Thompson's Blog

Dancing With God

Psalm 30

 1 I will extol you, O LORD, for you have drawn me up, and did not let my foes rejoice over me.
2 O LORD my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me.
3 O LORD, you brought up my soul from Sheol, restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit. 4 Sing praises to the LORD, O you his faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name.
5 For his anger is but for a moment; his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning. 6 As for me, I said in my prosperity, “I shall never be moved.”
7 By your favor, O LORD, you had established me as a strong mountain; you hid your face; I was dismayed. 8 To you, O LORD, I cried, and to the LORD I made supplication:
9 “What profit is there in my death, if I go down to the Pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness? 10 Hear, O LORD, and be gracious to me! O LORD, be my helper!”
11 You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
12 so that my soul may praise you and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks to you forever.

This isn’t something I like to make a big deal about, but I’m gifted in an unusual way. It’s not one of the gifts of the spirit that Paul lists, and it’s not something that comes over me very often, but I am a remarkable dancer. I’m not a particularly good dancer, but people often make remarks about my style of dancing. What I lack in grace I make up with enthusiasm, and it makes people feel good to see me dance. At least that’s how I choose to interpret the pointing and laughter.

You’ve got to understand that I became a teenager in 1970 which is probably when dancing had become totally disconnected from anything resembling form. It was an exercise in doing whatever seemed vaguely responsive to the rhythm of the music. This is not to say there weren’t some amazing dancers in the day, but I wasn’t one of those people. Darkness was the friend of people like me at the dances I attended throughout my teenage years. So it wasn’t until I became an adult that I discovered what a remarkable dancer I could be.

I think my kids were teenagers when I first demonstrated my capacity to bust a move, and I found that it made quite an impression on them.  But that was only the beginning of my rebirth as a dancer. When our daughter Liza, graduated from college they had a dance one evening as part of the festivities, and that was the night I fully embraced the dancing man that I was born to be. I think I made quite an impression on many of Liza’s friends. Over the course of that graduation weekend many of them told me they remembered me from the Friday night dance.

OK – it’s more of a capacity to be ridiculous than an ability to dance, but the truth is that it feels like a gift when I’m in a situation where I feel free to be ridiculous. That is not a state of mind that I can create for myself. It truly is a gift to feel such joy that you don’t even mind looking like you are out of your mind. This is not how I feel most of the time. I may often appear to be out of my mind, but I’m generally all wound up about something that doesn’t feel like joy. Life is hard, and I don’t always feel like dancing. Neither did the author of this prayer that comes to us from so long ago.

I love the way the ups and downs of life are expressed in this morning’s Psalm. The person who wrote this prayer was in touch with the same world that we abide. This Psalm came from a person who knew of the highs and the lows of life and who turned to God at all times. This Psalmist knew what it was to feel so sick that death seemed closer than life. This Psalmist knew people who would gloat over his demise. And this Psalmist knew how it felt to be rescued from the depth of despair.

This was a person who knew the bitterness of trouble, the sweetness of deliverance, and the joy of living in relationship with God. This person knew to cry-out to God in times of trouble and to give thanks when times were good. I love the message of this Psalm. I think it contains sentiments to which we can all relate, and it serves as a good reminder for us to seek to be in connection with God regardless of what’s going on in our lives.

The Psalms aren’t easily accessible to us. These ancient prayers come from people who had radically different lifestyles and practices than we have, but the emotions and the questions they ask aren’t foreign to us. And the Psalms are expressions of people who were trying to understand the place of God in their lives. They were trying to be faithful to God in good times and in bad situations. Many of the Psalms are attributed to King David and it’s likely that he had a hand in creating some of our Psalms, but I don’t think it’s helpful or accurate to think that they all came from him. The more likely situation is that they were generated by different people over different centuries. The Psalms reflect the prayers of people who had lived through a wide range of situations and experiences. The Psalms are the prayers of our spiritual ancestors, and they can help guide our souls through the circumstances of our time and place.

I dare say that the person who penned Psalm 30 was in a good place at the time he or she wrote this Psalm – there’s an overriding tone of gratitude for where they were. This person was wearing the clothing of joy, but the memory of despair was fresh. And it may be that we are most likely to experience the lightness of joy when we have been in touch with the heaviness of despair.

I’ve found that I am most likely to be diligent in the exercise of prayer when I am most conscious of a troubling situation. I’m not pleased with myself about that, but I think it’s true, and I’m probably not alone in that way. I’ve also found that when I’m in touch with trouble I am most comforted by the exercise of prayer. When things are not going well it’s not a chore to pray – it’s a source of relief. When trouble is near the most comforting thing I know to do is to make an effort to be with God. It’s a way of taking a break from trying to fix whatever it is that has gone wrong, and of handing the trouble to God.

I don’t think it’s bad to think of prayer as being a type of dance move with God. And I think this Psalm invites us to think of God as being our primary dance partner as we move through life. While praying requires us to make an effort to be quiet and to listen, I don’t think we should think of prayer as being non-active. I think prayer is an exercise. It’s the exercise of making ourselves totally available to God and it needs to be done with willingness to be whirled in whatever direction God wants to send us. Prayer is an exercise in allowing God to take the lead in our lives. And it’s an exercise in trying to be sensitive to the way God would have us move.

Sharla and I actually took some dance lessons last year. We were trying to learn the basic steps of swing dancing, but it wasn’t easy for a natural born dancer like myself to learn an actual form of dancing. I made an effort to do as I was taught, and what I really found challenging was the need for me to lead the dance. The key to graceful dancing is for one person to provide the right signals for movement and for the other person need to know how to respond. It’s not a memorized pattern as much as it’s a series of movements that you put together in different ways.

I like to think this is how it works in this dance we are in with God. God knows what’s going on with us. God nudges us in certain ways, and if we are sensitive to those nudges we have an idea of what steps we are to take. Living in such a relationship with God is a form of a dance, but it’s not all fun and games.

You wouldn’t think that it would be dangerous to pray the Psalms, but this was not the case for Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I’m guessing many of you are familiar with the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was a Lutheran pastor in Nazi Germany. Bonhoeffer published a meditation on the Book of Psalms in 1940, and because of what he said in that book he was banned from publishing anything else, and he was forbidden to meet with anyone other than his family in Berlin. Bonhoeffer saw the Book of Psalms as the prayerbook of Jesus, and he considered it to be the truest guide for prayer that is available for those who seek to live and to pray as followers of Jesus Christ. The real danger of the Book of Psalms is the way in which it directs the heart of the reader to the source of true authority in life. And following that authority eventually cost Bonhoeffer his life.

That idea didn’t fit with Nazi ideology, and it can be a challenging concept for all of us. It doesn’t seem like it would be dangerous to pray the Psalms, but it is. There’s no telling what we may find ourselves called to do if we allow God to be the one true authority in our lives.

This morning’s Psalm invites us to live in relationship with God regardless of what’s going on in our lives, and it’s an acknowledgement that there are times in our lives that we are in need of being corrected by God. It’s terrible to feel chastened by God, but as the Psalmist says, God’s anger only lasts for a moment while God’s favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.

This Psalmist recognized that it’s easy to become too comfortable in life, and during such times there’s a form of insensitivity that we can develop toward God. Our lack of attention to God often feels like a lack of attention from God. The Psalmist speaks of God’s face being hidden, and this is what it feels like when we attain a bit too much comfort in life and when we become insensitive to the trials of others.

But it’s rare for any of us to live in sweet oblivion for long. Trouble comes, and while trouble is never welcome it’s probably when we are having the hardest times that we become the most creative in our efforts to reach God. We can see how this Psalmist engaged in a form of bargaining with God. He boldly asks: What profit is there in my death? Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness? I don’t know if God was persuaded by the argument, but he came through the crisis, and this moaning man was turned in to a dancing man.

To engage with God is to enter in to a relationship that’s very much like a dance. Occasionally it may look and feel like a polite waltz. Sometimes we interact with God in a manner that’s as quick and orderly as a square dance, and sometimes we strike out on our own and gyrate in ways that probably leaves God wondering what has gotten in to us, but hopefully there are times when we are moving with God in a way that feels like a passionate salsa dance.

I believe we are all natural born dance partners of God, but we’ve also got a great dance instructor. Jesus Christ is the one who truly understood how to dance with God. There were these people who didn’t like the way Jesus danced, and they tried to shut the dance down, but the dance began again on that first Easter morning, and the dancing hasn’t stopped!

Our relationship with God isn’t perfectly described as a dance, but when we live in relationship with God I don’t believe it’s possible for our souls to sit still. It’s not always pretty when we try to get our bodies to show what’s going on with our souls, but I believe God always appreciates the feeble and fumbling ways we try to express the joy that is in our hearts when we feel the saving grace that comes to us from heaven.

Thanks be to God!

Amen.

Sacred Space

John 20:19-31

19 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” 24 But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” 26 A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” 28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” 30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 31 But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

I can’t read this passage of scripture without being reminded of my first experience of going before the Conference Board of Ordained Ministry in hope of being found fit for ordination. There were five of us huddled in a small room in the old Madkin Building at Camp Aldersgate, and while we weren’t experiencing fear of the Jews – we were experiencing fear of the Christians. We were being called out one by one to go before the Board of Ordained Ministry – an austere assembly of United Methodist Elders who would do some final questioning of our fitness for ministry and then they would vote on us. It was a terribly intimidating situation.

The first guy they called out never returned. We didn’t know what came of him. The second guy returned while they were voting on him, and he gave us just enough of a report of what they had asked him to raise our already spiking anxiety levels. At this point one guy pulled out his wallet and started showing us pictures of his family. My friend pointed out that this is something you would do if you were waiting to be executed. It was as if he was saying, These are the people who will miss me when I’m gone.

