Thompson's Blog

Thinking Out of the Jar
John 4:5-42
4:5 So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. 7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” 27 Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” 28 Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29 “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” 30 They left the city and were on their way to him. 31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. 35 Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. 36 The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” 39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

The Gospel of John is an unusual piece of literature. As I’ve mentioned before, this was the last of the four gospels to have been written, and it’s just a different creature. Many of the stories in John don’t appear in the other gospels, and the stories that do appear are told with elaborate detail. It’s only in John that we read about the wedding at Cana where Jesus turned water in to wine, it’s only in John that we learn of the nighttime conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, and it’s only in John that we hear of this encounter between Jesus and the woman of Samaria at the well. There are other stories that we’ll be looking at in the next couple of weeks that are unique to John, and there are some very clear messages attached to these stories.

Whereas the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, & Luke relate the various parables Jesus told in order to reorient the thinking of his followers, John relates these full episodes of interactions in order to portray the unique personality and message of Jesus. John tells stories that are designed to help us see the truth about God, the truth about Jesus, and the truth about ourselves. It’s not always so nice to see the truth about ourselves, but I think it’s helpful in these stories to see the way other people do the right and the wrong things.

Today’s story highlights someone who was more astute than your average disciple. Unlike the conversation that transpired between Jesus and Nicodemus, which we read last week, today we are privy to a conversation that took place between Jesus and a woman who sort of got it. We don’t know her name, and what we do know about her isn’t something that most people would want to be known about them. But she wasn’t intimidated by the truth – she found it to be compelling – which is one of the many lessons that we might pick up from this story.

There are a couple of details in this story that I find to be particularly telling. The first detail that we are given is that this conversation took place at noon. Now on one level, it makes sense for an encounter at a well to take place at noon. That’s when people are traveling and needing water. Going to a well is a daytime activity, but I think we are to also notice the contrast between when this conversation happened and when it was that Nicodemus chose to encounter Jesus. Unlike Nicodemus, this woman had no fear of the truth – which is an interesting contrast. Nicodemus was a pillar of Jewish society and this woman had been married five times and was living with a sixth man.

I’m not saying there was anything wrong with this woman. Jesus never expresses any kind of judgment against her. I don’t know what had transpired in her life, but there was some kind of a story there. Jesus didn’t treat her like it was a problem, but people like me are inclined to wonder about people like her. I don’t think Jesus would be surprised that there would be some suspicion of people like her, and I think that makes this story so much richer. It turns out that Nicodemus didn’t want to be seen with the man who turned out to be the son of God, while the son of God had no problem engaging in an extended conversation with the woman who was known for the number of husbands she had had.

This little detail sheds a lot of light on who is standing in darkness and who is in the light. This makes me think we all always need to be careful about who we consider to be redeemed and who we see as lost. In fact what this says to me is that it just isn’t our job to make these judgments about other people. It also reminds me that none of us are ever automatically in or out of God’s favor.

In that most famous of verses in John’s gospel – the one emblazoned in the endzone of so many NFL games – John 3:16, I think I’ve always focused on the verb – the believe word, but I think John wanted us to key on the universal nature – the whoever word in the invitation: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Because it’s soon after we read this verse that we are told this story of the woman from Samaria – a story designed to illustrate the type of person who gets it. And it’s in contrast to the story of the one who should have but didn’t quite get it.

I love the way John plays with the concept of darkness and light, but there’s another detail in this story that jumps out at me. When the disciples return and interrupt the high level theological conversation Jesus was having with the Samaritan woman and turn it in to a conversation about what Jesus ate for lunch, we’re told that the woman left her jar and ran back to her village. The fact that John includes this detail makes me think that there’s something about it we need to notice.

I think it goes back to the beginning of the conversation when Jesus spoke of what it was he had to offer. Jesus spoke of providing her with living water – which isn’t something you need a jar to contain. I don’t think this woman left her jar out of forgetfulness or distraction. When she ran back to her village she didn’t return empty-handed – she returned bearing that living water, and she was able to share it with others. In fact there wasn’t anyone who asked her about the water. She immediately became a powerful witness to the truth – a person people were able to hear.

I don’t know if she spoke with great authority in that village before she left, maybe in that village you gained respect through serial marriages, but there wasn’t anyone who questioned her veracity when she arrived back at the village without any actual water but with a tale about the messiah. This living water that Jesus shared is powerful stuff. It can’t be contained in a jar and when you encounter it it changes everything.

I was listening to the news on the radio one day last week and I heard a story about life in the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan. I was surprised to learn that there was anything else going on in the world other than a airplane that had gone missing, but I was moved by this story. You wouldn’t expect a story about a girl-scout troop meeting or the formation of a women’s soccer team to be a powerful international news story. And as I say, I didn’t hear this on CNN, but I was struck by this small group of girls who were reciting the Girl Scout oath.

The Zaatari refugee camp is filled with people who have fled the civil war that is raging in Syria. This particular refugee camp has become the fourth largest city in Jordan. It’s an overcrowded and dusty place, but my impression is that it isn’t without some living water. There are some volunteers who have formed a girl-scout troop, and as I say, I was moved by the resolve in the voices of the young girls who aren’t able to live in their own country and who have been hurt by other people, but they were promising to serve God and their country and to help other people at all times.

I was reminded by this story of how many things I take for granted – particularly when I heard about the women’s soccer league that the Jordanian National Women’s team was helping to form. They are working with girls who have never had access to any kind of athletic activities. These girls come from a rural and religiously conservative part of Syria, and some of the girls didn’t know how to run.

It’s sad to think of how constricted some people’s lives are, and it’s not just in poor foreign nations that children’s lives are so deprived. I know there are children in every nation – including our own that are so poorly nurtured and nourished, but when I hear a story of how someone is reaching out with love and respect and breaking down those barriers that maintain the darkness that envelopes vulnerable people I am reminded that there is such a thing as living water.

And it makes me want to drink of that water and to share that water.

And as we learn from today’s story. That living water of Jesus Christ is uncontainable. Living water comes from Jesus Christ, and we are filled with that water when we give ourselves to Christ, but I believe the living water of Jesus Christ has burst out of the institution that bears his name. Whosoever offers life-giving opportunity to someone who is withering away believes in Jesus Christ and has inherited eternal life regardless of what they may or may not profess to believe.

This may sound offensive to someone who doesn’t claim Jesus Christ as their savior. I’m not trying to baptize unwilling converts, but what I am trying to say is that we don’t control God’s living water, and anytime we think we are in control we are sadly mistaken. And the best thing that can happen to any of us is to be overwhelmed by this living water.

May we all have the wisdom and sensitivity and the power of this woman from Samaria who drank from that water and who shared it so well with others.
Amen.

Just Call Me Nicodemus
John 3:1-17

3:1 Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 2 He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ 8 The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” 9 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? 11 “Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. 12 If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 17 “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

I think I’ve had a number of different opinions about Nicodemus over the years. And one of my earliest impressions of him was that he was an incredibly dense religious bureaucrat. It used to be easy for me to think of Nicodemus as a man who was in the religious business but who had no sense of the mystery of spirituality. The way he responded to Jesus made me think of him as someone who was devoid of an inner life. I’ve thought of some preachers as being like that. I’ve been around religious professionals who go about their business with the efficiency of an engineer without seeming to have any consciousness of the intangible nature of their work.

Perhaps one of my earliest fears was that I might become such a person and that’s why I thought of Nicodemus in this way. It’s easy to place a lot of different characteristics and motivations on Nicodemus. He suddenly shows up at night, he didn’t say that much, and what he did say made him sound like a dolt, so we can sort of turn him in to whatever we want him to be. I have used him as an example of the type of minister I don’t want to be – a person who goes about the business of religion with great authority and efficiency without a hint of what lies behind the holy words and rituals.

I no longer fear becoming a person of great authority and efficiency. I think I lost that fear when I went in to campus ministry. In the early years of my ministry I had this sense of having more authority than I deserved. When you live in a small town and you are the pastor of a church – even a United Methodist Church there’s an element of respect that you are automatically granted. And along with that respect comes a package of expectations. People assume they know who you are and what you believe because of your title.

It’s wasn’t all bad, but I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the authority that was placed upon me. And then I became the Director of the UALR Wesley Foundation which was a title and a position that meant nothing to anybody. I had to figure out what my job was and how to do something that would somehow impact somebody. And that’s when I discovered the value of cookies. That’s also when I got over my fear of becoming a pompous religious authority. I did, however, became a kitchen control freak. There are a number of people who can testify to the highly particular way I expected my cooking area to be maintained, but there wasn’t anyone at UALR who was put-off by my overbearing pastoral authority.

We all know that religious activity can become a routine business that is divorced from the mystery of spirituality, and you don’t have to be in the religion business to commit this violation. You don’t have to be a preacher to wear your religion badly and in-authentically. I think Nicodemus can be a representative of this possibility, and in that way I think we can all see in him the type of person we don’t want to be – someone who has not been born again, but who drains the life out of others.

