Temptation

Temptation

(to congregation)        

Look at him, filled with Spirit—and nothing else…

          I’d watched him at the river when he was Baptized, it was a sight to see, the heavens opened, that vile Dove, the Holy Spirit, she was there with him, and the Creator of all that is, seen and unseen, told him, “You are my Son, whom I dearly love; in you I find happiness.”

          Doesn’t look so happy now does he? Bet he’s not filling Ol’ God with happiness now… all gaunt and starved, skinny, wasting away.

          Truly, I wonder, what kind of Son of God is this? The whole thing is so incomprehensible to me. What kind of Son of God is this Jesus?

(to cross)

          Jesus! Since you’re the Son of God, I expect you can follow in your father’s footsteps, you can do for yourself like he did for Moses in the… well… (indicate surroundings) the wilderness… since you are God’s Son, make for yourself bread…

          Take this rock here, make it into manna…

(to congregation)

          And he spits back at me scripture… “One does not live by bread alone.” Nodding to Deuteronomy, to the reminder found there that the 40 years Moses wandered in the wilderness were about God’s people aligning themselves with God’s will, being tested and finding that they trusted God, trusted God’s providing, even when it looked to be the opposite…

(to cross)

          Tell you what! You can’t even make manna from stone…
 you are hardly a Son of God… you are powerless… follow me…
(WALK TO NEW SECTION)
Look at all of this, every nation—look at the strut and strength they have, their glory and authority—it all belongs to me, I’ve taken it from them, they gave it to me willingly, they tripped over themselves selling themselves… and I can do whatever I want with them, I could even give all of this to you…

 If you worship me, then all of this, this magnificent prize, is yours.

(to congregation)

          Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.

          Bllaaa! Again with Deuteronomy… describing one of those powers that I offered him, the might of Egypt, seduced and fallen, describing how the Israelites were strangers and then slaves, and no amount of power freed them, only God freed them, only God is worthy of worship!
This guy, I think I need to try a new tactic.

(to cross)

          Come with me, up to Jerusalem, such a Holy and important place, the belly button of the world, its bedrock, its beginning and its ending…
 no, don’t stop here… come up higher still, up to the tip-top of the temple, up to the highest height, for all to see…

          Look Jesus, since you are the Son of God, spread out your arms, fling yourself from here, and they will see, they will see that you do indeed fulfill scripture, “He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you” and if that’s not enough scripture for you, “On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”

          Huh? How about that, that’s how a Son of God acts, isn’t it? Centering himself and showing everyone his holy power, his heavenly protection—Jesus, that’s how the Son of God acts!!!

(Storm out to congregation in a RAGE!!!)

          And a third time, Deuteronomy, describing the meaning of this God of liberation, this God who took God’s people out of Egypt and through the Wilderness! “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

          What kind of Son of God is this Jesus? He will feed the multitudes with bread, but not himself.           What kind of Son of God is this Jesus? He will bring people from every tribe and race, every nation under the sun under his rule, but not for the glory and authority that nations and races and tribes offer.

          What kind of Son of God is this Jesus?

          Who gets up and goes with that Holy Dove still upon him, who leaves me behind and goes and preaches,

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
   because he has anointed me
     to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
   and recovery of sight to the blind,
     to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

          What kind of Son of God is this Jesus?

          Jesus!!!

          Look, back at the temple again! Back in Jerusalem!

          What an opportune time!!!
(GO TO CROSS)

          Look at you on that cross!

          Dear Jesus, now you thirst! Bring out water from a stone! Now is your time to produce manna in the desert—show them you’re God’s Son.

          Now you are abandoned by the very one you worship! “Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachthani”

          Now you are feeling what it means to reject the power of a nation—executed by the state! There is a simple truth to this world, Oh Son of God, if you aren’t doing the killing, you will be killed.

          Now you wonder, are you God’s Son?

          Now your arms are outstretched! Again, in Jerusalem…

          Show them, just show them, what kind of Son of God you are!

          Call upon angels for protection, worship me, be satisfied by more than gall from a rugged stick and sponge!

          Show them what kind of Son of God you are!

          No… you just quote scripture again, “Into your hands I commend my spirit, you will redeem me, Lord God of truth.”

Ash Wednesday: We are to take up our Lenten Disciplines in such a way that we remain disciples of Christ.

