Mortal, repent, prepare for Easter!
When I read about Isaiah’s fury against false fasts,
external humility,
ashes without regret,
sackcloth without repentance,
and ritual without justice…
When I read all of this while preparing to put ash crosses on people’s foreheads I get a little nervous.
When Jesus speaks poorly of outward almsgiving, prayer, and fasting—on this Ash Wednesday,
On this start of Lent, when traditionally Christians put a special emphasis on almsgiving, prayer, and fasting—
the imposition of ashes almost feels like dumping hot coals on people’s heads.
Both of these readings tell us of the danger of religious ritual.
Isaiah speaks to the fact that religious ritual can get in the way of justice.
We can say to ourselves, “I heard about being concerned about fellow Children of God at church—that makes me a religious person.”
Or I had ashes rubbed on my forehead—so I don’t need to help my neighbor out of the ash-heap.
For that matter, Jesus speaks of another way religious ritual can be abused. We can use our perceived piety—our public faith—to make us popular and impressive.
We can use our faith to get ahead to make people like and trust us. We can put people at ease by reminding them we’re Christian.
And, Dr. Wangert—the Confessions professor at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia where I am studying—understands both of these dangers to be part of a much larger tendency of human beings.
We thrive on works righteousness—we want to earn our way into heaven.
So deeply does Dr. Wangert worry about this tendency that—to protect himself from works righteousness—gives up the same things every Lent.
For the 40 days of Lent he refuses to eat Whale Blubber.
He fasts from eating Whale Blubber because he never has ate Whale Blubber—in fact he’s never even seen Whale Blubber.
So this fast is so easy that there is absolutely no way he could make the mistake of thinking his Lenten discipline makes him righteous.
So my question becomes… if Religious Ritual is such a risk
If putting ashes on our head is such a danger
If a forty day fast is so perilous
Why do we do it? Why do we risk Ash Wednesday and Lent?
We risk Ash Wednesday because we need to be reminded that we’re mortal.
We risk Ash Wednesday because we need to be reminded that we’re sinners in need of repentance
And we risk Ash Wednesday because we need to prepare for Easter.
We’re mortals, we’re sinners, and we’re preparing for Easter.
Lets pray:
Lord God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight. Amen.
We’re mortal. When we hear the words, “You are dust and to dust shall you return,” we remember our origin is in the earth.
We remember that we are perishable
we remember that we have an expiration date.
We look back to scripture and meditate on how in the earliest chapters of Genesis we are described as dirt with spirit breathed into us.
We are earthlings created from the earth.
Dust to dust.
These words from scripture remind us of our impermanence here on this earth in the same way the death of No-dar Kum-ar-it-ash-vili—the 21-year-old Luger from the country of Georgia—did last Friday in Vancouver when he died practicing for his Olympic event.
Even a young Olympian—a man at the top of his game—one of 8 people representing his country to the world—is still dust.
We are reminded of our mortality this Ash Wednesday the same way as when we drive in the snow
and we can’t quite see over the snow bank
and we go to make a turn and next thing we know we are close enough to an oncoming truck that we can look the driver right in the eyes.
Ash Wednesday is a close call. It gets our hearts beating fast and our adrenaline pumping.
Ash Wednesday reminds us that we—like snow—will melt away.
We like dust will blow away. We are mortal.
Ash Wednesday also reminds us that we are sinners in need of repentance.
When we feel the ash upon our brow—
we are mourning our own failures toward God and toward our neighbors.
We are being reminded of our own fallibility—our own imperfection and our own weakness.
Administering ashes remind us of the life shattering capacity of sin just like the two shootings that broke Baltimore’s eight days of being a murder free city did on Monday.
Ash Wednesday reminds us that we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves.
Ash Wednesday reminds us of how we act without the ability to know the full consequence of those actions,
That we are born into situations with no good solutions.
Ash Wednesday reminds us that even in those rare moments of clarity, when we see the good and the right and we have the ability to do the good and the right, we fail at that too.
Ash Wednesday reminds us that we are sinners in need of repentance.
And sometimes being able to say, “I’m a mortal sinner,” has its effect.
Sometimes saying, “I am mortal” grips me with a realization of how precious life is. Sometimes it shakes the assumptions of my death-denying culture. It moves me out of a frame of mind fixated on quick fixes, instant gratification, and lack of concern for others.
Sometimes saying, “I’m a sinner” is like holding up a mirror to myself. I am faced with my own motives and drives and realize where I am wrong.
I can look at my ritual and my robes and see that it has robbed someone else of justice. I can look at the motives for my almsgiving and see that I just want to be seen.
I can ask myself what do I treasure that is deadly and what do I treasure that is sinful?
Sometimes stating that I’m a sinner works repentance in me.
But sometimes saying, “I’m a mortal sinner,” weighs me down. Sometimes I am so aware of my own inadequacy that my feet of clay all but kill me. Sometimes the shortness of time I have on this earth paralyzes me with fears about my future and regret about my past.
And in those times it is good to look around. It is good to see the ash upon the head of my brothers and my sisters. It is good to see that I am in good company. I am in a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.
I am reminded that as with it and as on top of things as (Pastor Gregg/Mother Glenna) is (he/she) is still another mortal sinner like me—full of fallibility and fragility. We’re all in the same boat—we’re not alone in our struggles and our fears.
Not only does Ash Wednesday and Lent remind us that we are all mortal, and that we are in need of repentance, but it is our preparation for Easter.
If I look closer still at my sister’s ashen cross I am struck by something
Its something so obvious that you might not think about it unless you stopped and thought about it.
It’s a cross on our forehead!
It’s the Cross of Christ—for He too suffered death, and he who knew no sin became sin for us.
Jesus Christ himself shares this ash with us.
Yet I hasten to add that when Christ shares with us there is something more going on than simply solidarity with us.
There is something more going on than Jesus being in the same boat as us.
There is something transformational going on as well!
When he shared the dust of death with us on Easter morning he enlivened it with breath and spirit.
When he shared the ash of sin with us on Easter morning he made soap out of it—He made it an instrument of our purification.
He has transformed the human condition itself—he transformed every part of being human in this world—into something worthy of God.
And I’m here to tell you I believe in transformation.
I believe out of the ragged stuff of humanity God can patch together a quilt!
I’ve seen with my own eyes a sign of sin and death embedded upon a man’s brow transformed into Easter hope.
Seven years ago I was volunteering at the Comea Shelter a homeless men’s Shelter back home in Cheyenne Wyoming.
Each day I filled the shelter’s old blue mini-van up with bedding and drove it down to the commercial laundermat, picked up any donations around town, picked up the clean bedding, and brought it all back.
Sometimes shelter residents would ride with me and help me load and unload things.
There was one resident in particular who would often ride with me.
He happened to have a swastika prominently tattooed on his forehead.
We worked together for several weeks—and during that time I did my best not to stare at that thing on his head—I did my best not to ask questions about it.
Then one day we were driving along and he said to me, “Chris. I know you look at it.”
“Look at what?” I asked.
“The swastika,” he replied.
I was –this close—to responding, “What Swastika,” but by that time I was staring at his forehead instead of the road, so I replied guiltily, “Yeah, I do.”
“I got it while I was in prison down in Denver,” he explained.
That was of course just the kind of comforting thing you want to hear while alone with a guy twice your size.
All I could reply was, “Oh?”
He then told me how he had hated blacks and Latinos… though he used much stronger language for both.
“Oh,” I against replied, limply.
He continued, “Then I got out. No landlord wanted someone like me as a renter… the only place that would take me was a housing co-operative ran by a black man. It took me a while, but I just couldn’t hate them any more.”
So yes, I trust that mortality and sin can be made into eternity and sanctity.
I trust the Easter promise.
I trust in a light shining in the darkness
I trust the gloom of night to be as bright as the noon sun.
I trust that our needs will be satisfied in parched places.
I trust that ruins will be rebuilt and the breach will be restored.
I even trust that the treasure of Christ has transformed our ritual into justice,
our self-flattery into piety
our works righteousness into works of love,
and I’m willing to stare sin and death in the face in order to prepare to celebrate that!
The reason we risk Ash Wednesday and we risk Lent is because we’re mortal, we’re sinners, and we’re preparing to celebrate Easter. A+A
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
My dream church
I dream of doing a Mission Start for the ELCA.
