Thompson's Blog

Relocating the Temple
John 2:13-22

2:13 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 15 Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” 17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18 The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

For some people, this story of Jesus creating chaos in the Temple is one of the most endearing stories in the Bible. I mean it’s nice to hear about Jesus healing blind people, and relieving other people of all kinds of suffering, but I’m thinking this story of Jesus going in to this highly regulated religious marketplace and tearing things up is the stuff of dreams. This may be one of the most referenced stories in all of the Gospels. People like to point out that there was a day when Jesus had had all he could take, he got mad, and tore some things up. I dare say there’s been a lot of people who have sought to find justification in this passage for bad behavior, and that’s not such a good thing, but I think you can find some legitimate justification for disruption in this passage. It’s not unreasonable to have some outrage about the way important institutions operate.

I don’t think this story justifies road-rage or any other self-justifying fits of outrage, but it’s nice to see Jesus offer some physical resistance to a bad situation. Certainly this disruptive outburst was not well received by the people who were selling the unblemished animals or those who had the money changing franchise at the Temple, but the thought of Jesus tearing in to a corrupt system has had a lot of appeal to a lot of people over the centuries.

Of course your opinion on the value of something getting torn up depends on the nature of your interests.

My mother grew up on a farm just out from a little town in southwest Arkansas called Garland City. Garland is on the road from Texarkana to Lewisville and it sits right on the west bank of the Red River. That was an area of the world that my grandmother’s people had inhabited for a few generations – I’m honestly not sure how long they had lived there, but they had been there for a while before my mother came along. My great grandmother’s brother, who was known as Uncle Son, was a partner in the ferry operation that crossed the river there at Garland City, and that was a nice business to be in – until the highway department decided to put in a bridge. They built the bridge, but just before that bridge was completed it mysteriously blew up.

This wasn’t good news for anyone other than Uncle Son and his partner, and consequently they were the primary suspects in the situation. There was a trial, and Uncle Son wasn’t convicted of anything, but it was hard for people who knew about the situation to believe that he was unaware of what had transpired. As far as my grandmother was concerned there was no connection between Uncle Son and that explosion, and I wouldn’t be telling this story if I thought my grandmother would hear me make such an implication. My Uncle Jack made that mistake at a family gathering one Thanksgiving, and she was terribly upset that Jack would make such an insinuation. That wasn’t a subject that ever came back up when she was around. Regardless of how little or how much involvement he had in that bridge explosion, what that story illustrates to me is how differently people can view acts of great disruption.

It’s interesting that John places this story early on in his account of Jesus. The synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke all place this story at the end of his ministry, and in the way they tell the story that was the event that convinced the religious authorities that Jesus must be eliminated. But John does something different with this story. John places it near the beginning of his portrayal of Jesus. John chooses to reveal the extent of the conflict that existed between Jesus and the Jewish authorities from the very beginning, but the early placement of this story does something else as well. John is inviting us to see Jesus as the new Temple – his followers are to see him as the new place to go and to find God.

In the study group I attend each week we are currently reading a book by Bishop John Shelby Spong called, The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic. I wasn’t very enthusiastic about reading this book because I tend to think of that author as someone who just likes to point out what’s wrong with traditional Christianity, and I don’t tend to have as much appreciation for the bulk of the Book of John as I have for the other Gospels, but I have found this book to be a very interesting interpretation of the Book of John. Bishop Spong has sort of redeemed the Book of John for me. In fact he owns up to not liking the fourth Gospels as much as he liked the other gospels until he came to see it in a new light.

It’s no secret that the Book of John was the last of the gospels to be written and that it was probably produced about 70 years after Jesus had been crucified. The Jewish Temple had been destroyed for about 30 years at the time the book was put together, but the Jewish community was still strong. It was held intact through meetings at local synagogues – which were sort of like local churches. But there had been a great rift develop between the traditional Jewish community and the Jews who believed that Jesus was the messiah, and the Jesus following Jews weren’t welcome in the synagogues.

Spong believes that the Book of John is the product of someone or a couple of someones who came out of that rejected Jewish community of believers in Jesus. These people had a very interesting perspective on Jesus. They were living in really harsh circumstances. They weren’t welcome in the traditional Jewish community. They weren’t valued by the Roman authorities, but they found Jesus to be the source of true access to God, and because of that they were willing to deal with the troubles they faced.

That perspective has given me a new appreciation for the Book of John. In all honesty, the book can get pretty tiresome in the way it repeatedly puts so much emphasis on the figure of Jesus. As opposed to the other gospels that are filled with parables and other teaching moments, in the Book of John there are a lot of passages where Jesus seems to be talking about himself. In some ways it seems that Jesus was sort of full of himself – that what Jesus wanted more than anything else was for people to pay attention to him.

And there is a lot of truth to that, but it wasn’t because he wanted to be the object of adoration. What he wanted was for people to find their way to God through him – regardless of what was going on in this world and in their lives. Spong believes the Book of John is the testament of people who found their way to God through Jesus and that’s why it’s so important to focus on him. It was their focus on Jesus that got them rejected from the synagogue and in many cases from their families, but it gained them access to God, and that was why they sought to stay so focused upon him.

John uses this story of Jesus disrupting the Temple to illustrate the way in which Jesus had become the new Temple. These words about how he would rebuild the Temple in three days is an affirmation that people would continue to find access to God through his resurrected presence.

This book that I rather reluctantly embarked upon reading has redefined the way that I see the Fourth Gospel. What previously struck me as a book that was trying to convince me of how much more divine Jesus was than any other previous prophet is not what it’s about at all. I’ve come to believe that the writer of John is not trying to turn Jesus in to a person who was equal with God, but as the person who best enables us to see God. This may not sound like a profound difference, but it is to me. The Book of John calls for us to pay attention to Jesus, but the goal is not to see him – the goal is to see God.

I think we often get focused on the wrong things. Clearly this business that was going on in the Temple only served to distract people from seeing the nature of God, and Jesus had no patience with such foolishness. Our challenge is to learn to see what it is that we are overly focused upon, and not to spend our time and energy protecting practices and policies that keep us from seeing who Jesus is and what God is like. What are the Temples we have created that need to be disrupted?

Bishop Melvin Talbert is a retired United Methodist Bishop. He is an African American man who was born in the deep south, but spent much of his time in ministry and in the Episcopacy on the west coast. He was an active participant in the African American civil rights struggle, and he takes great pride in having spent three days in jail with Dr. Martin Luther King. Most recently he made national news by officiating at a same-sex marriage between two United Methodist men near Birmingham, AL. Charges were brought against him, but it was resolved through the process of just resolution.

Bishop Talbert worked to eliminate racial civil rights abuses and now he he’s working to establish and to protect the civil rights of non-heterosexual people – within the United Methodist Church and in our nation.

There are a lot of people who don’t think he’s behaving like a Bishop aught to behave. And that may be true. Maybe Bishops aren’t supposed to create controversy, but it looks like people who follow Jesus are supposed to tear up religious practices that get in the way of our view to God.

Bishop Talbert was scheduled to preach here in April, along with the Director of the Reconciling Ministry Network, Matt Berryman, but a scheduling conflict arose and he had to cancel. I hope we can reschedule him to be here and to remind us what it looks like to love Jesus more than you love your own position – or even your life.

Life is hard. Sometimes bridges come along that destroy our established ferry operations. Sometimes we retaliate inappropriately.

Sometimes we see where a bridge needs to be built, but we see how large the challenge will be, and we fear the cost to ourselves and to our positions.

Jesus understood the fears, the costs, and the benefits of what it meant to live with actual faith in God, and he is our true guide for finding our way to God. Regardless of what’s going on in our lives we will be well served by the work of staying focused on him. He doesn’t need our attention, but we need his light to guide our thoughts and our actions.

Thanks be to God,
Amen.

What Was Jesus Thinking?
Mark 8:31-38

8:31 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” 34 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. 36 For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37 Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38 Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Sharla and I had a nice adventure last Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. We literally slipped up to the lodge at Mt. Magazine State Park as the snow began to cover the road. It was some good drama. We weren’t sure if we were going to make it. The snow was falling harder and harder and it was getting darker and darker and colder and colder as we ascended the mountain. Sharla had gotten in the back seat to eat something at some point on the drive, and she had decided that was a good place to remain. But she was being a good back-seat driver – she would just calmly remind me every now and then that it would be better to slide off on the ditch side of the road than the drop-off side.

We were so relieved to pull up under the majestic covered driveway of that lodge.

It was great to be up there for last week’s first snow episode. We had been hoping to get up there under those conditions and we timed it just right. Sharla did have a bit of a scare when we first got there. She went to the room while I went to park the car – which took me a little longer than she thought it should have, and she couldn’t get the door key-card to work. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen that Stephen King movie called The Shining, but if you have you know what kind of creepy feeling she had for a moment as she stood in the deserted hallway of that snowbound lodge. If you haven’t seen the movie don’t worry about it – it has nothing to do with Jesus.

And it’s the drama that surrounded Jesus that we’re here to talk about this morning. There’s a lot of drama going on in this morning’s scripture, but it’s not good drama. Today’s scripture is the story of the bad reaction Jesus got from Peter after he told the disciples what was about to transpire in Jerusalem. Peter didn’t like what he heard Jesus saying, and Peter told him that it was a bad idea. Jesus then jumped on Peter for saying what he said. Jesus had set a clear course, and Peter engaged in what we might call some unwelcome back-seat driving.