But I no longer see Nicodemus as being such an uninspired character. Had he been void of any spiritual curiosity he would not have sought out an opportunity to speak to Jesus – even in the dark. So there’s another type of religious person that I can imagine Nicodemus being. This is the type of person who has really strong convictions and who is moved to get everybody in line with what they know to be true. I can see Nicodemus as being such a true believer in his own cause that he wanted to try to bring Jesus on board with his way of thinking.

The Pharisees were misguided in many ways, but they didn’t fail to reform their faith community because they lacked effort. They had a strong vision of what needed to happen and they were out to make it happen. I can imagine that there were some Pharisees who were somewhat impressed by Jesus, but he wasn’t in line with their agenda. They defined the faith very rigidly and demanded specific behavior. I’m sure there were some well-motivated Pharisees, but they didn’t have a very redeeming plan. They couldn’t accept what Jesus was teaching, but I’m thinking there were some Pharisees who wanted him on to be on their team. Maybe Nicodemus went to Jesus in hope of turning him to their way of thinking.

Shane Claiborne comes to mind. Shane Claiborne is a young man who grew up in a United Methodist Church in East Tennessee. If you don’t know anything about Shane Claiborne you should Google him. He is currently very influential among young people who have been turned off by the way Christianity is generally portrayed and embodied and who are inspired by the way in which he lives the faith. Shane Claiborne doesn’t fit the church mold in any way. He is a founding member of a Christian movement that he calls: The Simple Way, and while it’s hard to argue that it’s in any way at odds with Biblical teachings, it doesn’t look much like what we think of as church.

With dreadlocks and homemade clothes Shane Claiborne doesn’t look anything like a typical United Methodist. I don’t think he is United Methodist anymore, but he was shaped by what he learned in the UMC. He has done his homework in regard to who John Wesley was, but he doesn’t come out thinking about him in the same way that most historians have portrayed Wesley. In an interview that was published in the Interpreter Magazine, which is a publication of the United Methodist Church, Claiborne stated: The more I studied my own tradition in the Methodist church, I saw what a wild guy John Wesley was. John Wesley capped his income off at a very poor, very simple wage and then gave the rest away. When he started generating tons of money, he still lived off this little sum of money and gave what is the equivalent of millions of dollars away. He had such compassion and zeal for social justice and for seeing our faith interact with the world that we live in.

I don’t know that much about Shane Claiborne, but what I do know is that he has taken Christian faith to a whole new level of interaction with the world. He’s helping shape a new type of community that is known as new monasticism – and that doesn’t really fit with the institutional model of Christianity that most of us are familiar with.

I can imagine there are some bishops and other church leaders in the United Methodist Church who wish they could harness the enthusiasm and the commitment of a person like Shane Claiborne, but who aren’t quite ready to let go of all the real estate in order to serve the poor. I can think of Nicodemus as being the type of character who was impressed with what Jesus was doing, but who wasn’t quite ready to throw himself all the way in to his arms.

And I’m guessing this describes a lot of us. I’m not as hard on Nicodemus as I once was. I think I get where he was coming from. Nicodemus recognized that Jesus was connected to God in a profound way, and I think he wanted to be a part of what he sensed to be the real deal, but this born again business is rough stuff.

The concept of being born again has been wildly distorted in recent history. I think it’s been turned in to more of an emotional experience than a reorientation of life experience, and I’m convinced that what Jesus was talking about has more to do with how we live than what we believe. I don’t believe that the “born again” experience is strictly a religious experience that provides us with a home in the afterlife. I think it’s a reorientation experience that has bearing on how we make our way through this life.

I don’t think this reorientation is disconnected from our emotions, but I believe the new birth that Jesus was trying to explain to Nicodemus provides us with a whole new set of priorities. It’s not just a rush of affection for Jesus, it’s a new understanding of what life is all about.

Nicodemus was largely silent after Jesus began speaking of this new birth. We don’t really know what he was thinking, but what Jesus said about this new birth is that it is empowered by the love of God for the world.

Being born again is not really a choice that we make – it’s a gift that comes to us from God. And while it may happen in an instant for some people, I think a lot of us are more like Nicodemus. We are drawn to the possibility of new life, we take cautious steps to investigate what it might be all about, and we ponder what it all means. It doesn’t always happen quickly, but by the grace of God it continues to happen.

Nicodemus appears two more times in the Gospel of John. We hear about him for the second time when he offers some technical resistance to the arrest of Jesus, and he appears the third time after Jesus was crucified. It’s on this third appearance that he comes out in the open with clear affection for Jesus. We’re told that he helped Joseph of Arimathea take care of the crucified body of Christ.

I think I understand this character named Nicodemus. I think you could replace his name with my name, and maybe your name. He’s no hero, but he’s looking in the right direction for the source of true life, and by the grace of God his faith grew and he was eventually transformed.

Thanks be to God that new birth can and does continue to happen.
And it can happen for any of us anytime now!
Amen.

Google Heaven
Matthew 17:1-9

1 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. 2 And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. 3 Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. 4 Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 5 While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” 6 When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. 7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” 8 And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. 9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

Sometimes I feel left behind. Not in the scare-mongering tradition of the series of books by that name that distort and exploit the notion of the rapture. Yes, I have a strong and clear opinion about that strain of thinking. I don’t live in fear of being left behind in a world that has been abandoned by God and all of God’s good people. But I do feel left behind by the technological revolution that is currently underway. I’ve mentioned this before, but I am not a digital-savvy person. I don’t have a personal facebook page. I don’t tweet. I don’t have a photo-gallery in the cloud. I have a blog where I’ve learned to paste my sermons, and I think I’m able to link it to our facebook page, but there are so many ways in which I just don’t get it.

I’ve been hearing about the recent acquisition of the WhatsApp app by Facebook, and I’ve tried to understand why it’s worth $19 billion, but I don’t. There’s so much about the technology of today that I don’t get, but this is not to say I am not totally amazed by what’s available. And there are some things that I have figured out.

Just the other night Sharla and I left the house without setting our DVR to record the Olympic Ice Dancing finals. We were trying to figure out who we could call to record the event for us when someone we were with suggested that I download the Uverse app and set the recording from my phone. And I did. It was amazing! The lines of communication that are currently available are unfathomable.

I love being able to google whatever it is that I don’t know. The google didn’t help me understand the WhatsApp deal, but it usually enables me to become an immediate expert about any given issue. And I can’t believe what you can see on Google earth? It’s amazing to me that you can get a street level view of almost anywhere that a street exists.

I’m grateful for many of the things that the digital world has brought us, and while I am somewhat intimidated by my lack of understanding of it all, I’m not totally distressed by my inability to keep up because I don’t think it’s made access to God any easier.

Like the printing press and every other significant tool that we humans have created – the digital world has given us some new ways to share the Good news, but of course it has also provided new ways to behave badly. So when it comes to gaining access to the kingdom of God I consider computer technology to be a wash. It doesn’t get us any closer to God or further from God – that journey continues to be along a very narrow path.

Now I did check to make sure there wasn’t such a thing as Google Heaven. If there was an app that could provide a portal in to the realm of God I wanted to have it, but there’s currently not one available. There is a poem called Google Heaven, but it didn’t really open any new doors for me. It’s never been easy to get a good view of God, and it won’t be until the day that God’s kingdom fully arrives.

But our passage today is both an illustration of the possibility of standing in the awesome presence of God and a portrayal of the problem. This is the story of three men who found themselves in that remarkable place where they knew something spiritually profound was happening, and as soon as they realized what was going on they were struck down by the gravity of the situation, but they weren’t left on the ground – they were lifted up by the hand of Jesus, and they were instructed to listen to him.

Now, to be sure, there isn’t anything normal about this story. For one thing, it wasn’t every day that Jesus invited Peter, James, and John to follow him up the mountain. Of course, we don’t really know what a normal day was like with Jesus. Every day with Jesus was a different sort of day, and while every day had it’s blessings, every day had it’s challenges as well. This is the part of the story that I understand.

Last Monday afternoon as I was about to leave the church I noticed that someone had set up camp in the back stairwell of the church – complete with a plastic curtain hanging from the pipes that stretch across the stairwell, and I don’t like to discover things like that. I hate it that people find themselves in such difficult circumstances that their best option is to sleep in our stairwells, but I have come to be pretty intolerant of people doing that. I have told a number of people that I hate that they don’t have a place to sleep, but that this isn’t the solution.

The person who had set up camp last Monday wasn’t on hand for me to say this to, so I decided to send that message by throwing the entire encampment in the dumpster – our locked dumpster. I threw it all away and I swept the steps. The only thing I left was the most significant article of clothing which was a rather heavy jacket. I didn’t feel too good about it, but it wasn’t freezing cold on Monday afternoon, and there was a lot of daylight left. I’m not saying that’s what Jesus would have done, but it’s what I did.