Specifically, I dream of starting the largest poly-ethnic Lutheran church in the Northwest either in Seattle or Portland. Why the Northwest? 1. Its one of the most unchurched regions of the country 2. For all the PC talk of multi-culturalism in the Northwest its pretty darn mono-cultural.
I dream of a church where our Santa Lucia is an African American girl, where Asian-Americans are shouting "Amen" and "Preach it," where European Americans are singing "Santo Santo Santo," and Mexican Americans "Sekai no tomo to te o tsunagi."
I guess why I mention this now is two fold. Firstly, a friend sent me a link to a purposefully multi-cultural church in Minneapolis Sanctuary Covenant Secondly, my mind, heart, and prayers are with my brothers and sisters back at Seminary who are getting assigned tonight. Thirdly, I should be putting the finishing touches on my Ash Wednesday sermon and blogging is a good way to procrastinate.
Specifically, I dream of starting the largest poly-ethnic Lutheran church in the Northwest either in Seattle or Portland. Why the Northwest? 1. Its one of the most unchurched regions of the country 2. For all the PC talk of multi-culturalism in the Northwest its pretty darn mono-cultural.
I dream of a church where our Santa Lucia is an African American girl, where Asian-Americans are shouting "Amen" and "Preach it," where European Americans are singing "Santo Santo Santo," and Mexican Americans "Sekai no tomo to te o tsunagi."
I guess why I mention this now is two fold. Firstly, a friend sent me a link to a purposefully multi-cultural church in Minneapolis Sanctuary Covenant Secondly, my mind, heart, and prayers are with my brothers and sisters back at Seminary who are getting assigned tonight. Thirdly, I should be putting the finishing touches on my Ash Wednesday sermon and blogging is a good way to procrastinate.
Sermon on the 2nd Sunday after the snowfall
God is with us, let’s follow Him down the mountain!
Its good to be back this 2nd Sunday after the snowfall.
Welcome to all visitors
Welcome back to everyone who was snowed in last Sunday.
Welcome on this end of Epiphany—the season in which we celebrate God being manifest—being disclosed—being revealed—showing up—in Jesus Christ.
Welcome on this Transfiguration Sunday—the Sunday that functions as the capstone of the season of Epiphany and the most overt example of God showing up in Jesus.
And on this day I hear Scripture saying to us “God is with us, lets follow Him down the mountain!” God is with us, lets follow Him down the mountain!”
Let us pray:
Lord God, be with the preacher, be with the assembly, be with all of us here at St. John’s that my words and our meditations may move us to follow you son down the mountain. Amen.
Today both Jacob and Peter have a close call. A close call with God. They both have their own personal powerful Epiphany experience. They both are confronted with the fact that God is with us.
Jacob, escaping from family troubles, heading to far off Haran, finds himself, as it says in Genesis, “at a certain place” when the sun set. And so he takes a stone as a pillow and drifts off to sleep.
And soon enough he finds that he has in fact rested his head upon the escalator of angels.
It is in that place that he finds his father’s God standing beside him.
It is there that his father’s God speaks to him for the first time.
It is there that the magnificent promise of his ancestors—a promise that he has heard about, but never experienced, becomes solidified before his eyes—it became his own promise.
Yes, it is at that place, at Bethel, that Jacob hears loud and clear that “God is with us.”
He didn’t expect to meet God that night—he just wanted to get some shuteye for his long journey north—but God showed up.
And so too with Peter. This faithful disciple climbs a mountain with his teacher and manages to stay awake and see his master manifest
among the likes of Moses—the author of the Law
and among the likes of Elijah—the most famous of prophets
Further, right before his eyes his master was changed and was shown in glory.
In this transfiguration Peter sees the most awe inspiring, most full, biggest, example of “God is with us.”
Scripture doesn’t say what Peter was doing or thinking those eight days before he went up the mountain with his master—but I don’t think he expected the terror of transformation—none the less God showed up.
And St. John’s, I want to tell you the very same thing. God is with us—God shows up.
This Valentines Day God is with us—like a Valentine from a secret admirer, God just shows up. While we may write poems, buy candy and flowers, and make cards to woo our beloved God doesn’t need wooing.
God is wooing us. God is with us.
I’m here to remind you and remind you again that God comes down Jacob’s ladder to us.
God chooses us.
God woos us.
God is with us.
God shows up.
But do you know one of the dangers of God being with us?
Do you know what we, in our human sinfulness, want to do when God shows up?
We want trap God for ourselves.
We want to confine God in the act of Grace.
We want to domesticate God.
We want to tame God.
We want to snow God in!
Look at Jacob—he tries to snow God in. The LORD, hovering over him like a mighty pillar assures him, “I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.”
Yet Jacob responds, “Surely the LORD is in this place… How awesome is this place!”
He gives the place a name, “Beth-el,” that is house of God. He declares the place of this experience of God showing up the house of God and the very “gate of heaven.”
God says I’m with you wherever you go and he respondes, “How awesome is this place.” He has transformed “wherever you go” into “right here.”
Likewise Peter tries to snow God in. Like Jacob he tries to make a beth-el, a house of God, up there on the mountain.
Even as Moses and Elijah are talking about Jesus’ impending departure—Peter overcome by his experience of glory—suggests that they make dwelling places for the three men.
He tries to snow in his present experience of God in Jesus!
(pause) Yet even as I admonish these pillars of the faith I can understand their taste for snowing God in.
We too—like Peter and Jacob try to snow God in.
We too attempt to lock ourselves in with God—fit ourselves in a particular place of faith.
We too try to seal our faith in a box, a building, a place, or a space.
We try to make God comfortable for us.
I think of my time in the Holy Land a few years back. I went to do research at the Albright Institute in East Jerusalem, but I mixed pleasure with business as I went during Easter so I could see the sights and sounds and smells of Holy week in the Holy Land.
I remember all the gilding and gold, all the buildings and bustling surrounding the places where Jesus had done things.
Shrines where Jesus was flogged,
monuments where his body had been laid, churches… everywhere. –I bristled at it—this was an attempt to snow God in.
I also remember this serene church on a Mountain in Galilee.
Its olive green roof blended in with the natural world around it.
Architecturally it was humble yet glorious.
You could look down and see the Sea of Galilee stretching out before you.
It was magnificent, and… and so right!
You could see that this was the kind of place where Jesus would want to hang out.
And in fact it was where Jesus preached the beatitudes—his blessings to the poor, the meek, the mourning, the hungry, the merciful, the pure of heart, the peacemakers, and the persecuted.
I remember saying to myself, “finally a building and a place worthy of my Lord.”
I finally found a comfortable house for my God.
Then I read a pamphlet about the Church of the Beatitudes only to find that it was built at the behest of the fascist Italian dictator Benito Mucilini.
It was then I realized I’d tried to snow God in.
But God won’t let us do that.
You can snow in your Vicar, you can snow in your Pastor. You can snow in your Mayor and your Governor. Heck, you can snow in the whole Federal Government if you try hard enough!
but you can’t snow in God.
No, God is with us.
And when I say that I mean all of us.
God is with us on the mountain and with us at the base of the mountain.
God is with church people and God is with the unchurch.
God works in the life of saint and sinner, holy man and heathen.
God’s with us… and God’s with THOSE PEOPLE
God’s with our household… and with our neighbor.
God’s here…and God’s there.
God’s there in the rapture of religious ecstasy… and in the doldrums of everyday need.
God’s in the church…and in the snowed in apartment.
God’s in the transfiguration…and down the mountain with father and son.
So lets follow him down the mountain.
God says to Jacob, “Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.”
And boy does Jacob go with God to some strange places, from Cannan to Harran—or to say it another way from Modern day Israel to Modern day Turkey—wrestling at the river Jabbok and amongst messy family squabbles.
God is with Jacob beyond Bethel, and with people other than Jacob.
So lets follow God down the mountain.
And so too Peter with Jesus. After Peter’s suggestion of creating dwelling places for Moses and Elijah clouds rumble in.
A front of epic proportion—more low pressure systems and high pressure systems crashing together than we’ve ever seen—gathers
and from the depths of the storm comes the words, “this is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him.”
Now what does this have to do with following him down the mountain? you might ask.
Two things:
1) The last thing Jesus had said to Peter before the transfiguration was that he was going to be killed and raised. You can’t be killed and raised if you’re stuck on top of a mountain!
2) The next words Jesus speaks, kind of scary words at that, are the words, “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.” Jesus isn’t just up in the mountain at the zenith and the heights of faith and power—he is also down with us at the base of the mountain where there is faithlessness and perversity.