But I get where Peter was coming from. It’s always easy for me to get in to the mind of Peter. It’s not so easy for me to get in to the mind of Jesus, but I get Peter. Peter had his own plans – he thought he could see where this thing with Jesus was going and he liked it. They were headed to the top! Things were falling in to place. People were talking about Jesus. People were looking for Jesus. People were getting excited about Jesus. Things were about to start happening in Israel. It had become clear to Peter that Jesus was the real deal. He considered him to be the savior of the nation – Peter had just made that pronouncement. He had just finished professing his belief that Jesus was the messiah. And that was no small deal – such a belief had profound implications! Unfortunately he didn’t understand what those implications really were.

Actually, Peter’s plans made a lot of sense – in a human sense. It makes sense to want to replace terroristic systems with more humane systems. And it’s not that Peter’s plans were poorly motivated. The way the nation of Israel was being run was horrible. The Roman installed governor had no concern for the wellbeing of the people of Israel. The system was designed to keep Roman rule in place at all costs, and it was a very costly system. The people were heavily taxed and the policies were violently enforced. The Jewish collaborators substituted allegiance to God for job security and material comforts, and you can’t blame Peter for wanting this ungodly arrangement to go down in defeat by the hand of this man of God.

What made sense to Peter was for Jesus to fix their broken nation. Peter expected Jesus to somehow assemble an army that God would somehow empower to overthrow those dirty collaborators and their godless government. I think it’s the same logic that I saw illustrated on the news the other night. They profiled a former US soldier who has gone back to Iraq as a civilian in order to fight along-side the local Christian militia to overthrow the soldiers of ISIS. I can’t fault this young man from Detroit for having a lack of bravery or commitment. It’s actually pretty amazing that he self-financed his way back to the most dangerous spot in the world to engage in armed resistance to a movement that he considers to be a threat to the people of God. What he and others like him have chosen to do is impressive, and it makes sense on some level – but it’s not the same kind of sense that Jesus was using.

I’m not exactly sure how Jesus would sort out the problems in Syria and Iraq. Jesus might well go and get himself killed, but he was not one to do the killing.

It’s not easy to get in the mind of Jesus, but he gave Peter and the other disciples a piece of his mind, and we need to hear what he had to say. Because what he had to say is informative of how we are to operate as well. Our challenge is not to operate with human sense, but with divine sense.

And this is particularly challenging because we’ve used our good human sense to make sense of why Jesus gave himself over to the chief priests, the elders, and the scribes and then to death on the cross. This was not a strategy that made sense to Peter, but we’ve found a way to make sense of it. We’ve latched on to this concept of Jesus needing to die for our sins. We’ve come to accept that it made sense for Jesus to die on the cross – that it was a good thing for him to do. And I’m not saying that it was a bad thing for him to do, but we’ve turned that act in to something that’s easier for us to accept.

We’ve turned it in to something he needed to do in order to fix the world. We’ve unfortunately turned this powerfully confounding act of self-giving in to a scripted act in a cosmic drama. And by doing this we’ve turned his incredibly challenging portrayal of love in to the necessary work of a messianic hero.

We’ve found a way to make sense of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem. We’ve turned it in to something we can accept. We’ve chosen to believe that Jesus was just playing his role in the cosmic drama of good vs. evil, or God vs. humanity. God was unhappy with the way humans were behaving, and Jesus appeased God with the perfect sacrifice of himself – a concept that makes perfect human sense.

I’m not diminishing the extent of this gift that Jesus gave to the world, but I do want to challenge the notion that the death of Jesus on a cross was something God had designed and Jesus had to do. I refuse to believe that Jesus was simply an actor in a divine drama because I think that’s an exercise in making the story more bearable. I think that’s a way making human sense of the story and when we do that we avoid the challenge of thinking with divine sense. I’m convinced that it’s much easier for us to believe that Jesus simply knew what God had instructed him to do than it is for us to believe that the Son of Man had enough faith-inspired courage to trust that God’s kingdom would prevail and he would live on even if he was killed.

Was Jesus thinking? Or was he just doing what he was programmed to do? Was Jesus a human being who operated with divine sense, or was he simply operated by God? This is a deeply theological question. Great councils have been assembled over this question, books have been written to answer this question, churches have been split over this question, I guess wars have even been fought over this question. You may not find yourself thinking about this question very often, but regardless of how you might answer this question, how you live probably indicates what you believe. Do you find yourself trying to think as Jesus would think, or are you content to revere Jesus for doing what he did?

What jumps out at me in this passage is just how confounding Jesus was to the person who was most closely associated with him. Peter loved Jesus, he believed in Jesus, he wanted to follow Jesus, but he didn’t like what Jesus said he was going to do. What made sense to Peter is not what made sense to Jesus. Peter wanted Jesus to fix the brokenness of Israel, but Jesus wanted Peter and the rest of us to see how to find true life in the midst of this broken world. Jesus thought with the mind of God, and I believe this is what he invites all of us to do. I don’t believe our job is just to revere Jesus for the great work he did to reconcile humanity to God – I believe Jesus invites us all to join him in the humanly illogical work of reconciliation. It’s humanly illogical because it often involves loving the very people who give you the most grief.

Jesus didn’t invite his followers to pick up a sword and go kill a Roman collaborator – he challenged them to pick up their own cross and to follow him. And we are them.

This is a challenging passage of scripture for those of us who spend most of our time using our good human sense. We have to use our human sense to keep ourselves fed, and clothed, and sheltered, but it gets in our way when we start looking for true life. Nobody ever said it’s easy to follow Jesus – if they did they weren’t very familiar with the story. I believe Christian discipleship is an enterprise that raises more questions than it answers, but even the questions it raises are nourishing to ponder. What was Jesus thinking? What is the living Christ thinking?

Thanks be to God for the life of this man who didn’t do what we wanted, but who knew what we needed, and who continues to live among us in order to challenge us, to nourish us, and to show us the way to find true life in the midst of this broken and beautiful world.

Amen.

Up and Down With Jesus
Mark 9:2-9

9:2 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, 3 and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. 4 And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. 5 Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 6 He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. 7 Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” 8 Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus. 9 As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

Six days ago, Bishop Mueller took Richard and Mark and Mike and Susan and Bud on a journey up to Mount Eagle, where they had conversation about all the United Methodist churches and pastors in Arkansas. I don’t know if any mysterious transfigurations occurred or voices from clouds were heard, but I can testify that it had an effect on me that was very similar to what happened to Peter and James and John. I have been struck by the need to listen to Jesus.

I’m not saying I’m doing a good job of staying focused on the words of Jesus, but this annual custom of the Bishop gathering to confer with all the District Superintendents about pastoral appointments often causes thoughts to arise and conversations to occur that are no more useful than the words Peter blurted out about building three booths to honor Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. I haven’t had such a vision nor have I heard a voice coming from a cloud telling me to listen to Jesus, but I did hear a story on the radio last week that caused me to get quiet and remember what Jesus taught.

I think I’ve mentioned before that this annual institutional process of matching pastors with churches doesn’t really bring out the best in everyone. Maybe it ramps up the prayer life of a few people, but I would want to examine the content of those prayers before I would declare that to be a purely positive consequence. I dare say our pastor appointment system is one of the oddest personnel deployment systems at work in our country. I think if you wanted to design a system that would create as much anxiety, frustration, insecurity, inequality, and jealousy as possible you might well find a blueprint in the way that United Methodist Ministers are appointed to churches in Arkansas. I’m not saying that it doesn’t have some advantages over other denominational systems, and it might even have some strengths, but in my opinion it’s a terribly unsettling creature.

With this being the opening week of the official appointment making season I’ve been feeling a little worked up about it all. I’m sure you are surprised to hear me say that my mind occasionally wanders away from the words of Jesus, but sometimes it happens. I found myself thinking about some what if situations. What if the Bishop decides to do this! What if he decides to do that! I can generate some righteous indignation pretty quickly when I start thinking about what may or may not happen. This appointment process can cause me to lose focus on Jesus every now and then.

Honestly, my mind wasn’t in a very good place as I was driving home last Tuesday afternoon. I was agonizing over some of those what ifs, but my mind was suddenly silenced by this story that I heard on the radio. It was on that NPR show called Here and Now, and it brought to my attention the actual economic hardship that the recent snowstorm in New England has placed on the working poor.

When I think of a huge snowstorm I’m inclined to sort of romanticize the situation. Salaried people like myself tend to equate transportation shut-down with unplanned vacation days, but that isn’t how it feels to the working poor. For those who only get paid for the hours they work – this snowstorm has been a nightmare. Its one form of a nightmare for those whose jobs are shut down by the snow, and it’s another type of nightmare for those who have jobs that require them to show up regardless of the weather. One of the terrible ironies of our economy is that many of the people who are on the lowest end of the pay scale have the most essential jobs.

White collar workers can often stay home or work from home during weather-related disasters, but food-service workers and personal care attendants have to show up if they want to keep their jobs and pay their rent. Buses can’t stay on their schedule, but workers have to show up on time. For many, the nightmare is enhanced by their need to find childcare for their children who are out of school while the parents spend extra time getting to and from work.