I don’t know how the process of reviewing people for ordination should be done, and I know it doesn’t need to be an easy process, but what I experienced was actually harrowing. When the guy came to call me before the board he actually made the joke of saying that it was time for fresh meat, and it was probably more prophetic than he intended because I actually got chewed up and spit out. They didn’t like the way I had answered some of the questions, and they voted not to ordain me that year.

There may have been other issues that played into their decision not to proceed with my ordination, and they did encourage me to come back the next year, but it was a profound encounter with religious authority. That initial rejection actually made my friends and family feel worse than it felt to me. I was enough of a non-conformist to feel a little proud of being officially rejected by church officials, but I also value the approval of other people, and I knew it was something I would manage to obtain. I came to understand what they needed to hear from me, and two years later I was authorized to be ordained. That’s when I became a frightening church official.

Getting ordained wasn’t an easy process for me, and I’m a little proud of myself for acquiring that credential, but this business of being an official Christian leader is fraught with dangers. It’s not that I feel threatened by hateful people who don’t want the love of God as it was revealed by Jesus Christ to be set loose in the world. There are places in the world where it is actually dangerous to be a follower of Jesus Christ, but that’s not the case with me.

I’m frightened by the thought of becoming the type of religious person that the followers of Jesus were hiding from. John says the disciples were hiding from the Jews, but Judaism wasn’t the problem, the problem was that the Jewish authorities were threatened by the truth that their fellow Jew revealed to the world. And we official Christians can be equally threatened by that truth. Wearing the label of an official follower of Jesus Christ isn’t physically dangerous, but it is an endlessly challenging undertaking that provides daily opportunities for failure.

I proclaim Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, and if I’m not careful I’ll begin to think that I’m succeeding! Identifying yourself as a Christian is dangerous business. If you aren’t careful you’ll think you are one.

The Gospel of John raises interesting issues for us. It’s a book that clearly offers this invitation to follow Jesus and to be empowered by Jesus to find true and abundant life. But it also identifies the possibility of not getting it – of being like the enemies of Christ who simply couldn’t accept who Jesus was and what he did. And as I say, I don’t think it was a problem that was unique to the Jews – Jesus was a Jew and many of the people who followed him and loved him were Jews. The problem was and is that we can let our own thoughts, aspirations, and agendas get in the way of what Jesus actually offers.

Jesus empowered his disciples to let go of their fear and to go about the work of spreading the good news of God’s eternal loving presence by breathing on them and filling them with the Holy Spirit.

You know, when people breathe on us we go running for antibiotics. Actually we don’t let people breathe on us – and I’m talking about myself. I don’t like to experience other people’s breath. You don’t have to worry about this with most people, we Americans know how to keep our distance from each other.

At least most people do. I like to have coffee with this group of men who meet on Wednesday mornings at Hardees. It’s an interesting gathering – I’ve told people I should get Continuing Education Credit for that experience. But it’s also a group you have to be careful around. One day I made the mistake of getting up and leaving my cinnamon biscuit unattended. When I came back John Minor was taking a bite of it. They all got a kick out of that, and he gave it back to me when I sat down, but I wouldn’t eat it. I told them I was afraid I would catch whatever it is that he has. He thought I was talking about his throat condition, but I was afraid of catching whatever it is that moves him to do such crazy things!

Actually, I’m totally entertained by John Minor and the interesting way he goes about life. And it wasn’t just because it was John who had touched my biscuit. I really am a bit of a germaphobe. I’m careful to not get exposed to the germs of other people, but I’m thinking we need to try to catch this thing that Jesus had.

Jesus breathed on his disciples and they caught the Holy Spirit.

Thomas said he wouldn’t believe unless he could see the wounds, put his finger in the nail-holes of Jesus’ hands and his hand into the wound on his side, and that doesn’t sound like something many of us would be saying – not without access to disposable gloves and lots of hand-sanitizer. I’m not saying we’re foolish for being germ-conscious, but I think we are probably much more careful than we are anything else.

Following Jesus is a risky community experience, and if it’s done properly we end up getting closer to people than our natural sensibilities generally allow. Jesus didn’t just want his disciples to stay safe, he wanted us to be empowered by the Holy Spirit to continue his dangerous and messy work. He didn’t give us false hope about what might happen to us, but he did give us the means to experience peace in the midst of frightening circumstances.

I don’t think this means we need to go looking for trouble, but I do believe it is a call to be involved in the lives of other people. It’s a call to be engaged in this world – as opposed to just maintaining some kind of proper set of beliefs from a safe distance.

This story of Thomas having doubt about the risen Christ seems to be an opportunity for the reality of Jesus’ resurrection to be told once again. And the message is that it is more of a blessing to trust in the resurrection of Jesus without physical proof, but it seems to me that Thomas was blessed for wanting such a graphic experience with Jesus. We aren’t to need proof, but it’s not such a terrible thing to want to have a close encounter with the risen Christ. We’re told not to be doubting Thomas’, but the truth is that Thomas benefitted from being honest about his perspective. Jesus isn’t threatened by people who have suspicious minds. I dare say Jesus is more troubled by people who don’t want to get their hands dirty.

We’re gathered here on the first day of the week, but we’re not behind locked doors. We aren’t threatened by our association with Jesus, but we need to be careful so that we don’t become threatening to the message of Christ. We need to be careful to actually maintain our relationship with the living presence of Jesus Christ – we need to stay close enough to him to catch what he’s got. The point of Jesus standing in the midst of his disciples, showing his wounds, breathing on them, and commissioning them to offer forgiveness and judgment is an indication of how important it is for us to be involved in the lives of other people.

This isn’t an invitation to be busy-bodies who try to insert ourselves in to other people’s business, but Christianity is a corporate experience – it’s not just an exercise of the mind. None of us have a perfect understanding of Christ or the single-handed ability to do the work of Christ. We are stronger together than we are alone. We have more access to the truth when we share our thoughts together than when we act on our own.

Our challenge and our opportunity is to find the right way to be in each other’s space. We need to be in touch with other people in helpful ways, and by so doing I think we remain close to Jesus himself. When we are close enough to others to feel their pain and to share their burdens we are in sacred space, and I believe Jesus is there with us.

The danger for us is not to share the skepticism of Thomas, but to live without passion for the calling and commission we’ve been presented. This is a world in need of fully engaged disciples who don’t live in fear of bad breath, wounded bodies, or religious authorities of any kind. Our work is hard, but our calling is high, and if we are infected by the power of the Holy Spirit there really isn’t any other germ that we should be afraid of catching.

It’s not the approval of any religious body that authorizes anyone to engage in the holy work of following Jesus Christ and spreading the good news of his living presence – such work is only authorized by the holy breath of Jesus Christ himself. And thanks be to God Jesus is still breathing on people! Jesus continues to infect and empower us. It is still possible for us to find ourselves in that sacred space where we are able to catch what he had and to share it with others.

Thanks be to God!

Amen.

Waking Up to Easter

John 20:1-18

20:1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. 4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples returned to their homes. 11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12 and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'” 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

The thing I love most about the way Easter morning is described in John’s gospel is the role of Mary Magdalene. She isn’t exactly the hero of this story. God is the hero, but Mary is the one who is first to understand what God had done, and in that sense she became the first evangelist. According to John, Mary is instructed by Jesus to go tell the good news of his resurrection. I may not be reading this right, but it looks to me like Mary is not only the first female preacher – she was the first preacher ever.

The way that John tells the story of the resurrection (and he tells it very carefully) is that Mary is the one who got the story straight and told it. Peter and this other disciple, whom Jesus loved, had the same opportunity that she had, but they didn’t stick around long enough to fully understand what had happened. This story fits in a long line of stories where God uses the person who is least regarded to do the most significant work. We’ve got all kinds of good news to celebrate this morning. Not only can God redeem the most tragic of circumstances, but God can use anyone in the process – maybe even well regarded men who work in the professional religion business – I hope that’s a possibility.

I’m always struck by the details that John includes when he tells the stories of Jesus. The stories he tells about Jesus include the kinds of details you would find if you were writing stage notes for a play. John describes how the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first, but then he only looked inside. Peter was the first to go in the tomb, and other disciple followed him. They found the linen cloths neatly set aside, and we’re told that the other disciple believed, but we don’t know what he believed because John then says they didn’t understand, and then we’re told they both went home.

Men are often accused of being unwilling to ask for directions, and I think this is an early case of that tendency. They didn’t know what was going on, but that didn’t stop them from making a decision about where they needed to go. I really don’t know what to make of this, but there’s a clear lesson here. If you’re the first person to enter the empty tomb of the recently crucified messiah — don’t go home before the angel’s appear. They really missed an opportunity. That would be a hard thing to get over.

But Mary did it right. She knew she didn’t know what was going on, and she stuck around until it all became clear. She didn’t stick around because she knew something good had happened. She suspected foul play. She addressed the angels as if they were common laborers, and she mistook Jesus for a gardener. She was feeling like the empty tomb was nothing but insult to injury, and her lack of recognition of what was going on was probably due to her inability to stop crying. Both the angels and Jesus asked her why she was weeping, and nothing penetrated her grief until Jesus said her name.

It’s not surprising that the sound of her name would get her attention. Hearing our name spoken always gets our attention. It can be frightening to hear your name when it’s spoken by someone with the power to do you harm, but it’s always a good thing to hear your name spoken in a loving manner. There’s probably nothing more comforting than to hear our named called by a cherished soul, and in this case it was absolutely transforming. Mary went from trodding through abject sorrow to bounding off in joy to tell others what had happened, and the turnaround came about through the sound of hearing Jesus call her name.

