Sermon: Paul in Philippi

 

              I had an idea of what today’s sermon was going to be
—a straightforward retelling of the story in Acts,
emphasizing the aspects of the ancient world that needed to be unpacked.

              But the modern world intervened. I’ve had multiple people
—members and non-members alike,
look at the events of the recent weeks
—the revelations about massive sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention
and the recent horrifying mass shootings
and ask me, “Pastor is this the end?
Pastor is our wickedness too much for God?
Pastor is God going to destroy us for all this?”

              So, we’re going to look at this story in Acts,
as a way to unpack, not the ancient world of Paul’s day,
but our present moment.

Let us pray

              We have this woman—an Oracle,
respected for her connection to a Spiritual-something, that allows her to look at entrails of animals, or enter into a trance state, and tell truths.
One such truth is her repetitive description of Paul and his companions, “These men are slaves of the most High God, proclaiming salvation.”

              This eventually gets a rise out of Paul,
who casts out the spirit, and in so doing,
strips the mask off of her existence
—despite all the respect and nice words people might say about the Oracle,
she is ultimately a slave to men who are using her, in this case, for money.
Once she was no longer useful
—she disappears in Acts, never to be seen again.

 

              I wish I could describe this abuse as a relic of the past
—using Spirituality and Religion to hide the use and abuse of people
to gratify personal desires and get away with it…

But we were reminded afresh this week that such wickedness still continues.
The independent report about abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention found that that church body had engaged in a systematic cover-up of sexual abuse for at least the last 20 years.
According to this report (I could only get through 20 pages of the 200 page document, it was just too much):

-The higher ups claimed to have no way to know who was an abuser, while keeping a secret list of more than 700 men.

-The Convention’s President—Rev. Hunt—now stands accused of sexually assaulting his assisting minister’s wife.

-Their publishing house was used to purposefully smear people who spoke out against the abuse and silence survivors.

-Their “Caring Conference” for victims of sexual abuse was used to pump survivors for information to be used against them…

-The person in charge of investigating accusations, saw it as his duty to “break down” rape victims, so they wouldn’t sue the church, but instead the women would just disappear, hopefully never to be seen again.

              Now, I wish this was just something wrong with the Southern Baptists
—but we know it’s not.
Right around 20 years ago a similar report exposed the Roman Catholic Church as an Abuse Mill. 
For that matter, this congregation itself has had at least one Pastor removed for sexual misconduct…

              You know, people sometimes ask me why people my age and younger avoid the Church…
let’s be real, this is one of the reasons.

For millennials, since our teenage years if not earlier,
our eyes have been open to the reality that the beautiful high ideals expressed by religious institutions and spiritual organizations,
sometimes contain hidden agendas and far worse…
How could we not be skeptical?

 

              The response to this unmasking is swift and violent.
First comes the accusation, hiding the profit motive by ginning up prejudice
—these outsiders, these Jews, these non-Romans
—these people other than ourselves
—the Evil Others
—are trying to change who we are,
replace us
—they are an irritant, a pollutant
—that must be punished.

              Paul and his people are: seized / dragged / stripped / beaten / flogged / imprisoned…

              Then, after the Earthquake, the violence continues with the Jailer’s fate for failing
—he is likely a slave, similar to the Oracle
—seen as a device, not a human
—in the ancient world slaves were often tied to prisoners as a primitive “lojack” device.

              He was a device that failed…
and in the ancient world when a device… a person… fails, it is destroyed
—the most honorable answer to failure in Roman Honor/Shame culture,
the only answer
—was suicide…
for him there is no way out.

 

              Again, I wish such normalized violence, casual violence, foundational violence
—was the foundation only of the ancient Roman world…
—but, you can’t tell that to parents hiding tears as they drive their children to school,
well aware of the shooting in Uvalde,
or to Black folk in Buffalo and people of color around the country,
wondering if their next experience of bigotry will be one of deed, not word.

Or even the shooters in these instances, and so many others like them
—what hopeless and evil messages had they internalized
that made violence and death seem to be the only answer,
the glory of Guns their only out?

             

              It’s a lot, isn’t it?
I see why some folk feel like it is the end of the world,
or at least that our wickedness has overflowed its normal boundaries.

              But you know what? These early Christians we read about today
meet the Powers and Principalities,
profit and prejudice,
with proclamation and prayer.

              It is an earthquake
—the message of the Gospel and the prayers that interlace all of their actions
—an earthquake that flips everything on its head.
Nothing looks the same in light of the good news
and aligning their will to the will of God.

              This woman who shouts that Paul is a slave…
her own captivity is revealed, the men who used her…
their intentions are unmasked,
the only Spirit they care about is their own greed and desires.
If nothing else, now she can see the world as it is.