On the mountain we get a clear picture of Jesus in his glory. In the riveting and rolling clouds and thunderous voice we witness the greatness of God. We even hear that Jesus is God’s Chosen son.
But we get a clear picture of Jesus and of God down here at the base of the mountain too! In restoring an only son to his father—by healing the boy—we are astonished at the greatness of God.
Lets follow him down the mountain to see that too!
As important as the mountaintop is—as important as the realization that God is with us is, we can’t stay there—God is with us all—so let’s follow him down the mountain.
Two weeks ago Monday I was at the funeral of Mrs. Ezra Cole of Tabernacle Lutheran Church in West Philly where I did my Field Education last year.
Now I didn’t know Mrs. Cole particularly well—I just thought of her as the nice well-dressed lady who sang on the choir.
But when I arrived at Tabernacle it was obvious she was much more than that—she was Lutheran royalty.
Three generations deep of pastors—including St. John’s own Pastor Rosa Key—as well as one of Tabernacle’s Vicars from 1973, were all in attendance to say a few words.
The place was packed!
It turns out Mrs. Cole was quite a woman—that day we heard stories about her faith, her sense of style, and her singing, and on more than one occasion, humorous stories were told at the expense of her husband.
But that’s not what caught my attention.
What caught my attention was that Mrs. Cole was the first African American member of Tabernacle—then an exclusively German church now a mainly African American one…and even more interesting was that she had become a member in the 1950’s.
The Coles had moved into West Philly just as they had their third child. And having three children under the age of 2 can be a hand full—or so I’ve heard.
And one of the Cole’s neighbors—a little old German lady—came up to her one Sunday and said,
“Dear, three children are too many to have without a church family to support you.”
And that very day she drug Mrs. Cole and her three children down Spruce street to Tabernacle.
And two weeks ago—well over half a century and multiple pastors later there she was, surrounded by her three children and so many people who she had touched—and loved—and had loved her—still at Tabernacle.
And I can’t help but think--What if that little German Lady hadn’t been confident that God was with her.
What if that little German Lady had tried to snow God in.
What if that Little German Lady hadn’t realized God was with Mrs. Cole too?
What if that Little German Lady hadn’t followed Jesus down the mountain and next door to her neighbor?
I don’t know the answer—but I fear both Tabernacle and West Philly would be a poorer place for it.
And I’m just so glad she knew God is with us and that she followed God down the mountain. A+A
Its good to be back this 2nd Sunday after the snowfall.
Welcome to all visitors
Welcome back to everyone who was snowed in last Sunday.
Welcome on this end of Epiphany—the season in which we celebrate God being manifest—being disclosed—being revealed—showing up—in Jesus Christ.
Welcome on this Transfiguration Sunday—the Sunday that functions as the capstone of the season of Epiphany and the most overt example of God showing up in Jesus.
And on this day I hear Scripture saying to us “God is with us, lets follow Him down the mountain!” God is with us, lets follow Him down the mountain!”
Let us pray:
Lord God, be with the preacher, be with the assembly, be with all of us here at St. John’s that my words and our meditations may move us to follow you son down the mountain. Amen.
Today both Jacob and Peter have a close call. A close call with God. They both have their own personal powerful Epiphany experience. They both are confronted with the fact that God is with us.
Jacob, escaping from family troubles, heading to far off Haran, finds himself, as it says in Genesis, “at a certain place” when the sun set. And so he takes a stone as a pillow and drifts off to sleep.
And soon enough he finds that he has in fact rested his head upon the escalator of angels.
It is in that place that he finds his father’s God standing beside him.
It is there that his father’s God speaks to him for the first time.
It is there that the magnificent promise of his ancestors—a promise that he has heard about, but never experienced, becomes solidified before his eyes—it became his own promise.
Yes, it is at that place, at Bethel, that Jacob hears loud and clear that “God is with us.”
He didn’t expect to meet God that night—he just wanted to get some shuteye for his long journey north—but God showed up.
And so too with Peter. This faithful disciple climbs a mountain with his teacher and manages to stay awake and see his master manifest
among the likes of Moses—the author of the Law
and among the likes of Elijah—the most famous of prophets
Further, right before his eyes his master was changed and was shown in glory.
In this transfiguration Peter sees the most awe inspiring, most full, biggest, example of “God is with us.”
Scripture doesn’t say what Peter was doing or thinking those eight days before he went up the mountain with his master—but I don’t think he expected the terror of transformation—none the less God showed up.
And St. John’s, I want to tell you the very same thing. God is with us—God shows up.
This Valentines Day God is with us—like a Valentine from a secret admirer, God just shows up. While we may write poems, buy candy and flowers, and make cards to woo our beloved God doesn’t need wooing.
God is wooing us. God is with us.
I’m here to remind you and remind you again that God comes down Jacob’s ladder to us.
God chooses us.
God woos us.
God is with us.
God shows up.
But do you know one of the dangers of God being with us?
Do you know what we, in our human sinfulness, want to do when God shows up?
We want trap God for ourselves.
We want to confine God in the act of Grace.
We want to domesticate God.
We want to tame God.
We want to snow God in!
Look at Jacob—he tries to snow God in. The LORD, hovering over him like a mighty pillar assures him, “I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.”
Yet Jacob responds, “Surely the LORD is in this place… How awesome is this place!”
He gives the place a name, “Beth-el,” that is house of God. He declares the place of this experience of God showing up the house of God and the very “gate of heaven.”
God says I’m with you wherever you go and he respondes, “How awesome is this place.” He has transformed “wherever you go” into “right here.”
Likewise Peter tries to snow God in. Like Jacob he tries to make a beth-el, a house of God, up there on the mountain.
Even as Moses and Elijah are talking about Jesus’ impending departure—Peter overcome by his experience of glory—suggests that they make dwelling places for the three men.
He tries to snow in his present experience of God in Jesus!
(pause) Yet even as I admonish these pillars of the faith I can understand their taste for snowing God in.
We too—like Peter and Jacob try to snow God in.
We too attempt to lock ourselves in with God—fit ourselves in a particular place of faith.
We too try to seal our faith in a box, a building, a place, or a space.
We try to make God comfortable for us.
I think of my time in the Holy Land a few years back. I went to do research at the Albright Institute in East Jerusalem, but I mixed pleasure with business as I went during Easter so I could see the sights and sounds and smells of Holy week in the Holy Land.
I remember all the gilding and gold, all the buildings and bustling surrounding the places where Jesus had done things.
Shrines where Jesus was flogged,
monuments where his body had been laid, churches… everywhere. –I bristled at it—this was an attempt to snow God in.
I also remember this serene church on a Mountain in Galilee.
Its olive green roof blended in with the natural world around it.
Architecturally it was humble yet glorious.
You could look down and see the Sea of Galilee stretching out before you.
It was magnificent, and… and so right!
You could see that this was the kind of place where Jesus would want to hang out.
And in fact it was where Jesus preached the beatitudes—his blessings to the poor, the meek, the mourning, the hungry, the merciful, the pure of heart, the peacemakers, and the persecuted.
I remember saying to myself, “finally a building and a place worthy of my Lord.”
I finally found a comfortable house for my God.
Then I read a pamphlet about the Church of the Beatitudes only to find that it was built at the behest of the fascist Italian dictator Benito Mucilini.
It was then I realized I’d tried to snow God in.
But God won’t let us do that.
You can snow in your Vicar, you can snow in your Pastor. You can snow in your Mayor and your Governor. Heck, you can snow in the whole Federal Government if you try hard enough!
but you can’t snow in God.
No, God is with us.
And when I say that I mean all of us.
God is with us on the mountain and with us at the base of the mountain.
God is with church people and God is with the unchurch.
God works in the life of saint and sinner, holy man and heathen.
God’s with us… and God’s with THOSE PEOPLE
God’s with our household… and with our neighbor.
God’s here…and God’s there.
God’s there in the rapture of religious ecstasy… and in the doldrums of everyday need.
God’s in the church…and in the snowed in apartment.
God’s in the transfiguration…and down the mountain with father and son.
So lets follow him down the mountain.
God says to Jacob, “Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.”
And boy does Jacob go with God to some strange places, from Cannan to Harran—or to say it another way from Modern day Israel to Modern day Turkey—wrestling at the river Jabbok and amongst messy family squabbles.
God is with Jacob beyond Bethel, and with people other than Jacob.
So lets follow God down the mountain.