Ash Wednesday

          So here we are… another Lent, so late this year that we were lulled into a false sense of security and it managed to sneak up on us.

          Here we are—on the precipice, ready to follow Jesus down the mountain and head to Jerusalem.

          Here we are—shaping our lives into a unique holy time through a 40 day focus on Alms, Fasting and Prayer.
          Using ELCA World hunger resources for Self-examination and Repentance, Prayer and Fasting, Works of Love and Sacrificial Giving.
          Gathering together on Wednesday to work out the actual nuts and bolts process of forgiving someone and some of us helping each other along the way as prayer partners.
          Many of us searching our own souls and finding particular areas in our life that need 40 days to clear out and re-create so that it more closely clings to the Gospel and to Jesus Christ our Lord.

In the face of all these doings, let me say this as plainly as I can: these efforts are to be taken seriously, seriously enough to fail at them, but they are not to be taken seriously enough to cause other people to fail. Jesus says our righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees and the Scribes, but that is not a call to self-righteousness or self-satisfaction.

          We are to take up our Lenten Disciplines in such a way that we remain disciples of Christ.

Prayer

          We are to take up our Lenten Disciplines in such a way that we remain disciples of Christ.

          Beloved in Christ, give alms, for doing so will connect you to the real and ongoing needs of the world. Give of your time and your possessions, in so doing you will find that, despite the stories of our society and the voices in our heads, there will be enough—in God’s good creation there is enough!

          Beloved in Christ, do not give of your time and your talent in such a way that you may brag of your busyness or lord your generosity over another person, being their patron. Doing so will breed resentment and you will not be listened to.

          Beloved in Christ, fast, for in so doing you will remember what sustains you—that everything nourishing for the body is a gift from God. You will become aware of the body which God has given you. You will also be reminded that many go to bed hungry, and you will hunger for their fullness.

          Beloved in Christ, do not fast for show or to become proud of your control over your body, for it is not your own.

          Beloved in Christ, pray regularly. Pray for our future and for our greatest needs—they need to be named and known, or we will go quietly and unthinkingly into a future that is not only frightening, but uncaring. For that matter, there is a lot of you inside of you, its good to get it out in the open, express it to God, God’s shoulders are big enough to bear it.

          Beloved in Christ, do not pray in order to manipulate or to gossip, do not pray breathless prayers in the hopes that they take your neighbor’s breath away. Doing so mocks God and dishonors your neighbor.

          Beloved in Christ, Seek repentance and forgiveness, your actions and your inner being are worth taking seriously. So is your neighbors.

          Beloved in Christ, do not seek repentance and forgiveness for show, or to stir up controversy, only do so because the image of God is found in the mirror and right next to you.

          Dearest Christian friends, recognize the weight of taking on a Lenten discipline. It is as heavy as Joel’s religious response to a plague of locusts and the famine that followed, it is as Paul writes becoming reconciled to God.

          Recognize too the goal of such a discipline, you are being shaped into the Image of Christ, not into a hypocrite.

          We are to take up our Lenten Disciplines in such a way that we remain disciples of Christ.

Amen.

The Transfiguration

The Transfiguration

            One of my favorite movies, a guilty pleasure I suppose, is Shrek. There is this scene where Shrek is trying to explain to Donkey that Ogres are more than violent brutes, and he comes up with this analogy: “Ogres are like onions.”

            Donkey, being donkey, replies, “They stink? They make you cry? If you leave them out in the sun they get all brown and start sprouting little white hairs?”

            “No,” Shrek shouts, “Layers! Onions have layers! Ogres have layers! Onions have layers! You get it, we both have layers.”

            So too the Transfiguration, there are layersto it, to get to the center of its meaning we have to peel back many layers, each one important in its own right, and yet not complete.

            The transfiguration has layers.

Prayer

            The Transfiguration has layers.

            The first one is the experience itself, dazzling and glorious, the Apostles are weighed down by sleep, yet able to keep awake, and in keeping awake able to see Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah—these ancient heroes of renowned.
The Apostles are overshadowed by God’s holiness and
able to hear the very voice of God.
Able to know, not simply by faith, but by sight, that Jesus is God’s Son.