The concept of Jesus rising from the dead is a hard thing for me to get my mind around. John provides us with a lot of details about that first Easter, but it doesn’t answer every question. Some of us modern-minded people would like to know a few more details about how this came about, but I think John provided all the details we need. I think the invitation is to embrace the broad concept of what God did in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Easter morning isn’t about a mysterious biochemical process.  Easter is about the profound way God comes to us in our darkest hours and pulls us back to life from the brink of death. What Mary and Peter and the other disciples experienced was the miracle of having their absolute despair about the death of the one who promised life transformed into the celebration of reunion. I don’t know exactly what they experienced, but I know what they came to understand. They witnessed his crucifixion, and three days later they were back in touch with his living presence. It’s hard to explain, but they were certain of what they had experienced. Their despair had been reversed. The pain of death was replaced by the joy of Christ’s miraculous presence.

I’ve never been in a situation as devastating as that which Mary and the disciples found themselves. I’ve lived a relatively comfortable and sheltered life, and I’ve generally been able to obtain the things I’ve felt like I needed. Consequently, when I don’t get what I want I have a tendency to react badly. It kills me to not get what I want.

Such was the case several years ago when a position came open that I desperately wanted. This was a position I felt well qualified to handle and I was in a situation I was more than willing to leave. I also felt like I had good connections to the place, and I pulled every string within reach. I felt like a strong candidate, but at some point I came to realize I didn’t have a foot in the door. It struck me as a rigged deal on some level, and I was pretty upset about the situation.

As I say, I like to get what I want, and to not get what I felt perfectly suited to have left me feeling really angry and resentful. My wrath was directed toward one person in particular which wasn’t a particularly rational thing because that person probably had very little to do with the decision, but I held him responsible on some level, and I was having a hard time letting it go. It kept me upset for weeks, and I didn’t know what to do to get over it, but one night a remarkable thing happened to me.

And this is probably the kind of thing you should only share with a therapist, but now that I’ve got your attention I’ll tell you about a dream I had that actually enabled me get over that whole situation. I had this dream in which I murdered the person I was so angry with in a remarkably slow and brutal manner. And I know that sounds terrible, but when I woke up I just had to laugh about what I had done in my dream, and I was over it. It was a truly remarkable thing that I experienced. It was an ugly dream. I didn’t behave well in my dream, but it enabled me to let go of my hard feelings. Maybe I was about over it anyway, but on some level it felt like my life had been restored in a somewhat miraculous manner. That strange dream served to wake me up and to help me gain some new perspective.

I actually came to be very grateful that things didn’t work out in the way I had desperately tried to make it happen. As Garth Brooks would say, I thank God for that unanswered prayer. And while I’m not convinced God orchestrates all of the ups and downs of our lives, I do believe that God works at enabling us to discover new life when we feel like life is over. It’s not easy for us to hear this message. We are easily distracted by the trials and troubles that surround us. You might even say we live much of our lives in a state of semi-consciousness – numbed by the harsh realities that make us want to shut down our senses and to remain stuck in the death-fearing view we have of life.

The power of death certainly hasn’t been eliminated from this world. In fact it’s the most obvious form of power we ever see. The terrible power of death has been on full display recently with the recent bombings, and the primary story we hear is of the ever-increasing tensions that are being ramped up in the world. Death is doled out regularly in new and terrifying ways, but the message of Jesus is that the forces of hatred and death will never prevail.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ was real, but it didn’t happen immediately. The disciples were in genuine despair for a period of time, and the truth of God’s ability to restore hope in the midst of despair wasn’t obvious to everyone all at once, but this truth didn’t remain hidden for long. The crucifixion of Jesus was intended to be a painfully real display of ultimate power of death, but it failed to deliver. Death can only do so much damage before the life-restoring power of God becomes miraculously real.

It’s hard for any of us to imagine how God is going to redeem the terrible tragedies that we see happening on every level of life. Whether it’s on the scale of geopolitical conflict or the trials of personal disappointment we are all touched by the cold hand of death-dealing forces. None of us are immune from the sting of deathly power, but none of us are out of reach of the same life-giving message that Mary received and went on to deliver. Mary heard her name spoken by the living Lord of life, and she was told to spread the news.

Mary discovered that Jesus was alive and speaking and on his way to be with his God and our God – the God who has decided that death will not prevail in this world.

The message of Easter is that there is no situation that cannot be redeemed. Just as Mary was overwhelmed by the tragedy of her day until she heard the voice of Christ call her name, we can all spend a lot of time in the nightmarish world of hatred, pain, and death, but that isn’t where God wants us to remain. We may not hear Jesus call our names as quickly as we would like, but I trust he is trying to wake us all up to the reality of life. Jesus is calling for us to wake up and see that we are loved, we are forgiven, and we have the opportunity to find new life in the midst of this old world.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

What the Stones Would Say

Luke 19:28-40

28 After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29 When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, 30 saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.'” 32 So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. 33 As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” 34 They said, “The Lord needs it.” 35 Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. 36 As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. 37 As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, 38 saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” 39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” 40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

Palm Sunday is one of the most complex celebrations of the Christian year. On one hand it’s the Sunday we remember and commemorate the huge outpouring of love and support that Jesus received when he entered Jerusalem for the annual Passover feast. That was the holiest and most well attended of all the Jewish feasts, and Jesus was truly welcomed in to town as their king who came in the name of the Lord. It was a glorious welcome with people laying their garments on the ground for his donkey to walk on.

But the royal welcome didn’t last very long. The crowd that welcomed Jesus in to Jerusalem turned out to be very fickle. Within a few days, some of the same people who were filled with passionate support for Jesus turned in to infuriated accusers – others just went away silently. Things got ugly quickly, and that’s what makes the memory of this day so complex. The glorious welcome that Jesus received turns out to have been pretty hollow. The procession in to Jerusalem was great, but true faith was lacking. The grand entry serves as more of an indictment of the people than a testament to their love for Jesus.

But Jesus didn’t let the lack of understanding on the part of the people who were welcoming him in to town dampen his willingness to be so well received. While the Pharisees were largely unnerved by the show of support for him, Jesus had no desire to try to quieten the crowd. He was clearly conscious of how such a procession was going to be viewed by the Roman Governor, but he wasn’t guided by the concerns of the governor or the expectations of the people. Jesus had come to Jerusalem to carry out the work of God, and as Jesus told the Pharisees, if the people were silent, the stones would shout out.

I would never describe anyone as being, dumb as a rock, but I’ve known of others to utilize that ungenerous phrase to describe someone. Jesus might well have been familiar with such a phrase, and he might well have foreseen the behavior of the people to be so dull-minded, but he indicated the people were being as sharp as the stones by welcoming him in to Jerusalem in the way he did. Even though they didn’t really know what they were doing they were following divine protocol. God didn’t have to raise up the stones to cry out in response to his entry – the people came through for a moment. The occasion called for an enthusiastic welcome and the people provided it!

Crowds are funny things. Sometimes they serve to express the truth in profound ways. It’s moving to see a mass of people show up for a righteous cause. A mass of people can make a profound statement in a way that an individual voice simply can’t convey. Sometimes people do show up in powerful numbers for the right reasons. There are those occasions where the stones would know to cry out if the people didn’t, and it’s a beautiful thing when the people come through.

But sometimes crowds can become ugly things. Crowds can serve to hide the cowardice of individuals, and they can empower people to do things that individuals would never do on their own. As surely as there’s nothing more inspiring than a crowd that’s moved to do the right thing, there’s nothing more frightening than a crowd on an evil mission, and there was an element of both of these realities during the final week of Jesus’ life. One crowd stood up for Jesus in a bold way, and the other crowd was totally willing to give him up for what seemed like a better deal.

I can’t help but to take note of the crowd mentalities we are witnessing these days, and I think we are seeing both the best and the worst of mass movements. The current presidential primaries have generated more interest than anything I’ve witnessed in my forty-years of voting, and the heightened political passions of the day have moved people to do both good and bad things. Some people have gotten interested in political discourse for the first time in their lives, and other people have been moved to behave really badly. There is a lot of interest in the fate of our nation, and as I said last week, I believe we have this in common with the people of Israel during the time that Jesus entered Jerusalem.

Jesus didn’t ride in to Jerusalem wearing a hat that said, Making Israel Great Again, but you can bet that this is what many of the people who were cheering him on were expecting him to do. I heard a political commentator raise an interesting rhetorical question the other day. He wondered what will happen if Donald Trump gets elected and the nation doesn’t grow weary of winning – which is what he has suggested might happen if he becomes the president.

Because we people do like to win, and it doesn’t matter who your candidate is. We all want our chosen candidate to win because we think they have the best ideas for how we can succeed as a nation. We voters want a leader who is going to make us secure and prosperous. There are a lot of different strategies about how that will happen, but I’m thinking we are all pretty similar in what we want – we want to win.

I was reminded of how much I like to win as I was watching that game between UALR and Purdue the other day. I’m not an avid UALR fan, but I spent 13 years on that campus, and I was so happy they made it in to the NCAA tournament. I was amazed when they were able to catch up and send the game in to over-time, and by the end of the second overtime I was screaming at the television. It’s easy to get excited about winning.

It was easy for the people of Israel to think that Jesus was going to win this struggle with the Romans. The things Jesus had been doing on his journey to Jerusalem had become widely known, and people were ready to start winning again. There was a lot of enthusiasm for Jesus, but there wasn’t so much understanding of him.

I’ll never forget something that happened at an anti-nuclear power rally I attended in Fayetteville in the late 1970s. Now that we see what fossil fuels are doing to our environment my opposition to nuclear power has softened, but in the wake of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant scare I jumped on the bandwagon of opposition to nuclear power.