And so too Peter with Jesus. After Peter’s suggestion of creating dwelling places for Moses and Elijah clouds rumble in.
A front of epic proportion—more low pressure systems and high pressure systems crashing together than we’ve ever seen—gathers
and from the depths of the storm comes the words, “this is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him.”
Now what does this have to do with following him down the mountain? you might ask.
Two things:
1) The last thing Jesus had said to Peter before the transfiguration was that he was going to be killed and raised. You can’t be killed and raised if you’re stuck on top of a mountain!
2) The next words Jesus speaks, kind of scary words at that, are the words, “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.” Jesus isn’t just up in the mountain at the zenith and the heights of faith and power—he is also down with us at the base of the mountain where there is faithlessness and perversity.
On the mountain we get a clear picture of Jesus in his glory. In the riveting and rolling clouds and thunderous voice we witness the greatness of God. We even hear that Jesus is God’s Chosen son.
But we get a clear picture of Jesus and of God down here at the base of the mountain too! In restoring an only son to his father—by healing the boy—we are astonished at the greatness of God.
Lets follow him down the mountain to see that too!
As important as the mountaintop is—as important as the realization that God is with us is, we can’t stay there—God is with us all—so let’s follow him down the mountain.
Two weeks ago Monday I was at the funeral of Mrs. Ezra Cole of Tabernacle Lutheran Church in West Philly where I did my Field Education last year.
Now I didn’t know Mrs. Cole particularly well—I just thought of her as the nice well-dressed lady who sang on the choir.
But when I arrived at Tabernacle it was obvious she was much more than that—she was Lutheran royalty.
Three generations deep of pastors—including St. John’s own Pastor Rosa Key—as well as one of Tabernacle’s Vicars from 1973, were all in attendance to say a few words.
The place was packed!
It turns out Mrs. Cole was quite a woman—that day we heard stories about her faith, her sense of style, and her singing, and on more than one occasion, humorous stories were told at the expense of her husband.
But that’s not what caught my attention.
What caught my attention was that Mrs. Cole was the first African American member of Tabernacle—then an exclusively German church now a mainly African American one…and even more interesting was that she had become a member in the 1950’s.
The Coles had moved into West Philly just as they had their third child. And having three children under the age of 2 can be a hand full—or so I’ve heard.
And one of the Cole’s neighbors—a little old German lady—came up to her one Sunday and said,
“Dear, three children are too many to have without a church family to support you.”
And that very day she drug Mrs. Cole and her three children down Spruce street to Tabernacle.
And two weeks ago—well over half a century and multiple pastors later there she was, surrounded by her three children and so many people who she had touched—and loved—and had loved her—still at Tabernacle.
And I can’t help but think--What if that little German Lady hadn’t been confident that God was with her.
What if that little German Lady had tried to snow God in.
What if that Little German Lady hadn’t realized God was with Mrs. Cole too?
What if that Little German Lady hadn’t followed Jesus down the mountain and next door to her neighbor?
I don’t know the answer—but I fear both Tabernacle and West Philly would be a poorer place for it.
And I’m just so glad she knew God is with us and that she followed God down the mountain. A+A
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Valentine's Day: Make Love not War
So, as legend has it Valentines Day is in fact an anti-war, anti-imperial holiday. During the reign of Claudius an edict went out throughout the land—men were not allowed to marry, because marriage causes a man to think about things other than serving the god-like forces of Empire as a soldier. You see, to the emperor the only worth of a person is as a tool to oppress and conquer others.
But one man stood against the madness of war, tyranny, and death—a priest named Valentine. He would meet young men and women who wish to tie the knot, and in a radical act of civil disobedience marry them!
Soon enough his illicit underground actions caught the attention of the authorities. He was arrested and brought before Claudius himself.
Claudius decided to be magnanimous—he would allow this foolish rebel-priest to convert to emperor worship.
As Claudius began to present the case for worship of the greatest power the world had ever known—the Emperor of Rome—Valentine looked up and said, “Have you heard of a man named Jesus.”
And with that Claudius ordered Valentine to be executed.
The night of the 13th of February, before the execution, the priest threw out one last bomb-shell for love and against war. He wrote a letter to the one he loved and signed it, “From your Valentine.”
So tomorrow—as you woo the one you love remember that love can be a radical act. Love can coincide with Christ’s calling to beat swords into plowshares and tanks into tractors.
But one man stood against the madness of war, tyranny, and death—a priest named Valentine. He would meet young men and women who wish to tie the knot, and in a radical act of civil disobedience marry them!
Soon enough his illicit underground actions caught the attention of the authorities. He was arrested and brought before Claudius himself.
Claudius decided to be magnanimous—he would allow this foolish rebel-priest to convert to emperor worship.
As Claudius began to present the case for worship of the greatest power the world had ever known—the Emperor of Rome—Valentine looked up and said, “Have you heard of a man named Jesus.”
And with that Claudius ordered Valentine to be executed.
The night of the 13th of February, before the execution, the priest threw out one last bomb-shell for love and against war. He wrote a letter to the one he loved and signed it, “From your Valentine.”
So tomorrow—as you woo the one you love remember that love can be a radical act. Love can coincide with Christ’s calling to beat swords into plowshares and tanks into tractors.
Special thanks to Pretty Good Lutherans!
So, Pretty Good Lutherans "An independent news site of veteran religion reporter Susan Hogan," has put up a link to my book An Uncomfortable Bit of Rope and Other Essays on the Binding of Issac
Thanks!
Thanks!
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
The Tea Party isn't what it appears to be
So, apparently Ron Paul isn't "libertarian" enough for Palin's Tea Party. Because, you know what, to the Tea Party folk libertarian means invading other countries and expanding federal governments influence into the day to day lives of Americans.
Seriously, rhetorically challenging Ron Paul for being part of the establishment and for being out of step with small government conservatism while in the same breath promising to govern in a way that would further balloon the federal government is horrible!
I believe the real reason Ron Paul is being targeted is because he's not a low blow kinda guy, because he doesn't buy the "birthers" arguments, because he doesn't traffic in outright and unapologetic racism, because he doesn't talk about murdering political opponents, because he is both respectful and respectable.
"He plans to attend a Tea Party-sponsored candidate forum in Katy this month, but he has distanced himself from the Tea Parties in recent interviews because of the antagonistic tone of some rallies."
Ron, get out now before they take your good name, drag it through the mud, and then throw you away and elect someone who promises to use the federal government to outlaw homosexuality or promises to invade Iran, or promises they will die for America.
Ron, don't ride the tiger! Just don't do it!
Seriously, rhetorically challenging Ron Paul for being part of the establishment and for being out of step with small government conservatism while in the same breath promising to govern in a way that would further balloon the federal government is horrible!
I believe the real reason Ron Paul is being targeted is because he's not a low blow kinda guy, because he doesn't buy the "birthers" arguments, because he doesn't traffic in outright and unapologetic racism, because he doesn't talk about murdering political opponents, because he is both respectful and respectable.
"He plans to attend a Tea Party-sponsored candidate forum in Katy this month, but he has distanced himself from the Tea Parties in recent interviews because of the antagonistic tone of some rallies."
Ron, get out now before they take your good name, drag it through the mud, and then throw you away and elect someone who promises to use the federal government to outlaw homosexuality or promises to invade Iran, or promises they will die for America.
Ron, don't ride the tiger! Just don't do it!
Sunday, February 07, 2010
Priorities
The top story on Al Jazeera is: Ahmadinejad orders nuclear work
The top story on CNN is: Super Bowl XLIV: Dynasty or destiny?
Hmmm... I don't know, maybe I'm just a bad American. I genuinely think the Al Jazeera story is more important.
The top story on CNN is: Super Bowl XLIV: Dynasty or destiny?
Hmmm... I don't know, maybe I'm just a bad American. I genuinely think the Al Jazeera story is more important.
Saturday, February 06, 2010
Something I learned from Game Change
I recently read Game Change by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. This is an insiders account of the 2008 race. The biggest revelation to me was how narcissistic and messianic John Edwards, a man I supported as VP in 2004, acted. The revelations in this book make me come close to being glad the Democrats lost in 2004. If John Edwards had become anything more than a figurehead VP the country would have been in trouble and the “democratic brand” would have been permanently tarred with the notion that our candidates cheat on their spouses. Instead now in 2008 we got a family-mans family-man a loving father and a humble husband. Thank God!
Other revelations include: how very brutal running a national campaign is, how freely candidates use the F-bomb (this is probably related to the first revelation), and how poor of a job McCain’s team did vetting Sarah Palin.