The woman being interviewed on this show told this story about how she passed a woman with a sleeping toddler waiting at a bus stop as she was driving home from work at one in the morning. The woman driving the car stopped and picked up the woman and her child and gave them a ride to the shelter where they lived. This woman worked in food-service at a prestigious university, and after getting off work she had picked up her daughter from the person who had been keeping her that day, and she had been riding and waiting on buses for hours.

It was a heartbreaking story, but I was glad to hear it. That voice from the snowstorm redirected my thinking. It silenced my peer rivalry and my speculative thinking for a moment and it reminded me of my good fortune. I and my family will be fine – regardless of what the Bishop decides to do. You and this church will be fine regardless of what may transpire – as long as we all can remember to listen to Jesus. I don’t meant to ramp up appointment season drama for you, but the truth is that change is always a possibility in the United Methodist Church. I assure you I don’t know if anything’s going to change in regard to the pastoral leadership of this church, but it could happen, and I think I hear Jesus saying it will be ok if it does.

I don’t always hear Jesus well – in fact I don’t always try to listen for what Jesus taught, but I’m reminded that as Christians, this is what we are all called to do. We need to be reminded to listen to Jesus because it’s easy to lose focus on his words and to allow other messages to fill our minds with anxiety, jealousy, fear, and distrust. Fortunately we are in good company when it comes to having a hard time keeping our minds focused on the words of Jesus. Simon Peter, himself, had a hard time listening to Jesus.

There on the mountain, Peter had started talking when he needed to be listening. And six days earlier Jesus had rebuked Peter for not listening to what he was saying – that was right after Peter had recognized and announced that Jesus was the messiah. Peter could get it – and then he could lose it. And get it again, and lose it again.

I’m so familiar with this holy roller-coaster. I go up and down on it all the time. I do it every week – several times a week. As a preacher, I find myself needing to think about the things Jesus said and did and what he wanted us to see and to do, and I try hard to figure out how to get you to see what I’m thinking Jesus would want us to understand. I get real focused on Jesus almost every week – for a little while. I don’t know if I’m able to communicate what I hear Jesus saying, but on some level I try to listen to something Jesus said every week, and sometimes I get it. I get it – and then I lose it.

I can turn around quicker than Peter. I can go from loving Jesus and wanting to follow him to strategizing about how I can get what I think I need to make my life a bit more comfortable or interesting without breaking my stride. It’s an amazing quality that I share with Peter. Maybe you do too.

It’s easy for me to get confused about what’s most important, and I’m so grateful to the people who remind me of what’s really important. It’s so easy to get focused on what we think we need and what we want to happen, and what Jesus talked about more than anything else is the need for us to live with compassion for others and the importance of reaching out to those who are in actual need right now.

It’s interesting to me that the name of the radio show that got my attention is: Here and Now. Jesus never used those particular words, but I think those words resonate well with his words. Jesus didn’t want us to focus on what might happen in the future. I think Jesus wanted us to be alive right now and to be sensitive to what’s happening right now.

I’m not sure how the words of Jesus fit in with our appointment making system. I don’t doubt that the Bishop and the cabinet are doing their best to place people wisely and appropriately, but the truth is that there’s so much money involved in this preacher appointment business it’s probably pretty hard for them to keep the words of Jesus front and center. Money screams loudly. Jesus speaks quietly. I know it’s hard for me to remain unconscious of the figures, but Jesus doesn’t want us to look for the most financially lucrative and prestigious positions in order to find true life.

Listening to Jesus is hard work. In fact it’s probably impossible for us to stay focused on his words, and I’m so grateful for the ways in which my life gets interrupted by the words of Jesus. I’m sure I’m not finished getting worked up about what may or may not happen within our Arkansas United Methodist family, but hearing that story of the woman and her 3 year-old daughter who are struggling every day to stay warm and fed and housed provided me with some much-needed spiritual perspective.

Peter went up and down with Jesus a number of times, and I’m guessing we are all destined to do the same, but I also hope we can learn a little something along the way. God provided a voice from a cloud that got Peter’s attention, and God continues to provide us with stories and experiences that enable us to see what’s truly important.
Thanks be to God for providing us with the grace to occasionally get it! Amen.

Making The Right Call
Mark 1:29-39

1:29 As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. 30 Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. 31 He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them. 32 That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. 33 And the whole city was gathered around the door. 34 And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. 35 In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. 36 And Simon and his companions hunted for him. 37 When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.”38 He answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” 39 And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

I’m not a big fan of the NFL. I rarely watch a professional football game during the regular season, but I usually tune in to the Super Bowl, and I always find some reason to be for or against one of the teams. I decided I would root for the Seahawks this year. I think I based my decision on the demeanor of the Seahawks’ coach – Pete Carroll. The coach for the New England Patriots, Bill Belichick, has a powerfully unhappy face, and it sort of puts me off. He’s clearly a good football coach, and he might even be a great person to have over for super on a Friday night, but that’s not the message that you get from the look on his face.

When you have no allegiance to either team it’s easy to find something more appealing about one team than the other, and that’s what I look for – a shallow reason to prefer one team over the other one. I preferred the look on Pete Carroll’s face and I found the uniforms of the Patriots to be pretty bland, so I was all for the Seahawks. Primarily I primarily wanted an interesting game, and it was that! It was an exciting game up to the last moment, and then my coach blew it! The Seahawks were four points behind, but they had the ball on the one yard line with 3 plays to go and 30 seconds on the clock – and they attempted a pass to a guy who was in the middle of this mass of humanity and it was intercepted.

Lou Holtz once pointed out that there are 3 things that can happen when you throw a pass and two of them are bad. I only had been a Seahawks fan for about 3 hours at that point, but I was infuriated by that call. I really can’t imagine how actual fans were left feeling at that moment. I’ve heard a couple of people defend the wisdom of that call, but I don’t buy it. I think it’s likely that that call will go down in history as the worst play ever called.

The winner of the Super Bowl has no impact on anything of any real significance, but I found that situation to bring a lot of attention to this exercise of decision-making. I went to bed last Sunday night troubled by the way that football ended. I think my feelings were split between being annoyed that Coach Carroll had led my freshly chosen team to defeat, but I think I also was tormented by the thought of how badly he must have felt when that game ended so badly. It’s easy for me to imagine myself making the wrong call – I wasn’t just annoyed – I was feeling his pain. I know what it feels like to be in that club. I don’t always make the wrong call, but I know what it feels like to do that.

Part of what it means to be an adult human being is having to make a lot of decisions – and that’s not necessarily the fun part. When you are a kid you think you want to have more freedom to make your own decisions, but it’s when you become authorized to make your own decisions and decisions for other people that life gets complicated.

The events of this first chapter in Mark make me think that Jesus knew what it felt like to have to make difficult decisions. The fact that he moved so quickly from one situation to the next gives the impression that Jesus knew exactly what he needed to do next, and I don’t doubt that he had a good amount of clarity in regard to where he needed to be and what he needed to be doing, but I don’t think he made those quick decisions without engaging in some good old-fashioned soul searching. He was decisive, but I don’t believe he was on autopilot.

To watch what Jesus does in this first chapter of Mark is to watch a man on a clear-minded mission. What we see in Jesus are the actions of a man who appears to know what he needed to do. He seamlessly went from one spot to the next and he responded to the various circumstances he encountered without delay or misstep. He was on his game. Of course this first chapter is the beginning of the first quarter, so to speak, but we don’t get the sense that he had any sense of ambivalence about where he needed to go and what he needed to be doing.

And of course this is no big deal if you are inclined to think of Jesus as the pre-programmed Son of God who never had to wonder where he needed to be or what he needed to be doing. If Jesus was of a different biological and spiritual substance than you and I he had no choice but to do what God would do. He would always do the right thing if he had the wisdom of God perfectly downloaded into his brain. If that were the case it would be amazing if he ever did anything that wasn’t perfectly prescribed by God. And of course we don’t know of anything he ever did that wasn’t becoming of a perfect God-man, but Mark includes a piece of information that indicates to me that he wasn’t removed from this process of trying to understand where he needed to go and what he needed to do. If Jesus was perfectly programmed to do what God would do, I don’t know why he got up and went off to pray so early in the morning.

I find this little detail to be very endearing of Jesus. He wasn’t perfectly programmed. Like the rest of us – Jesus had to make some difficult decisions. There were a lot of people parked around the home of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law who were in need of him, but he chose not to stick around. I sort of hate to think about what those people had to say about him when they got word that he wasn’t coming back. You can bet there were some Monday-morning quarterbacks claiming he had made the worst decision ever, but I’m thinking there were some others who came to discover that God wasn’t just available through the physical presence of Jesus. I’m guessing there were others who came to understand that the good news Jesus offered wasn’t limited by his physical presence.

I trust that there were others who continued to find healing and relief at the home of Simon Peter’s mother in law. She didn’t get up and ask what she could do. When Jesus lifted her up she knew what to do – she began to serve others – and that’s what Jesus wanted everyone who heard the good news to do. It would have been tempting to do what the crowd expected him to do – which is to continue to serve the multitude of people who had arrived at the house and who expected him to provide them with what they thought they needed, but Jesus had to get in touch with that deeper voice that reminded him that he didn’t just need to meet the expectations of those desperate individuals – Jesus had a message he needed to get out to the multitudes.