            Yes, these mountaintop experiences—maybe you’ve even had one… Those moments of clarity, those moments of closeness to God, perhaps while…
singing a favorite hymn,
on retreat,
at baptism,
at confirmation class or Sunday School,
during communion,
literally on a mountaintop able to see a wide swath of God’s good creation.
Perhaps you’ve had a particular spiritual experience, been moved by a piece of Scripture, felt the Spirit upon you in a unique way.

            That’s all part of the Transfiguration, but that’s not allof it, after all, The transfiguration has layers.

            Part of having a mountain top experience is coming down the mountain, right? There is a crowd, no more mountain retreat for Peter, John, and James
—then they are confronted with the failure of their fellow disciples, those disciples can’t heal a boy who has seizures. The disciples have to go from this place of comfort, where Peter would just as soon have set up permanent residence, they have to go down
and interact with the world as it is,
heal, share that special something that they wished to bottle up, up there.

            I guess Donkey was right, Onions, left out in the sun, don’t hold up well, and so too the faith… Though forged and found in a particular place and time, it needs to be translated, transitioned, shared, brought down the mountain…
Gospel is for spreading, communion for becoming a people,
hymns for singingtogether.

            And yet, perhaps I’m overstating our likelihood of having a mountaintop experience at all,
a religious experience at all…  

after all, even the Evangelist Billy Graham wrote a book wresting with the fact that a majority of Christians, 60 some percent according to his calculations, never have a religious experience their whole lives.
So, for most of us being told to go down the mountain makes no sense, because you were never up with Shiny Jesus in the first place…
But fear not, the Transfiguration is for you too,
after all, The transfiguration has layers.

            For a lot of folk, faith isn’t either of those extremes, overawed direct experience of God, or going down in the muck and healing… In fact there is so much grey space in between the two you could make an elephant out of it…

no, we’re often like Peter, aren’t we? “not knowing what he said.”
Things are unclear, maybe they’ll only make sense in hindsight, yet we’re in the moment and puzzled!
We’re kinda confused about the whole thing, yeah, we’ve had things happen to us, strange experiences, close encounters with death and life and some stuff in between…
but it isn’t a clear booming voice, it makes you catch your breath
or bug out your eyes
or just stay silent about the whole thing,
stuck with more questions than answers… 

Have I got news for you! That’s a part of the faith too
—the 2000 year history of Christian theology is best summed up by Amsalem, “Faith seeking understanding.”
We have yearnings and hunches and baptism and history and piles of scriptures we hold dear, and among all of that we seek… faith seeking understanding.
We don’t have cut and dry answers that stretch the whole of the sky, we have a faith seeking expression.

            

            But sometimes we seek with a greater urgency, it is more than just curiosity or an ordering of the mind or even a search for origins…
sometimes it is true desperation!That too is packed up in the Transfiguration…The transfiguration has layers.

            So desperate
—disciples who are awake with Jesus now, but will fall asleep in his final hours… falling asleep before the Son of God’s execution
—that’s desperate…
but perhaps more desperate still, this father we read about today, desperate for healing for his son (often desperate parents will stop at nothing), these disciples are his last hope…
this Jesus is his last hope…
When he is about to lose his only son, there he finds the Only Son, and that’s where we so often find the greatness of God, in our desperate hour, when our souls are being scoured…

            From the vantage of desperation we finally reach the onion’s center, we reach the final layer, for The transfiguration has layers.

            We reach, you guessed it, Grace… 

Peter continually wants to act,
to catch lightening in a bottle,
from a frantic frenetic pacehe tries to find peace
—but all that the Transfiguration requires of us is this,
“This is my Son. Listen to him.”
You can almost imagine the cloud shouting, “quit it Peter! just sit down for a second and use your ears!”
There is nothing you can do in the face of God’s unveiling, just be present!
All the Transfiguration requires of us is to hears—hear him announced “Son of God” and hear what the Son of God has to say! Hear him!

            Like onions and ogres, The transfiguration has layers.Mountain top experiences and leavings,
confusion and desperation,
and always grace,
simply being present as God acts on you through Word and through Witness.

A+A

Snow Day Pub Theology: Discipleship

Sermon: Our Calling

          Such a vision—seeing God enthroned, robe outstretched like glory, filling the temple. Fiery angels, Serephs, who are overawed by God, struck like a match off of God’s holiness—that same holiness that they sing of, “Holy Holy Holy, truly the Lord God’s glory fills completely the cosmos!” Their song overwhelming like earthquake and volcano, a wildfire upon the great heavenly altar!