But that’s not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about Obama for a moment. On two separate occasions then Senator Obama realized his staff was taking too much control of his campaign. In both instances he brought everyone together, brought in some outside voices and eyes, and shook things up. Both times, when Obama’s campaign became Obama’s campaign, things worked out the way he wanted them to.
I wonder if, as president, Obama will be bringing his staff together along with some of his old friends from Chicago and elsewhere outside the beltway and shaking things up? Perhaps we will see a rejuvenation of the executive branch soon. Perhaps we will see a good jobs bill pass quickly and a reconciled health care bill signed soon.
I think Obama's shake up moment may already be in the works. I think the Obama’s question and answer session in which he eviscerated the opposition at their own retreat here in Baltimore is an example of a renewed President taking his position back and doing what presidents do—preside.
Other revelations include: how very brutal running a national campaign is, how freely candidates use the F-bomb (this is probably related to the first revelation), and how poor of a job McCain’s team did vetting Sarah Palin.
But that’s not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about Obama for a moment. On two separate occasions then Senator Obama realized his staff was taking too much control of his campaign. In both instances he brought everyone together, brought in some outside voices and eyes, and shook things up. Both times, when Obama’s campaign became Obama’s campaign, things worked out the way he wanted them to.
I wonder if, as president, Obama will be bringing his staff together along with some of his old friends from Chicago and elsewhere outside the beltway and shaking things up? Perhaps we will see a rejuvenation of the executive branch soon. Perhaps we will see a good jobs bill pass quickly and a reconciled health care bill signed soon.
I think Obama's shake up moment may already be in the works. I think the Obama’s question and answer session in which he eviscerated the opposition at their own retreat here in Baltimore is an example of a renewed President taking his position back and doing what presidents do—preside.
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Bill Watterson' first interview in 15 years
As some of my readers know I've been a Calvin and Hobbes fan since before I knew that Hobbes wrote Leviathan and Calvin wrote Institutes of the Christian Religion. :)
"With almost 15 years of separation and reflection, what do you think it was about "Calvin and Hobbes" that went beyond just capturing readers' attention, but their hearts as well?
The only part I understand is what went into the creation of the strip. What readers take away from it is up to them. Once the strip is published, readers bring their own experiences to it, and the work takes on a life of its own. Everyone responds differently to different parts.
I just tried to write honestly, and I tried to make this little world fun to look at, so people would take the time to read it. That was the full extent of my concern. You mix a bunch of ingredients, and once in a great while, chemistry happens. I can't explain why the strip caught on the way it did, and I don't think I could ever duplicate it. A lot of things have to go right all at once."
"With almost 15 years of separation and reflection, what do you think it was about "Calvin and Hobbes" that went beyond just capturing readers' attention, but their hearts as well?
The only part I understand is what went into the creation of the strip. What readers take away from it is up to them. Once the strip is published, readers bring their own experiences to it, and the work takes on a life of its own. Everyone responds differently to different parts.
I just tried to write honestly, and I tried to make this little world fun to look at, so people would take the time to read it. That was the full extent of my concern. You mix a bunch of ingredients, and once in a great while, chemistry happens. I can't explain why the strip caught on the way it did, and I don't think I could ever duplicate it. A lot of things have to go right all at once."
Thursday, January 21, 2010
I'm on Amazon.com!
So... for the heck of it type in Chris Halverson on Amazon.com. My book shows up!
Peace,
Chris
Peace,
Chris
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Sermon: In Baptism God sees Christ
In Baptism God sees Christ
Greetings in the name of Jesus.
This week Pastor Gregg and I received a letter in the mail not for us. It was addressed to heaven, and I guess the post-man in some confusion, delivered it to St. John’s.
The letter contained a job application and a resume.
For the sake of easy access to this resume you can turn to a copy found as an insert in your bulletin.
Name: Humanity
Permanent Address:
Garden of Eden
Present Address:
Throughout the Earth
Email Address:
HU__man@yahoo.com
Experience:
Several millennia engaged in war.
Regular attempts at Genocide.
Withholding coats and stealing money. (Luke 3:10-14)
Constant judgment of others along with self-justification.
Education:
BA in Sin
MA in Hubris, with an emphasis in Disobedience.
Internship:
Has interned under the likes of Gandhi, Moses, and Jesus, but just as often under the likes of Genghis Khan, Hitler and Pharaoh.
Employment:
Gardner—dismissed after failing to follow the rules.
Murderer—have been successful at this occupation since the time of Cain and Abel.
Skills:
Wrath, Greed, Sloth, Pride, Lust, Envy, and Gluttony
So of course Pastor Gregg—being the conscientious and responsible man that he is—had the Vicar put in a call to Heaven right away to get things straightened out.
I explained to the angel Michael that there had been a mistake, that we had accidently received Humanity’s Resume.
But Michael responded. “Oh, God received Humanity’s resume. It read quite simply, “Jesus Christ. Your Son, the Beloved, with me you are well pleased.”
“But,” I sputtered, not wanting to disappoint my supervisor, “I have it in my hand.”
“Chris,” replied Michael, “Don’t you remember Galatians. Baptism is putting on Christ and being made a child of God. In Baptism God sees Christ.”
Lord God, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts me acceptable in your sight. Amen.
Please turn with me to the 18th through 20th verse of Chapter 3 of our Gospel of Luke found on page (_____) in the pew bible.
“So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people. But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, added to them all by shutting up John in prison.”
By the time we get to the Baptism of Jesus, John has been removed from the story. By the time the dove comes down, John has been brought down. By the time Jesus is proclaimed Son of God, his cousin John has been put in jail by Herod.
Now, there is a historical reason for Luke removing John the Baptist from the story of the Baptism of Jesus.
At the time of Jesus John the Baptizer was a potent figure in his own right. In fact, the Jewish historian Josephus, who wrote around the same time as Luke and Matthew, wrote more about John the Baptist than he did about Jesus called the Christ.
You see, when you are proclaiming Jesus the Messiah and the son of God, as Luke was, it doesn’t necessarily help your case that another group of people who are passionate about another man, John, can say, “well, our leader baptized your Messiah and son of God.”
So, historically the reason Luke sticks John in prison before Jesus is baptized is because he wants to focus on Jesus and downplay John.
But my theological imagination has another explanation. John the Baptist disappears at Baptism because in Baptism God sees Christ.
Even John, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness.” Even the one preparing us for a time when, “Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low.” Even the one who prepares us for the time when, “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” Even the Baptizer, in Baptism, fades away, because in Baptism God sees Christ.
And for some this is a scary prospect. Some of us have assumed ourselves to be Abraham’s ancestors by our own merits. Some of us, because of birth or upbringing, class or race, church membership or seminary education, presume we are automatically on God’s good side. But that simply isn’t so, because in Baptism God doesn’t see our self-righteous deeds, God sees Christ.
For others of us this is an unprecedented gift! For some of us have assumed ourselves to be the brood of vipers by our own merit. Some of us, because of birth or upbringing, class or race, church membership or seminary education, presume we are automatically the sons of snakes and not the children of Abraham. We do not see ourselves as worthy of God’s love, let alone God’s parentage.
We shutter as trees in the wind as we await the ax and the winnowing fork,
We are like a piece of pottery precariously placed on a slim window ledge, waiting the iron bar and the unquenchable fire.
But that simply isn’t so, because in Baptism God doesn’t see our sins, God sees Christ.
I remember one constant refrain I heard when I did my Chaplaincy internship at Altru Hospital up in North Dakota two summers ago. I was so often confronted with sick people anxious about the end. No matter their background they would ask the question, in one way or another,
“am I a son of Abraham or a son of a snake?”
Have I done enough to get to heaven? Has my church attendance or born again experience, or good works been enough for God?
And I can say in response that God is able to raise up children from stones.
For in Baptism God sees the very Son the spirit descended upon as a dove.
The very son that in his prayer and in his baptism a voice from heaven called beloved. The very son with whom God was well pleased.
In Baptism God sees Christ.
This is affliction to the comfortable and comfort to the afflicted.
To the proud mountains and haughty hills it is humility,
to the valleys that sag in sorrow this is salvation.
God doesn’t read our resume, he reads Christ’s. In Baptism God sees His son Jesus Christ.
Baptism is God’s unconditional yes to us, for in Baptism God sees Christ.
Baptism is the Holy Spirit coming to us and saying as it was said to Jesus, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” For in Baptism God sees Christ.
