice. I confess I am not good at silence. Even when writing these posts I frequently have a ball game on TV or music on some device. I know I write so much better when I am in a quiet place as I am while I write this, but like Paul I often fail to do the things I want to do and don’t practice what I preach.
The Gospel lesson for All Saints day this year is from John 11, the familiar story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. There are many rich veins of truth to mine in that story, but two stand out for me just now. This chapter contains what every kid in Sunday School loves to memorize, namely the shortest verse in the Bible: “Jesus wept.” This is one of several times in the Gospel narratives that we see Jesus vulnerable and allowing his humanity to show through. Like us he grieves over a loss, even though we and he all know he’s going to restore Lazarus to life.
The second verse in that lesson that grabbed my attention this year was the last one where Lazarus emerges from the tomb all bound up like a mummy. He’s alive but not really. His movement and sight and vision are all hampered by his grave clothes???, and Jesus says, “Unbind him and let him go.”
What are the things that bind you and me and keep us from living abundantly in the reign of God? Are we so stuck in our old ways that as Martha so indelicately puts it in the King James Version, “He stinketh,”. My wife sells a very good air purifier that kills germs and removes odors, even in cars or houses that have been skunked. But even those machines will not remove the kind of stench that comes from us who are spiritually dead and don’t know it.
My prayer is for God to unbind me from the anger, fear and regret that I feel for all the things I’ve lost in this stage of my life. Unbind me, Holy one. Roll away the stone that keeps me trapped in a pity party for my past. Unbind me and let me embrace what is and what will be if I trust you to lead me.
Peacefully Harsh 