          What can a human do faced with the divine? How can our faults not be so obvious in the face of the Faultless?

          And yet, that too is taken care of… from the billowing heat of the altar a coal transforms Isaiah, his lips—the lips he shall use to speak to God’s people—are transformed like gold is transformed—purified, all that is dross falls away, gold alone remains, all that is rough is removed, diamond alone sparkle with the light of God.

          He hears God calling to him, “whom shall I send? Who will go?”

          And, these lips, now joined to the holiness of the heavenly temple reply, “Here am I; send me!”

          And Isaiah spends the remainder of his life warning the people of danger, of troubles not only immediate—the Assyrians who will disperse the 10 tribes, but in the works, the larger Eastern Empire rising, Babylon, who will end the earthly temple and destroy the Davidic dynasty.

          Imagine that, just look at the strange calling of Isaiah, “shut their eyes, make them dull, keep them from turning and being healed, until all that remains of what was great is a stump.” Not until Jerusalem is burning and whole classes of people are being carted away does his message make sense.

          Just as Isaiah confessed his sinfulness and weakness before he could receive those holy lips, so too his nation had to be humbled before God did a new thing.

          Or consider Peter.

          The Lord hijacks his boat to escape the crowds and preach the word.

          The Lord, this carpenter, tells him how to do his job, has him fish funny, putting down his nets at the wrong time and in the wrong place, and yet a bounty, more fish than one boat could hold, if you look carefully, more than two boats can hold safely!

          That’s when Peter gets the message Jesus was preaching in the synagogue—“The Spirit of the Lord is upon  me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

          Peter didn’t get it in the Synagogue. Peter didn’t get it when Jesus healed Peter’s Mother-in-law. Peter didn’t get it when Jesus turned Peter’s house into a hospital and psych ward for everyone in Capernaum and the region of Galilee.

          But catchin’ fish… that does it for him. He confesses, like Isaiah, of his own inadequacy—he humbles himself, “Go away, I am a sinner.”

          But Jesus quells his fear and calls him again, using more fishy language, “You will now fish for people.”

          And that did it, he received his calling, said in effect, “Here I am, send me.” And he followed after Jesus…

          Followed him through healing and preaching and trial and denial and execution and mourning and resurrection and joy and proclamation and imprisonment and if tradition holds executed by the Romans for holding fast to his faith.

         

          Or consider Paul, puffed up and zealous—utterly convinced of his rightness, that these “People of the Way”, these earliest Christians, must be stopped; must die if need be!

Utterly convinced, until he was overturned, blinded on the Road to Damascus, face to face with the one the Way worshipped, this Jesus the Messiah. From there taken care of by the very people he hunted and hounded and hurt and persecuted, transformed into a man who can call himself “the least of the apostles” and recognize his new calling, this new humility, as a gift from God. Able to throw up his hands, recognizing his folly and confess, “I am what I am.”
Yes, 180 degrees wrong on what God was doing in Jesus Christ.
Yes, I now confess that the Messiah died, was buried, and rose, and this is in line with scripture.
Yes, he continued to work through the Spirit to empower his followers.
Yes, that includes me!

          Dramatically confronted by Jesus, he is transformed and called, and eventually can say “Here I am, send me.”

          And sent he was, preaching throughout Asia and Europe, writing to communities far and near, dreaming even of preaching in far off Spain. His calling planted seeds for a worldwide church, people of the way throughout the world!

          Or consider yourselves.

          Yes, you live in a society where following Jesus is treated like a hobby, faith like a leisure activity instead of a matter of death and life.
          Yes, the Church that once was is quickly becoming a stump, crouched and humbled.
          Yes, it can feel like the world is so big and each one of us is so small that maybe even a calling from God won’t do so very much…

          Yet the faith is a matter of death and life. Crouched and humbled is when tendrils of new growth come and God does a new thing. Fisher people and those of unclean lips, and even enemies of the church, called by God, can be called to do the unimaginable.

          We are still called to write letters, tell the truth even when it won’t be heard for generations, transform the prows of our boats into pulpits and tell God’s story in words that people today can hear!