              This jailer is saved by his captives…
Paul tells him a better story
than the one about the glories of death,
that his society tells him.

              Instead of Jailer and Prisoner, they become siblings.
The Jailer is washed in Baptism, and then washes Paul’s wounds,
wounds the Jailer himself may have inflicted.

Then a shared meal.
You are no longer an object!
 You have a future and a place at the table.
 You are a member of God’s family. Let’s eat!

Small, meaningful acts like these are the hallmark of the Kingdom of God.

 

“Pastor is this the end? Pastor is our wickedness too much for God? Pastor is God going to destroy us for all this?”

Hold onto hope; God’s good future is still being written. The resurrecting, redeeming power we find in Christ continues to call life out death, goodness out of evil. A+A

Glory and Love

          The Book of Revelation offers a hopeful vision for where this is all headed… 

It describes the heartbeat of history:
God shall dwell among us, 
and God will make all things new.

Such hope is found in those words repeated again and again in today’s gospel “Gloryand Love.” Our hope is found in God’s Glory and God’s Love.

 

Prayer

         Glory and Love…

         Today’s Psalm is a magnificent song of praise, 
praise from every inch of creation, 
from heights to depths, young to old
—sung from below to our Glorious God above. 
It is a Song that focuses on God’s transcendence
—part of what makes God glorious is that God is close, but not too close, exalted, far away.

         But the Gospel of John has a different understanding of glory
—for him, the ultimate example of glory is the “Visible presence of God in the world hidden in flesh, revealed and exulted in Christ’s kneeling at his disciple’s feet.” 

God’s presence is fully felt when the callused hands of that humble Galilean carpenter washes his Disciple’s feet.

God comes from heaven down to earth in the person of Jesus Christ
—that is God’s Glory.

 

So what?

“We are restless until we rest in God.”
… so if God is only above 
and only far away, 
we will always seek ladders, 
like the Tower of Babel, 
always want to grasp at a God far off…

What does that look like?

You will cling to the “if onlys” in your life
—if only I was younger or stronger or better or richer, 
yet the if onlys will evaporate each time you think you’ve got hold them.

You will shackle yourself to your past, 
trying to tie down what you had and bottle those moments already gone.

You will fixate on your future, 
insisting on perfection, 
obsessed with every “must” and every “or else” that you anticipate is coming.

         But we’re already reconciled with the one to whom the Psalmist sing, ”Praise the Lord” 
He dwelt among us and we can rest in him.

We can rest in him who commanded, “Love one another.”

 

“Love one another.” 
If this command were only beautiful last words from a generous idealist to his friends
—a man betrayed, denied, and soon crushed, by an unloving world
—there would be something romantic in that, 
it might be enough to echo on through the ages
—a shout of defiance worth remembering… 
and for those disciples initially experiencing these words at the last supper, 
that was all it was, 
that side of the resurrection, 
before the resurrection
—Jesus saying “love” was simply a defiant stance against the likes of Pilate and other unloving powers of this world.

 

Defiant words issued to a world run by force and spite, a world where Putin and Javelin missiles, 
mass shootings and bullying 
seem to rule the day…

But, on the other side of the resurrection, 
after the resurrection of Jesus, 
“Love one another”
… it takes on a tone of triumph
—Love wins. 
Love stops cycles of violence, 
love redeems.
The one who called us to love
—loved to the end and beyond the end to a new beginning… 
we now live in an era where love not only defies hate, 
it overcomes it.

 

Love is the only way!

20 some years ago … I was volunteering at the Comea Shelter, a homeless men’s Shelter back in Cheyenne Wyoming.

Each day I filled the shelter’s old blue mini-van up with bedding and drove it down to the commercial launder mat, picked up donations from 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.

 

Now, there was one resident in particular who would often ride with me. 
He happened to have a Nazi 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, “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.

“Oh,” was all I could reply.

He then told me how much he had hated blacks and Latinos… 
though he used much stronger language for both.

“Oh,” I again replied.

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 for ex-convicts run by a black man. It took me a while, but I just couldn’t hate them anymore.”

Love is the only way!

 

Think of Peter, in Joppa… 
now, I’ve been to Jaffa, it’s squished right up against Tel Aviv
—they’re a strange contrast, there on the shore of the Mediterranean
—Tel Aviv is a glitzy modern city on par with a New York or a London, 
Jaffa is like Juarez, a run-down second-world kind of affair… a
 stark division, while sitting on top of one another. 

I bring up this unsettling difference
—because I imagine Peter is unsettled in a similar way, by the prospects of making no distinction between he and these men from Caesarea
—loving men he normally would consider profane and unclean, 
or at least far from the works of the Spirit, 
far from being God’s people too.