I’ve been listening to The History of the Civil War, by Shelby Foote. His book is divided in to three volumes, and I’m only about half-way through the second volume, but it’s been very educational for me. I didn’t know very much about that brutal chapter in our history, and I now know more than I want to know in some ways, but one thing that’s particularly interesting to me is the way that the military leaders of both sides made the decisions that they made. It’s quite a study in the decision-making process. The various commanders were motivated by a variety of factors – not the least of which was public adoration and peer rivalry. You would think in situations where life and death were at stake there would be more attention to actual competency, but that doesn’t seems to be the case.

And of course religious conviction was part of the mix. For Stonewall Jackson, the Civil War was on the level of a religious crusade. But many of the military commanders were very rank conscious and they weren’t just motivated to stay alive – they wanted to be recognized as successful leaders. And this was the case with the leaders of both sides.

Of course I’m hearing the story of the war filtered through the perspective of one man, but he didn’t make up the attitudes of the military leaders – Shelby Foote read endless diaries, letters, newspaper accounts, and other official documents that revealed the thinking of the various decision makers of the war, and in addition to doing what they thought would properly prosecute the for the best results of their cause – many of the commanders of the day had an eye for what would enable them to make the best showing for themselves.

And I totally understand that. It doesn’t bother me that people often engage in self-aggrandizing activities. I’m happy for people to get credit for work well done. As Muhammad Ali once said, It’s not bragging if you can back it up. But it’s not so pretty when people are guided by the thought of how they will be perceived by their peers, superiors, and the public at large.

It’s hard not to want to make decisions that are highly regarded by other people. Sometimes it’s just one person you are wanting to impress. Sometimes there are a bunch of people hanging around the house that have a strong agenda for you. You might even find yourself in that rare position where millions of people are glued to their televisions waiting to see what you will choose to do. Many times what you decide will have very little impact in the grand scheme of things, but from what I can tell, the most essential thing any of us can do is to attempt to be in touch with God before we do anything – which is how Jesus chose to operate.

The voice of God isn’t easy to hear. In fact if you are like me, you rarely have that absolutely clear sense of what God would have you do or say, but I know it’s essential to seek the wisdom of God in all that we do. If nothing else, the exercise of seeking to be in silent contact with God at least removes you from the cacophony of voices of those who think they know what you need to do and who don’t restrain themselves from letting you know what they think.
The house of Simon Peter’s mother in law was surrounded by people who were desperate for contact with Jesus. The disciples themselves were pressuring him to get back to the house and take care of them, but Jesus was focused on the one voice that he knew he needed to hear, and that was what enabled him to do the work that we continue to celebrate today.

It’s easy to get caught up in the pressure of the moment to take care of whatever seems to be bearing down. When that’s the case, remember what Jesus did. Step away from the voices that are the loudest, and seek to hear the word of God.

Thanks be to God for that mysteriously peaceful word that can come to us when we are in the most need of hearing it.
Amen.

Cleaning the House of Worship
Mark 1:21-28

1:21 They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. 22 They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. 23 Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, 24 and he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” 25 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” 26 And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. 27 They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching–with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” 28 At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

This morning’s scripture lesson is a textbook case of institutional pathology confronted by an exceptionally self-differentiated leader. I’m able to say this because I’m fresh out of my second continuing education class on the Murray Bowen Family Systems School of Therapy. This class falls in to the broad category of leadership development, and our instructor, Rev. Doug Hester, tries to help us understand the ways in which institutions can not only harbor but sometimes encourage unhealthy patterns of behavior for generations, and how we pastors have been trained by our own family systems to deal with problems in relatively automatic ways that aren’t necessarily helpful.

What we family systems theorists would hypothesize is that this synagogue had not only learned to adapt to the unfortunate condition of the man with an unclean spirit, but they had probably made special accommodations for him. I’m guessing everyone knew where this man with issues liked to sit and they made sure his place was available to him. They might even have given him a leadership position of some kind to feed his need to have some official control over that important institution. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but everybody knew his parents and grandparents, and nobody wanted to hurt anyone’s feelings. There were probably some furnishings in the synagogue with this family’s name inscribed upon them.

It wouldn’t have been easy to keep this man happy, but I’m guessing everyone did their best to keep him from having one of his episodes. In fact that might well have become their main objective. I don’t know what was going on in that synagogue, but they seem to have been very accommodating to this man whose life was held captive by an unclean spirit. For whatever reason, that unclean spirit had been comfortable within that synagogue until Jesus showed up to teach, and what he said was very threatening to this man’s circumstances.

I may be all wrong about this. It could be that this demon possessed man had never set foot in that synagogue before. The text doesn’t address where this man came from, but when the man speaks he seems to be speaking for the group. He asks the question, What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? As I say, we don’t know what this man’s role in that religious community was, but I can’t help but think he played a large role. Maybe I’m just overly sensitive to the potential of religious organizations as being particularly sensitive to pathological behavior.

I should tell you that the title of the recent class I attended was “Insensitivity Training: Changing the Focus of Pastoral Care”. And the first question our instructor posed was this: How often do we get tyrannized by the sensibilities of others?

I’m probably operating with an analysis in search of a problem, but I believe there is some truth to what I’m thinking. Religious institutions are notorious for giving safe harbor to bad behavior. And church leaders are well equipped to not deal with bad situations. I think we religious people often confuse compassion for people with enabling people to maintain bad behavior. We exercise empathy when we should expect responsibility, and that kind of behavior extends and compounds problems instead of creating opportunities for healing and resolution. I’m telling you, I took good notes during my class.

Whether the man with an unclean spirit was someone the community overly accommodated or not, this is an issue that can crop up in our lives, and in this situation Jesus does provide a different model of dealing with the issue than we kind-hearted Christians often utilize. He didn’t act as if nothing had happened, he didn’t save his reaction for private conversation when the man wasn’t around, he didn’t back down and apologize to the man for offending his sensibilities – he addressed the actual problem within the man – which resulted in the man being healed and the whole community experiencing a revival of sorts.

Clearly Jesus was an early student of the Murray Bowen Family Systems School of Therapy.

I think this is a really helpful story for us to examine. It’s easy for us to get caught up and distracted by the language of being possessed by an unclean spirit or a demon – we modern people don’t normally use that kind of language to describe people who’s lives are all torn up, but I don’t think this man in that synagogue is an unfamiliar character to us.

Thinking back, one of my finest moments of ministry occurred when I was the pastor of the West Helena United Methodist Church. It was a good church, and I enjoyed many good relationships within that church. But there was a man in that church who was not possessed by a demon, that’s far from how I would describe him, but he did have what you might call a difficult personality. He could see the problem with anything you might be trying to undertake and he would let you know about it. You might say that was his gift, and he exercised it freely. He wasn’t necessarily wrong about how he saw things, but he wasn’t very tactful in how he expressed his opinions. He was a good-hearted person, and he worked harder than most people to keep the church going, but as I say, he could be difficult.

I had initiated a Fat Tuesday pancake supper one year, and I had sort of gotten it organized, but we hadn’t sold that many tickets in advance and the weather was threatening, and as we were getting ready Pete was identifying everything that wasn’t quite right and what should have happened and how unlikely it was that anybody was going to show up and the moment arrived when I had heard all that I could stand. I became possessed by some kind of spirit and there in the kitchen in the midst of all the other United Methodist men I said: Pete, I know we’ve got some problems but it’s not helping for you to keep talking about them. If you don’t want to be here you can leave, but this supper is going to happen, and if you are going to stay I need for you to stop complaining.

It got real quiet for a moment, and then he responded by saying, OK, and he proceeded to keep working and to stop complaining.

You would think I would have learned something from that moment about the importance of direct communication, and maybe it helped me a little bit, but it’s not easy for us good southern Christian people to be that direct. I can get there, but that’s not how I was trained to behave in my family of origin.

In all honesty, this is an unusual church in regard to the lack of petty controversy. I’m not sorry about that, and I think it does speak to an aspect of this church that’s unusually healthy.

I was talking to a man one day from my hometown who is a very faithful member of 1st United Methodist Church in Wynne. He was telling me one day that his daughter lives in Little Rock, and that her apartment isn’t far from our church. He expressed some distress at the fact that she wasn’t going to church anywhere. At one point he told me that she just doesn’t like to go to church. And I responded by saying that she should come to QQUMC because there are a lot of people who come to this church because they don’t like to go to church.

He said he really didn’t know what to make of that. I wasn’t sure exactly what I meant by that either, but I think I was trying to speak to the fact that many of you have come from churches that were too caught up in the wrong things.

And I think that has made for a healthier and more harmonious community. In spite of the age of our facility, as most of you know, this is a relatively young church. The first church that occupied this sanctuary had a significant internal struggle in the late 1980’s which resulted in the relocation of that church, and that conflict is what opened the door for this church to get started. It’s an interesting study in organizational dynamics. It is a sad story in a number of ways, but one unintended consequence of that unfortunate battle is that something new and different was able to take hold here, and that wouldn’t have happened if that conflict hadn’t occurred.