So there was a somewhat enthusiastic crowd assembled one day to question the wisdom of using nuclear power to generate electricity, and one of the speakers at that gathering was a popular physics professor named Dr. Art Hobson. He was a critic of nuclear power plants, and he gave a well-reasoned and well-received speech on what was wrong with the technology. I was enjoying the feeling of standing among what felt like the most enlightened and forward thinking people of the day until someone from the crowd shouted Why don’t we just use electric power instead of nuclear power!!?

Sometimes people’s enthusiasm extends beyond their understanding. And this certainly seems to have been the case when Jesus entered Jerusalem.

Jesus knew what was going on but he went along with it anyway. He knew that many of the people who were whooping it up and laying their clothes on the ground before him had no idea what he was up to. The hoopla that surrounded his entry into Jerusalem may very well have been very humiliating to Jesus because he knew how fickle enthusiasm can be — but he didn’t spoil the party. He didn’t even try to make sure everyone had the perfect understanding of what was going on. He played along – knowing that the widespread support he was receiving was about as deep as the layer of clothing that his donkey was walking upon.

He wasn’t dealing with people who held deep spiritual understanding of what he was about. He was dealing with people who had deep animosity toward the Romans, deep needs for economic opportunity, deep desire for Jewish autonomy, and deep needs for personal healing and transformation. Many of them had deep passion for Jesus, but it wasn’t very clear to any of them how he intended to redeem the world and save our souls.

They had deep desire for Jesus to address their deep needs, but they didn’t like the way he chose to go. It’s hard for any of us to believe that we can experience victory without the use of conventional and overwhelming power. We’re inclined to think the only way to win is to destroy our enemies and establish ourselves in positions of power, but Jesus knew otherwise.

And according to Jesus the stones knew what he was doing. Stones have never been known to actually rise up and speak the truth, but I think Jesus was pointing to the stones as the representatives of deep truth. Stones aren’t fickle. They aren’t hard and unmovable one day and powdery soft the next. Stones are stable and dependable. As are the ways of God and the words of truth.

The kingdom of God is far more substantial than any nation that has ever existed or will ever exist, but it isn’t as easily identified or accessed. The people of Israel thought they could establish a nation that would fully represent God’s presence on earth and they expected Jesus to be the king of that nation, but Jesus knew that could never be done. Jesus was a king, and he showed us the path to life in God’s kingdom, but it’s not a path that’s easy to follow. It doesn’t look like the path to victory, but what he showed us is that the way to win life in the kingdom of God is to allow love to be our only guide.

Palm Sunday is a day full of contradiction. I wonder whether we should use this day to mourn or to celebrate, but I know what Jesus would have us do. Jesus has brought us a beautiful gift, and we need to acknowledge it. Jesus came that we might live, and that’s about all we need to know. We need to embrace the wisdom of the stones and get happy about the substantial gift that we have been given. Jesus came that we might live, and by the grace of God we’ll learn to put the proper amount of trust in the voices of fickle politicians, and our whole trust in the life of the one who knew the path to true life.

We are invited to join with the stones, and to praise God for the great gift that came to us in the life of Jesus Christ. The one who perfectly showed us how to win true life.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Nard Times
John 12:1-8

1 Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 2 There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. 3 Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, 5 “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” 6 (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) 7 Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. 8 You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

I don’t guess dinner was ever ordinary when Jesus was on hand, but this dinner party was particularly poised for drama. We don’t know everyone that was there. It implies that there were several people on hand, but we know that it included Lazarus – who had recently been called back from the dead and out of the tomb by Jesus. And there was Judas – the disciple who was involved in the plot to send Jesus to his death. Martha was there to serve the dinner. And Mary was on hand to do the thing she seemed to understand better than anyone else – which was how to respond to Jesus in the most appropriate way possible.

Mary came forward with a pound of nard. Now I’ve never had any personal experience with nard, but those who have done the math on this would estimate that the value of that amount of nard was about a year’s worth of a laborer’s wage. If you think of that in our terms it would come to about $18,000.

Mary’s sister, Martha, was known for speaking her mind, and I think it’s worth noting that it wasn’t Martha who gave Mary a hard time for this unfathomably extravagant act. Along with her sister, Martha had come to understand the priceless value of the presence of Jesus. Jesus had brought her brother back to life, and she didn’t care how much nard her sister poured on Jesus’ feet. Martha got it. The presence of Jesus was worth everything. Mary and Martha both got it, but Judas didn’t.

Judas didn’t spare his thoughts about what Mary did, and he wasn’t happy about what she had chosen to do. According to John, Judas was disingenuous about his expressed concern for the way this valuable resource had been used. And this exchange highlights the extreme difference between the response of someone who loved Jesus and a person who was selfish and self-deceived.

Of course the last word came from Jesus, who identified what Mary had done as an act of great insight and devotion. But Jesus didn’t scold Judas as harshly as he could have. He didn’t expose Judas as the greedy traitor he would soon expose himself to be. He rather simply pointed out to him that he would have plenty of time to serve poor people after he was gone.

And he would be gone soon. According to this Gospel writer, the act of raising Lazarus from the dead was the last straw. The raising of Lazarus from death is what moved the chief priests and the Pharisees to plot his death. It’s not so easy for us to understand why this was such a scandal, but I think we do understand the way some people can become more attached to the way they want the world to operate than they are to the truth. The chief priests and the Pharisees and Judas chose to kill the very own Son of God because they didn’t want to hear what he had to say about the Kingdom of God. They were more interested in maintaining their own little kingdoms than in understanding what it meant to abide in God’s kingdom.

When these religious authorities realized that Jesus had come to redefine how people understood and related to God they were more intimidated by the consequences of what he was saying than captivated by the new possibilities that his words revealed. They could see what this was going to do to their carefully managed arrangement with the Roman empire, and that was what they were most interested in preserving.

In spite of all that Jesus had done to reveal his oneness with God they refused to trust that God was at work in his life. They had more concern about their own little empires than they had love for God, and this prevented them from being transformed by his miraculous work. They didn’t want dead things to come to life – it would ruin their operation.

I probably shouldn’t wade in to the toxic political environment that we are currently experiencing, but it probably serves as a good example of how ugly power-struggles can be. I’ll spare you my opinions about how we have arrived at this unfortunate place, but I just think it’s worth noting how ruthless people can get when the stakes seem to be so high. Candidates will say or do almost anything to win. And there’s no limit to how much some people will give in order for their candidate to get in to office. It’s not a pretty picture.

And what we’re witnessing helps me understand what was going on during those days leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus. Powerful forces were coming up against each other. Some people were wanting to win at all costs. Some people were feeling like the world was spinning out of control. Somebody was going to die. The struggle was ugly, and Mary was moved to do something beautiful.

Has someone ever reached out to you with just the right thing at just the right time? Have you ever given a beautiful gift to someone who was ready to receive it? I’m guessing that none of us have ever had anyone rub $18,000 worth of nard on our feet. I doubt if any of us would list that as something we would one day hope to receive, but even small gestures can feel like such an outpouring of nard when they come to us at the right time and when they come with love. It’s not just the value of a gift that can make something so powerfully good – it’s the motivation, and the timing, and the context that blend together to turn our plain offerings in to invaluable quantities of nard.
One of the things that amazes me about what Mary did was her ability to not be drawn in and controlled by the expectations of the people who had gathered for that dinner. In some ways, what she did was absurd. Jesus certainly didn’t need that much nard to be poured on his road-worn feet, but in another way it made perfect sense. Mary wasn’t guided by the expectations of the people who were caught up in their own little agendas. Mary was living with nothing but sensitivity to the life of Jesus Christ, and it had become clear to her that Jesus probably wasn’t going to be coming back for dinner. There wasn’t any reason to withhold any nard.

But it takes effort to be a Mary in a world that rewards Judas’. Mary wasn’t particularly invested in the way things were going in Israel, but she wasn’t oblivious to the risk involved in being a true follower of Jesus Christ. Judas had clear words of condemnation for what she did, but she wasn’t distracted by the foolishness that surrounded her – she was focused on what was going on with the most important person in the room.

It may be that our biggest problem isn’t our unwillingness to be absurdly gracious in the most appropriate way. I like to think most of us are people who are more aligned with Mary and Martha than we are with Judas and the Pharisees. We aren’t advocates of agendas that are counter to the cause of Christ, but it’s pretty easy to be distracted from the most essential matters of our day.

My capacity to be oblivious to the most essential matter of the day became really clear to me several years ago when we took our daughter to college. Liza is our firstborn child, and she had decided to go to Colorado College in Colorado Springs, CO. We got her all loaded up and we drove out there. We had made arrangements to stay in a hotel the night before we moved her in to her dorm. I remember sitting in that room watching some mindless tv before we went to bed that night. I was treating the situation like any other night until Sharla pointed out that it was the last night of our current living arrangement.

I wouldn’t have been much more startled if Sharla had hit me in the back of the head with a board. I went from being perfectly happy watching an Andy Griffith rerun to being in inconsolable grief. On some level I already knew what was going on, but I had allowed myself to maintain a safe amount of unawareness of what was about to happen. My awakening was painful, but I was so glad Sharla said something. I hate to think how I would have felt if I had remained unconscious of the significance of that moment.

I’m thinking it’s pretty easy for a lot of us to maintain unawareness about essential matters and significant moments. It’s not always fun to live with a lot of consciousness about important developments within our families, among our neighbors, and in this world. The truth is that it’s easy remain blissfully distracted. I think it’s always been possible to remain ignorant of the most important matters of the day, but these days we have so many ways to keep ourselves blissfully unaware.

I must admit I love being able to dial up an episode of Seinfeld whenever I don’t want to think about what might be going on in the world, but the devil is probably thrilled with our perpetual access to mindless entertainment. Of course even the act of staying informed can be an exercise in confirming what you already want to believe about what’s going on in the world. It’s not easy to be a person who really knows what’s going on and who responds in the most appropriate way. It’s not easy to be a Mary in a world that’s manipulated by Judas’ – people who have no interest in the truth and who seek to twist the most beautiful acts of generous love into foolish and wasteful gestures.