I was a little anxious about how this person may have reacted to what I had done, so when I got to the church on Tuesday morning I walked back to that stairwell and I was surprised to discover that the camp was totally reassembled and it was occupied. And when I say I was surprised I’m telling you I was flabbergasted. I had put the entire elaborate camp in our locked dumpster and it was still locked.

I was flustered and indignant and with as much authority as I could muster I told this sleeping man he had to wake up and that he couldn’t camp out in our stairwell. I heard a respectful apology come from behind the dirty plastic curtain, and as he began moving I went inside the church. But I really couldn’t believe what I had seen. It’s not exactly like I had seen a ghost, but that whole situation didn’t make sense to me. I had been doing some reading about the Transfiguration on Monday afternoon, and I think I was a little sensitized the importance of paying attention to unusual circumstances, so I decided I needed to go back outside and be a little more hospitable.

I went out and invited the man to come in for a cup of coffee after he had packed up. If nothing else, I wanted to know how he had gotten in that dumpster.

He did come in, and what I came to discover was not another problem, but a fellow human being who had fallen on a hard time. And he didn’t see me as the jerk who had thrown away his stuff, but as a man who dealt with a difficult situation as well as I knew how. Don and I have become a bit more acquainted over the course of the week, and I think we’ve been good for each other. I’ve never been insensitive to the problem of homelessness, but I have become even more sensitized to the vulnerability of many people within our society. I’ve been touched by his optimism and his fortitude, and I have been reminded of how thin the safety net is for people who don’t have many resources.

My experience with Don has been a bit of a reverse Transfiguration experience. It didn’t begin on a mountain top. It began in the alley behind our church – within reach of the dumpster. And when I first saw something unusual I didn’t suggest building a booth – I tore up the booth someone else had created. I didn’t hear the voice of God from a cloud, but there was a message that came to me from behind a dirty plastic curtain that I needed to hear.

And what I understand that message to be is that you never quite know where you will find the shining presence of Christ. I feel as if I was as much of a spiritual bungler as Peter was when he announced that he wanted build three booths, but he knew to be quiet when the voice emerged from the cloud, and I didn’t remain unconscious of the gravity of this situation as well.

You can’t google heaven. It isn’t possible to plan a spiritually gratifying experience, but it is possible to pass them by. I’m not saying I won’t dismantle the next person’s nest I find piled by our back door, but I have been reminded that this sanctuary is not the only beautiful place in our church. The most beautiful place we ever go is that place where barriers drop between ourselves our neighbors and our God.

The digital world has created many new lines of communication between us, but profound barriers still exist. Our sophisticated society isn’t any more sensitive to God’s kingdom than any generation that has preceded us, but neither are we any further away. I feel that I have had some reassurance this week that there continue to be some viable lines of communication between us and our God, and there’s nothing more compelling and humbling than to sense that God is alive and near. We don’t yet have that God app for our smart phones, but all those digits flying around haven’t pushed God away.

I feel that I’ve had an unusual blessing this week, and I’m grateful. And I’ve learned something this week. Knowing how to navigate the cyber world is an essential skill to have if you don’t want to fall behind on a career path. But if I’m ever caught outside on a cold night in February I want to be with a guy who understands how to open a master lock without a key.

Amen.

Training For Perfection
Matthew 5:38-48

38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; 40 and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; 41 and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. 42 Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

I watched the Olympics pretty regularly over the past two weeks even though there are aspects of Olympic competition that aren’t particularly enjoyable to me. On some level I’m intimidated by the abilities I see exhibited by every one of them, but I’m also a sucker for the various life stories they reveal and I’m crushed when my instantly chosen favorites get defeated. So when I watch the Olympics I’m basically going back and forth between jealousy and tragedy, but I can’t not watch. It’s some amazing video.

And I’m not just jealous of the athletes – I’m also impressed by what they have trained themselves to do. It’s hard for me to imagine the effort it takes to become a world-class athlete in any field. People aren’t born with the ability to dance on ice or to do flips with skis on. When you watch the Olympics you are watching people who have given themselves to a pursuit. Through effort, exercise, and endless practice they have trained their minds and their bodies to do phenomenal things. They’ve had good instruction, but you don’t just get told how to go down a mountain through tightly placed gates at 75 miles/hour – you have to practice.

Which is true of any extraordinary undertaking. In order to become good at anything significant you have to practice.

Certainly there’s some practice involved with becoming a disciple of Jesus. Given the verses we’ve heard this morning I’m thinking it might even be easier to become a world-class ski-jumper than a follower of Jesus. I’m sure the death rate is lower for ski-jumpers than it is for committed Christians. I was thinking about how hard it is to do the things that Jesus talks about in today’s passage when I happened to glance at today’s suggested Psalm reading, and I was amused by the contrast that I see between these lessons.
Psalm 119:33-40 goes like this:

Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes,
and I will observe it to the end.
Give me understanding, that I may keep your law
and observe it with my whole heart.
Lead me in the path of your commandments,
for I delight in it.
Turn my heart to your decrees,
and not to selfish gain.
Turn my eyes from looking at vanities;
give me life in your ways.
Confirm to your servant your promise,
which is for those who fear you.
Turn away the disgrace that I dread,
for your ordinances are good.
See, I have longed for your precepts;
in your righteousness give me life.

Now if I hadn’t first read what Jesus had to say about what it actually means to observe the precepts of God – I would consider these verses from Psalm 119 to be nothing short of the sentiment of a very high minded person, and I’m sure there was some sincere yearning in the heart of this Psalmist, but after hearing Jesus say what it means to keep God’s law I can’t help but consider the author of this Psalm to be a bit clueless.

I mean, I wish I could say to God, Oh, if I only knew what you wanted me to do I would get up at any hour of the morning, I would spend any amount of money, I would go wherever you would have me be – if only I knew what you wanted. Don’t you see God how anxious I am to know what you want? Don’t you think I’m deserving of a good life because I have such enthusiasm for your agenda?!

But I can’t say this to God – not after hearing what Jesus had to say. Now to be fair, the person who penned this Psalm didn’t have the benefit of the clarity that Jesus provided, but I’m not sure if that would have helped this person understand what he was asking. Because if the person who penned this Psalm ever looked up from his study of the Torah, I think he would have already known to have some fear of what he was asking. It’s never been easy to follow the instructions of God. God spoke very clearly to Moses, and he didn’t want to do it! Moses gave God every excuse known to man as to why he shouldn’t go talk to Pharoah – it sounded too hard and too dangerous!

I know it’s not a Christian thing to do to make fun of a Psalmist, but I really do find the attitude portrayed in this small section of Psalm 119 to be a bit comical. He’s acting as if it would be a pleasure to serve God if God would simply enable him to see what he needs to do. I’m not saying I always know what God wants me to do, God knows how clueless I can be, but when I hear what Jesus has to say I find myself wishing I didn’t know as much as I do.

Jesus is giving some clear advice in our passage this morning and I don’t really like what he had to say. I don’t guess that’s a very Christian thing to say either, but I don’t really want to love my enemies. I want to dehumanize and humiliate my enemies. I like to think my enemies are God’s enemies, and I wish God would smite our common enemies, but I can see that this really isn’t a Christian way to think.

Jesus didn’t want us to stay stuck in our natural ways of thinking about how life should be ordered. Jesus didn’t want us to bring God in to our battles – Jesus wanted us to step out of our natural way of reacting to the struggles we encounter in life and to step in to a more divine way of responding to one another.

And I sort of get that. I know that retribution always escalates and that there’s never any end to the cycle of retaliation. But Jesus wasn’t just concerned with the kind of logic that leads to mutually assured destruction. He didn’t just want us to turn the other cheek to those who strike us just so we wouldn’t blow up the planet.

Jesus didn’t just want us to avoid disaster, he wants us to obtain life in the kingdom of God. He wasn’t concerned with the politics of any institution. He was concerned about our souls. And he knew that in order for us to not get caught up in snares of this world – we have to practice the etiquette of heaven. And we have to practice a lot, because the things he asks us to do don’t come natural.

I was reminded of the difficulty of practicing heavenly etiquette when someone showed me a letter the other day they had gotten from Mark Tooley, who is the director of UM Action – a very conservative advocacy group within our denomination. This is an organization that is seeking to develop outrage against people like me who want the United Methodist Church to become open and affirming to non-heterosexual people. It says on the outside of the envelope “Help Keep Renegade Bishop from Wrecking United Methodism!”. This mailing contains a long letter on the inside that is full of criticism of churches like ours and people like many of you who are working and praying for the removal of the language in the Book of Discipline that bans some people from ordination because of their sexual orientation, and prevents us from being able to celebrate same-sex marriages. And of course the letter includes an appeal for money to support their work.

You might say this letter establishes churches like ours as the enemy, and he is doing his best to rally more people and resources to oppose people like us who want the United Methodist Church to drop these bans. I don’t know Mr. Tooley, and he doesn’t know me, but I think you could say we are official enemies. I think it’s important to note that it’s not unchristian to have an enemy. If everyone you know is your enemy you might need to reassess your attitude, but Jesus didn’t say we shouldn’t have any enemies. Jesus had enemies, but he didn’t hate them. He loved his enemies, and he told us to do the same.