That struggle gave birth to a new church, and our newness is an asset in many ways, but the downside of being a relatively young church is that people aren’t so deeply invested here. Consequently, people are more likely to leave if something doesn’t feel quite right than they are to engage in advocacy for change.

We have a good amount of harmony here, and that is great, but we shouldn’t be afraid to engage in a little conflict every now and then. I can’t really believe I’m hearing myself say that, and I’m really not inviting you to open that proverbial can of conflict on me, but this is a valuable organization, and it will always need honest and direct input.

We don’t just need to get along – we need for this to be a place where truth of Jesus Christ prevails and healing happens. This is a uniquely good church. I think yesterday’s memorial service for Randy was a great testimony to the goodness of this church. That service highlighted how right it is for the church to be truly open to people of all ages, nations, races, and sexual orientations. I was so proud yesterday to be the Sr. Pastor of the church that Randy Jones chose to attend.

This is such a good church. And we need you all to continue making it a better church. If there’s something that doesn’t suit you don’t quit coming – say something. Don’t be mean, and don’t expect everybody to do what you say, but stay engaged. Dig in, pray to God for guidance, love your fellow parishioners and your pastors, and work to build the kind of church where all people are welcome and demons are threatened!

Thanks be to God.
Amen.

Captivated
Mark 1:14-20

1:14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” 16 As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea–for they were fishermen. 17 And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” 18 And immediately they left their nets and followed him. 19 As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20 Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.

I feel very fortunate to not have been burdened by an over-abundance of charisma. There are times when I wish I had a bit more ability to overwhelm people with the power of my presence, but for the most part I’m grateful I haven’t had to figure out how to harness that monster. I’ve known a few people that were touched with whatever it is that gives some people that extra dose of sparkle, and it hasn’t worked out very well for most of them. Some of them are still alive, but they aren’t necessarily in good places.

Charisma is one of those things that you don’t really know how to define, but you know it when it shows up in the room. Charismatic people are the kind of people that seem to know exactly what they are doing and they usually know what other people need to be doing as well. The gift of charisma usually presents itself before a person has the wisdom to use it, and that’s why it often plays out badly. It would be nice if you could develop charisma after you turn 55. That would be a nice thing to look forward to, and it might even make for a more civilized world.

If charisma was something you could develop after you have grandchildren there would probably be a lot more amazing playgrounds than there are super-stretched limousines and wacky cults. Immaturity and charisma is a dangerous combination. I’m not sure what God was thinking by enabling such a combination.

But charisma isn’t all bad, and it doesn’t always lead to disaster. There are young people who are able to channel their charisma in healthy ways. I think there are people who figure out how to work with it. I’m thinking about this personal attribute we call charisma because Jesus had to have had a good dose of it. Jesus has very little to say to these people who are out fishing but they immediately drop what they are doing and follow him.

The extent of the charisma of Jesus isn’t fully illustrated by his interaction with Simon and Andrew because I’m thinking they were the kind of fishermen who were out trying to catch something to eat for lunch. These two didn’t have what we might call a fishing enterprise. They weren’t fishing from boats – they were standing in shallow water casting their nets near the shore. Following Jesus may have seemed like an economic opportunity for them. And I don’t know this, but I’m guessing they weren’t exactly hauling them in. Catching fish can be a feverish experience in itself. It would take an overabundance of charisma to get the attention of men who are in the process of catching fish, but that was not the case with those two. Jesus invited them to join him in the enterprise of catching people and they immediately followed him.

It’s funny to think about this business of being fishers of people. We Christians have fully embraced this language of ensnaring other people in our cause. And we do that because we trust what Jesus was doing. We know that Jesus wasn’t full of himself. We believe we are inviting people to experience an ultimate form of freedom by following Christ, but this first encounter has a lot in common with the way an unhealthy cult gets started. A person with a powerful presence who solicits allegiance from people who are searching for food doesn’t always go well.

But James and John weren’t hungry. You might say they were in the fishing business with their father. They had employees. James and John had careers lined up, but there was something about the way Jesus invited them to join him that spoke to them in a deep way. They left it all and followed Jesus.

It’s probably some kind of heretical distortion to imply that Jesus was able to convince these men to follow him because he had a charismatic personality. There isn’t any reference in any gospel that I know of that addresses the personality of Jesus, and I’m not saying that it was simple charisma that persuaded these four to drop what they were doing and follow him. Jesus didn’t bank on his winning smile, his heavenly voice, or his penetrating eyes – the things that charismatic people generally depend upon in order to gain control of other people. Jesus had the presence of a rock star, but he wasn’t just an inflated personality behind some talent. There was something powerfully transforming about his presence.

And I’m wanting to know what that was. I want that because I often feel like I’m still in the boat with the hired hands. It’s easy for me to feel caught up in those tasks that are much more like fishing for fish than the work of a person who has become a fisher of people. It’s hard not to be overwhelmed by the tedium or the tragedy of life.

Of course this last week has been a particularly hard one for everyone who knew Randy Jones. It’s been a challenge to feel the nearness of God’s kingdom because we’ve lost a truly beautiful person. If you knew Randy you know what I’m saying. He had the best smile. He had the nicest demeanor, he had the kindest touch, he had the softest heart, he had the best wit, and he had a terrible car accident last week. It’s a devastating turn of events. It’s a terrible blow for our church, and it’s an unimaginable loss for his husband, Drexel.

This hasn’t been an easy week to be in touch with this good news that Jesus announced. It’s been a lot easier to feel the pain of bad news. But there’s something in this morning’s passage that we need to keep in mind. Jesus announced that he had good news while he was standing in the shadow of John the Baptist’s arrest. We need to remember that the good news that Jesus offered doesn’t depend on everything going as we want it to go in our daily lives.

Jesus wanted us to know that the good news he came to bring is available to everyone at all times. This is powerfully good news, but we’ve got to make some adjustments if we want to see it. Jesus said we must repent. Actually that’s not what he said. Repent is the word the English translators generally use to describe what he said, but that word has taken on some connotations that Jesus may not have intended. We really don’t know what Aramaic word Jesus actually used, but the Greek word that Mark used in his gospel was metanoia, and that word refers to the need for us to have a change of mind.

We’ve turned this call for repentance in to the need for us to have regret and contrition, but I believe Jesus was more interested in us seeing the world differently than for us to identify our personal inadequacies. A transformed view of the world may well lead to a new way of living, but the good news of Jesus Christ is rooted in seeing who God really is – not in seeing who we aren’t.

I think this means is that we need to understand that the picture is much larger than we generally see it. There’s something more important than these endless tasks that are before us. There’s something more critical than maintaining our enterprises and honing our skills at those things that bring us food. There’s something more lasting than our lives and our relationships.

This isn’t an easy thing for me to get my mind around, but I know I want it, and I believe this is what Jesus had to offer. It was so real to Simon and Andrew and James and John that they dropped what they were doing and followed him. And I don’t believe they did what they did because they were more spiritually oriented or more devoted to Christ than the rest of us. I believe they just got a clear view of what Jesus was about and they knew that’s what they wanted.

They had the good fortune to see Jesus for who he was and what he offered. They didn’t hesitate to take up his offer to follow him, but I think it’s worth noting that they didn’t have such a clear view of the good news every day. The gospels are filled with stories of the way those same disciples failed to see what Jesus was doing.

The nearness of the kingdom of God is an illusive quest, but I don’t think there’s anything better to seek or comforting to find. It isn’t easy, but I trust that the living Christ continues to come our way and to offer us the same good news he had for those first disciples. The need for us to change still stands, but if you are like me you are hungry for some change. I want to see things differently because what’s easy to see is painful to view.

Bad news can come quickly and it can be an overwhelming presence in the room, but the good news that Jesus offered endures forever. It’s not as obvious as I wish it would always be, but it’s a captivating offer that can’t be ignored. This process of being called and being sent goes on and the kingdom of God remains near. This was the good news that Jesus offered those first disciples, and this is the good news that is here for us.

Thanks be to God.
Amen.

Nathanael’s Journey
John 1:43-51

1:43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” 44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” 46 Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” 47 When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” 48 Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” 49 Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” 50 Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” 51 And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

If you saw any kind of news this last week you probably saw the cover the latest edition of the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo. They printed and immediately sold out 3 million copies, which was 50 times their usual circulation of 60,000 issues, and then they printed an additional 2 million copies to meet the demand for the magazine. I was curious as to what kind of cartoon they would portray on the cover, and I think what they came up with was some inspired journalism. The cartoon was a drawing of the Prophet Mohammad with a tear coming from his eye, and he was holding a sign with the now-familiar phrase, I am Charlie. It also had the heading, All is forgiven.

Now I know that it’s an official act of blasphemy to portray the Prophet Muhammad in any way, so I know there’s something there to annoy the Islamic hard-liners, but for the most part I think that cartoon contains a powerfully positive message. It’s an image that shows how much more important it is to be compassionate than it is to be righteous. If there is anything the world needs right now it is for everyone in every faith tradition to reclaim the prominence of compassion. I love the message of that cartoon.

Unfortunately, I think terrorists are people who have no sense of humor or compassion, so I’m sure this cartoon will do little to reduce the threat of violence that religious extremists pose to the world, but what the world desperately needs is for people who kill in the name of God to take another look at what God actually desires for the world.