It’s not easy to be aware in a world that encourages us to remain ignorant and compliant. And it’s hard not to accept the easy answers that self-serving leaders are known to provide.

I’m not saying I know the tough answers or who the authentic leaders of our day really are, but those of us who claim to follow Jesus have a responsibility to seek the truth. Mary knew what to do when Jesus came to dinner because she wasn’t duped by the pseudo-religious leaders of her day. She was sensitive to the truth, and she knew to give all she had to the one she knew she could trust.

We don’t get endless opportunities to get fully caught up in holy moments. In fact it’s a rare gift to be positioned to act in a way that will fully reveal your love for God, for truth, or even for a neighbor. Those occasions are rare, but they happen, and when they do – don’t skimp on the nard!

Thanks be to God.
Amen.

The Illogical Love of God
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

15:1 Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” 3 So he told them this parable: 11b “There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. 13 A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. 14 When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. 16 He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. 17 But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! 18 I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”‘ 20 So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. 21 Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 22 But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe–the best one–and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; 24 for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate. 25 “Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. 27 He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ 28 Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ 31 Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.'”

Of all the stories that Jesus told, this may be the story that is the most familiar to the most people. The funny thing about this is that Luke is the only one who included this story in his gospel. Why is this? It’s such a good story!

I’m pretty mystified by this. This is probably the most recognized story in all of the gospels, and you only find it in Luke. Could the other gospel writers not see the value of this story? Or was it too scandalous? Was this story simply too revealing of the unconditional nature of God’s love. Maybe they were afraid this story would give other young people bad ideas. It just might be that the other gospel writers felt that it would be irresponsible to include this story – the extent of God’s love was simply too graphic.

Unfortunately, this story utilizes some unfortunately familiar family dynamics to make a good point. Sibling rivalry, jealousy, and irresponsibility are familiar themes within families, and Jesus used these familiar dynamics to make a surprising and unsettling point.

I’ve got a friend who likes to say that a dysfunctional family is one that has more than one person in it. But this story takes dysfunction in a new direction, and by doing so it challenges the established understanding of how God’s family actually functioned. The father – who clearly represents God in this story, allowed love to be the guiding factor behind his actions, and that totally disrupted proper order.

This morning’s reading began by pointing out that the Pharisees and scribes were very suspicious of what Jesus was doing, and you might say Jesus told this story in order to confirm their suspicions. Jesus was very conscious of the way he was seen by people in positions of authority, so he responded to their concern with this story that totally challenged the value of proper behavior and replaced it with the value of love.

Jesus used familiar family dynamics to illustrate the extra-ordinary nature of God’s love. He told this story to break our stereotypical thinking about the nature of sin and the extent of God’s love. I think we’re looking at an age-old problem. There is this tendency to think that sin can be easily defined, and that love is earned. This parable challenges both of these assumptions.

I’m reminded of a situation I witnessed when I was helping at a homeless shelter in Durham, NC. I was in seminary at the time and I came to experience that homeless shelter as a form of lab for the class-work I was doing. It wasn’t that I was taking the fine Christian education I was learning in class and imparting my new wisdom on the soiled souls that were showing up each evening for a place to sleep. It’s more like I would take what I learned at the shelter and compare it to what I was supposed to be studying in class. I don’t think I was exposed to as much raw faith and theological discourse in class as I was with those guys who were living on the street.

I continue to see the love of God expressed in powerful ways by people who live in really difficult circumstances, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard the message of Jesus Christ explained as clearly as it was one night at that shelter in Durham.

There were eight or ten homeless men sitting around this small room waiting for the bedtime cheese sandwiches to arrive, and this one man who’s life had been ravaged by alcoholism began shaking his head and moaning about the state of his life. He was about to tell us the latest tragic twist of his life, and he prefaced it by saying, I know it says in the Bible that God helps those who help themselves…, but before he could say anything else he was cut-off by this other man who said, where does it say that in the Bible? The first man was unable to produce any chapters or verses – nor were any of the rest of us. And this second man went on to preach a wonderful sermon to the man who was moaning about his pattern of failure – with the point of the sermon being that if the Bible says anything consistently it is that God helps us when we aren’t capable of helping ourselves. He told that man that the love of Jesus Christ is available to us when we least deserve it.

I don’t know how that sermon played out in that desperate man’s life, but it had a powerful impact on me. I don’t think I had ever heard this truth delivered so clearly.

I don’t know — there may be something in Proverbs that indicates God is more responsive to people who behave responsibly, but that homeless preacher was right about the primary narrative of the Bible. The primary message that you find in the Bible is that God loves us in an illogical way. God doesn’t love us because we’ve done all the right things. God loves us regardless of how poorly we’ve managed the lives we’ve been given.

Unfortunately, most people think the false claim is true, that God helps those who do the right thing. I believe God does help us to do the right things, but God doesn’t withhold love until we do the right thing. It was that kind of gross misrepresentation of God that motivated Jesus to tell this story of the father who celebrated so extravagantly when his wayward son returned home.

It’s hard for us not to believe that God’s love is as conditional as human love generally is, and that’s why Jesus told this story of the father who had nothing but love for each of his sons – in spite of the errors of both their ways. And yes, this older son had some issues as well.

This parable doesn’t deny that there is such a thing as sinful behavior and that there are painful consequences to sin, but our godless behavior doesn’t disqualify us from being worthy of the love of God. In fact it is often our sins that enable us to experience the unconditional nature of God’s love.

I’m happy to say, and I’m sure you are happy to hear that the statute of limitations has run out on any crimes I may have inadvertently committed over the course of my life. And I like to think I don’t do anything that I wouldn’t want to have published in the newspaper, but when you are in the religion business it’s easy for your words or actions to be scrutinized by people who draw lines in different places, and I understand how it feels to be considered outside of proper religious behavior – which is a terrible feeling.

It’s terrible to feel judged by other people, and unfortunately this is what many people think the church does best. I don’t know if this is as true as it once was. The church isn’t as strong as it once was, and we church people don’t speak with as loud of a voice as we once had. Being in a position of strength often leads to the attitude that was harbored by the Pharisees and scribes, and Jesus found their behavior to be much more problematic than the behavior of the official sinners of his day. Maybe the decline of the power of the church is a good thing for our institutional soul.

I had the good fortune of being invited to an Alcoholics Anonymous Meeting when my friend was going to receive his one-year sobriety coin. It was the first time I had ever been to such a meeting, and I was inspired by the spirit of mutual support and love that I witnessed there. That room was populated by people who had made official messes of their lives. It was an official failure that had brought them together, and it was one of the most spiritually vibrant meetings I had ever experienced. That was a community that truly understood the nature of repentance and the value of unconditional love.

Repentance is not about groveling in sorrow. Repentance is about recognizing the need for change and taking steps to go in a new direction. Jesus often spoke of the need to repent, and he associated repentance with the ability to enter the Kingdom of God. People who no longer trust in their own righteousness are the people who are the most open to taking those powerful steps.

It was much easier for the people who were labeled as sinners to hear what Jesus was saying because they weren’t so invested in maintaining their own little empires. Those who considered themselves to be righteous reacted to Jesus like the older brother reacted to his father when his younger brother returned home after squandering his inheritance. I think we can all understand the righteous indignation that the older brother expressed, but I think his behavior reveals the problem that often afflicts people who live righteous lives. Being right isn’t as important as being loving. And I think Jesus told this story to illustrate this truth. It’s possible to be obedient without being filled with desire to do the right thing.

The younger son needed to change his ways, but so did the older brother. He needed to have a change in his heart, and I think it was harder for him to do that. This is the problem with people who don’t sin in official ways. They have a tendency to think that it’s just those other people who need to make changes in their lives.

Jesus told this story to show what it is that brings joy to God.

God celebrates when reconciliation occurs. The failure of the older son to enter into the homecoming festivity illustrates the fact that sometimes it is the most right-living people who have the hardest time pleasing God, but there’s good news here for the judgers as well.

In this story the father continued to love the older son also – in spite of his hesitancy to celebrate the return of his brother. God not only loves the bold sinners of the world. God loves the self-righteous sinners as well. God’s love is inescapable – it’s illogical. This is not to say that there’s no need to try to change anything about the way we are living, but it is to say — there’s hope for us all.

Thanks be to God!
Amen

To Be Continued
Luke 13:1-9

1 At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? 3 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. 4 Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them–do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.” 6 Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. 7 So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ 8 He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'”

I’m not a television junkie. The most important people in my life don’t live or work at Downton Abbey, but I do like a good television show. I have some anxiety about the upcoming finale of that epic series on Masterpiece Theater. There’s going to be a gap in my life when that show comes to an end, but with the help of my friends on NCIS, and the return of Scandal I’ll get over it.

For those of you actually have a life and don’t spend much time watching television, what you need to understand is that there are basically two different kinds of series. You’ve got shows like NCIS, which has the same main characters each week who are faced with new situations that have little to do with what happened the previous week. Now it helps to have seen the previous twelve seasons of the show so you know the complete backstory behind each character and you can pick up on the subtle comments their coworkers make to them about former spouses or unresolved cases, but it’s basically a new plot each week that they encounter and solve. Occasionally there will be an episode that is continued in to the next week or the following show, but most world-threatening situations get resolved within the hour.

But you also have these shows like Downton Abbey or Scandal, where you really need to know what went on over the past few years of these people’s lives. Otherwise you’ll never know what’s going on when they give each other these long gazes without any dialogue.