And that’s hard. It’s hard because I want to win this battle within the church. I want this language to get dropped. I don’t want to have to continue apologizing to people for the official intolerance of our church. I don’t want to have to talk about people’s sexual orientation in any more sermons. I don’t like this battle within our denomination. I hate to think that the NFL is about to become more inclusive than the UMC!

I don’t know how to win this battle, but I know how to lose it, and that is to let my irritation with my enemy turn in to hate. And this takes some practice. Loving my enemy is not what I want to do, but it’s what we’re called to do.

I wouldn’t even try to do it if Jesus wasn’t so clear about it, but he is, and I know there’s something here I need to practice. I’m not very good at loving people who work for things that I feel are wrong, but I have discovered that it helps me to remember that we are all frail humans trying to navigate our way through a difficult world.

I don’t know why some people are so threatened by this issue, and I hate the mean-spirited nature that some people have toward people who aren’t in the mainstream of human sexuality, but Jesus didn’t instruct us to go out and fix other people – Jesus says it’s our job to love them.

It’s not easy to know how to resist bad ideas without trying to destroy the people behind them, but that is what we are called to do. And I think the only way to do this is to do as Jesus did, and that is to care more about being loving than we care to be right. We are to care more to be loving than we care for our denomination. We are to care more about loving other people than we care about ourselves.

I don’t know if it’s good strategy for our righteous cause to love people like Mark Tooley, but it is the right thing to do if you want to join with all the other world-class saints who not only proclaimed their love for God, but who practiced that love on earth.

God is with us, but we’ve got to practice being with God. And practice and practice and practice.
Amen.

LED’S – Light Emitting Disciples
Matthew 5:13-20

13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. 14 “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. 17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

I’m in my fourth year here at QQUMC, and as many of you have come to understand, I’m one of those dinosaurs who preaches from the lectionary. That means nothing to some of you, but the lectionary is this three year cycle of weekly scripture lessons. And while there are four different lessons each week — one from the Old Testament (sometimes known as the Hebrew Scripture), one from Psalms, one from the Epistles, and one from one of the Gospels – I almost always focus on the Gospel reading. There is interesting material in all of the readings, but I’m not just a dinosaur – I’m a scriptural snob. I tend to place more value on the Gospels than I do on the other parts of the Bible.

I know I shouldn’t be like that, but I am. Sometimes I’ll deviate from the suggested Gospel reading but not often. I like to wrestle with what Jesus is reported to have said or done. I hate that you don’t get a fair and balanced view of the Bible. When you hear me preach you get a very narrow view of the Bible. There are 66 books in the Bible and I generally preach from 4 of them. The Lectionary is a 3-year cycle, and as I said, I’m in my fourth year here, so that means you are now hearing sermons on passages that I’ve already preached from. I don’t simply recycle sermons, but I always take a look at what I’ve previously preached.

It’s not always a good experience for me to see what I’ve said. It frequently reminds me that you are a very gracious group of people, but even if I like what I’ve said I like to come up with something different. I’m not saying I don’t do any recycling of old sermon parts, but I try to put together a new creature each week.

You probably don’t remember my sermon from four years ago on this passage (I didn’t), but in that sermon I focused on the salt metaphor. How we aspiring disciples are to be the salt of the earth. I love salt, and it’s easy for me to talk about salt. I’ll probably share my passion for salt when this passage comes back around in four years, but today I want to talk about the other powerful metaphor that Jesus lifted up in today’s passage – light. How we are to be the light of the world.

Embracing the image of discipleship as light is a timely image because the world of lighting is undergoing a revolution. I don’t have a great understanding of how the various options for lighting actually operate, but please indulge me as I share my limited understanding of the new world of lighting. Our most trusted and familiar form of lighting is about to pass away, and it is being replaced by two relatively new options for lighting. As many of you know, the manufacture of incandescent light bulbs is currently becoming phased out here in the United States. Some larger wattage bulbs have already been banned from production, and in the coming years they will all disappear.

Thomas Edison’s bulb has served us well, but the truth is that his bulbs create more heat than light. When you see an incandescent light bulb you are witnessing a tungsten wire having enough electricity passing through it to make it glow, which means it has reached a temperature just over 4000 degrees, but it doesn’t burn up because it’s in a vacuum and there’s no oxygen to enable it to actually catch on fire. It was an ingenious invention, but it’s not the most efficient way to generate light, so we now have these new options.

Flourescent bulbs have been around for a while, and they are much more efficient because they create light by passing electricity through a gas that glows under very specific circumstances. It took a while for scientists to figure out how to package that process in a bulb small enough to screw in to a conventional light fixture. These are called compact fluorescent bulbs or CFLs, and those are what you will now primarily find on the lighting aisle at Target or Wal-Mart. To give you an idea of how much more efficient these bulbs are, you generally get 16 lumens/watt from an incandescent bulb, but you get about 60 lumens/watt from a CFL. You don’t have to know what a lumen or a watt is to know that you get a lot more light from the same amount of energy. And that’s a good thing.

The unfortunate thing about CFLs is that they contain a trace of mercury vapor in each bulb. There are stores that provide recycling opportunities, and I’m sure that will become a larger opportunity as more and more people come to use those squiggly bulbs, but these bulbs are somewhat fragile, and because of the presence of mercury they are not providing an optimal solution to our lighting needs.

Fortunately there is another form of lighting that’s becoming more affordable and accessible. LED’s are coming our way. Light Emitting Diodes are finding their way in to our world. I don’t understand the science, but what I do understand is that they are even more efficient than CFL’s, they are more resilient, they are smaller, and they can create some cool colors. When you see those cool colors lighting our local bridges you are looking at LED’s. And at this very moment there are some LED’s shining on me. I don’t know if you’ve noticed how bright and shiney our chancel area is, but that’s due to a bank of LEDs that we’ve placed in the balcony.

In fact the trustees are generating a plan on how to replace the bulbs in our chandeliers, and we will probably be putting LEDs up there. How we are going to do that is an adventure of it’s own and one you will probably hear about in a sermon sometime, but for now just know that LEDs are on their way and I’m excited about it.

But the truth is there have always been some LEDs in this sanctuary. Because this is a place where light emitting disciples have been gathering for decades. You may have been wondering when this science lesson was going to turn back in to a sermon, and this is that moment because I see a lot of similarity between theses two types of LEDs. These new light bulbs that we call LEDs are are efficient, robust, compact, colorful, and costly and I’m thinking these same characteristics apply to disciples.

Disciples are to be efficient. Jesus called for us to be singlminded in our efforts to serve God. He didn’t have much patience with frivolous religious observations, but he was a teacher of the truth that had come through the people of Israel, and he wanted us to hold fast to those essential truths. Jesus doesn’t want us to waste our time and effort on meaningless pursuits. Jesus wants us to pour our energy in to the work of revealing the truth of God’s love for us all. Israel itself was established to be a light unto the world, and we are to do a better job of sharing that light than the scribes and Pharisees.

Disciples are to be robust – Jesus wants us to be strong. There are a lot of good hearted people who collapse when things get difficult. And following Jesus is not just hard – it’s all but impossible. We’re going to fail as individuals – we’re going to fail as a church, but we don’t need to give up when we fall short because we aren’t alone in this endeavor. We aren’t to be like those bulbs that shatter when they hit the ground. We are to be solid light-emitters that can hit the ground, get picked up, dusted off, and used again.

And when I think of what it means for disciples to be compact I think it means that a little light can go a long way. The other night I went to sleep without covering up the little green diode that’s on one of the electronic devices in our bedroom. I woke up in the middle of the night and found myself wondering who had turned the light on in the bedroom. That small light that I hardly notice during the day or even when I first turn the light off had filled the room with light. A little light can go a long way in a dark world. A kind act can have implications far beyond it’s immediate circumstance.

The different colors that come from LED light bulbs reminds me of the different ways disciples are configured. We are engergized in different ways and we are called to different work. Some people have the mistaken belief that Christians all behave and believe the same things. Yes, there is a basic foundation – our foundation is the love of the one God who made heaven and earth along with God’s revealed desire for justice and peace to prevail, and we are to build on that foundation in as creative a manner as we can. We are free to express our faith in God as beautifully and diversely as we can imagine.

But none of this is easy or cheap. The price of an LED light bulb surpasses the price of an incandescent or a CFL, and the reason is that they shine brighter, they last longer, and they are more complex to create. All of this can be said of a light emitting disciple. It’s not easy to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. It requires us to navigate a world that wants simple answers for complex problems. It requires courage to go against friends and institutions who don’t recognize what love requires in this day and age. Discipleship calls for us to abide by ancient wisdom in the face of shallow trends. It’s expensive to be a disciple and we must invest in enterprises that provide the best dividends for people we don’t even know. Discipleship is costly – but worth it!