That process of taking a new look at who God is and what God is like is actually what we see going on in this morning’s passage of scripture. Our standard understanding of Jesus isn’t as obviously redefined in this passage as was the usual portrayal of Muhammad recast on the cover of Charlie Hebdo, but if you take a close look at what goes on in this passage you might see someone taking a new look at an old tradition and being totally reoriented by what they saw.

This is the first time Nathanael ever appears in any of the stories about Jesus, so we don’t know who Nathanael was, but the nature of the dialogue between Philip and Nathanael indicates that he was what we might call, a good Christian boy. Nevermind that he was Jewish. You could think of him as a good Jewish boy if you grew up in a Jewish neighborhood, but most of us grew up around Christians, so we generally think of our good Jewish neighbors as good Christian people.

And that’s the kind of person Nathanael was – he was good people. His name gives it away, Nathanael means, gift of God. He had a godly name and he tried to live up to it. Philip knew this about Nathanael and that’s why he went looking for him after he met Jesus and came to believe he was the one that all the good religious people were looking for. Nathanael was probably the most religious person Philip knew, so he went and told him what he thought about Jesus. Phillip told him that Jesus was the one who Moses and the prophets had talked about and that he was the son of Joseph from Nazareth.

Now Nathanael had studied his Bible. We know this because hanging out under the fig tree was another way of referring to the work the rabbis did of studying the Torah. I don’t know if rabbis were actually known for studying the Torah under fig trees, but if you were known as a person who hung out under the fig tree you were known as someone who knew their way around the Torah.

So what we know is that Nathanael was a gift of God who studied his Torah. Philip figured Nathanael would be excited to hear that he had found the long-expected messiah, but when he told Nathanael he needed to come meet him, Nathanael wasn’t so quick to buy in to the situation because Nathanael was a scholar. He knew his Bible and he what kind of people lived in the region of Nazareth. Those people weren’t known as good people.

But Philip was Nathanael’s friend, so he followed him anyway. Nathanael was willing to meet this Jesus, but he didn’t expect him to be the messiah. Jesus didn’t fit the profile that his Biblical scholarship had provided him.

I really do understand this character, Nathanael. Because I was once a good Christian boy. I was a person who had a very clear understanding of who God is and what it meant to live right and to be acceptable to God. I was not always the largely confused and conflicted person you now know me to be. I used to understand what God expected. That was before I got involved with the Wesley Foundation when I was a student in Fayetteville.

I wasn’t a perfectly well-behaved young man when I was in high school, but I did my best to meet the high standards I had come to believe our loving God expected of people who didn’t want to burn in hell for eternity. I was a faithful church-going person. I wasn’t exactly a Biblical scholar. In fact I didn’t really know much of what it said, but I considered it to be a powerful good luck charm, so I usually knew where my Bible was.

But it didn’t really bring me that much good luck as a freshman in college. In fact I became pretty miserable and depressed. I’ll spare you my thorough psychoanalytic profile, but I decided to solve my problem by transferring from Hendrix to Fayetteville for my sophomore year. I was going to study my way out of my misery, and I took a full load of pre-engineering classes. I don’t remember everything I took that semester, but I do remember that’s when I had my first encounter with Calculus, and it ramped up my misery level to a new high.

My beloved youth and children’s director back at the 1st UMC in Wynne, Emily Cockrill, had told me I should go by the Wesley Foundation in Fayetteville and meet her friend, the director, Lewis Chesser. I had done that, and I took an instant liking to him because he rode a bicycle to work, but I was a little put-off by some of the language he used to describe his experience with some of the hills around Fayetteville. He used a word or two that good Christian boys didn’t generally use.

I began going by the Wesley Foundation often and I met these people who were really interesting to me, but they didn’t really fit the profile of the kind of people you usually met in church. You might say they were the kind of people who came from Nazareth. I didn’t really know what to think about people who seemed to be interested in talking about who Jesus was but who weren’t particularly well-behaved people – at least not in the narrow way I defined it at the time.

But I was trying to keep up with my homework and I was miserable. I was living off campus in a house with two older graduate students – one of whom I knew from childhood. The other one was his friend, and I considered him to be the poster-child for someone destined for hell. I won’t go in to that, but our household was a toxic environment – biologically, chemically, and sociologically. I tried not to spend much time there. I often did my homework in the library of the Wesley Foundation, and one night I was trying to do some Calculus and it was literally driving me nuts. There was a thunderstorm raging outside, but I was so upset with my inability to understand what I was doing I decided I would rather walk home in that storm than to deal with those numbers any longer.

I packed up my backpack and put my gortex rain-jacket on and I had taken one good step out of the door when this bolt of lightening struck something across the street and the crash of thunder caused me to jump back against the wall of the building. One moment later I heard this Middle Eastern accented voice come from above that said: Thompson, this is your God! I was frozen for a second, until I heard that same voice start chuckling, and I realized it was this Greek guy named Costas who lived on the second floor of this old house that was on the Wesley Foundation property. He had been sitting by his window watching the storm and he played my precarious situation perfectly when he saw what happened. I didn’t think it was so funny, and I proceeded to walk home in that storm.

I remember having a pretty frank conversation with God on that walk home. I suggested that He (and yes I was pretty sure God was a man) just go ahead a take me out with a bolt of lightening. I think I considered it to be a form of grace that enabled me to get home alive, and I think I can point to that night as the beginning of the transformation that I’m continuing to undergo in regard to how I understand God to be.

I showed back up at the Wesley Foundation the next day, and of course Costas had already spread the story of my encounter with God, and that pretty much initiated me in to that non-traditional religious community. It was at the Wesley Foundation where I began to hear sermons based on what Jesus actually said and did, and my image of God became much less punitive and far more compassionate.

We don’t know what Jesus had seen Nathanael doing under the fig tree and what it meant to Nathanael to hear that Jesus knew what he had been doing, but it was an exchange that redefined what Nathanael expected from the messiah. He had to let go of what he thought and become open to a new relationship with God. And that was a good thing. The heavens had not been so previously open.

So I’m not saying I’m against religious fervor. It’s not a bad thing to be as disciplined and as resolved as you can be in seeking to serve God as you know God to be. And I’m all for diligent Bible-study, because such study can show you how many different ways God is defined. Religious training can be a good thing, but if you aren’t careful it can get in the way. I can testify that you can become too sure of who you think God is and what you think God expects.

Fortunately, God isn’t easily contained! And I’m grateful that we have these experiences that disrupt our familiar concepts and comfortable understandings. God wants to be in a relationship with us, but it isn’t a relationship that is defined by clear rules or traditional roles. It’s better described by the sight of the heavens being opened with angels ascending and descending – sometimes riding on thunder and lightening.

Our relationship with God is far more mysterious than can ever be prescribed and I believe this story of Jesus and Nathanael is a portrayal of the type of transformation that happens to all of us when we encounter the living Christ.

Nathanael’s journey is our own journey. And what a journey it is!

Thanks be to God.
Amen

Called to Life
Mark 1:4-11

1:4 John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. 8 I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” 9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. 11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

There really isn’t a 12-step recovery program for the things that control my life. I don’t know of any Starbucks coffee recovery groups. There may be some, but I wouldn’t go because I’m not yet willing to gain control of that compulsion. And I generally follow the American Medical Association’s guideline for alcohol consumption, so that seems largely under control. I don’t consider myself addicted to any of my electronic devices. I might spend an abnormal amount of time listening to books on my iphone, but I don’t think it’s exactly detrimental to have logged 50 plus hours of books about American history over the past couple of months while raking leaves or engaging in other mindless tasks.

But I don’t have all of my compulsions under control. There’s this thing I do that’s sort of ugly, but I can’t stop myself. In fact I don’t want to stop – I am an unrepentant duck hunter. I’ve owned up to this before, and some people have found this to be disturbing.

In all honesty, it’s a little disturbing to me, because I love ducks. I think they are beautiful and amazing animals. I love to watch them and I love to hunt them. It’s a behavior I can’t really explain or reconcile within myself. I can give you a well-reasoned justification for the activity and how it puts me in touch with the fact that anytime we eat meat there is an animal that has been killed. I can justify the behavior, but I don’t do it because it makes sense. It’s just something I’m compelled to do – it’s primitive.

And it’s cultural. It’s something I got to do when I was a child and I’ve never gotten over it. I would hunt with my father, and my grandfather, and a few other men. I never learned to call ducks when I was a child because we had Hubert, and Hubert knew how to talk to them. He was a very authoritative duck caller.

But Hubert had to retire from duck hunting at some point, and I decided I wanted to learn to be a duck caller. Soon after I started trying to call ducks I was out with my father one morning and I asked him what he thought of my calling and he said, Well, it’s loud.

I thought that was a pretty good assessment of my calling, and in some ways that describes my attraction to duck hunting – it’s loud. Now I don’t think it’s the voice of God that calls me out into flooded places before daylight during the winter, but it’s something akin to the voice of God. I’m certain I could live a whole, happy life if I never pulled on another pair of waders, which indicates that it’s something less than the voice of God that calls me to hunt, but anytime I’m provided with the opportunity I won’t show up late.