          Humbled and expectant we can still respond to God’s calling with, “Here I am, send me.” A+A

Love Sermon

         I gotta say, I didn’t plan this—Lisa and I were just looking for a time between Christmas and Ash Wednesday to get married—it is just a coincidence that the Sunday after our wedding the Gospel lesson was about the Wedding at Cana, and now my first Sunday back in the pulpit we read 1^stCorinthians 13… the love chapter… where Paul uplifts love, defines it, and assures us it isn’t going anywhere, for it is the greatest of God’s gifts… It’s so often read at weddings that we forget that it isn’tPaul’s advice to newlyweds.

         Pastors often end up doing this funny two-step where they:
-remind the couple that Paul is talking about love being acted out in a Christian Community,
-and then they hope the couple can be a small Christian Community to one another…

         And that’s the dance we so often play with Paul’s words, so often that we miss that first part
—Paul is writing to a Church, a community of believers, a bunch of sinners who trust that they’ve been made right by Jesus
—a group of people… isn’t is said one of the dangers of community is that “we judge ourselves by our insides, but everyone else by their outsides”
—the motivations and methods of other people are always opaque and mysterious… and a church consists of a bunch of other people… what could possibly go wrong?

         Yes, Paul is writing to a whole community, a Church
—a bunch of folk with different gifts given to them by God, a people with a variety of talents and treasures, a diverse bunch of people,
all united together, even as they are broken and incomplete,
together striving to let it be known that “Jesus is Lord” and striving to work for the common good,
even as they do so from a variety of backgrounds and with a variety of gifts given by God… gifts and backgrounds that are all valuable, all important to God…

         And yet, there is something more valuable than all that
—let me tell you about the most valuable thing
—let me tell you about love.

Prayers

         Let me tell you about love.

         I want to sing and speak in such a way people listen, oratories and arias that receive standing ovations and kisses blown from ivory balconies…
-Without love, all anyone will hear from me are babbling speeches and bad violin screeches.

         I heartily wish to plumb the depths of this world and the next, to bear upon the tip top of my bald spot the meaning of life and be a fountain of wisdom that the next generation can come to in order to fill up their cup…
-Without love, I’m a divine dunce, hardly human—truly so heavenly minds I’m no earthly good.

         I strive to be generous, to give what I got and more if I can, to fill any outstretched palm and ensure no belly goes to bed empty
—without love, no one trulyreceived anything from me… God help me!

         Let me tell you about love.

         As I said it is hard to measure the motivations of others, or even our own, if we’re honest—is it a loving action I do or not? How do I measure that, how do I know the nature of what I do or what is done by another? What does love look like?

         Loving actions are not done to one-up another or to shame someone.
         Loving actions are not done out of arrogance or to bring about discomfort.
         Loving actions are not all about you.
         Loving actions aren’t motivated by rage or grudge.

         No, loving actions are always magnanimous and always kind. 

         Love never rejoices in injury! 

         Love rejoices in the Truth, for love is eternal, it shall not buckle as if weighed down, nor be worn away by the ravages of time.
         Love is the subject of our hope and the object of our faith. The promises of love are true; love is trustworthy.

         If I was on a journey from Teaneck to San Francisco I’d certainly be on Interstate 80 headed west.
         If I was on a journey from Fort Kent, Maine to Key West, Florida I’d certainly be on Route 1 heading south.
         And if I was on a journey of the Spirit I’d have faith in love (that is, I’d put my trust in love) and be hoping for love and my final destination would be love.

         I’m just somewhere along that road,
I’m trusting and I’m hoping—we all are—but friends in Christ we will make it to love!
Hold fast to your faith in the love found in Christ Jesus our Lord,
dream of the day when his love will find completion in us!
Love every chance you get! 

         Yes, these three, faith, hope, and love—they are gifts from God that abide—and the greatest of these is love.

A+A

Christmas Sermon 2018

          What a strange and compelling story, our Gospel, this story of Christmas. It is a story of great reversals, and no one behaves as we’d expect them too.

          Right off the bat the Empire is sidelined
—the main story of the day can be summed up by the Priene inscription:

“Praise Augustus a Savior who has made war to cease and who shall put everything in peaceful order.”

Gaius Octavius—called Augustus (meaning the Revered One), had won the Roman civil war, beating out 7 other would be emperors, winning a peace through superior fire power, and therefore seen as entitled to be the center of every story

… but not here, Luke nods at the emperor and moves on… this isn’t his story!