So, don’t be a fragile incandescent disciple that generates more heat than light. Don’t be a bulky CFL disciple that is filled with bad gas. Be an efficient, robust, compact, and colorful light emitting disciple. It will cost you – but your impact will be priceless and eternal.

Thanks be to God – Amen!

The Art of Living
Matthew 5:1-12

1 When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2 Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
5 “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

I think one of the epic ironies of the universe is that it’s not unusual for the Beatitudes to be the suggested Gospel reading on what is more commonly known as Super Bowl Sunday. This is pure evidence that God has a sarcastic sense of humor. The convergence of the Beatitudes and the Super Bowl is a coincidence that couldn’t have been foreseen by those who put together the Lectionary Cycle or by the schedulers of the Super Bowl. The fact that we are to read who Jesus considered to be the winners in life on the day that highlights who our culture celebrates as winners is nothing short of proof that God likes to mess with us.

On the day of the event in which a 30 second commercial will cost you $4,000,000 and many of us are anxious to see what clever ways we will be motivated to acquire those desirous products and services – we are hearing Jesus say that it’s the poor in spirit who have the best access to the kingdom of God. And it get’s worse from there.

Jesus values the mourners on the day we want to see good looking people in high definition! Jesus lifts up the meek as those who obtain the crown on the day that we want our chosen team to dominate. And I’m sorry, but there’s not much hungering or thirsting for righteousness at a super bowl party. In fact there’s never been any reason for anyone to be hungry or thirsty at any super bowl event I’ve ever attended. I’ve seen some people who couldn’t seem to get enough to eat or drink, but that’s not what Jesus was talking about.

There’s no appetite for mercy on the football field, there’s not much to inspire purity of heart, and our heroes will do more trash talking than peacemaking. Clearly God has watched the Super Bowl, and God is poking us in the ribs with the Beatitudes.

In many ways, the Super Bowl is representative of what we are inclined to value. I really don’t think there is another national event that highlights our affection for brute strength, surface beauty, financial affluence, and winning more than the Super Bowl. Yes, I’ll be watching it, but I know it’s a shallow source of satisfaction.

I really am struck by the contrast in values that are highlighted today. And while there does seem to be some divine orchestration going on, I also know that Jesus shared his view of reality with people who were living long before the first Super Bowl, and I’m guessing they were equally startled. The beatitudes were shaped much like the teachings you will find in the Book of Proverbs, which is a book that Jesus would have been familiar with, but the wisdom Jesus shares is much different from what you generally find in Proverbs.

Don’t get me wrong – there is wisdom in the Book of Proverbs. You can find a good amount of sound instruction in there:

Pvbs. 10:17 Those who heed instruction are on the way to life, but those who ignore correction lose their way.

Pvbs. 10:23 Fools enjoy vile deeds, but those with understanding take pleasure in wisdom.

Much of what you read in Proverbs makes sense, but there is sort of an underlying assumption that the world operates in a reasonable manner. Many of the Proverbs indicate that if you do the right thing you will prosper and if you behave badly you will fail.

Pvbs. 16:3 Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will succeed.

Pvbs. 22:4 The reward of humility and the fear of the Lord is wealth, honor, and life.

Now it may be that what Jesus is saying isn’t different from these Proverbs, but my sense is that Jesus didn’t assume things would go well for people who love the things that God values. When Jesus speaks of the rewards that come to the poor in spirit, the meek, the peacemakers, the justice seekers and others who do the work of God, I don’t think he was speaking of traditional forms of rewards. The original hearers of the Beatitudes knew that those weren’t the ones who were being well rewarded in their day and age. They knew what we know, which is that meekness is not what closes the biggest deals. Nor do we generally consider it a blessing to be poor or to be in mourning.

In some ways it’s hard for me to absorb what Jesus wants us to know. It almost seems that he instructing us to go out and find new ways to suffer and fail, but I don’t think that is the case. It’s some unusual wisdom that he’s sharing, but it has been brought to my attention that there is some practical wisdom here.

I found some commentary on this passage that helped me see that there are some principles here that lead to actual happiness. This writer suggested that the Beatitudes portray three principles that can help us live in this world without being shaped by the world. He suggests that behind these seemingly startling propositions you will find the principles of: simplicity, hopefulness, and compassion.

If we will simply ask ourselves what Jesus wanted us to understand, it’s not hard to see some clear advice. To embrace these Beatitudes is to value the most elemental aspects of life. These verses call for us to care more about living gently on the land and to seek harmony with other people. And I’m guessing most of us could find some actual relief if we could simplify our lives. I’m not ready to throw away my smartphone, but I know how complex our lives can become when we place too much value on the things that don’t matter. And if we don’t exercise some effort to embrace simplicity we will not inherit the earth as much as we will be owned by corporations that have figured out how best to push our buttons.

These verses also encourage us to continue to have hope regardless of how unfortunate our circumstances become. Jesus didn’t want us to have the attitude that life is hard and we should get used to it. He wanted us to trust that there will come a time when we will experience a better world – and it will be a world that values mercy, humility, peace, and love. We aren’t to confuse the way the world largely operates with the world that God wills to come. God wants us to trust that better days will come, and it will be a world where the meek and merciful will be at home.

These verses are very instructive to us on how we are to navigate this world and according to Jesus compassion is to be our primary guide. We aren’t to be so caught up in ourselves that we don’t understand how connected we are to others, and that it is only through the effort to find such connections that we will find happiness. It can be costly to exercise compassion, and this world doesn’t reward compassion as often as it punishes it. The exercise of compassion can put you at odds with those powerful forces on earth that are more interested in revenue than in justice. War is often more lucrative and popular than is the agenda of the peacemakers. But Jesus didn’t want us to turn away from the costly enterprise of caring deeply for other people because he wanted us to experience the reward of true happiness.

It’s easy for me to see that Jesus wanted us to live with these principles of simplicity, hopefulness, and compassion. And while it’s easy for me to see that these are not the principles that this world is quick to reward – I don’t think we are oblivious to the wisdom of the Beatitudes.

Just this last week we were informed of the death of one of our nation’s happiest men – Pete Seeger. Pete Seeger wasn’t a man who would have identified himself as a Christian, but he wasn’t unaware of the teachings of Jesus, and I would say he was a man who lived with the wisdom of Christ in his heart. He was an intentionally simple, hopeful, and compassionate man, and I think he was an undeniably happy man. He certainly wasn’t happy with the way things often played out on earth, but he worked to make the world a more peaceful place, and I think he experienced a lot of peace on this earth.

Printed on his banjo was the phrase: This machine surrounds hate and causes it to surrender.

His machine wasn’t able to surround all of the hate in the world and cause it to surrender, but he sowed a lot of peace on earth, and I think Jesus would have called him a blessed man.

Jesus is calling for us all to live blessed lives, and while it’s not easy, it actually is rewarding. Jesus wasn’t out of his mind when he proclaimed who is most blessed in this world – he was in the mind of God, and he invites us all to live with that same Godly wisdom.

Thanks be to God – Amen.

Immediate Captivation
Matthew 4:12-23

12 Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. 13 He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14 so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: 15 “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles 16 the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.” 17 From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 18 As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea for they were fishermen. 19 And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” 20 Immediately they left their nets and followed him. 21 As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. 22 Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him. 23 Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.

If you want to watch a movie that portrays incredible sacrifice, profound endurance, committed partnership, and a miraculous reunion you need to watch The March of the Penguins. It’s not a new documentary, but I saw a portion of it again the other day, and I remembered how moving that story is. It’s got a little heartbreaking tragedy sprinkled in there, but it’s an amazing piece of storytelling and it documents the remarkable behavior of these Emperor penguins who utilize the most harsh and inaccessible place on the planet to hatch their young.

The mothers lay their eggs at this remote place, and the fathers hike around in a huddle for two months with the eggs on top of their feet while the mothers walk a hundred miles back to the ocean and gorge on fish for a while before they hike back to the huddling fathers who are famished and exhausted as the eggs start hatching. And while every bird looks alike and seem to be making the same screetching sound these mothers and fathers find each other and hand off the newly hatched chick. At that point the fathers drag themselves back to the ocean to do some fish gorging. You will find few films starring humans that will evoke as much empathy and inspiration as does this film that stars a bunch of penguins who all look the same.

And it is the way these birds reunite after being apart that is truly remarkable to me. While the sounds they make are pretty indistinguishable to my ears, they recognize the subtly unique calls of their partners, and it draws them back together.

There is some similar mystery in this morning’s scripture lesson. The way in which Simon and Andrew and James and John hear the call of Jesus and immediately respond reminds me of the way the penguins recognize each other. The way I see it, there are two ways to understand this story. There is this possibility that these men were simply programmed to be where they were and it was all pre-orchestrated by God to set up the plot for the events that would unfold over the next few months and then be told for thousands of years. But there is this other possibility, that isn’t entirely different, but with a subtle difference, and it is that Jesus had the capacity to speak in a manner that resonated so clearly in the hearts of people who were open to divine adventure.