Yet love is the way
—Love lets Peter see these men with new eyes. 
Love lets him recognize God acting among them, 
recognize God’s gift and the life of the Spirit among them
—it looks different, 
it is uncomfortable, 
it is unsettling and strange
—but it is still of God! Still the love that leads to life!

 

 

 

The arch of history and the goal of God, is this:

-God shall dwell among us
—we have already witnessed that Glorious truth in his Son Jesus Christ who came that we might have life.

-God will make all things new
—the love that triumphed over the grave continues to transform the world.

Amen and Alleluia.

Sermon: We don’t talk about Joseph

             There is always a story before the story

—in this case, we know the story of how Cain and Abel’s sibling rivalry led to death and banishment. 
We know the story of Isaac and Ishmael, who only reconciled burying their father Abraham… 
we know of Esau and Jacob, who only reconciled once Isaac, their father, was dead… 
we know that Jacob’s two wives held a motherly rivalry, 
fighting for Jacob’s affection
—using, even, their children to bolster their status…

These brothers, they were born into a family system long entrenched.

 

1.         The story proper, however, begins simply enough, “This is the story of Jacob…”

            And then it takes a turn, “Well, Joseph was 17…

            Joseph was Jacob’s favorite, given a stripy quilted cloak…

Joseph, his first recorded words, “Please listen to the dream that I dreamed,”

Joseph, this Dream Master, who mashes his brother’s faces in his dreams of glory,

Joseph who even dreams of overthrowing his parent’s greatness with his own.

Joseph stripped of his quilted cloak, by his brothers.

Joseph thrown down a well, by his brothers

Joseph flung into a pit while his brothers casually eat snacks.

Joseph’s brothers do not see themselves as their brother’s keeper.

Joseph’s brothers, think they bear no guilt—save two who scheme to save him.

Joseph sold into slavery, he’s now an object like the gum, balm, and resin—all four being exported to Egypt.

“Joseph” Jacob, Joseph’s father, wails.

“Joseph” he shrieks, seeing shreds of the quilted cloak—false evidence of Joseph’s demise.

 

2.         Down in Egypt, he is raised, even as a slave.

            Down in Egypt, he is trapped, again stripped of his cloak.

            Down in Egypt, his cloak is again used as false evidence against him.

            Down in Egypt, he is thrown into the prison pit.

            Down in Egypt, his status goes up and down and up again.

            Down in Egypt, he is still a Dream Master

Down in Egypt dreaming of the ups and down of Pharaoh’s court.

            Down in Egypt, he, Joseph, is given an Egyptian name, “God Speaks, He Lives!”

 

3.         Back in Canaan, they don’t talk about Joseph.

            Back in Canaan, years pass without him.

 

            Back in Egypt, Joseph is the Dream Master—interpreting Master Pharaoh’s dreams.

            Back In Egypt, warning of a Famine.

            Back in Egypt, they prepare!

Back in Egypt, they put themselves on war footing to fill barns and feed people.

            

Back in Canaan, Jacob sees which way the wind is blowing.

            Back in Canaan, Jacob sees crops are dying, the family’s flocks too.

            Back in Canaan, Jacob hatches a plan to save his family—Go to Egypt!

            Back in Canaan, the brothers ignore Jacob’s plan.

            Back in Canaan, they reluctantly go down to Egypt.

 

4.         There is something eerie in Egypt.

            There is something suspenseful like a horror show.

            There is something that points to the Brother’s guilt.

            -when “God Speaks, He Lives” asks the brothers about their Father and other Brothers. They admit to him, “We don’t talk about Joseph.”

            -When they return back home with gum, balm, and resin. Guilty!

            -When they see the silver placed back in their bags—silver paid for a slave. Guilty!

            -When they plead, “take us as slaves, don’t kill the young one.” Guilty!

            Guilty, Guilty, Guilty.

 

            There is something that points to their change of heart!

            -They’ve matured in the years between. Changed.

            -They’re concerned for their younger brother! (Remember, they weren’t concerned for Joseph!) Changed.

            -They protest, “Don’t do this, it will distress our father.” (Remember, they weren’t concerned for their father’s feelings when they waved the torn quilt in front of his face?) Changed.

            Changed, Changed, Changed.

 

5.         “God Speaks, He Lives” weeps once. 

“God Speaks, He Lives” weeps twice.

“God Speaks, He Lives” sends away his servants, and the interpreter too.

“God Speaks, He Lives” the pharaoh’s right hand man. Alone before them.

“God Speaks, He Lives” let’s out an uncontrollable sob. Heard in the other room, outside, all the way to Pharaoh’s court.