The Good News, the story of peace and salvation, of the Savior of the whole world
—it isn’t Rome’s story, it is a story that starts somewhere very different… it starts…

          It starts with a sojourner, Joseph, who comes home.

          Comes home along with his fiancé, Mary, a virgin who bears and births a child
—a strange story indeed.

          This child is wrapped in bands of cloth and laid in a manger, no place for his head
—such an out of the way place and space for this child who we proclaim to be the center of all that is!
God with us.

          And a heavenly herald comes to proclaim his arrival… and he chooses shepherds, those outside the city walls, those who spend a little too much time with animals and not enough time with people
—you know, they’re a little off
… and yet these outsiders are the ones brought in on the biggest story ever announced…

          Good news, and yet it terrifies them…

          Good news sung by a heavenly host
—a military unit of angels
—singing peace…
warriors singing peace in a society where warriors weave only strands of chaos.

          And finally, these shepherds, called to watch their flock, leave them, so that they may watch and see this new thing
—the heights of heaven knelt low to gaze upon the infant nestled in a manger.

          Sojourners finding homes, warriors singing of peace, watchers abandoning their post to see something truly special
—grand reversals, the world flipped on its head by the birth of Jesus…

          All of this marking a new world, one where God dwells with humanity, Creator with creature, God born in the flesh.

          And there is a terrible logic to it
—the mystery of God made flesh meets the logic of mortality—the logic of the grave…
once you are born you start dying
—so to with Emmanuel, God with us
—God becomes vulnerable for us, for our sake
—for you…

God among a people occupied by Rome.
God wandering with his parents, first to Bethlehem, then on to Egypt to escape the persecution of Herod.
God with outsider shepherds and stranger Magi.
God lost on pilgrimage as a boy. God baptized at the Jordon.
God three long years teaching. God scourging the temple.
God rejected by the religious and the politically powerful.
God crucified.
God dead and God alive again.

          God vulnerable like us, that we may be like him—beloved children of God.
Grand reversals not just in that story long ago, but now, today, including in our own life
—Gospel, life, peace, and salvation, for you!

          And, in the spirit of the vulnerability of this night, I’m going to ask all of you to be vulnerable too.
In our society that is obsessed with the perpetually new and never takes time to sit with something
—I would ask you to take some time to be like Mary
—Ponder and Treasure the mystery of God’s vulnerability.       And not just ponder, but like the shepherds share, talk to folk about what you come up with
—perhaps with your family over dinner, or with a friend when the moment feels right.

          In the back of your bulletin you will find some prompts for your pondering…
          -what false peace, saviors, and salvation are on offer these days?
          -Surely God reigns everywhere, yet where is God reigning for you and yours this Christmas?
          -Take a moment to think about the last time you were vulnerable, what did that feel like? Do you think that’s how Joseph and Mary and the Shepherds felt?

          And also, as you sit with the vulnerability of God that we celebrate this night, take some time to pray this Christmas.
An example of the prayer you could pray is this:

 O Holy One, heavenly angels spoke to earthly shepherds and eternity entered time in the child of Bethlehem. Through the telling of the Christmas story, let our temporal lives be caught up in the eternal in that same child, that we might join shepherds and all the heavenly host in praising the coming of Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amen.

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and uplifts the lowly

          Imagine it, you’ve been strip-searched, your equipment taken apart and put back together, and after a secondary pat down the Secret Service ushers you into the Oval Office and tells you that you have 10 minutes to capture the heart and soul of the president on film. This is your one shot to take a portrait that will adorn super market magazines and art galleries alike…

How are you going to get the right shot? How are you going to succeed? How are you going to get it right?

          Well, Platon, a British photographer…
you know he’s good because he doesn’t even go by his last name any more…
Platon figured out a formula for just such a scenario.

          He’s taken photographs of every sitting president from Carter to Trump, as well as world leaders, both famous and infamous—Aung San Suu Kyi, Robert Mugabe, Muammar Gaddafi, Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel… not to mention singers like Bono and Yoko Ono and so on…
and he has one surefire technique.