And I don’t know how anyone lives without a Digital Video Recorder anymore. I never watch shows when they’re actually being run. We record them and watch them at our convenience, and for me, it’s often a big decision. Do I want to watch a show like NCIS that will be neatly resolved at the end of the hour? Or do I want to see what will happen next for the long-suffering Lady Edith on Downton Abbey. And what will come of poor Barrow the Under-Butler?

Sometimes I’m in the mood to watch a show with some clean resolution. Sometimes I want to see the diabolical plots of cruel and greedy people get smashed by the creative thinking and brave acts of the good guys. But there are other times when I want to have my emotional strings plucked and tugged and left to wonder what will happen next. Downton Abbey doesn’t reflect real life as I know it, but it’s probably more realistic than an episode of NCIS. Occasionally situations get resolved in real life, but it always takes more than an hour, and there’s always something more that needs to be addressed.

Sometimes we get a little something behind us, but we usually have some residual issues that carry over from one day to the next. And if you are looking for a way to get away from this you don’t need to go looking for relief in the Bible. Anyone who ever went to Jesus in hope of getting an easy answer to life’s persistent problems didn’t get much satisfaction from Jesus. People who came to him with simple questions weren’t given easy answers – they generally departed with questions that were even more perplexing.

I hate to say it, but as Luke tells the story of Jesus, we are presented with a series of stories that are far more perplexing than resolving. The illustrations Jesus uses to respond to the situations the Galileans presented to him don’t provide easy solutions to the ongoing tensions of life. In fact, these stories may even serve to create more confusion than resolution. Because what these stories reveal is the way in which faith in God is often at odds with the simple solutions and understandings we often latch on to about the way God interacts with this world operates.

I’m not saying that there’s not some profoundly good news wrapped up in these illustrations and questions that Jesus provided, but if you are looking for easy answers and fairy-tale endings you need to close your Bible, turn on the television, and find an episode of NCIS.

This morning’s passage of scripture is another case where Jesus simply didn’t give people the reassurance they were looking for. It appears that these Galileans came to Jesus in hope of hearing him rail against those evil Romans. Apparently Pilate had sent soldiers in to the Temple and they had slaughtered some people from Galilee who were in the process of bringing their sacrifices to God. It sounds like a truly horrific event, and there was no doubt a lot of outrage within the Jewish community about that event. I’m guessing these Galileans expected Jesus to join them in ramping up their righteous anger against their Roman occupiers, but that’s not what he did.

He asked them if they thought that happened because they were worse sinners than most other people — which is what people generally believed when something bad happened to someone. Jesus didn’t join them in judging the action of Pilate, Jesus challenged them to reexamine their way of seeing the world.

The popular way of interpreting a bad situation was to think that people got what they deserved. If you’re familiar with the story of Job you’ll recall that his so-called friends kept trying to tell him that he had surely done something to bring about his terrible calamities. They were trying to make sense of what had happened to him, and the only thing that made sense to them was that he had offended God and he needed to repent from his evil ways.

Certainly there are occasions where people suffer the consequences of their own choices, but this is not always where suffering originates. And the result of this type of theology is often very devastating to people who are the most vulnerable. Anyone with any infirmity was tormented by their disease and stigmatized by the belief that their condition was the result of their sin.

But of course you make exceptions to this popular theology when a situation involves the action of a sworn enemy, so these righteous religious people weren’t blaming the victims for their own slaughter, they had an enemy to hate, and they must have been disappointed when Jesus refused to join them in their rage and reminded them of their usual way of interpreting tragedy. He asked them if they thought they were worse sinners than everyone else. And he answered his own question by saying they weren’t, but then he pointed out to his hearers that they needed to repent or suffer the same fate.

Clearly Jesus didn’t provide a clean resolution to that episode. And he brought up another current situation where some men were killed when a tower collapsed. He asked the same question about whether these people were killed because they were worse sinners than everyone else. And he once again answered his own question and said, “No”, they weren’t worse sinners than everyone else, but then he went on to suggest that his hearers were worse than those who had died and they would suffer the same consequence if they didn’t repent.

It’s some odd logic, but I think what Jesus was saying was that they needed to change their way of thinking and become less judgmental if they didn’t want to suffer from some harsh judgment.

And I would be interested in hearing from anyone who thinks there’s an obvious and indisputable lesson in this parable that Jesus told. You don’t have to stand up and give it to us now. In fact I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t explain it to me in public, but this parable generates more questions than it answers. It’s not exactly clear to me who is playing what role in this parable.

Is God the man who owned the vineyard, or is Jesus wanting us to think that the man who owned the vineyard represents the attitude of the people who are impatient for the messiah to turn things around in Israel. Maybe we are to see God in the role of the gardener, who continues to nurture the fig tree, and who desires for Israel to bear new fruit. There are a number of ways to look at this parable, but I there’s one nice detail at the end of the parable – life isn’t over. There’s still time to change and to grow.

Following Jesus presents us with an ongoing set of challenges. Like the Israelites who harbored bad concepts of how God functions in our world, we can hold fast to our own distortions of who God is and how God operates. It’s natural to have opinions about how God functions in our world. In fact if you have any interest in God you can’t help but to have such thoughts. It’s not bad to have strong beliefs about God, but you also have to know that God can’t be fully understood by any of us, and God never fits neatly in to the boxes we want God to occupy.

It’s not unusual or unheard-of to have moments of clarity about the presence of God in our lives and in our world, but the series isn’t over, and what you understand to be true today may become a bit more complex tomorrow. I think the best any of us can do is to be diligent in trying to nurture our relationship with the One who does know the truth about God, and who seeks to help us understand.

So if you want to see a problem solved in a clean way go find an NCIS rerun. But if you know that life isn’t made up of clear answers and obvious solutions you have the makings of a good disciple of Jesus Christ. The path is narrow that leads to abundant life. Jesus didn’t provide easy answers nor did he ask easy questions. It’s a challenge to get to know the living Christ.

And as the gardener indicates in today’s parable, the nurturing process can be a bit messy, but everything Jesus did was done with the desire to nourish our spiritual roots, and to lead us in to communion with the eternal truth and grace of our loving God.

I wish it were easier, but I’m primarily glad that this series hasn’t come to an end. So stay tuned in – the story is to be continued.

Thanks be to God.
Amen.

Barnyard Faith
Luke 13:31-35

31 At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” 32 He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. 33 Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’ 34 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 35 See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.'”

There have been moments in my life when I’ve been crossed up with other people, but I don’t think anyone has ever really wanted to kill me. I’ve never been engaged in warfare, so I’ve never faced an anonymous enemy that was out to kill me, nor have I ever had a personal enemy that sought to end my life. As far as I know, if anyone has actually wanted me dead they were kind enough to not let me know or to act on their feelings.

I know we’ve got some veterans in the church who have encountered hostile forces. Others of you may have actually encountered homicidal acquaintances as well. And people who’ve been in such situations can better understand what Jesus was experiencing at this point in his ministry. I’m sure this is an experience that sticks with you for a lifetime, and I’m guessing that’s a situation that would be hard to deal with as graciously as Jesus did.

Of course it isn’t just war, terrorism, or murder that that threaten people’s lives. Accidents and disease are threats that we all face, and I’m sure many of us have had brushes with situations that have felt life threatening. But I doubt that there have been many of us who have faced threats as personal as the one that Jesus was issued by Herod.

I can’t really imagine how it would feel to know that there was someone wanting to kill me. I’m not exactly sure how I would respond to the threat of murder, but I’m sure I would spend more time considering my options that Jesus did. Actually I would probably have spent less time thinking about my response. I’m sure I wouldn’t have referred to him as any kind of animal, and I likely would have told the Pharisees to thank Mr. Herod for the warning and to let him know I would seek to be much more considerate of his feelings. Maybe I wouldn’t have buckled under the pressure, but I know how intimidating it can be to face professional scrutiny. I’m guessing I would have been trying to find a way for everyone to get along.

There’s an unusual twist in this story as well. It’s a group of Pharisees that bring this warning to Jesus – which is not the role that we usually see the Pharisees playing in the gospels. We don’t know what motivated their expression of concern for Jesus’ wellbeing. We know that they would later be instrumental in plotting for his death, so it’s hard to say what was behind this warning, but it wasn’t information Jesus chose to act on. If anything, this warning served to fortify his resolve to continue his work and to press on to Jerusalem.

I don’t want to make too much of the fact that the Pharisees were the ones to show concern for Jesus, but on some level what this passage seems to identify is both the predictable lines of conflict that occur among people and the possibility of new relationships between former enemies.

There’s nothing surprising about the conflict between Jesus and Herod. Herod represented the politics of earthly power. Herod was the representative of Roman rule, and he had no tolerance for anyone who didn’t have absolute allegiance to the Emperor. If you think of the world as a barnyard, the Emperor was the bull – threatened by no one and capable of crushing anyone. And as Jesus pointed out, Herod was the fox. Not really that powerful in the grand scheme of things, but certainly capable of harassing and feeding upon smaller animals. Nothing surprising about Roman power dynamics, but when you consider the way in which the religious community interacted with the other animals in the barnyard it gets complicated.

Jesus made this reference to Jersusalem as the place that killed the prophets, but he also had this affection for it. He had this desire to gather it in as a hen gathers her chicks under her wing. There’s the bull, there’s the fox, there’s the hen, and there are chicks. How the animals interact in the barnyard is something for us to consider.

The Roman Emperor was perfectly predictable. Nothing but absolute allegiance was expected or tolerated. Herod was nothing but the local agent of the Emperor, and he had his own cadre of toadies who would carry out his proclamations. It was a system based on intimidation, and what we see is the way in which they sought to intimidate Jesus. Certainly the people of Israel were intimidated by the soldiers of Herod, and this caused the faith of Israel to become distorted in many ways, but it wasn’t just Herod who caused Israel to go astray. As Jesus pointed out, Jerusalem had been a place of religious distortion for a long time. It had a long history of exchanging the truth for lesser agendas. The leaders of Israel had often exchanged the fruit of the spirit for the treasures of this world.