I don’t wish to trivialize the baptism of Jesus by comparing it to my compulsion to go duck hunting, but on some level I think Jesus was drawn to what John the Baptist was doing down at the Jordan River in the same way I’m driven to go duck hunting. The forces that drove Jesus to the Jordan river were more than primal and cultural – I believe that the Holy Spirit was part of that mix as well, but I don’t think Jesus could have stayed away from what John was doing because it was an authentic expression of faith in God, and that’s exactly what Jesus was all about.

In the Gospel of Mark, we are provided with very little introductory information about Jesus or John the Baptist prior to the story we just read this morning. You might say this is the way Mark introduces Jesus. We aren’t given any information about where Jesus or John came from, but John’s primary invitation was to people who felt the need to repent of their sins and to live a new life in relationship with God.

John also made this announcement that he was preparing the way for one who was greater than him and who would immerse people in the Holy Spirit, but Jesus didn’t show up and make this announcement about himself prior to his baptism. Jesus showed up like everyone else, and John baptized him like everyone else.

I like the way Mark tells this story. Other gospel writers build in some resistance on John’s part to baptizing Jesus – the indication being that Jesus had no need for repentance. I don’t need for Jesus to have been someone in need of repentance, but I do like the idea of Jesus not disassociating himself from those of us who do.

Conventional Christianity seems to put a lot of emphasis on the perfection of Jesus. I’m sure we’ve all heard someone say that there’s only been one perfect person and that his name was Jesus. People usually use that line to comfort someone who’s done something really ridiculous, and I guess that’s not a bad thing to say to someone who has fallen in a ditch. But I don’t need for Jesus to have been this perfectly pure person. I’m much more nourished by the concept of a savior who knew what it felt like to fail and to get going again in a better direction.

We don’t know what drove Jesus to be baptized by John, and I’m really comfortable with that. In fact I love to think that Jesus didn’t quite understand what drove him down to the river to be baptized. I know I don’t quite understand what drives me to do what I do, but I’m trying to learn to be sensitive to those better spirits that drive me and to avoid those other ones.

What we do know is that Jesus and everyone else experienced some clarity when he came up out of the water. Jesus did show up at the right place, and it marked the beginning of his public ministry.

I think this story is a good illustration of how the Holy Spirit can work in each of our lives. We don’t know that it was the Holy Spirit that drove Jesus to be baptized, but Jesus had enough sensitivity to the authentic presence of God to show up where God seemed to be at work, and it turned out to be a very clarifying event. Jesus went to the place where people’s souls were being nourished, and he left as the most powerful source of nourishment the world has ever known.

We don’t generally step in to places with full knowledge of how we will come out of the situation, but when we follow those promptings that seem to be where God is leading us we often will find new clarity about who we are and what we are to do.

I’m so sad about what has transpired in France over the past few days. I don’t think it’s particularly helpful to criticize the way in which some people of other religious faiths follow dark paths with deep religious conviction. What those terrorists did in France is a distortion of what the core teaching of Islam is all about. I don’t know what forces shaped the lives of the people who engaged in those horrific acts of violence, but it is the opposite of what Jesus was baptized in to and what we are invited to become immersed into as well.

By going down to the Jordan River Jesus identified with people who were lost and he associated with people who were in need of repentance. Jesus became the one who offered people a better way of living because he didn’t disassociate himself from those who weren’t conducting themselves in acceptable ways.

I don’t know how to fix what’s wrong with other faiths, but I believe we have a story that the world is in need of hearing. It’s the story of how God chose to be in the life of a man who overcame evil with love. A man who didn’t see himself as better than those who were impure, but who offered everyone the chance to get on a better path. Our story is of a man who didn’t consider the use of violence to be the way to solve the problem of ungodly behavior.

This is the story in to which we are baptized. It’s a story into which that we must learn to immerse ourselves and to allow ourselves to become the new beloved children of God. We are invited to be the people with whom God is pleased.

Our world is saturated in death right now. And many people are inclined to believe that we need more instruments of death to overcome the agents of death. I’m not so naïve to believe that we don’t need to exercise great diligence in seeking to understand what is going on and who is involved, but I also believe we need to remember the powerful story that we have been given. I don’t know what it is calling us to do or where it will call us to be, but it’s a story that can far surpass the power of the cartoons of Charlie Hebdo.

It’s moving for me to see the people in the streets of Paris who believe that there needs to be freedom to satirize every powerful person and organization. I believe this as well, but the world needs more than satire. The world needs hope. And I believe the message of Jesus Christ is a message of hope. The message is that new life is a possibility for all of us. Redemption and reconciliation can happen.

I think we all have some loud callings in our lives. Some of those callings are pretty trivial and meaningless. It’s a challenge to understand how responsive we need to be to those odd directions we are inclined to go, but we need to nourish that calling we have from the one who calls us to life.

I believe Jesus Christ is calling all of us – baptized or not – into a new way of living and of associating with one another. Jesus understood what life is all about, and he wants us to become the beneficiaries and the bearers of that new life.

The world is full of people who now are choosing to associate themselves with Charlie Hebdo. I’m inspired by their demonstration, but I wish the streets would be filled with more people who want to be associated with Jesus Christ – the one who showed up at the Jordan River and got in line to be baptized.

Thanks be to God for this powerful story of how God chose to be with us, and how God enables us to find true life in this world that is so torn by death!

Amen

Shepherd’s Lives Matter
Luke 2:1-20

2:1 In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 All went to their own towns to be registered. 4 Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5 He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. 8 In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see–I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11 to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, 14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!” 15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. 17 When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

We’ve got a beautiful picture here. We’ve all seen it a thousand times on Christmas cards and in crèche’s of all kinds. This scene of the baby Jesus lying in a manger with kind people and well-behaved animals all standing around in a soft barn with perfect lighting provided by a star. Who wouldn’t want to begin life in that place?

Unfortunately that is pure make-believe. And I’m not talking about the supernatural elements of this story. I don’t care to debunk any mysteries about the way in which Jesus was conceived or how Joseph and Mary ended up in Nazareth – stranger stories get told every day about where children come from. I’m not disturbed by the extraordinary part of this story. What bothers me is how cozy and disinfected this barn is portrayed, and how revered the shepherds have become.

You need to erase the quaintness of herding sheep from your mind. I know the idea of shepherding gets good play throughout the Bible, but don’t kid yourself about the work – it was not the career choice of people with options. The contrast between the metaphor of shepherding and the reality of the work couldn’t be more extreme. It’s remarkable that the most highly revered Psalm is the one that speaks of the Lord as our shepherd because actual shepherds weren’t welcome in the synagogue. It stunk to be a shepherd – literally and figuratively.

Jesus was born at a time when it was really important to the leaders of Israel to follow the proper cleaning rituals, to do nothing on the Sabbath, and to show up at the Temple for all of the major religious feasts. The Pharisees kept close tabs on those who were following the proper religious protocols of the day those who weren’t. And if you worked as a shepherd your name wasn’t on the good list – it was on the other list.

It’s fine for the Lord to be a shepherd, but God forbid that your son become one. You became a shepherd when other jobs weren’t available to you. It may seem strange to us that a community which depended on having sheep would have such contempt for the people who took care of their cherished commodity, but I don’t think we have to look far to see another community that disregards the people who keep the economy operating.

First century Israelites needed wool and mutton in the same way we need gasoline and high-fructose corn syrup, and I’m thinking that the people who keep our cars running and our minds racing through the night are treated in much the same way the Pharisees treated the shepherds. I’m thinking the shepherds of Jesus’ day are much like the late-night convenience store workers of our day. Where would we be if we couldn’t drive at any hour on any day and trust that we are within reach of gasoline and a bottle of Starbucks Mocha Frappuchino? I don’t think anyone aspires to work the graveyard shift on Christmas Eve at a convenience store, but what would we do without the people who do that work? It’s one of those essential occupations that few people long to have.

Shepherding was dangerous work that was poorly compensated and completely unappreciated. And I’m thinking this is also true of many occupations within our society. People who work the graveyard shifts at convenient stores come to mind because I think they probably have about the same social standing as the shepherds of Jesus’ day. Convenience store clerks aren’t as religiously stigmatized as shepherds were, but I don’t think anyone thinks it would be quaint to stand behind the counter of a convenience store at 3am.

We’ve turned the shepherds in to characters fit for Hallmark cards, but God didn’t choose to include them in this story because of their good looks and respectability. God included them in this story to remind us how differently the Kingdom of God is organized, and what kind of savior this baby named Jesus would grow to become.

It’s natural for us to turn this dirty makeshift shelter in to a lovely nativity scene because it is a beautiful story in so many ways, but we don’t need to lose sight of the real beauty of this story. We need to be reminded that Jesus wasn’t born in to a proper and quaint situation and his birth was first announced to the least significant people in the community.

Fortunately we don’t have to remind ourselves of this truth. In spite of the way this story has been disinfected and made respectable, God continues to find ways to reveal the scandalous nature of this story.

The United Methodist Church I attended when I was growing up in Wynne, Arkansas was a remarkably proper place. And it was full of fine people – many of Wynne’s finest attended the United Methodist Church. And I don’t mean that in a disparaging way. That church had many nice people in it – and it had one person who really didn’t fit the standard profile. Rual Cook was his name, and he didn’t blend in with the community. He had been psychologically damaged in WWII (shell-shocked is how I remember him being described), and it left him in a world of his own. He lived alone in a very dirty house. He did yard-work for people, and he didn’t clean up very well, but every Sunday he would put on his one suit and come to Sunday School and church. I could show you where he sat every Sunday in that sanctuary. In fact there’s probably a spot on the pew where he sat.