I love the idea that there is this spiritual language that we don’t really process in our brains as much as we do in our souls. I love to think that Peter and Andrew and James and John didn’t really think about what Jesus said as much as they responded in a more direct sense to what he had to say. It’s easy for me to believe that Jesus understood the language of spirituality, and while it wasn’t a language that everyone spoke, it isn’t an unusual language for people to continue to hear and to understand.

Jesus used words that were commonly understood, but the way he put words together and the way he uttered those words penetrated deeply inside of some people. My sense is that these four men had no question about the value of responding to what Jesus asked. They felt an immediate kinship with him – it was immediately clear to them that they wanted to follow him.

I had an interesting experience not long ago. Many of you have heard me speak of my participation in the construction of a life-size model of an isolation cell. Many people who are assigned to the Department of Corrections end up spending years in these cells that provide very little access to other human beings. It’s my understanding that there are more than 1500 of these cells in our state, and many of the people who are assigned to these cells are not on the level of people who cannot be incorporated in to the normal population of the prison. I didn’t know all of this a few months ago, but I had an interesting visitor to the church one day.

I was sitting in my office one afternoon and I noticed a man coming to the door of the church. I saw him ring the bell and I immediately began wondering how I would get out from under whatever it was that he was going to ask me to do. This was a well-dressed man, so I assumed he might be the pastor of a church nearby, but I was sure I wasn’t going to want to do whatever he was asking.

I let him in and he introduced himself as a professor at Philander Smith College. Dr. Joseph Jones is his name, and he proceeded to tell me that he was working with a group of students who were a part of an organization called the Social Justice League, and they were interested in bringing attention to what they believe to be the cruel and inhuman nature of housing prisoners in isolation cells – along with some other issues of injustice that exist within our criminal justice system. He said they had decided to build a life-size model of such a cell, but none of them knew how to build such a thing. He said Mara Leveritt had been in the meeting with them and she had mentioned that her neighbor, who happens to be me, was always building something and she suggested that they talk to me about this.

Now let me remind you that my initial objective was to not do whatever it was this person had arrived to ask me to do, but as soon as Dr. Jones asked me if this would be something I would have any interest in helping with I didn’t hesitate a moment before I said yes – I’m your guy. I said building odd things is probably what I do best, but I responded so quickly because it felt to me to be a divine adventure. I had no choice but to say yes.

This project cost twice as much as I estimated, and it took four times as long as I thought it might take (which makes me think I’m better suited for preaching than for contracting) but we got it done, and it’s a powerful thing to step in to. It’s still over at Philander Smith College if you ever want to see what we did.

I tell you this story to convey my conviction that sometimes we react to situations with something other than our brains. If I had gotten my brain involved in that decision I never would have done it. This thing took far much more time than I would have wanted to give it. It had some engineering challenges that I didn’t understand, but I loved what the students and this professor were trying to do. I think this was a request that spoke to my soul, and I knew that I should get involved in this project.

And here’s another situation along those lines. If I known four years ago all of the problems that I would face with this facility and all of the other challenges to this church that have presented themselves, my brain might well have advised me to stay where I was or to go somewhere else. In fact my DS at the time tried to tell me I had no idea what I was getting in to, but those details had little impact on me because that was not the information that was bearing down on my heart.

I begged to come to this church because I was touched by the message that had penetrated in to my soul. I heard that this was a place that valued people who were desperate and in need of food and kindness. The word was that this was a place that didn’t judge people according to their race or status or sexual orientation. I understood this to be a place that valued creativity. The spirit of this church spoke deeply to me, and I couldn’t help but want to be here.

I understand why Peter and Andrew and James and John dropped what they were doing and followed Jesus. There’s nothing more compelling than to hear the ring of spiritual truth knocking on your heart. If you’ve got any sensitivity to the truth you can’t not respond.

There are many ways in which this story of these first disciples dropping everything to follow Jesus doesn’t make sense. There isn’t any previous interaction that would have alerted them to the magnitude of the offer that came to them from Jesus, but they heard what he was offering, and they were compelled to give themselves to what he was asking. The only way this makes sense to me is that there are circumstances where the Holy Spirit uses human words to provide us with some clear instruction. And when that happens it’s easy to know what to do.

Clearly we don’t always know exactly what to do. I more often find myself in a fog than in clear view of the truth, and I take comfort in knowing that these disciples found themselves floundering to find the path every now in then after they gave themselves so completely to Jesus, but I don’t believe we are ever abandoned by the presence of God’s Holy Spirit. And I believe that when we are in the most critical circumstances the fog has a tendency to lift, and the truth becomes a bit more obvious.

I believe God values this church and I believe God is there for us as we are undergoing some painful transition. We all need to be paying close attention to the ways God is seeking to touch our hearts and guide us in to the truth. May we all be as attentive as Peter and Andrew were when Jesus called them in to a new line of work. May we always be open to the latest chapter of God’s divine adventure.

Thanks be to God.
Amen.

“The Original Coming to Jesus Meeting”
John 1:29-42

1:29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ 31 I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” 32 And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33 I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.” 35 The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, 36 and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” 37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. 38 When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” 39 He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. 40 One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. 41 He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). 42 He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).

This morning’s passage of scripture serves to remind us how differently the writer of the Fourth Gospel narrates the story of Jesus. The Gospel of John doesn’t tell the story of Jesus going down to be baptized by John the Baptist, but he has John the Baptist recall the story of Jesus coming to him for baptism. And the way in which Jesus acquired his disciples is told in a different way in John than it is described in Matthew, Mark and Luke. According John, the first two men who became disciples of Jesus were originally disciples of John the Baptist – which is not the way it happens in the other gospels.

The first three gospels are referred to as the synoptic gospels because they follow a similar story line. And in those gospels, Jesus first finds and calls Simon and Andrew to follow him while they were at work fishing. But John tells the story differently. The Gospel of John is the last gospel to have been written, and there is no doubt that he was conscious of the first three gospels, but he had a different point to make about who Jesus was. He was trying to get the attention of a different group of people.

The Gospel of John was written after the Christian community had pretty much parted ways with the Jewish community, and consequently he was addressing some new issues. The earlier followers of Jesus were continuing to worship God under the umbrella of Judaism. There was some tension within that community, but they were still trying to stay together. The first three gospels often go out of their way to show how compatible Jesus was with the history and traditions of Israel, but by the time the Book of John was written these two communities had split apart – and that reality is reflected in John in a variety of ways.

You might say there was an atmosphere of confusion about who Jesus was and how faithful people should understand what was going on, so John is seeking to provide some clear answers to those questions. Given this context of confusion and interfaith hostility I can understand why John chose to identify the first followers of Jesus as being previously devoted followers of John the Baptist. John was highly revered by the seekers of the day. John was highly regarded as a true prophet of Israel and an authentic reformer of the faith. You might say he was the Martin Luther King, Jr of his day. He was the guy who spoke truth to power, and he had suffered the consequences of his integrity. People who wanted to be aligned with the truth loved John the Baptist, and he continued to be a revered figure after his own death.

It’s likely that John the Baptist had a greater following of people than Jesus did for a period of time, and the writer of the Fourth Gospel wanted people to understand that John and Jesus were on the same page. John the Gospel writer saw John the Baptist as being totally connected to the life of Jesus, but he didn’t want people to get stuck on John. He wanted the followers of John to move on to Jesus, and that’s what we see reflected in this morning’s story.

We modern fact oriented people don’t always know how to deal with these factual discrepancies. Our first inclination is to think that something is only true if the facts support it, but that isn’t so true of our spiritual ancestors. Our predecessors in the faith weren’t as driven by the way the facts were listed as much as they were by the way the story was told, and John had a very unique way of telling the story of Jesus. The facts aren’t the same, because the situation had changed, but you can trust that this gospel writer was intent on delivering what he understood to be the truth about Jesus to people who were living in the midst of a religious crisis. And he had a clear message – look to Jesus!

Which is a good message for people to hear in the midst of any crisis. This story tells us that the good-hearted seekers who were inspired by John the Baptist found a home with Jesus, and this remains true for the good-hearted seekers of our day.

The primary image that this story presents is the fulfilling nature of Jesus. The way John tells the story, these first people who took notice of Jesus after his baptism went from curiosity to adoration in a very short period of time. They were captivated by what he had to say and they were motivated to go get the other people they knew who were hungry for the truth.

This story of the way people were drawn to Jesus caused me to think of what it means to come to Jesus. I think we’ve all heard someone refer to a come to Jesus meeting. It’s come to mean a meeting where difficult truths are delivered in a clear manner. Our story this morning reveals the experience of coming to Jesus to be more of a discovery than a pounding, but it’s also accurate to say that most encounters with Jesus are driven by crisis. While I’m not sure Jesus is the subject of most come to Jesus meetings, I think the experience of dealing with stark reality brings Jesus to mind, and we would do well to look for Jesus whenever we face a crisis.