Jesus expresses both sympathy and disgust for the city of Jerusalem. He had these feelings for Jerusalem that he compared to the feelings of a mother hen for her chicks, but he also knew of the ways in which Jerusalem was the sight of great travesty – it was a place with a history of rejecting Israel’s spiritual giants.

Jesus was told by the Pharisees to stop doing what he was doing, but Jesus wasn’t intimidated by what Herod could do to him. Jesus was empowered by the Holy Spirit, and while he had no illusion about what would happen when he got to Jerusalem, he knew that this course he was on would conclude with his death, but he had full confidence that his mission would be successful. He knew he would be killed, but he also knew that by doing what he was doing the dynamics of power would forever be changed.

This is a passage of scripture that reveals the nature of the power struggles that generally occur in this world. It reveals the fact that we often allow ourselves to be threatened by those who appear to have power, and we remain oblivious to the source of real power. Jesus wasn’t caught up the pettiness of unholy power struggles, and he revealed the way to live in this world without being destroyed by the ever-present demands of power-hungry people.

It’s important for us to understand who it is that we seek to serve and what it is that we need to resist – otherwise we will become both victims and collaborators with the ugliest forms of power and the worst agendas imaginable. The power of God is not the most obvious manifestation of power in this world, and it’s easy to live in response to the claims of more immediate forms of power. Jesus didn’t live in response to the agenda of Herod or even of the Pharisees – Jesus lived in a relationship with God. It would be the cause of his death, and it would be the source of his resurrected life.

We all are faced with this temptation to heed the warnings of the Pharisees not to offend the Herods of the world. And it’s hard not to do this. As I mentioned earlier, I know how stressful it is to feel pressure from powerful people, and I know how intimidating that can be. I’m certain there are situations where I have caved in to the demands of people who have no love for the truth. I don’t want to get in to the specifics on this, but trust me – it has happened. On the other hand, I also know that there is a tremendous reward that awaits us when we live with allegiance to God and with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I’m happy to say I’ve had a taste of this as well.

Living as a true follower of Jesus Christ certainly has an eternal reward, but I also believe it has rewards on earth. I believe people who live on earth as if they are in heaven create a new community on earth that is truly a reflection of heaven. To live like this is to disrupt the usual patterns of behavior and expectations and create new possibilities that make this world a better place for all people.

It’s very likely that the Pharisees came to Jesus because they were in touch with Herod’s people, and they were told to give Jesus that message, but I also think it points to the possibility that we can all step out of our familiar identities and roles and to step in to new places and make contact with new people. The fact that the Pharisees gave this warning to Jesus indicates that they might not have wanted any harm to come to him. They had a lot to learn about who he was, and what he sought to do, but maybe some of them came to see he was not who they thought he was.

I think this passage of scripture points to the nature of the power struggles that we all face in some way. Some of us are the Pharisees of this world – unwittingly carrying out the agendas of little Herods. Sometimes we know when we are being used to do ugly work, but unholy agendas are often well masked, and it’s a gift of the Holy Spirit to become aware of what we are doing and how we can change.

It is a gift to be able to live with more allegiance to the Kingdom of God than to the bullies of the barnyard, but it’s also our work. There is some cooperation that needs to take place between us and the Holy Spirit as we seek to develop this relationship with the source of real power. This work requires us to resist the claims of some people and to embrace the claims of others. It requires the courage to stay on a given course when other avenues would be easier. It means having more regard for the victims of powerful people than for the concerns of those powerful people.

This barnyard that we live in is a tumultuous place. We all come in to this place with different skills and abilities and power and expectation. The natural thing is for us to try to carve out the most advantageous situation for ourselves, but Jesus challenges us to let go of our natural rivalries and selfish ambitions. The call of Christ is to live in response to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, who guides us out of the barnyard and in to the kingdom of God.

This offer comes to us as a gift, and it provides for us our work.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.

Frustrate the Devil
Luke 4:1-13

1 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, 2 where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. 3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” 4 Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.'” 5 Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. 7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” 8 Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'” 9 Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10 for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ 11 and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'” 12 Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'” 13 When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.

I like this story of Jesus in the wilderness. It’s a unique story. Most of the stories that we find in the Gospels portray interactions between Jesus and other people, but this story is different. This story isn’t about the way Jesus related to other people or what he taught in public places. This is a drama that played out within Jesus’ heart, mind and soul. There is only one person on hand in this story and it’s Jesus. It’s a powerful portrayal of Jesus coming to understand himself, and deciding what he was going to do with his life. We may not all have experiences as vivid as Jesus – probably because we don’t spend forty days fasting in the wilderness, but we all make decisions about what we will do with our lives and who we seek to serve, and it’s good to see how Jesus navigated that territory.

This story serves as an introduction into the spiritual life of Jesus. It strikes me as being very instructional. And one thing it points to is how valuable it can be for our souls when our bodies get put in difficult places. This wilderness experience Jesus had was not like a backpacking trip in a national park. This experience was a trial – not an adventure. I think it’s worth noting that Jesus didn’t just step in to the wilderness – he was led in to the wilderness by the Spirit. It was a hard place to be and he was there for a long time. God’s Spirit remained with him while he was there, and that Holy Spirit enabled him to emerge from the wilderness with a powerful sense of clarity and resolve, but God’s Spirit wasn’t the only spirit out there.

I think this story of Jesus being tested in the wilderness can serve as an enduring source of encouragement to all people who are living in harsh circumstances. Being in the wilderness is hard, but it can be spiritually enriching, and we should claim it when we’re in it. If you’ve got chronic pain – you are living in the wilderness. If you don’t have enough money to pay your bills – you are living in the wilderness. If you’ve got cancer – you are living in the wilderness. If you or a loved one is battling with substance abuse – you are living in the wilderness. If you struggle with depression and despair – you are living in the wilderness. The wilderness takes on a lot of different forms in our lives, and it’s a hard place to be, but it’s also the place where we make monumental discoveries and decisions.

I don’t want to water down this concept too much, but the truth is we have all had the wilderness experience. We all know what it’s like to be in a hard place for too long. We haven’t all been equally tested, but we all know what it’s like to be in a difficult circumstance for what seems like a long time.

And we all know what it’s like to run in to the devil. At least we sort of know what it’s like to deal with the devil. Actually I have highly conflicting ideas about the devil. I made it through seminary without having to define my thoughts about the devil. Being the moderate United Methodist that I am I’m not inclined to identify the work of the devil as quickly as some of my Christian brothers and sisters in other denominations, but I’m not dismissive of the concept of the devil.

We have in our scripture lesson a very clear reference to the devil – which is reason enough to hang on to the concept. But I’ve also encountered people and situations that provide evidence for the work of the devil. Unfortunately, Jesus never gave us a nice clear lecture on the problem and presence of evil in this world, but we know it’s with us. The presence of the devil isn’t exactly clear to me, but I do believe that the sales rep. for evil is showing up for work every day.

I love the way the author and theologian, C. S. Lewis, portrays the devil in his book, The Screwtape Letters. This book is put together as a series of letters from a character named, Screwtape, to his nephew, Wormwood, and they are what you might call minions of the devil. This book portrays hell as having an elaborate bureaucracy – which makes great sense to me. I think we’ve all gotten caught up in forms of bureaucracy that are absolutely hellish. Hell isn’t just hot – there are long lines and lots of forms to fill out. Honestly, the thought that hell is an eternity of having to navigate layers of horrible administration and supervision scares me to death.

The letters in this book contain advice from Screwtape to his nephew, Wormwood, on how he could be more effective in leading his assigned human away from God. The letters are characteristically demeaning and critical of Wormwood – as you would expect from a supervisor from hell.

Screwtape is very eloquent in describing the many ways that humans can be led astray, and it’s easy to recognize those various paths we get on that lead us away from trusting in God. It’s an entertaining book, and it’s got a lot of truth in it. It plays with this idea of how the devil operates in our world, and I like what C.S. Lewis says in the preface to the book. He writes:

I have no intention of explaining how the correspondence which I now offer to the public fell in to my hands.

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors …

He goes on, but the point he makes that makes great sense to me is that we can make too much or too little of the forces of evil that are present in this world. We can give the devil too much credit, or we can fail to guard our souls against the ever-present forces of evil.

The story of the temptation of Jesus doesn’t end with Jesus defeating the devil forever. You might say Jesus won that battle, but the war wasn’t over, and still isn’t over. As the scripture says, the devil departed from Jesus until a more opportune time.

I think it’s good for us to understand that the best we can expect to do is to put up resistance to the presence of evil in our day. And while it would be nice to think we could live such holy lives that the devil wouldn’t even want to get near us, that isn’t how it works. The very own son of God wasn’t immune from the voice of the devil. And those offers were even sprinkled with some Holy Scripture, but Jesus didn’t buy it, and I love to think of how annoying that must have been to the devil.

Luke doesn’t invite us in to the mind of the devil, but C.S. Lewis opened that door for me, and it’s really satisfying for me to think of how this devil who visited Jesus must have been harassed by his peers in hell. It’s actually pretty motivating for me to want be as frustrating as the devil – to the devil. Maybe it’s the devil in me, but I like the idea of creating problems for the devil.

I wish I could claim that I’ve caused some kind of terrible turmoil for some poor devil in a small cubicle in a corner of hell, but as surely as I may have done that, I fear I’ve probably allowed some other devil to claim a corner office. I could really get in to this way of thinking that I’m either providing my assigned devil with advancements or demotions, but I’m actually more inclined to be dismissive of the presence of the devil. I don’t really stay on the lookout for the ways in which I’m vulnerable to the devil, and as C.S. Lewis noted, we Christians can err in both directions.