Baptism is putting on Christ and being made a child of God, for in Baptism God sees Christ.
Baptism is an event so powerful it kills us and makes us alive again, for in Baptism God sees Christ.
Baptism is the raising of every valley and the lowering of every mountain, so that all flesh is enmeshed in the body of Christ—both Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, for in Baptism God sees Christ.
Baptism is a great exchange, our resume is made right, because in Baptism God sees Christ.
And if our resume, our past, becomes that of Christ Jesus, our present and our future shift and become a calling.
Baptism is a continued calling. A calling to die daily to sin. A calling to drown sin every morning, and to remember our baptism every time we step into the shower or wash our face.
When we wipe the condensation off our bathroom mirror and see ourselves we are reminded that in Baptism God sees Christ.
It is also a calling caught up in the question “do my neighbors see Christ in me?”
It is a calling into a life where we are seen by others, and hope, and pray, and strive, that, in seeing us they see Christ. It is a calling to be little Christs to our neighbors.
In Baptism God sees Christ, but do our neighbors see Christ in us?
This is also a question for the Church, the body of Christ, do our neighbors see Christ in us?
For that matter do our fellow church members see Christ in us? Do our actions and words reflect the reality of God seeing Christ in us?
Do we act in order to keep our doors open, in order to maintain lofty and drafty structures?
Or do we act in order to open our doors to all who may take refuge in the Body of Christ—in order to continue the mission of our Master the beloved of God?
And on this Sunday primarily focused on Baptism, but secondarily focused on stewardship, it is relevant to ask “are we giving of our time, talents, and possessions, in a way that reflect our new resume and the fact that in Baptism God sees Christ?”
Do I give even a fraction of my countless hours in front of the TV and on the Internet keeping track of national political gossip and international current events, to furthering God’s kingdom? Can my career or my hobbies translate into acts of love and kindness for the least of these? Of my thousand dollars I make a month do I put 100 dollars of it toward the work of the Church?
There is a connection between Baptism and stewardship. This connection is discipleship, the continued calling to be Christ’s body in the world, to be little Christ’s to our neighbors. It is the realization that in Baptism God sees Christ coupled with the question: do our neighbors see Christ in us?
Now, understand me, these things don’t go on your resume, but flow from Christ’s resume. These things don’t make you children of Abraham, these are things children of Abraham do. Stewardship is not the tree, but one of the fruits.
In Baptism God sees Christ. God doesn’t see our rough and ratty resume, but sees Christ. We strive to live into this gracious truth that, in Baptism God sees Christ. We hope and pray that when our neighbors see us, both individually and collectively, they see Christ. We hope and pray that we are good stewards of this resume given to us, even as we cling to God’s promise.
In Baptism God sees Christ, do our neighbors see Christ in us?
A+A
Greetings in the name of Jesus.
This week Pastor Gregg and I received a letter in the mail not for us. It was addressed to heaven, and I guess the post-man in some confusion, delivered it to St. John’s.
The letter contained a job application and a resume.
For the sake of easy access to this resume you can turn to a copy found as an insert in your bulletin.
Name: Humanity
Permanent Address:
Garden of Eden
Present Address:
Throughout the Earth
Email Address:
HU__man@yahoo.com
Experience:
Several millennia engaged in war.
Regular attempts at Genocide.
Withholding coats and stealing money. (Luke 3:10-14)
Constant judgment of others along with self-justification.
Education:
BA in Sin
MA in Hubris, with an emphasis in Disobedience.
Internship:
Has interned under the likes of Gandhi, Moses, and Jesus, but just as often under the likes of Genghis Khan, Hitler and Pharaoh.
Employment:
Gardner—dismissed after failing to follow the rules.
Murderer—have been successful at this occupation since the time of Cain and Abel.
Skills:
Wrath, Greed, Sloth, Pride, Lust, Envy, and Gluttony
So of course Pastor Gregg—being the conscientious and responsible man that he is—had the Vicar put in a call to Heaven right away to get things straightened out.
I explained to the angel Michael that there had been a mistake, that we had accidently received Humanity’s Resume.
But Michael responded. “Oh, God received Humanity’s resume. It read quite simply, “Jesus Christ. Your Son, the Beloved, with me you are well pleased.”
“But,” I sputtered, not wanting to disappoint my supervisor, “I have it in my hand.”
“Chris,” replied Michael, “Don’t you remember Galatians. Baptism is putting on Christ and being made a child of God. In Baptism God sees Christ.”
Lord God, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts me acceptable in your sight. Amen.
Please turn with me to the 18th through 20th verse of Chapter 3 of our Gospel of Luke found on page (_____) in the pew bible.
“So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people. But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, added to them all by shutting up John in prison.”
By the time we get to the Baptism of Jesus, John has been removed from the story. By the time the dove comes down, John has been brought down. By the time Jesus is proclaimed Son of God, his cousin John has been put in jail by Herod.
Now, there is a historical reason for Luke removing John the Baptist from the story of the Baptism of Jesus.
At the time of Jesus John the Baptizer was a potent figure in his own right. In fact, the Jewish historian Josephus, who wrote around the same time as Luke and Matthew, wrote more about John the Baptist than he did about Jesus called the Christ.
You see, when you are proclaiming Jesus the Messiah and the son of God, as Luke was, it doesn’t necessarily help your case that another group of people who are passionate about another man, John, can say, “well, our leader baptized your Messiah and son of God.”
So, historically the reason Luke sticks John in prison before Jesus is baptized is because he wants to focus on Jesus and downplay John.
But my theological imagination has another explanation. John the Baptist disappears at Baptism because in Baptism God sees Christ.
Even John, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness.” Even the one preparing us for a time when, “Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low.” Even the one who prepares us for the time when, “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” Even the Baptizer, in Baptism, fades away, because in Baptism God sees Christ.
And for some this is a scary prospect. Some of us have assumed ourselves to be Abraham’s ancestors by our own merits. Some of us, because of birth or upbringing, class or race, church membership or seminary education, presume we are automatically on God’s good side. But that simply isn’t so, because in Baptism God doesn’t see our self-righteous deeds, God sees Christ.
For others of us this is an unprecedented gift! For some of us have assumed ourselves to be the brood of vipers by our own merit. Some of us, because of birth or upbringing, class or race, church membership or seminary education, presume we are automatically the sons of snakes and not the children of Abraham. We do not see ourselves as worthy of God’s love, let alone God’s parentage.
We shutter as trees in the wind as we await the ax and the winnowing fork,
We are like a piece of pottery precariously placed on a slim window ledge, waiting the iron bar and the unquenchable fire.
But that simply isn’t so, because in Baptism God doesn’t see our sins, God sees Christ.
I remember one constant refrain I heard when I did my Chaplaincy internship at Altru Hospital up in North Dakota two summers ago. I was so often confronted with sick people anxious about the end. No matter their background they would ask the question, in one way or another,
“am I a son of Abraham or a son of a snake?”
Have I done enough to get to heaven? Has my church attendance or born again experience, or good works been enough for God?
And I can say in response that God is able to raise up children from stones.
For in Baptism God sees the very Son the spirit descended upon as a dove.
The very son that in his prayer and in his baptism a voice from heaven called beloved. The very son with whom God was well pleased.
In Baptism God sees Christ.
This is affliction to the comfortable and comfort to the afflicted.
To the proud mountains and haughty hills it is humility,
to the valleys that sag in sorrow this is salvation.
God doesn’t read our resume, he reads Christ’s. In Baptism God sees His son Jesus Christ.
Baptism is God’s unconditional yes to us, for in Baptism God sees Christ.
Baptism is the Holy Spirit coming to us and saying as it was said to Jesus, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” For in Baptism God sees Christ.
Baptism is putting on Christ and being made a child of God, for in Baptism God sees Christ.
Baptism is an event so powerful it kills us and makes us alive again, for in Baptism God sees Christ.
Baptism is the raising of every valley and the lowering of every mountain, so that all flesh is enmeshed in the body of Christ—both Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, for in Baptism God sees Christ.
Baptism is a great exchange, our resume is made right, because in Baptism God sees Christ.
And if our resume, our past, becomes that of Christ Jesus, our present and our future shift and become a calling.
Baptism is a continued calling. A calling to die daily to sin. A calling to drown sin every morning, and to remember our baptism every time we step into the shower or wash our face.
When we wipe the condensation off our bathroom mirror and see ourselves we are reminded that in Baptism God sees Christ.