And speaking of crisis, I’m going to depart from normal preaching protocol and invite the chairperson of our Staff Parish Relations Committee, Carol Kennedy, to clue you in to some communication we’ve had from our District Superintendent, Rev. Dede Roberts.

(Carol came to the pulpit and reported that the SPRC had met, which is basically the personnel committee for the church. She said they had filled out the required consultation forms that go to the District Superintendent giving advice on the pastoral needs of the church. She reported that they requested that both of us be returned to the church, but she noted that because of the costs involved in having two pastors we had been notified they would not likely reappoint both of us for the next year – which would become effective in July. Carol pointed out that they had advised the District Superintendent they would rather lose the building than to lose both of the pastors. When Carol finished her talk I resumed my sermon.)

As Carol indicated, there are still some moving parts to this thing. We don’t know exactly how it will play out, but you might say we are having a corporate come to Jesus meeting. And it’s not fun. The truth of the matter is that Anne is far more vulnerable to this situation than I am, and it is based on our history of paying a very small portion of our apportionments over the past few years.

Most of you know how dependent this church is on Anne’s good and faithful work. This is a tough situation, and I hate it for all of us. I hate that Anne’s employment is insecure, and I hate that the operation of this church is insecure. We all know that this could be bad for all of us.

But these aren’t the only possible outcomes. Something good can happen for Anne. It’s hard to imagine that she could find a better workplace with more amazing co-workers, but it’s a big and interesting world, and I’m choosing to believe that something is out there for her. I’m also choosing to believe that this church can rise to the occasion and become operationally and financially sustainable. If I didn’t believe that I would be opting to bolt from this situation, but I’m not. I have asked to be returned to this church, and I’m not planning to preside over it’s death. That may be my legacy, but that’s not what I expect to happen.

One of the truths of this situation is that we have been living beyond our means. Our income doesn’t match our obligations, and we need to get these two figures closer together. If we can do that we will be doing something remarkable.

Insecurity is not all bad. I’m pretty sure it’s our lack of understanding of what may happen that drives us to be more prayerful. I’m praying for a good outcome for Anne and for this church. I’m also trying to figure out what I need to do to create the best possibility for us to become a vibrant and sustainable faith community. I hope you will join me in both praying for our church and figuring out how you can help this church move in to the future. We’re going to have to learn to operate in a new way. And while it may feel like we’re having an arm amputated we can adjust to our new circumstance. And I’m not just wanting us to make it – I want us to thrive.

It’s always been people who are in a crisis that have found Jesus to be the most endearing. I think this is an opportunity for us to try to follow him a little closer, and I hope you will come to experience Christ so vividly in this place that you tell a friend about who we are and what’s going on around here.

I don’t know how this is going to play out, but I’m choosing to believe it’s going to lead us into a deeper relationship with Christ regardless of how the numbers go. It’s not so bad to actually come to Jesus.

Thanks be to God.
Amen.

“Downtown Alley”
Matthew 3:13-17

3:13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 15 But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. 16 And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

Today’s scripture is a brief account of a moment that has been talked about and pondered for a couple of thousand years. This is a situation that raises a handful of questions, but it answers the largest question. According to Matthew, we know that Jesus came from Galilee, but he doesn’t say what he had been up to between the time that his parents settled in the rural village of Nazareth while he was a toddler until this moment when he showed up at the Jordan River and presented himself to John for baptism.

It may be that I watch too much television, but the fact that there is this 30 year gap in the story makes me wonder about the backstory, because in the world of television they often provide hints of the previous lives of important characters. I know I was not the only person who was excited about the arrival of the first show of the new season of Downton Abbey. In fact if you haven’t been drawn in to this high class soap opera you are probably under 30 and have an actual life, or you are wired differently than the rest of us. They’ll probably do a psychological study on people like you before long.

Actually it’s just a good story that’s well cast. It’s got benevolent souls, wicked villains, and compelling situations. And as I say, every once in a while they throw in a bit of a back story about someone. Who would have thought that the head butler, Mr. Carson, who is about as stiff and formal as a human being can be was once a song-and-dance man. I’m not spoiling anything for those of you who haven’t yet gotten sucked in to this entertainment universe, but that’s a real mind stretcher, and fodder for some good human interest.

I like a good back-story – and there’s another British television show that has some powerful back-story drama. It’s also on PBS and it’s called MI-5. But that show isn’t for everyone. On Downton Abbey they only kill-off beloved characters about once a year. On MI-5 they only keep characters around long enough for you to get really attached to them and then they kill‘em. MI-5 is the British equivalent of our CIA. These agents are really sneaky people, and you think you can trust them, but honestly you never really know who anyone is working for. Just when you think you know what’s going on they flash back in time and you see that this person has a backstory that redefines everything.

Clearly I watch too much television. But there’s some good television to watch. And I’m pretty sure that my sense of morality was equally shaped by what I learned in Sunday School and what I watched on television. I’m grateful to the producers of All In The Family, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Kung Fu for providing me with some fine ethical instruction during my formative years. I may not be as spiritually refined as the Kung Fu master, Kwai Chang Caine, or as wise as Uncle Jed, but I’m no Archie Bunker! Good theater provides good instruction.

And I’m thinking that this is part of what we have in this short passage of scripture. Jesus is not just showing up for a ceremony, he’s showing what it looks like to be a person with great spiritual maturity. We don’t know the back-story of where Jesus was or what he experienced prior to his arrival at the Jordan River, but we know John knew something about Jesus, and he indicates that he didn’t feel worthy to be the one to do the baptizing. We also know that John didn’t offer to step aside in order to be polite. We know a few things about John and one of the things we know is that he was not motivated by propriety.

A big part of this story is how far John had departed from the social norms of proper Jewish society. He had rejected the façade of faith and he was calling for people to be true to the roots of their spiritual heritage. In a powerful way he was serving the role of the high priest who enabled people to experience rebirth into a new relationship with God, but he was far from the temple without the priestly garments. What he was doing was appalling and compelling. The Pharisees and Sadducees couldn’t ignore what he was doing, but John didn’t play along with their gesture of approval.

It’s interesting to think of the contrasting way in which John reacted to the officially holy people and the authentically holy person. John was not what you would call a people person, but he did have the gift of spiritual discernment. And he exercised that gift very freely. He screamed at those who paraded their faith without actually exercising it, and he was humbled by the arrival of Jesus.

And while we don’t know what Jesus had been up to prior to his arrival at the Jordan River, John could see that Jesus was already close to God. And it’s a beautiful thing that Jesus wasn’t afraid to step in to the same place that others stood who had not come from such Godly places.

This brief verbal exchange between Jesus and John the Baptist has fueled a lot of theological debate about the nature of Jesus Christ. People who think of Jesus as being the perfect human being who’s life was always untarnished by sin can find in this passage support for their belief that Jesus was only baptized in order to carry out scriptural fulfillment. And those of us who need for Jesus to be a little bit more human can find in this story a point of connection with this emerging messiah who wanted to be washed by the living water of God. John’s reaction to Jesus indicates that he had already arrived at a holy place, but Jesus’ reaction to John shows that he didn’t see himself as being better than anyone else.

And this is such good news for us. I don’t think Jesus wanted to be seen as perfect – he wanted to be seen as someone who is not so different from who we are. I believe he was different. He had a connection with God that is probably best described as God’s beloved son, but Jesus understood that his special relationship with God wasn’t going to be a traditionally privileged relationship. It was a relationship that would cost Jesus dearly, but it would provide the rest of us with the same privilege that he had with God – the privilege of kinship.

In some ways we are all free to create whatever backstory we need for Jesus to have had that enabled him to arrive the place where he was standing when those words and that dove identified him as the one who had pleased God so well. We don’t know where he had been, but we know where he was when this happened, and he was with the people.

He was with the people who were struggling to get out of trouble and in to better lives. We don’t know any of the stories of the people who came to John to be baptized, but we know that John was reaching out to people who wanted new lives. There is no doubt that many of the people who came to him were victims of a cruel economy that thrust them in to roles that they hated. No doubt many of them had compounded their problems by making bad decisions in the midst of terrible circumstances, but these were people who had not lost their hunger for peace and joy and community.

It wasn’t just God who made an announcement on the day of Jesus’ baptism. By showing up at the Jordan River to be baptized by John, Jesus was saying that he was here to be with us and to be where we are. Jesus didn’t keep his distance from people who’s lives were a mess. He chose to be in the mess with us.

We’re all in this same sanctuary today, but we’ve all come from different places and we’re all dealing with our own set problems. I’m guessing there’s some drama in all of our lives that we wish we could turn off, but that isn’t an option. I know we would all do some rewriting of the scripts of our lives to generate a lot more of those beautiful moments where love just drips off the page or the screen, but that’s not possible, nor is it what we need.

What we need is what Jesus provided when he showed up at the Jordan to be baptized by John – he brought us the assurance that God is involved in the drama of our lives regardless of where we are. And God will be with us until the very end.