          His portraits always manage to show something more than press secretaries or image consultants want to project
—they shows something more, something real…

          You see, he brings with him a decrepit, falling-apart, white painted crate for his subjects to sit on… somehow 10 minutes, or 7 minutes, or however long he’s got, on that humble little box, displaces the leaders, brings them down from their throne and shows them for who they really are, just another person, another portrait in black and white.
(Photos)

          And so too the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and uplifts the lowly.

Prayer

          He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and uplifts the lowly.

          It’s one thing when the fall is of obviously bad actors
—mass murderers drug out from their holes disheveled and done,
tyrants terrified by their own people,
gangsters who kept the whole block on lock down themselves locked up,
bullies brought to the principal’s office.

          But, what of our heroes?
-All those well spoken of men revealed to be cads and worse on account of the #MeToo movement
—Cosby and Clinton, Garrison Keller and Neil Degras Tyson…
-or think of all those women who were excited about the first female president and ended up disappointed by Hillary Clinton’s loss…
-or think of the controversy when “Go Set a Watchman” the sequel to Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mocking Bird” was released
—in it the heroic father, Atticus Finch, was revealed to be imperfect
—a bit racist in his old age even…
and just this month poor Atticus has just received similar treatment by Aaron Sorkin’s broadway re-write of “To Kill a Mocking Bird.”
Another deflated hero.

          When your heroes, those whose opinions or character you put some stock in
—when they fail, when they fall, what do you do? If they cannot stand, what hope have we?

          After all, we too have our failings,
battered from the outside,
conflicted on the inside,
we are human, so very human.
We too are flesh and blood.

          And the Good News, which Elizabeth and Mary testify to, is that God is as well
—God is with us
and God has come in that very battered, conflicted, oh so human material that encompasses us
—God has come in flesh and blood.

God is with us, and God has even come in the flesh.

          Mary sings about God acting in her life and in the past,

God has acted with both mercy and justice
leveling mountains and raising valleys,
scattering the proud and gathering the humble
—He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and uplifts the lowly…

-He supported Slaves against Pharaoh and brought exiles out from captivity.
-He worked through such flawed people as King David and Samson.  
-Raised up Judges like Deborah and faithful women like Ruth and Naomi,
and even offered second acts for elders like Elizabeth and Zechariah.

Mary sings “Yes we are O’ so human, but the Story of God’s people is the story of God continually with us none the less!”

          In fact, God not only stayed in the story with us, but came to dwell among us
—Mary’s child is God with us, God in the flesh for us!

          Now, when Platon takes those pictures, he de-thrones the leaders, but he also reveals more clearly who the person is…

          And that’s a way to think about Jesus
—God made man
—we can see God more clearly, more fully, because he has sat down with us, stooped onto that white box, so we know him outside the trappings of power
—we can see into his soul. Receive a portrait in black and white…
The invisible God made visible in his Son Jesus Christ.

          This portrait gives us a glimpse of proper humanity, proper heroism, proper power, it is a picture of the flesh as it ought to be, proper creatureliness.

          But it is so more than that. We are also brought close to the Creator, lifted into a greater reality still, lifted up into the reality of God.

          And Eva—I pray that for you today… that you will come to know Mary’s words:
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and uplifts the lowly…
that you will find hope in the midst of a fallen world,
hope in ambiguity, disappointment, and even danger…
for in your baptism you will come face to face with God among us, leaning kindly upon that white box, and you will be united to Jesus Christ.
Thanks be to God!
Amen and Alleluia.

Sermon: Summer is Coming

Summer is Coming

         “Winter is coming” this is the constant refrain of the fantasy series Game of Thrones. George RR Martin is 5 books into the series and winter has not yet come… in the TV series it isn’t until 60 hours in that winter comes… and yet that reality frames the whole thing, winter is unfolding—the birth of dragons, deaths of kings, wars and rumors of war, Wildlings and Others encroaching upon civilization, snow falling first in the north and then in the south—all of these point to that one foundational reality, “Winter is coming.”

         And we read about just such signs in scripture today, read about looking forward in hope to a thing that is not yet, and yet is unfolding, it frames the whole of scripture and life…

         Jeremiah points to the sign of a righteous branch, God’s actions through David may have been chopped down, but they didn’t grind the stump—new life is coming.

         Jesus promises us that God is doing something new, promises us tender tentative tendrils—look carefully friends, you will find the leaves greening in this gray and foreboding world…

         All these are signs that “Summer is coming.”