It is also a calling caught up in the question “do my neighbors see Christ in me?”
It is a calling into a life where we are seen by others, and hope, and pray, and strive, that, in seeing us they see Christ. It is a calling to be little Christs to our neighbors.
In Baptism God sees Christ, but do our neighbors see Christ in us?
This is also a question for the Church, the body of Christ, do our neighbors see Christ in us?
For that matter do our fellow church members see Christ in us? Do our actions and words reflect the reality of God seeing Christ in us?
Do we act in order to keep our doors open, in order to maintain lofty and drafty structures?
Or do we act in order to open our doors to all who may take refuge in the Body of Christ—in order to continue the mission of our Master the beloved of God?
And on this Sunday primarily focused on Baptism, but secondarily focused on stewardship, it is relevant to ask “are we giving of our time, talents, and possessions, in a way that reflect our new resume and the fact that in Baptism God sees Christ?”
Do I give even a fraction of my countless hours in front of the TV and on the Internet keeping track of national political gossip and international current events, to furthering God’s kingdom? Can my career or my hobbies translate into acts of love and kindness for the least of these? Of my thousand dollars I make a month do I put 100 dollars of it toward the work of the Church?
There is a connection between Baptism and stewardship. This connection is discipleship, the continued calling to be Christ’s body in the world, to be little Christ’s to our neighbors. It is the realization that in Baptism God sees Christ coupled with the question: do our neighbors see Christ in us?
Now, understand me, these things don’t go on your resume, but flow from Christ’s resume. These things don’t make you children of Abraham, these are things children of Abraham do. Stewardship is not the tree, but one of the fruits.
In Baptism God sees Christ. God doesn’t see our rough and ratty resume, but sees Christ. We strive to live into this gracious truth that, in Baptism God sees Christ. We hope and pray that when our neighbors see us, both individually and collectively, they see Christ. We hope and pray that we are good stewards of this resume given to us, even as we cling to God’s promise.
In Baptism God sees Christ, do our neighbors see Christ in us?
A+A
Saturday, January 09, 2010
A Resume of humanity
Name: Humanity
Permanent Address:
Garden of Eden
Present Address:
Throughout the Earth
Email Address:
HU__man@yahoo.com
Experience:
Several millennia engaged in war.
Regular attempts at Genocide.
Withholding coats and stealing money. (Luke 3:10-14)
Constant judgment of others along with self-justification.
Education:
BA in Sin
MA in Hubris, with an emphasis in Disobedience.
Internship:
Has interned under the likes of Gandhi, Moses, and Jesus, but just as often under the likes of Genghis Khan, Hitler and Pharaoh.
Employment:
Gardner—dismissed after failing to follow the rules.
Murderer—have been successful at this occupation since the time of Cain and Abel.
Skills:
Wrath, Greed, Sloth, Pride, Lust, Envy, and Gluttony
Permanent Address:
Garden of Eden
Present Address:
Throughout the Earth
Email Address:
HU__man@yahoo.com
Experience:
Several millennia engaged in war.
Regular attempts at Genocide.
Withholding coats and stealing money. (Luke 3:10-14)
Constant judgment of others along with self-justification.
Education:
BA in Sin
MA in Hubris, with an emphasis in Disobedience.
Internship:
Has interned under the likes of Gandhi, Moses, and Jesus, but just as often under the likes of Genghis Khan, Hitler and Pharaoh.
Employment:
Gardner—dismissed after failing to follow the rules.
Murderer—have been successful at this occupation since the time of Cain and Abel.
Skills:
Wrath, Greed, Sloth, Pride, Lust, Envy, and Gluttony
Friday, January 01, 2010
Watch Night Sermon “Lift up your eyes.”
Watch Night Sermon “Lift up your eyes.”
Greetings in the name of Jesus
(CENTER) I have to admit, before coming to St. John’s I was not familiar with the tradition of a Watch Night service. But after some research I found out it was a Moravian tradition started in Czecklesavakia that became a Methodist tradition when it made it’s away to America. Then, on December 31st 1862—the night before the Emancipation Proclamation came into effect—African Americans, both Methodist and not—gathered together in churches and in homes that Freedom Eve—to wait for the realization of Lincoln’s words, “thenceforward, and forever free,” and Watch Night has been an African American tradition every since.
My choice of Genesis 22 as the scripture to preach from this Watch Night is no accident. Genesis chapter 22 is a piece of scripture that rattles around in my soul. It is in these 19 verses that I spent a year of my life studying before going to Seminary.
And I could tell you a lot of things about this story. I could tell you how the Existentialist movement is based off the philosopher Soren Keirkegard’s reading of these 19 verses while love sick for a woman he never married. I could tell you all the theories about how old Isaac was when he went up with his father to be sacrificed. I could tell you how the Ancients re-wrote this story to fit their understanding of the world.
But I wish to highlight one particular phrase found in verse 13 of the 22nd chapter of Genesis.
“Abraham looked up.”
In Hebrew this is Vayisa Avraham et-A-naiv
Now I remember reading this Hebrew phrase with an Israeli friend of mine--he started laughing. That is because in Modern Hebrew this phrase “Abraham looked up” sounds extremely physical. It is as if Abraham has taken out his eyes from the front of his face and raised them up above his head. “Abraham lifted up his eyes.”
Lets try that once together. Take out your eyes, lift them above your head and say with me, “Lift up your eyes.”
I am not doing this to be silly, instead I want to instill in your muscle memory “Lift up your eyes.” So that when you are celebrating New Years in some club in Fells Point tonight and the MC tells you to “put your hands in the air and wave them like you just don’t care” your very body will remind you to “lift up your eyes… lift up your eyes.”
Lord God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight. Amen.
(LEFT)
Abraham is not alone in attempting to practice human sacrifice. He is not even alone in attempting to practice child sacrifice.
I would maintain that humans have a propensity toward sacrifice. We want to sacrifice.
We sacrifice too much of ourselves to nicotine or alcohol, crab cakes or laziness, narcissism or self-preservation.
I suppose this tendency to sacrifice is why we practice New Years Resolutions. We look at the past year and try to combat our greatest excesses of sacrifice, our most extreme habits of destruction.
For that matter we often sacrifice ourselves to our past. We sacrifice a lamb—our present and our future—for the sake of a ram, our past.
For example, in the movie Gran Torino Clint Eastwood’s character, Walt, is a deeply disturbed man, alienated from his children and emotionally scarred from what he did in the Korean War. Throughout the whole movie he struts along full of menace and obvious pain—holding in the burdens of his past.
Yet when he goes to Confession the deep sins he has carried with him are rather mundane. In 1968 he kissed a woman who was not his wife. Not a good thing by any means, but not something to sacrifice your life over either.
Thinking beyond the individual effects of sacrifice I would maintain Freedom Eve was a response to just such a sacrifice, a national sacrifice of millions of God’s children to slavery. For the sake of an economic system reliant upon unpaid labor millions of people were treated like tools, separated from their family, and forced to suffer countless indignities.
And again the poet Wilfred Owen observed another such sacrifice in his poem “The Parable of the Old Man and the Young.” He wrote that World War One could have been averted if old men—the Abrahams of his time—would simply sacrifice their pride. The poem ends, “but the old man would not so, but slew his son, and half the seed of Europe, one by one.”
And again on the streets of Baghdad and Kabul today
we again see young men—Isaacs—being sacrificed for decisions of Abrahams.
And again on the streets of Baltimore we see Isaac bound up in insane systems that lead to his being stabbed or shot, or stabbing and shooting.
We see sacrifice for Rep, sacrifice for gang affiliation, sacrifice for corners, sacrifice for drugs, and sacrifice for money.
And again I think of children born in this closing decade—these Isaacs—they have never known what it is like for America to be at peace. Yes, I understand just war theory—yes I hear the words of Ecclesiastes “there is a time for war and a time for peace.” But I still believe we are sacrificing Isaac’s innocence.
I still believe being born into a world in which it is the norm to meet violence with greater violence does violence to our children.
(RIGHT) Because we, like Abraham, will sacrifice Isaac, I will say again, “Lift up your eyes.”
Lift up your eyes and you will see the ram caught in the thicket.
Lift up your eyes and you will hear God saying, “I’m not that kind of God.”
Lift up your eyes and read the words of the prophets, “God demands mercy, not sacrifice, the knowledge of God, not burnt offering.”
Lift up your eyes and find yourself at the foot of the cross.