 

“It is me, Joseph. Is my Papa okay?”

“It is me Joseph—the one you sold into slavery, sent down to Egypt.”

“It is me Joseph, the one God is using in this awful time of famine, to feed the whole world… to feed you, my brothers!”

“It is me Joseph, come in for a hug, gather close, close the distance between us.”

“It is me Joseph, our past is past.

“It is me Joseph, we’ve crossed the chasm between us, the desert of Sinai between Egypt and Canaan.”

“It is me Joseph, I don’t seek you harm, nor desire vengeance.”

“It is me Joseph, let’s go see our papa, while he’s still alive.”

The Wine is Giving Out

 The Wine is Giving Out

            The Wine is Giving Out…

            And it is only the third day! 

(yes the third day is pointing to Jesus’ resurrection, no doubt)
 
but there is also a more mundane point to be made as well… 
the wine is giving out on the 3^rd day of a 5 to 8 day wedding… 
—did you know the Song of Songs was thought to be regularly read, a chapter a day, at ancient 8 day royal weddings…

three days in…
But, The Wine is Giving Out…

            There is such shame in that, shame enough to go around.

-The Host has not provided for the guests; he is failing in his obligation, that comes with throwing such a party.

-The Guests have not held up their end of the bargain either. It is their obligation to bring a gift to be shared, to keep the festivities going.

            No one brought enough—the Wine is Giving Out…

 

            It feels like that for us too, right? The wine is giving out…

The whole world was running on empty, and THEN we got the Delta Omicron one two punch… 
any road map for navigating the Pandemic we have is well smudged by this point
—ad libing and calling audables can go on for a while, but it isn’t sustainable… 
certainly not for years…

            Some of us have experienced painful losses beyond words…

Others are exhausted and depressed, landing so low. 
Still others, are bouncing balls of anxiety, 
shouting at the top of our lungs “Just do something!”

            I heard of a Superintendent who collapsed the other day when he was asked to make a decision on whether or not to cancel an event, 
and when he got back up, he simply said, 
“I can’t be responsible for canceling one more thing.”

            The wine is giving out.

 

            That’s what she told her son… 
It’s a strange interaction between the two—Mother and Son, 
but I think implied in the conversation is that she knows what so few do yet—the Ahah! The Revelation! of Epiphany!
he’s the Messiah
—the messiah at a wedding feast, 
a wedding banquet.

She says to him, “Gee, son, none of the scriptures that talk about the Messianic Banquet, 
where all shall be fed, 
where richly strained wine shall flow for the feast, 
and where death itself will be on the menu… 
none of them talk about running out of wine… 
especially on the third day…”

And this leads to Jesus’ first sign in John’s Gospel (that’s what this Gospel calls Miracles, because they point to something beyond themselves)
—before the healings, 
before the feeding, 
before walking on water, 
before raising from the dead
—it begins with this celebration, 
this removal of communal shame,
this joyful abundance…

He takes these stone jars filled with water for ritual purity
—things of holiness… 

(When I was in Israel I got to see some of these, well preserved all the way form Jesus’ day—they were maybe three times wider than me and nearly as talI as I am)… 

            He takes this holy water and makes it into a banquet of joy
—180 gallons of wine… 
1,000 bottles of wine
—rivers of abundance.

            And they respond, struck with joy, these servants and the wine steward
“At the last, good wine! 
At the last, 
at the end, 
hope!” 
On the third day, when all seems lost, 
it is found, found in abundance and with great joy! 

He was in the tomb, 
at the end, his disciples and friends filled with terror and despair and all kinds of worry and disappointment,
 and then… New Life! 
Resurrection!

            

            The wine is giving out
—but we have hope, we have God’s promise… 

The promise and clarity of wine strained clear… 

            The promise that in the midst of holiness, there is also joy!

            The promise that God made life for more than just living, 
but for abundance
—a life more than mere existence and certainly more than the acquisition of things
—an extravagant, sustained and sufficient life in the presence of Christ.

            A promise that banishes shame, 
transforms obligation, 
tames anxiety, 
uplifts exhaustion, 
holds us in his Abundant love, 
in our loss and sorrows.

A resurrection promise, 
a promise of hope, 
even at the last.

A+A

Epiphany

          The Epiphany story starts much as the Christmas story did, just 12-some days ago. 

The important story, 
the story of what God is doing in the world,
is found in the shade of the story that the powers that be tell themselves… 

Last week it was the story of Emperor Augustus
—in all his pretension of greatness, 
this week Herod much the same
—literally known as Herod the Great, 
who killed two of his own sons to hold back challenges to his kingship,
a kingship he can only keep hold of as long as Rome continues to occupy his country

he is a henchman of the Empire.