As a young person, I never had a lot of interaction with Mr. Cook, but every Christmas my mother would fix a nice box of food for him and she would get me to deliver it. Stepping in to Mr. Cook’s house wasn’t like stepping in to anyone else’s house that I knew, but I can still remember how gracious he was, and how blessed I would feel by that experience.

Mr. Cook was one of the most insignificant players in the life of the city, but he played a powerful role in the story of that church. When Mr. Cook died I was asked to help conduct his graveside service and it was then that I came to the realization that it wasn’t the church that took care of him – it was Mr. Cook who brought a great gift to that church. He was the worst dressed man in the church, he was the most disenfranchised member of that community, and he provided us with the best news that any of us ever get – which is that God doesn’t function in the same way that this world operates. God doesn’t measure us the same way we are measured by other people, and God invites us to see one another in this new and holy way as well.

This nativity story isn’t quaint – it’s revolutionary. It’s the story of how God chooses to be with us and how God intends for us to become. It’s not just a beautiful story – it’s a story that has the power to move us in new ways, and to change how we treat one another. It’s a story that reveals the true nature of our God, and how well we are loved – how well we are all loved. This isn’t a quaint story of something that may have happened a couple of thousand years ago – this is the story of how God continues to arrive in our world. Jesus continues to show up in the most out of the way places, and God uses the most unlikely people to remind us of how things are in the Kingdom of God.

Thanks be to God for the gift of this reoccurring story that disrupts our order, stirs our hearts, comforts our souls, and renews our lives. Thanks be to God. Amen.

The Voice
John 1:6-8, 19-28

1:6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 19 This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” 20 He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.” 21 And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.” 22 Then they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” 23 He said, “‘I am a voice crying out in the wilderness, Make the Lord’s path straight’, just as the prophet Isaiah said.” 24 Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. 25 They asked him, “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” 26 John answered them, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, 27 the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.” 28 This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing.

I’m not immune from getting sucked in to the world of mindless television, but The Voice isn’t one of the shows that lures me in. I prefer pure over-the-top fiction to pseudo-reality based television shows. When I want to watch real people scratching and clawing to get what they want I turn on the news. I’m not sure that you ever really capture reality when a film crew is on hand.

Of course in light of the recent deaths that have occurred at the hands of police officers – I’m all for adding body cameras to those who are on the front line of crime response. I think it would be helpful for everyone involved. It will protect the innocent and moderate the behavior of the guilty. Unfortunately what we are seeing on the news is way too much like a bad reality tv show. There is this growing movement called Black Lives Matter, and today has been designated by the leaders of that movement as Black Lives Matter Sunday. It’s unfortunate that we have to have demonstrations to make the point that black lives matter, but that’s a message that needs to get out. Everyone matters, and I hope the day will come when we don’t have to be reminded of this.

I guess the world is in the mess it’s in because there is this tendency to value some lives more than others and to give more attention to some voices than to others. We live in a world that’s inundated by a cacophony of voices, and we don’t always pay attention to the right voices, but this morning we are invited to hear the voice of a man who called for people to prepare the way for the One who’s voice would change everything.

I’m focused on the power of voice because when pressed to identify himself, this man named John, the one we know of as John the Baptist – he identified himself as a voice. When the Pharisees insisted that he let them know who he was, he quoted this passage from Isaiah: I am a voice crying out in the wilderness, Make the Lord’s path straight.

I’m wondering how many of us would ever think of ourselves as, a voice. I’m guessing there are a number of people who might think of themselves in that way, but I’m not one of them. I don’t think of myself as a voice. I like to think I’ve got good hands, but I don’t have much of a voice. It’s sort of ridiculous that I make a living as a public speaker. Of course that may also explain the lack of public that shows up to hear me speak. If it wasn’t for my ability to say remarkably witty and insightful things I think I would be a dreadful preacher.

There are many of us who don’t have particularly powerful voices, but there is no shortage of people who have stage-worthy voices. I don’t think The Voice has trouble getting people to show up for their auditions. There are a lot of people who want to share their voice with the public, and that’s a beautiful thing. A great voice is a thing to behold. It’s a wonderful experience to hear a great voice. We are healed by good voices, we are inspired by good voices, we are moved by good voices. There may not be anything more humanly powerful than a beautiful voice.

Of course God doesn’t depend on the quality of a person’s voice to use them to do powerful things. Moses didn’t think he was qualified to lead the people of Israel because he thought he had a weak voice, but God didn’t consider that to be a problem. God provided a bit of a work-a-round by incorporating Aaron in to the communication process, but a weak voice is no obstacle for God. A weak voice is no excuse to not get involved in God’s work of redeeming the world.

We don’t know what kind of vocal strength John the Baptist had, but we know he had a powerful message. John was calling for people to change their lives, but he didn’t consider himself to be the one who would change everything. He was a voice, and he wanted people to be prepared for the voice.

John the Baptist didn’t refer to Jesus as the voice, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think of what he was saying in that way. John thought of himself as a voice crying out for us to be prepared for the voice. It’s not easy to be prepared to hear the voice of Jesus, but I like to think of that as the nature of our calling as Christians. We are people who aspire to hear the voice of Jesus – the voice of the One who speaks for God.

It’s amazing how powerful the sound of voices are to us. You can hear a song and be transported back to the place or the period of time in your life when you first heard that song. You can hear the sound of a familiar television character’s voice and be transported in to the reality of that show. You can hear the sound of a loved one’s voice or laugh and experience immediate wellbeing or the sound of an adversary and be put on full alert.

I’ll never forget this conversation I had with my father a few months after my mother died. We were driving back to Little Rock from my cousin’s wedding in Dallas. We had been driving for a few hours and my father said he was having a hard time remembering the sound of my mother’s voice. He asked me if I could remember the sound of her voice. As I thought about it for a moment it occurred to me that I could still hear the sound of her laugh, and there was also a phrase I could hear her say. It was a phrase I often heard her say to my father, and I told him what it was. I told him I could still hear her saying to him, Buddy, if you would just listen! Luckily he was sort of amused by what I said, and I think that line rang a bell with him.

I think John the Baptist was a little bit like my mother in that way. He was conscious of the fact that we are often inclined to turn our deaf ear toward essential messages. My mother could strike a tone that would call me to attention, and I think that’s what John the Baptist was doing for the leaders of Israel. John the Baptist didn’t think of himself as the voice, but he was a powerful voice, and he continues to call us to attention.

It’s never easy to discern the voice of Christ, but it’s particularly hard when we give an inordinate amount of attention to all the other voices that are trying to get noticed. It’s especially hard when we think the most important voice out there is our own.

Of course it’s important to pay attention to those voices that are out there and it’s important to utilize our own voices, but without some guidance from the voice we can become caught up in a really ugly chorus.

As I mentioned earlier, I fully believe there is an important message coming out of this Black Lives Matter campaign. Our society has been overly tolerant of a pattern of abuse that has been directed toward black men. There is some righteous anger being expressed right now and it’s easy for me to believe that this message resonates to what Jesus had to say. Jesus raised his own voice against injustice, but he never added his voice to the advocates of hate – even toward those who carried out evil agendas.

And this is what makes it so hard to hear what Jesus is saying and to join our own voices to his own. Our challenge is to tune our ears to hear his voice and to train our own voices to become powerful instruments of love and peace and justice.

My friend Mark has begun taking voice lessons. He doesn’t claim to know how what he is learning is going to enhance his vocal ability, but he’s an engineer, and he tried to explain to me what he has learned about the mechanics vocal sound. The lungs are more or less the engine of sound, and how well you control the air-flow certainly has an impact on the quality of the sound you produce. The vocal chords actually generate the sound, and of course there’s some training that goes in to how tightly or loosely you hold those chords as the air passes through them. Then there’s the shaping of the sound with your throat, mouth, tongue, sinus cavities, and skull configuration. There’s a good amount of control you have over the resonance of the sound you produce, but of course some people simply have better heads than others when it comes to sound production.

The mechanics of voice is interesting, and I think it reflects the way in which there’s always a relationship between the hardware and the software. There’s always a relationship between what we have and how well we learn to utilize what we have. I think this creative process of generating voice is also a reflection of how we can learn to join our own voices with the voice of God.

It’s God’s breath than powers us. Some of us constrict the amount of God’s breath we allow to pass through us, but there’s some divinity in all of us. We can choose to waste God’s breath by choosing to remain silent or by twisting it for our own purposes. We can make some devious sounds with God’s breath, but it’s purpose is to speak and to sing the words that bring comfort and healing.

I believe we are all invited to become incorporated in to the voice of God in this world. It’s a powerful invitation. It’s a beautiful opportunity. It’s a difficult challenge. It’s a mysterious undertaking. It’s a gift. It’s a job. It’s a solo act. It’s a face in a choir.

I believe the voice of Christ speaks to all of us in ways that we can understand if we will heed the words of those people like John who see the world for what it is and call for us to pay attention to how God intends for it to be. The voice is speaking. Listen, learn, sing, speak, pray, and rejoice!

We are not alone — thanks be to God!
Amen.