Lift up your eyes and view the new creation in Christ, the reconciliation to God through Christ Jesus, the reconciliation of the world to God’s self.
Lift up your eyes because these sacrifices we try to make cannot compare to the freely given gift already before us.
The sacrifice is already made for us. Freedom has already come for us. Lift up your eyes and see that there is nothing we have to do!
(CENTER) And yet I must hasten to add that the words “lift up your eyes” are not a calling to be “so heavenly minded we’re no earthly good.”
Lift up your eyes is a calling to sacrifice rams not children! As it says in our lesson from 2nd Peter we will still suffer. There will still be weary years and silent tears. Just because Emancipation was proclaimed didn’t mean the Civil War was done, and didn’t mean the Civil Rights Era had come, and doesn’t mean we are where we need to be.
Lift up your eyes means within the struggles of life we have the hope of God wiping every tear and a future in which mourning, crying, and pain are no more. We have a hope and a trust in the faithfulness of God.
So, lift up your eyes in this New Year unbound by sacrifices, for God has sacrificed for you.
Lift up your eyes and see the immense challenges of the world we live in.
Lift up your eyes and still hope that this new year could be a year where we remember that God is so faithful that mistrust is sacrificed, not love,
inexperience is put away not passion,
fear is burn on the altar not hope.
Lift up your eyes and see that ours a God that is faithful.
Lift up your eyes and see that ours is a God of great faithfulness.
Lift up your eyes and sing,
“Great is thy faithfulness! Great is thy faithfulness! Morning by morning new mercies I see! All I have needed thy hand hath provided; great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me.” (A+A)
Great is thy faithfulness hymn 158—hymn 158.
Greetings in the name of Jesus
(CENTER) I have to admit, before coming to St. John’s I was not familiar with the tradition of a Watch Night service. But after some research I found out it was a Moravian tradition started in Czecklesavakia that became a Methodist tradition when it made it’s away to America. Then, on December 31st 1862—the night before the Emancipation Proclamation came into effect—African Americans, both Methodist and not—gathered together in churches and in homes that Freedom Eve—to wait for the realization of Lincoln’s words, “thenceforward, and forever free,” and Watch Night has been an African American tradition every since.
My choice of Genesis 22 as the scripture to preach from this Watch Night is no accident. Genesis chapter 22 is a piece of scripture that rattles around in my soul. It is in these 19 verses that I spent a year of my life studying before going to Seminary.
And I could tell you a lot of things about this story. I could tell you how the Existentialist movement is based off the philosopher Soren Keirkegard’s reading of these 19 verses while love sick for a woman he never married. I could tell you all the theories about how old Isaac was when he went up with his father to be sacrificed. I could tell you how the Ancients re-wrote this story to fit their understanding of the world.
But I wish to highlight one particular phrase found in verse 13 of the 22nd chapter of Genesis.
“Abraham looked up.”
In Hebrew this is Vayisa Avraham et-A-naiv
Now I remember reading this Hebrew phrase with an Israeli friend of mine--he started laughing. That is because in Modern Hebrew this phrase “Abraham looked up” sounds extremely physical. It is as if Abraham has taken out his eyes from the front of his face and raised them up above his head. “Abraham lifted up his eyes.”
Lets try that once together. Take out your eyes, lift them above your head and say with me, “Lift up your eyes.”
I am not doing this to be silly, instead I want to instill in your muscle memory “Lift up your eyes.” So that when you are celebrating New Years in some club in Fells Point tonight and the MC tells you to “put your hands in the air and wave them like you just don’t care” your very body will remind you to “lift up your eyes… lift up your eyes.”
Lord God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight. Amen.
(LEFT)
Abraham is not alone in attempting to practice human sacrifice. He is not even alone in attempting to practice child sacrifice.
I would maintain that humans have a propensity toward sacrifice. We want to sacrifice.
We sacrifice too much of ourselves to nicotine or alcohol, crab cakes or laziness, narcissism or self-preservation.
I suppose this tendency to sacrifice is why we practice New Years Resolutions. We look at the past year and try to combat our greatest excesses of sacrifice, our most extreme habits of destruction.
For that matter we often sacrifice ourselves to our past. We sacrifice a lamb—our present and our future—for the sake of a ram, our past.
For example, in the movie Gran Torino Clint Eastwood’s character, Walt, is a deeply disturbed man, alienated from his children and emotionally scarred from what he did in the Korean War. Throughout the whole movie he struts along full of menace and obvious pain—holding in the burdens of his past.
Yet when he goes to Confession the deep sins he has carried with him are rather mundane. In 1968 he kissed a woman who was not his wife. Not a good thing by any means, but not something to sacrifice your life over either.
Thinking beyond the individual effects of sacrifice I would maintain Freedom Eve was a response to just such a sacrifice, a national sacrifice of millions of God’s children to slavery. For the sake of an economic system reliant upon unpaid labor millions of people were treated like tools, separated from their family, and forced to suffer countless indignities.
And again the poet Wilfred Owen observed another such sacrifice in his poem “The Parable of the Old Man and the Young.” He wrote that World War One could have been averted if old men—the Abrahams of his time—would simply sacrifice their pride. The poem ends, “but the old man would not so, but slew his son, and half the seed of Europe, one by one.”
And again on the streets of Baghdad and Kabul today
we again see young men—Isaacs—being sacrificed for decisions of Abrahams.
And again on the streets of Baltimore we see Isaac bound up in insane systems that lead to his being stabbed or shot, or stabbing and shooting.
We see sacrifice for Rep, sacrifice for gang affiliation, sacrifice for corners, sacrifice for drugs, and sacrifice for money.
And again I think of children born in this closing decade—these Isaacs—they have never known what it is like for America to be at peace. Yes, I understand just war theory—yes I hear the words of Ecclesiastes “there is a time for war and a time for peace.” But I still believe we are sacrificing Isaac’s innocence.
I still believe being born into a world in which it is the norm to meet violence with greater violence does violence to our children.
(RIGHT) Because we, like Abraham, will sacrifice Isaac, I will say again, “Lift up your eyes.”
Lift up your eyes and you will see the ram caught in the thicket.
Lift up your eyes and you will hear God saying, “I’m not that kind of God.”
Lift up your eyes and read the words of the prophets, “God demands mercy, not sacrifice, the knowledge of God, not burnt offering.”
Lift up your eyes and find yourself at the foot of the cross.
Lift up your eyes and view the new creation in Christ, the reconciliation to God through Christ Jesus, the reconciliation of the world to God’s self.
Lift up your eyes because these sacrifices we try to make cannot compare to the freely given gift already before us.
The sacrifice is already made for us. Freedom has already come for us. Lift up your eyes and see that there is nothing we have to do!
(CENTER) And yet I must hasten to add that the words “lift up your eyes” are not a calling to be “so heavenly minded we’re no earthly good.”
Lift up your eyes is a calling to sacrifice rams not children! As it says in our lesson from 2nd Peter we will still suffer. There will still be weary years and silent tears. Just because Emancipation was proclaimed didn’t mean the Civil War was done, and didn’t mean the Civil Rights Era had come, and doesn’t mean we are where we need to be.
Lift up your eyes means within the struggles of life we have the hope of God wiping every tear and a future in which mourning, crying, and pain are no more. We have a hope and a trust in the faithfulness of God.
So, lift up your eyes in this New Year unbound by sacrifices, for God has sacrificed for you.
Lift up your eyes and see the immense challenges of the world we live in.
Lift up your eyes and still hope that this new year could be a year where we remember that God is so faithful that mistrust is sacrificed, not love,
inexperience is put away not passion,
fear is burn on the altar not hope.
Lift up your eyes and see that ours a God that is faithful.
Lift up your eyes and see that ours is a God of great faithfulness.
Lift up your eyes and sing,
“Great is thy faithfulness! Great is thy faithfulness! Morning by morning new mercies I see! All I have needed thy hand hath provided; great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me.” (A+A)
Great is thy faithfulness hymn 158—hymn 158.
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
quote of the Day
"The trouble with a kitten is that when it grows up, it's always a cat."-- Ogden Nash
Monday, December 07, 2009
My book is published!
So, my book "An Uncomfortable Bit of Rope and Other Essays on the Binding of Isaac" has been published through Createspace.
It will be on Amazon.com soon, or so they tell me. So that's pretty exciting!
Peace,
Chris
It will be on Amazon.com soon, or so they tell me. So that's pretty exciting!
Peace,
Chris
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