We don’t always remember that God is in the scene or on the set. It’s easy to forget this because God isn’t intrusive. We can fail to give God a role to play in our lives, but the true back-story for all of us is that we are intimately related to the ultimately main character. Ugly things happen in our lives, and we don’t always like what life seems to be dealing us, but there is always this possibility of a beautiful ending. And while the Downton Abbey’s of the world are beautiful places populated with alluring people, we are more likely to experience the presence of God in the downtown alleys of the world that are populated with the refugees of life.

John didn’t establish his operation in a nice place, but his work made it a holy place, and Jesus blessed it with his presence. Anyplace can be so holy – anyplace can be so blessed. May we all find a good role to play in the ongoing drama that we call the coming of the kingdom of God.

Thanks be to God – Amen.

Divinely Inspired Adjustments
Matthew 2:13-23

13 Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” 14 Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, 15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.” 16 When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. 17 Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: 18 “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.” 19 When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, 20 “Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.” 21 Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. 23 There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He will be called a Nazorean.”

On some level, the nativity stories serve to focus our attention on how lovely the world can be. Even though Jesus was born in a stable there’s something beautiful about it. While I don’t think anyone would chose to give birth in such a place it doesn’t come across as an unpleasant environment. It’s the portrayal of a good thing. We imagine this to be a good stable, where the hay is fresh and soft and the animals are all well behaved. It’s a miraculous place in that it’s both well ventilated and warm. It comes across as a lovely setting, and it reminds us that this world can be a hospitable place.

Christmas has come to represent the abundant goodness of this world, and I hope you’ve all been able to enjoy some of the pleasures that this world has to offer. I hope you’ve had some good food and some good company. And I hope you got some good stuff. This is the time of the year we give ourselves permission to indulge in all kinds of richness, but I know such indulgence is not a universal experience.

Relief from the troubles of this world doesn’t come to everyone at Christmas. In fact I know that the hype of Christmas serves to heap additional pain on some people. Christmas is supposed to be such a lovely experience. And when it’s not it can become a torturous affair.

Over the last few Sundays and then on Christmas Eve we have been contemplating what a glorious thing it was for God to step in to our world in the form of a baby, and it is, but todays scripture serves to remind us of how ugly things can get in this world – even when God is on the scene.

This story of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus escaping to Egypt under the shadow of Herod’s murderous edict illustrates how badly things can go in this world. While this passage provides us with assurance that God isn’t absent when things take horrible turns, we also see that God’s good presence doesn’t bring out the best in everyone. In fact what this story so clearly reveals is that the way God chose to redeem the world provoked a horrible reaction from this one who had the power to make life even more miserable for many who were already in difficult circumstances.

The birth of Jesus was not good news to Herod. I guess when you are in charge of a corner of the world you have no interest in a savior being born in your territory. I think there’s a timeless truth here – nobody who loves being in a position of power welcomes the arrival of someone who will somehow undermine their power. Few people act as ruthlessly as Herod did, but I think it’s probably accurate to say that people who love and crave power aren’t particularly drawn to Jesus.

People who really love their own power don’t really love Jesus, and people like that can make this world a hard place to be for other people.

Herod is the perfect illustration of this truth. When he realized the wise men were wise to his plan to destroy the newborn King he didn’t mess around. He sent soldiers to kill all of his potential rivals. There was nothing subtle or self-deceptive about King Herod. He had power and he knew how to use it. I guess there are some people in this world who operate in such clearly self-serving ways, but it’s rarely so blatant. Most power loving people are inclined to hide their power grabbing moves behind religious or righteous masks.

The way that power is used and abused in this world is generally so subtle these power dynamics are usually misunderstood and misinterpreted. I don’t even think most of us understand the way that power is at play in our own lives, and I think this is something we need to contemplate if we want to understand the way that God was revealed in Jesus. Yes, Jesus came to save us from our sins, but I dare say that you will find an abuse of power at the root of most sins.

The professor I most revered in seminary, the late Dr. Fred Herzog, was not someone I perfectly understood. He was a very thorough scholar and I was mediocre student, but I loved what I did understand him to say. And much of what he explored was the way in which the position of privilege can corrupt one’s ability to understand the good news of Jesus. He believed that those who are the most disadvantaged are the ones who are the most able to understand who Jesus really was and is.

And I loved the way he interpreted the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He thought the story of them eating of the forbidden fruit was not just a portrayal of disobedience – he believed it revealed the elemental nature of sin and he believed that our root problem is usurpation. I had to look that word up, but what usurpation means is to take hold of something that doesn’t belong to you – to seize the throne so to speak. With this in mind you might say that the elemental nature of sin is the abuse of power.

And it’s interesting to think of how this plays out in our world. I think if you examine any particular act we would identify as sin you will find it to be an inappropriate use of power. This is true on an indivitual level, and it’s true for large scale conflicts, and controversies.

And speaking of controversy, I can’t help but strap on my proverbial waders and step in to the troubled waters of the Duck Dynasty uproar. Speaking as a person who grew up near swampland, who has great affection for duck hunting, and who also aspires to be Christian – I feel uniquely qualified to comment on this situation.

I’ve never been a regular viewer of the Duck Dynasty television show, but I have watched it, and I have found it to be amusing. It is the portrayal of a sub-community within our country that has some unique sensibilities. It’s a community that appreciates the sound and the smell of a freshly fired 12 gauge, and I get that. The Robertson’s figured out how to build a good duck call for a reasonable price and they made a lot of money off of people like me who value that kind of thing. I respect their understanding of the duck hunting enterprise, and I understand their mass appeal. It’s relatively entertaining to watch quirky people do what they do.

I also respect their desire to be God fearing people and I don’t question their sincerity in living godly lives. The Robertson’s live very pious lives if you define piety as not smoking, drinking, cussing or violating your marriage vows. But I consider Phil Robertson to be clueless in regard to the actual message that came from God in the life of Jesus Christ.

In my opinion, I don’t think Phil Robertson has any idea how his position as an affluent powerful white heterosexual man has clouded his understanding of who Jesus Christ is and how God’s power is revealed in Jesus. Jesus would never have used his power to condemn a group of people who are struggling to be understood and accepted. The people Jesus identified as being unfit for the kingdom of God had a lot in common with the Phil Robertsons of our day. Jesus had no affection for people who used their power and authority and narrow understanding of religious tradition to make life more difficult for those who are already unfairly judged.

The Robinson clan has reclaimed their television and enterprising kingdom, and that suits me because the last thing I want to see is Phil Robertson portrayed as a martyr for Christ. You won’t find me tuning in any more. And while this whole controversy may well have advanced their enterprise on earth, but I don’t sense they’ve gained any ground in the kingdom of God.

It’s easy for us Christian people to want to promote our understanding of Jesus in some terribly un-Christian ways. It’s hard for us not to confuse our own agendas with the cause of Christ and to misuse whatever power we have to advance our misguided thinking. Our own John Wesley wasn’t immune from such behavior early in his ministry.

As a young man he made a trip to what was then the American colonies. He was intent on being an evangelist to the native Americans, but when he got to Savannah, GA he spent the bulk of his time trying to navigate the chaotic dynamics of pioneer life. Things weren’t as structured in Savannah as they were in Oxford, and he wasn’t really able to establish what you might call an effective ministry. He did establish a romantic relationship with a young woman named Sophie Hopkey, but he was very conflicted about marriage.

Upon the advice of a friend he cut off relations with her, but he didn’t engage in any actual communication about this, and he didn’t let go of his expectations. In the meantime she got tired of waiting for him and proceeded to marry someone else. This made Wesley mad and he responded by refusing to serve her the sacrament of Holy Communion when she and her new husband showed up for worship.

The situation deteriorated when they sued Wesley for defamation of character, and they had the upper hand because her uncle was the local magistrate and not someone who was particularly fond of Rev. Wesley. There was a trial and a mistrial and another pending trial when Wesley decided to take the next ship back to the Old World. Wesley left America with the sense of being a terrible failure – which was probably a good thing.

That whole experience caused Wesley to reexamine himself, and it put him in touch with some people who were able to minister to him in an effective way. All of this ultimately led to his rebirth as a man who felt forgiven by God and motivated to share this grace filled experience with others.

My initial thought with this sermon was to connect with Joseph and to identify the ways we make adjustments to the difficulties that this world places before us. But I’ve come to believe one of our largest challenges is to understand the ways in which we collaborate with the ungodly use of our own power. The birth of Christ presents a clear challenge for us all to be more sensitive to the way in which God has chosen to be in this world. He came not as one who seizes power and dictates reality, but as one who stands with those who are the victims of heartless policies. Our challenge is to make adjustments in life that make the love of Christ more evident to others and not more of an impediment.

Thanks be to God for being on hand in this world to illuminate the path of love, and to help us see how the brutal tactics of Herod are often masked with Christian words and righteous language.

May God’s angels continue to speak to us and enable us to flee from the variety of dangerous places we can find ourselves going.

Amen.