 

         This great man, 
this self-styled King of the Jews, 
is confronted by the worst words you could say to him, “The King of the Jews” is coming…
To this news, he blanches with fright… 
and all his subjects with him
—when Herod is unhappy, we’re allunhappy!

Herod stays put… 
if he really believed the rightful king had come, he would have rushed out there… 
instead he asks for details… details that he will later use to enact a dreadful campaign, called by the Church, “The slaughter of the innocent.”
All the baby boys of Bethlehem killed to keep Herod as King... 
…when Herod is afraid, 
we all should be afraid…

 

         The Magi
—we have all kinds of fanciful ways of imagining them
—but here’s what we can be fairly sure of. 

They are:

-Astrologers, stargazers seeking answers in the night sky, 
the play of the planets and alignment of the stars.

-Foreigners—citizens of the Parthian Empire!

That doesn’t sound like much today, but they were the Eastern Empire that was the boogie man of every Roman nightmare
—a nation at war, off and on, with Rome for 250 years, 
-a nation who once humiliated and then killed Julius Caesar’s right hand man and bankroller, Crassus…

-A nation who intervened in both the Roman and the Jewish civil wars…

Yes, they were citizens well outside Roman jurisdiction
—coming to a lackey of Romesuggesting he was lacking as king…

-Non-Jews, Pagan, in fact, 
probably Zoroastrians, watching the sky for signs that their good god
—Ahura Mazda, the Lord of Wisdom, 
was coming to save them from the evil god of utter chaos, Angra Mainyu.

         These Magi
—Foreign. Pagan. Astrologers.
—some of the most outsider outsiders you could find
—are let into the good news that Mary and Joseph have long held in their hearts, 
Gospel enmeshed in the very namesof this child, this lord, this messiah:
Yeshua, The Lord Saves. 
Emmanuel, God with us.

         Such joy, 
they have found this star child, 
this Savior, 
this presence of God.

 

They bring him gifts, Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh
—an ancient equivalent of a Savings Bond and Medical kit…
but also gifts heavy with symbolism
—pointing to the kind of King they honor, 
the kind of king who exercises power in a way that leads to the cross.

 

Gold—not unlike the coins that Judas will take in payment for his work IDing and locating Jesus.

Frankincense
—bitter, 
forming tear drops when harvested, 
then darkening red, like tears of blood
—like Jesus’ tears at Gethsemane, 
“Take this cup away from me!”

Myrrh—which was mixed with the wine to comfort Jesus on the cross, 
myrrhbrought to Jesus’ burial.

 

A Savior betrayed, beaten, buried. 
A king exerting the kind of power that gets you killed, that pulls you from the center of a throne and up onto the cross… 
Releasing, instead of clinging, as Herod would cling, 
to all authority and honor and victory.

 

         Revealedin their gifts, his ending in Jerusalem, that becomes a new beginning, for him and for us.

         Revealedwhat kind of Messiah, what kind of Savior, they have found.

         Revealedto these foreign, pagan, stargazers.

         Revealedfor all people

—that’s the meaning of this night, 
the meaning of Epiphany
—The Savior of all people, God for all people.

         God foreven… especially… our enemies.

         God forus all the way through
—life, death, and resurrection.

Godborn in our midst. God moved by our need.

He is born for us. 
He is here to save us.

Thanks be to God. A+A

Build Back Good

There’s that old saying “don’t let the perfect (Better) be the enemy of the good.” And perhaps now is the time for the Democrats to take that admonition to heart. Manchin has been fairly clear about his demands: Cap spending right around 1.75 trillion dollars and make sure the programs last for the whole 10 years of the budget cycle.

So, looking at one version of the CBO scoring and doing some back of the napkin math—pushing everything currently in the Build Back Better bill out for the whole 10 years would make it cost approximately 4 trillion dollars; this is 2.25 trillion more than Manchin is willing to spend.

The costliest item is continuing the enhanced child tax credit ($250-300 per child per month for 35,00,000 families) and the earned income tax credit (assistance for 17,000,000 poor people), that the current bill only funds for one additional year. These tax credits cost 203 billion dollars for one year, but jumps to 2 trillion dollars when multiplied by 10 years. Universal pre-K for 3 and 4-year-olds, and capping childcare costs at 7% of a family’s income, was a 6-year program costing 381 billion dollars, so increasing it to a decade would cost approximately 636 billion dollars. Similarly, the bill planned on shoring up the ACA and Medicare for only 4 years, pumping it up to 10-year costs 420 billion. And covering the cost of hearing aids with Medicare was planned as a 7-year program, bumping it up to 10 pushes the cost to 51 billion dollars. Helping the 800,000 Americans who need home healthcare but can’t currently get it, tackling climate change, and expanding the Pell grant for college students, are all unaffected by Manchin’s constraints.