         

Prayer

         Jesus warns us about sea and waves
—one of the Bible’s ways of talking about Chaos and Death
—we are warned about the threat that looms so often
—losing life and losing control.

         Not only that, the world will be threatened
—and to clarify, the Greek word for worldused means the civilized world (so not the “He so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son” world), instead the economically integrated world
—yes from time to time we will realize the societal structure we live and breath in, we move in the same way fish move through water, is ephemeral and fleeting—sometimes it is really obvious how threatened the whole project is.

         The powers themselves shake (have you seen the videos of Alaska—it is like that!)
—all those forces beyond ourselves that shape our day to day life
—the little gods of this world we cling to
—behold! They shall all be shaken loose
—they shall all be revealed to be what they are, Idols… all those things we fear, love, and trust—that are not God
—they shall be sifted through, burnt away
—they shall fall away.

         All of this shall be an earthquake showing what stands and what falls.

         And have you ever thought how much all that weighs us down?
How much we worry about life and control, our society holding together, the powers holding fast
—how much we drugourselves in many ways
(shopping, shooting up, shutting down, tuning in, going online, main-lining, maligning our neighbor)
drug ourselves in order to look away from all this…
how much we time and talents… and our very lives… we fritter away concerned about all these things.
We lack hope.

         I was reading Conservative columnist Arthur Brooks the other day, he wrote an article entitled: “How Loneliness is tearing America apart.”
Did you know 13% of Americans don’t believe there is a single personwho knows them well. 42 million people who feel like they are anonymous—unknown to anyone but themselves…
Brooks believe this has led to the record 45,000 suicides that have happened across the country this year
—to get the scope of this it is like the entire population of Plainfield killing themselves…
he also notes 70,000 people died of drug overdoses this last year
—that’s the entire population of East Orange…

         And this alienation also leads people to seek simulated communities, communities almost entirely made up of screens,
be they social media platforms or obsessive watching of partisan Television
—all of this telling them who to hate
—most often our fellow Americans…

         And, you know I often tell you all, when it comes to the internet, never read the comments section
—well this article may be an exception…
 the 1,034 comments at the end of this article—I didn’t read them all of course…
but my God!
It was people pouring out their hearts about their isolation
—how they yearned so completely for realcommunity, realconnection.

         Now, I can’t imagine how much more painful this isolation will get for folk this time of year (Daylight savings time and darkness),right…
imagine you don’t believe anyone really knows you
—you are always alone, and you go to work in the dark and get home in the dark and the only human-ishinteraction you have is with the warm glow of you TV or Smartphone or Computer Screen… So hopeless…

“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life.”

         No… be alert! Crane your neck up, stand up straight
—your redemption draws near!

(Point to tree)

         In the face of Babylon battering down all that is Holy
—know there is a righteous branch!
         In the face of the falling away of all the small gods—this grand and horrible earthquake, they no longer grace the heavens—look!
Look what remains!
The Son of Man, he lives that we may have life.
Look what remains!
The Kingdom of God, revealing the world as it is, in the face of the world as it seems, so we know that God rules!
Look what remains!
The Word of God! The promises of God for us and to us, promises which God shall not forsake,
God shall not forsake us!

(Point to tree)

         In the face of unbelievable isolation, anxiety, addiction, and death…
When all the simulated community crashes and there we are…
What remains, what’s real?
—Christ, community, promise…hope
Real Christ—for you, the Lord on the donkey who sees fit to join us in all things, God made man that Humanity might be found Holy!
Real community—Surely a mixed body, saints and sinners all trying and failing and trying again, but here we are, thank God!
Real struggle—It isn’t just our communal life that is mixed, but each of us, all simultaneously saint and sinner
—a real struggle really worth it
—our whole lives found in the sanctity of God
—we are made in the image of God
—youreally are a part of it,
you really matter to God!
Real words of promise—Promises of Christ
—I will be with you always,
I’ve purchased and freed you from the powers of sin, death, and the devil.
You belong to Christ and none can separate you from him!

Summer is coming!
The stump was not ground down—it still grows!
We’re all interconnected and are rooted together.
Even when all appears dead, the necessary work of new life is taking place, the seed is being made ready!
Winter isn’t even a pause, it is part of the whole process!
Look at those green leaves, those tendrils tender and tentative, yet clearly alive.

Have hope.

Summer is coming!

A+A