I’m mindful of the vows we United Methodists make when we present ourselves or our children for baptism. Here are the first two questions we ask people who come for baptism: Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin? And, Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?

These are good questions for us all to continue to ask ourselves. Are we fully exercising our power to renounce and resist and reject evil in our world?

The funny thing about wilderness experiences is that while they are difficult and draining – they are also the places where we truly come to understand the power that we have to be strong witnesses to the presence of God in this world. It’s in the wilderness that we often make the decision to give ourselves more fully to God. It’s in the wilderness that we can grow less attached to the materials of this world and we learn to trust in the grace of God.

Jesus was famished after forty days, and it’s easy to make bad decisions when you are thoroughly stressed, but the devil didn’t tempt him then because he was weak. The devil tempted Jesus at that point because Jesus was in touch with a new sense of power. Jesus had gained something in the wilderness that he didn’t previously have, and he had to decide how he was going to use it.

Jesus chose to serve God and that must have been terribly frustrating to the devil, and this is the same option we all have. It’s not easy to turn our various difficulties and challenges in to opportunities for spiritual growth, but it can happen. The Holy Spirit doesn’t always lead us in to the wildernesses we find ourselves in, but the Holy Spirit is always on hand to help us navigate whatever territory we are in, and to turn our trials in to triumphs. The Holy Spirit is there to help us see through the shiny offers the devil is inclined to make.

Throughout our lives we come to decision points, and through them we are either giving God something to celebrate or we are helping some wretched devil get a promotion. We don’t always see what we are doing, and that’s a problem, but it becomes less of a problem the more we give ourselves to the things we know that God desires. The more we serve God through acts of mercy, kindness, compassion, and justice the more sensitive we become to the work of God to redeem the world. The more we make ourselves available to God through prayer, Bible study, worship and acts of devotion the more conscious we become of God’s loving presence in this world.

We can make too much or too little of the work of the devil, but we can never pay too much attention to the life of Jesus Christ and his claim upon our lives. He’s not easy to follow, but with some effort and some openness to the guidance of the Holy Spirit in our lives we can bring some joy to heaven and generate some frustration in hell. And what a happy thought that is!

Thanks be to God – Amen.

“If You Would Just Listen!”
Luke 9:28-36

28 Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. 29 And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. 30 Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. 31 They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. 32 Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. 33 Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” — not knowing what he said. 34 While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. 35 Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” 36 When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.

It’s never easy to describe profound spiritual experiences. I’m guessing we have all had moments in our lives when the veil between the physical world as we know it and the spiritual reality that we trust to exist seems to become thin, and we get a glimpse of eternity here in the temporal world, but those experiences are fleeting and they’re nearly impossible to describe. It’s hard to find language that adequately portrays close encounters with the kingdom of God, but I believe it happens. I believe it happens to us, and I believe it happened to Peter, James, and John.

I have no doubt that these three men who had the good fortune of spending many days actually walking the roads of ancient Palestine with Jesus had more than one extra-ordinary experience with him, but today’s passage of scripture recalls a particularly unusual experience. In some ways I don’t really know what to think of this story. Why did Jesus turn dazzling white? Why did Moses and Elijah appear for a moment? And why did they disappear so quickly? Significant parts of this story are hard for me to immediately comprehend, but I take comfort in knowing that these disciples didn’t know what to think either. Peter went from being groggily inattentive to what was going on springing in to action in an inappropriate way, and this makes me feel better about not really knowing how I should respond to this story.

Peter, James, and John had a remarkably close encounter with the living God, and it left them speechless. They didn’t know what to say or do and that largely leaves us without an explanation of what this was all about. This is a story that requires us to develop our own interpretation of what this all means. The apparent cluelessness of the disciples is really pretty endearing, and it sort of takes the pressure off of us to know what this is all about. What we know is that these disciples had a mysterious encounter with Jesus on the mountaintop, but it did seal in their minds the deep connection Jesus had with Moses and Elijah – the two spiritual giants of the Jewish community.

While it’s hard for me to imagine what they saw, it’s very believable that these disciples experienced something that enabled them to see how connected Jesus was to all that God had been doing for the people of Israel. This story relates the absolute purity of Jesus’ relationship with God and with the history of Israel, and it points to the way in which this story was about to change. The voice from the cloud didn’t tell them to remember what Moses and Elijah had said and done. The voice from the cloud told them to listen to Jesus.

And you would think that they would have known to do that, but listening is always hard. I can’t read this story without being reminded of a conversation I had with my father about six months after my mother died. We were driving back from a trip to a cousin’s wedding in Dallas, and he told me that he was having trouble remembering the sound of my mother’s voice. He then asked me if I could remember it.

This was a remarkable thing to hear from my father because he wasn’t one to share his inner thoughts freely. He loved to ask accounting type questions. How many people were in attendance? What time did you get there? How much rain did we get? How long did it last? My father could ask a lot of questions, but you could usually answer his questions with a number or a yes or no. But on this occasion he asked me a question I had to ponder for a moment.

I guess in a sense that was a yes or no question, but it required some commentary as well, and after thinking about it I said yes, there were two things I could remember. I told him I could remember the sound of her laugh. She had a distinct short chuckle that I frequently heard and I can still conjure it up in my mind, but there was something else I could still hear her say. I told him I could also remember her saying, Buddy, if you would just listen! Buddy was my father’s name, and my mother was often exasperated with his inability to remember something she was pretty sure she had told him. Over the last few years of her life I think I heard her say that one line more than I ever heard her say anything else.

Now my father was deaf in one ear, and there is a good chance that he didn’t hear much of what my mother said to him, but she also felt like there was some willful deafness on his part. My father dearly missed the sound of my mother’s voice after she was gone. He didn’t ignore what she had to say while she was around, but her voice became much more precious to him after she was gone.

This morning’s scripture lesson portrays a situation that would be seemingly unforgettable, but I’m thinking that whatever these disciples experienced with Jesus on the mountain became much more precious to them after he was gone. We don’t really know what happened on that mountain. They don’t even seem to have known exactly what went on up on that mountain, but I have no doubt that their memories of Jesus took on new meaning after his crucifixion and resurrection. Everything they had experienced with Jesus would have become more precious to them, and I have no doubt that they wished they had listened more closely to what he said while he was with them in the flesh.

Now I don’t blame the disciples for not understanding much of what Jesus was saying to them as they journeyed from place to place. They couldn’t imagine that Jesus was going to change the world in the way that he did. As we all can testify, the words of a loved one become so much more valuable when they’re gone. It’s easy to have regret about not listening as carefully as we could have to a dear one when they aren’t around anymore.

The point of this story is not to illustrate what a wonderful occasion Peter, James, and John were invited to experience. The point of this story is to remind us of the very thing the disciples undoubtedly wished they had done with more diligence. We are all to heed the message from the cloud and listen to Jesus.

Had they listened more closely to what Jesus had to say they wouldn’t have been surprised by the direction that Jesus chose to go when they came down from the mountain. The dramatic change that was about to occur within the history of Israel was the radical way in which God had chosen to be revealed. You might say that God was coming off the top of the mountain.

In the story of Moses, you might say that God lived at the top of the mountain. Moses went up the mountain to encounter God, and while he never had a face to face with God, he came closer to God than anyone else, and he was largely unaccompanied on his trips up the mountain to hear what God had to say. God allowed Joshua to go with him on occasion, but anyone else would die if they followed him. You might say God kept some distance from the people in the early days.

And the prophet Elijah was cherished by the people of Israel. He was considered to have been their most spiritually refined leader. He was bold, and pure, and powerful, and as the story goes he didn’t even have to die. He got whooshed away into the clouds when it was time for him to go.

But God was doing a new thing in Jesus, and it wasn’t going to be played out on the mountaintop or in the clouds. God was going to be in Jesus as he came down the mountain and into the mess of life. Peter was ready to commemorate Jesus and Moses and Elijah on top of the mountain by building something, but that isn’t how God wanted to be revered. God wanted to come off the mountain and into the streets. Jesus would enable us to understand that God wasn’t just with us when we were on top of things. Jesus was going to show us that God is with us in the lowest possible places.

God isn’t stuck on the mountain, God is with us in the messiness of life.

I had a brief conversation with Mark Ballard the other day. His ability to speak was very labored, but he was alert, and the one thing he was intent on saying was how much God had taught him during this mysterious ailment that he was enduring. He had a greater sense of gratitude for what had transpired than he was distressed by the situation. I’m not saying he was happy about the way things had gone, but he was testifying to the way in which he seems to have been blessed in the midst of this bad situation.

Hard times are hard, but they are also rich times. Important things don’t just happen on the top of mountains. The voice from the cloud didn’t congratulate Peter, James, and John for being there at such a remarkable moment. The voice told them to listen to Jesus, and what Jesus had to say was that God loves us all at all times and at all places, but this love doesn’t necessarily translate in to an easy life. Jesus didn’t come down the mountain and in to the loving arms of a benevolent society. There is a lot of resistance to the love of God in this world, and while we don’t need to be naïve, we do need to be diligent in our effort to respond with love to all that we encounter.

Because we know of what happened to Jesus when he came down the mountain we shouldn’t expect life to be easy, but we have reason to have hope regardless of what we encounter in life. Things may not go as we wish they would, but we have reason to trust that God is with us when we struggle, and that hard times can be redeemed. We aren’t all going to turn our trials into great victories. But even death isn’t a defeat for those who listen to Jesus.

The words that Peter, James, and John heard from that cloud are much like the words I can still hear my mother saying to my father and they are good words for us all to hear from God who says to each of us: “If you would just listen!”

Thanks be to God for the way in which God speaks to us in those mysterious ways that redeem and remind us of how well we are loved regardless of what’s going on.

Amen.