With all that in mind, there is still room for the Democrats to do some big things and tell the story about how they’re helping the American people. Here are a few examples of “Build Back Good” bills that would fit Manchin’s demands:

 

Protecting Our Children, Our Planet, and Our Health

This configuration just takes the four costliest items in the Build Back Better bill, minus the tax credits that Manchin isn’t so keen on.

$636 Billion—Universal PreK & Child Care

$570 Billion—Climate

$420 Billion—ACA & Medicare

$158 Billion—Home Health Care

 

Investing in our Future

              One of Manchin’s concerns about the tax credits is that they are too universal and should only help poor folk. So, what if number crunchers cut the eligibility for the credits in half, so something like head of households making less than $56,250 and couples making less than $75,000 are eligible for this type of help?

              This version of the bill would focus fairly exclusively on helping younger Americans.

$1.015 Trillion—Modified Tax Credits

$636 Billion—Universal PreK & Child Care

$39.8 Billion—Expanded Pell Grants

 

Our Health, Our Home

              Or finally, what if the focus is on good sustainable healthcare, climate resilience, and plentiful affordable housing?

$420 Billion—ACA & Medicare

$158 Billion—Home Health Care

$51 Billion—Hearing Aids

$570 Billion—Climate

$148 Billion—Housing

 

              All this just to say, $1.75 trillion is still a lot of money, and doing one or two big things that could help a lot of people for the next decade ought not be seen as a consolation prize. It is worth at least imagining what is possible within the constraints of the present.

We Start at the End

        The season of Advent, the start of the Church year, always starts in this strange space

—sometimes called the Little Apocalypse
—this warning and parable about the end
—the end of the temple, and the end of the world.

         We start at the End.

Prayer

 

         We start at the End…

         The End… 
often Christianity gets hung up on this
—we misconstrue our faith as a form of escape
—just whiteknuckle it, until the end, and all will be well.

         But that does such damage to the Way of Jesus.
While there are plenty of apocalyptic sayings throughout the Scriptures, both Greek and Hebrew
—sayings that unveil (that’s the literal meaning of Apocalypse) 
Unveil what all this looks like to the eyes of God, 
unveils what’s going on behind the curtain,
revealing the meaning found much deeper and higher than we regularly go, in our day to day life and interpretation of the world around us.

         While these sayings are our heritage, 
we must admit they are so often jarring and strange
—images that are at once stuffed with violence 
and also packed with heightened hopefulness
—the language of apocalypse is the language of the oppressed and the language of crisis.

 

         Consider the horror of Luke’s day
—revolts against Rome that ended in failure and despair, destruction, and death…
a crisis the scope of which we can not applicate today.
The Temple before which Jesus is saying these things today
—destroyed by Rome, 
Jerusalem and her inhabitants along with her. God have mercy!

         And then there was the natural disaster caused by the explosion of Mount Vesuvius
—it scattered ash for a 750 mile radius, 
darkening the sky and wounding the weather itself, 
famine following close behind. 
Violence and ash covered the known world, like the first snow.

 

         No wonder the Gospel writers preserve this stark, apocalyptic language of Jesus.    
The earth, battered like a sinking ship,
Chaotic waters and roaring sea covering it with fear and foreboding. 
The heavens, sun moon and stars, signaling that all is not well, 
fallen, fallen the powers that be. 
The heavens above and the earth below 
unveiled, revealed, as imperiled and impermanent.

 

         And we could look around at our world and see heavy trouble too
—troubles too big for any one person to handle or comprehend…

-Our present supply chain snafu is so large that you can see the shipping bottleneck from space!
-That horrible tragedy in Wisconsin,
 a small-town Christmas parade turned into a day of death. 
-Omicron, the latest Greek letter in this Pandemic Drama to threaten nation states and financial markets.

What can we even make of it, how can we hold such things? How can we not rush to God and ask, “Show me a sign—make it plain O’ God.”

 

But, for us and for Luke’s listeners too
—the sign of hope is one that won’t show up using satellite imagery, or looking up at hot ash raining down on the earth…

No, the sign we are offered as hope is hard to see, even if it is obvious once it is perceived… 
that’s why we ought to be alert and watchful and prayerful
—so that we don’t go running after the wrong thing…

We will know that the Kingdom of God is near because it will be like a sprouting leaf
—a small thing to be sure, but a sign of so much new life to come!
In hopefulness we will be able to raise our heads, 
hold them high because we ourselves, 
we followers of the Way of Jesus, 
are signs of new birth
—for God has come near to us in the person of Jesus Christ.

 

We start at the End…

The end… 
the goal… the X on the treasure map that guides our adventure, our address from childhood imprinted on our memory that will lead us home…

What remains at the end? 
What’s there when the heavens are obscured by grey cloud 
and the earth rocked to its core?

         We can look up and see the Son of Man
—the promise of Daniel chapter 7
—that while there are plenty of monstrous kingdoms and systems and powers, 
they shall not rule always
—a humane kingdom ruled by the Son of Humanity, 
a Godly kingdom, for the Son of God reigns
—that is one of those final goals, the end we seek. 
A caring, compassionate Kingdom
—that’s the reign of God that is our goal.

         Also we can listen for the Word of God, 
for it too shall not pass away, it too is not going anywhere… 
God’s word is always creative, from Beginning to End.
—creating a world that is declared good, 
-creating promises of freedom from bondage, 
-creating Children of God in Baptism 
-creating the Feast of Heaven, the promise of Holy Communion. 
The Word, always creative, always solid and steadfast

 

         The Word of God—Jesus.

The Son of Man—Jesus.

Ultimately, our end, 
the Revelation of God, 
the unveiled hope to the oppressed and those caught in crisis, 
the one who will not abandon us to any power in heaven or earth, 
the one for whom we wait
—the creative and kind king 
revealed at our every ending…
All of that is Jesus.

Our beginning and our end, our whole life, 
is being found in the arms of Jesus Christ.

A+A

What does it mean that Divinity weeps?

 

What does it mean that Divinity weeps?

         There is a theological and philosophical idea that God is impassable
—that is, God does not feel neither pleasure or pain
That God is a God unmoved.
-this is a vision of God that delighted Deists like Thomas Jefferson in the 17 and 1800s, because such a God would set up clear unchanging rules with which to base science and mathematics
—a God who wouldn’t upturn the world on a whim or abandon rationality based on a rash feeling.

-This vision also fit with some Stoic thought of the first century
—such a God was a God made in their image,
their ideal
—God living beyond the pull of emotion and feeling
–a Divine Philosopher, an Ideal Unmoved Marcus Aurelius or perhaps Aristotle in the sky…

         Yet, if Jesus is God with Us, and he is! Then we must contend with the question:
What does it mean that Divinity weeps? That God sheds tears?

Let us pray

 

         Isaiah writes today’s famous message against death’s destructive power while his city, Jerusalem, was under siege.

Imagine writing such beautiful, hopeful, defiant words, while death is knocking at the gate and seeping in through hunger, disease and warfare.

         Isaiah writes about Death in a mythical way,
he borrows from an older Cannanite description of Death,
Death as a sort of Dragon,
a cosmic crocodile who consumes everything,
who unrelentingly eats all that is, seen and unseen,
traversing the stars until it swallows up the entire cosmos…

         Say what you will about pre-modern people, but, in their own way, they are rather realistic about the power of death
—no hiding death in the corner somewhere and just not talking about it.

 

         But the good news on offer by Isaiah is that this eater shall be ate, the consumer consumed.

Consumed, interestingly, not by a bigger predator, which you might expect,
but instead made into a meal for Death’s prey,
for us,
by a God who loves us,
a God who is with us;
a God who takes the shroud of death and makes it into a picnic blanket,
who transforms disgrace into invitation,
who makes of death a glorious feast…

         A God who loves us and is moved by our tears and wipes them away
—a God, too, who you can imagine weeping with us,
even as those tears are tenderly swept away.

A God weeping like Jesus weeps.

 

One of the shortest verses in the whole of scripture is simply
“Jesus wept.”

Moved as we are moved. These tears for Lazarus are like the tears that Jesus will pour out again in agony in the garden,
steeling himself for his fate,
steeling himself for his confrontation with that consumer of worlds,
dying like Lazarus died…
surrounded by the stink of death, like Lazarus’ tomb.

         This tomb where he calls Lazarus by name
—come out!
Calls Lazarus, and Lazarus listens…
after all, the sheep hear the shepherd’s voice and know it, and come, for they know he means only good for them.
The shepherd’s voice calling him by name,
as Mary Magdalene will be called by name at the Resurrected Jesus,
as she cries for him
—called by name and then recognizes her Lord
—her Lord is risen from the death
—risen as his friend Lazarus is raised…

 

         This one who weeps for all who he loves,
who calls us by name,
who joins us in death that we might join him in resurrection
—he is the same one who swallows up death,
who wipes away tears,
who shares a blessed feast with us
—our salvation,
our God.

         Perhaps Jesus is a poor Stoic
—he wears his heart on his sleeve.

         Perhaps God isn’t a God that comport with solid rationality
—perhaps he is not primarily a God of mathematics or first principles or at base a creature of science
—but that’s okay…
ours is a God of passion and poetry and prophecy and love…
mourning and weeping
—a Loving Parent, like a Mamma Bear,
who would turn over every constant and rule of the universe
in order to constantly care for those who weep and die
and are overcast by death and disgrace, crying out to be saved.

 

What does it mean that Divinity weeps?
It means God feels each death,
cares for each one of us.

         That God who weeps, will also transform,
will make a meal,
will call each one by name—Annette, Roxanne, Mike… all of us…
—call us each like Mary, that we will know him,
call us each like Lazarus, that we will be raised with him.
Thanks be to God. Amen.

Eat Gospel, Friend!

 Eat Gospel, Friend!

 

         One of my favorite lines of scripture comes from the book of Ezekiel, “Eat Scroll, Mortal.” Doesn’t it sound simultaneously commanding and bizarre! Throughout the prophetic books of the Bible this command, in one way or another is made—eat God’s Word, transform your lips by kissing flaming coals for they will speak Holy Words, consume sweet or bitter scrolls…

         Now, we’ve been reading through the 6^th chapter of John’s Gospel for a month or so… 
we’ve been here so long that Karen has rightly started asking me, “Didn’t we just read that?” And in many cases, yes, yes we did… 
we’re still in John 6, still slowly but surely feasting on this meal that John has put in front of us.

         John chapter 6 is saying to us nothing short of, “Eat Gospel, Friend.”

Look, 
God’s saving works continue in this bread, 
in this bread you are one with the Father, 
this bread is the whole of Jesus’ life, 
this bread and cup is offered every Sunday! 
“Eat Gospel, Friend.”

 

Prayer

God’s saving works continue in this bread “Eat Gospel, Friend.”

         Now, John’s good news, this Gospel he is serving us, puts Jesus in an interesting place
—he is the center of all the acts of salvation that God does throughout Hebrew Scripture. John’s Gospel rehashes, remixes, is like, the stories of God saving God’s people throughout the Bible! 
The Gospel of John has the same rhythm as, and rhymes with, the Hebrew Bible.

         For example, in the 2^nd chapter Jesus has a conversation with a Samaritan Woman at a well, and by the end of that chapter we thoroughly know that what he offers is of the same stuff as God’s action with the patriarchs found in Genesis, Abraham, Jacob, Sarah, and so on.

         And so too, in John 6, Jesus embodies God’s saving work at Passover, and his sustenance throughout the Exodus.

         Jesus as the bread of life is: 
Lamb and Blood, 
Bread, 
Manna, 
the Flesh of the Quail, 
every thing that kept folk alive in Egypt and on their desert wanderings. 

         And just as many continued to complain in the desert and rejected what God was doing
—even when God made every effort to bring them along on the journey, 
so too, many folk in Jesus’ day eventually say, in effect, 
“I don’t like this Bread of Life, and honestly I don’t really like that God of yours either.” 
Yet, like the Exodus, there are also those people like Peter who profess, “Lord, to whom can we go, you have the words of eternal life!”

Yes, it is the Passover story in miniature.

 

         In this bread you are one with the Father! “Eat Gospel, Friend.”

         Jesus offers a unique and ongoing connection to Our Father in Heaven! 
He has come among us as both the Child of Mary and the Heavenborn child of God, so that we might be the same! 
So that we can have a life in God! 
That we can eat this bread and lean back and find ourselves laying against the heart of God!

 

This bread is the whole of Jesus’ life! “Eat Gospel, Friend!”

Jesus’ response that we read today; My God!

Unless you chomp this flesh and guzzle this blood! 
…No airy spirituality here, but the concrete 
incarnate 
God we celebrate every Christmas!

My God! Our God! 
Chew on the God who offers His flesh for the world! 
This God who truly shows up in the flesh… 
in our flesh and blood reality
—flesh in the cradle, 
flesh at conflict with religious teachers, 
flesh on a Roman Cross, 
flesh, resurrected! 

 

This bread and cup, offered every Sunday! “Eat Gospel, Friend!”

One of the quirks of John’s Gospel is that there is no last supper, 
or at least no grand recitation of the words of institution
—instead we get that all here with Jesus’ feeding of the 5,000: “It is I; Do not be afraid.” 
“I am the bread of life” 
“Behold, true food and true drink!” 
“His words are Spirit and Life!”

All these things:
God’s saving works throughout history recited so that we remember, 
connecting and abiding, Communing with God, 
the Incarnate One, Jesus Christ, among us
—all of it we find at table. Thanks be to God!

 “Eat Gospel, Friend!” A+A