Thompson's Blog

Collaborating With God

John 14:15-21

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. 17 This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. 18 “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. 19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

Have you ever wondered why that online source of knowledge about everything you have ever wanted to know is called Wikipedia? And why every other online source of specific information uses that same prefix? What is it about wiki that makes it fit on the front of wikileaks, wikihow, and wikibuy?

I Googled this question about the wiki word, and of course I found some information about it in Wikipedia.

The first wiki-styled website was developed by a man named Ward Cunningham in 1995, and the distinguishing feature of that website was that it was designed to be user-editable. I don’t know what that original website was focused upon, but it was created in such a way that it could be edited by other users. Over time, some editing controls were put in place to keep it from becoming absurd, but his intention was to make the exchange of information more democratic and more efficient.

Mr. Cunningham decided to call his website WikiWikiWeb because he had travelled to Hawaii one time and the shuttle bus that carried people from one airport terminal to another was called the Wiki, and that name came from a Hawaiian word that means fast. He almost called his website QuickWeb, and while that might have made it easier for the rest of us to understand what he was talking about it didn’t have the notability of WikiWikiWeb, and that turned out to be a powerful decision. He basically changed the language we use to describe a certain type of online interaction.

Because now, anytime a website is designed to allow a degree of online collaboration it gets labeled with this wiki prefix. So whenever you read a definition of something on Wikipedia it is information that has been submitted by a number of different people, and all entries on Wikipedia continue to be adjusted. There’s some oversight in the process, but it’s a more open process than having one team of people generating all of the information.

I don’t understand computer programming, but I do understand the concept of sharing, and I think the primary intent of wikiness is this notion of sharing and interacting – which brings the scripture to mind.

What I hear Jesus saying in this passage is that a new collaborative opportunity grew out of his departure. Jesus was not going to leave his disciples orphaned. The relationship between Jesus and God and us was going to change, but it wasn’t going to be diminished. Jesus would not be with us in the form of a single person, but Jesus would be available to all of us in the form of a spiritual guide.

There is one sense in which I understand this very clearly. When there is someone around who does things for us we aren’t inclined to do things for ourselves. When my mother died I saw my father learn to do things he had never done when she was around. I had seen him load the dishwasher, but I don’t think he had ever been authorized to actually turn it on. He knew where the washing machine was, but I don’t think he had ever actually sorted laundry. I’m not sure he ever caught on to that, but the fact is that we generally don’t learn to do new things while people who are more capable of doing those things are still around.

I think I’ve mentioned before that the summer after I finished high school I took a three week Outward Bound Course. It was designed to be a personal growth experience that was set in the Gila Wilderness in New Mexico. I really didn’t know what I was stepping into, but I showed up where I was told to be on a given day, and soon after I got there I was given a backpack and other essential equipment. Our leader introduced himself and the other 8 people I would be with for the next three weeks, and then he told us to go over to a pile of food and figure out what we would need to live on for a week.

He didn’t go over and tell us what we needed. He told us to go figure out what we needed and to divide it among ourselves because we would be carrying it and we wouldn’t be resupplied for a week. So we went from being newly acquainted with one another to the exercise of trying to reason with one another. Our leader didn’t see his job as our caretaker. He was the facilitator of a group experience, and he didn’t just want to make it easy on us. It was a pretty interesting experience. We went from being newly acquainted to jokingly familiar with each other in pretty short order. Outright hostility soon followed, but so did some reconciliation.

It was a powerful experience for me, and it wouldn’t have been as powerful if our leader had not been as removed from us as he was. He gave us general objectives, and he provided some essential instructions, but he didn’t do things for us. It was messy in some ways, but it made us become as cooperative with one another as possible.

I’m seeing what God did through Jesus in a similar way. Jesus lived in a way that captured the attention of many people. The way he healed and taught was absolutely compelling to many and of course very threatening to others. Jesus didn’t set out to make a name for himself, but he became un-ignorable. Masses of people were drawn to him for help, and clusters of others were drawn together to conspire against him. Jesus became the focus of much attention in a good and bad way.  People who were looking for redemption from God found it in Jesus, while those who were using God for their own benefit found him to be in their way.

Jesus knew that this wasn’t going to play out well for him on earth. He knew how the world dealt with those who turn people’s attention to God, but he also knew that the leaders of this world couldn’t stop what was going on between he and God. And Jesus knew that something even more significant would happen for people after he was killed. Jesus could see that God was going to extend his work in a profound manner after he departed from this world. This work of collaborating with God didn’t end with the departure of Jesus – it took on a new form.

Jesus said God was going to do a new thing after he was gone – God was going to send us the Advocate. The Greek word John used was Paraclete and in Greek, the word was used to describe one who has been called to our side, and this is good news for us. And while we would probably prefer to have Jesus in the flesh, the truth is that it’s far better for us to have Jesus in the Spirit. It isn’t easy for us to follow the commandments of Jesus, but if Jesus was in the neighborhood we wouldn’t even try. We might turn out to see what he was doing, but we wouldn’t be inclined to do the things he did.

I don’t like the fact that we don’t have Jesus in the flesh, but we do have access to Jesus, and Jesus has access to us as well. We don’t have Jesus the way that the original disciples had Jesus, but we’ve got a wiki form of Jesus. We’ve got this ongoing opportunity to collaborate with Jesus. As Christians, we aren’t just people who revere the amazing work Jesus did – we’re invited to share in the work he continues to do. We’re challenged to make ourselves available to Jesus, and we’re privileged to be used by this abiding Spirit of Jesus to be used in the work of God.

Now while this everpresent Spirit of Jesus is a mysterious thing, it isn’t an arbitrary thing. John gave this Spirit a name that had some meaning to it. We call this Spirit the Advocate, which indicates that there is a certain type of work to be done – it’s the work of advocacy, which is work that’s done on behalf of others. This Advocate doesn’t just move people to do unusual things, it moves people to continue the work of Jesus to bring peace and wholeness into the lives of those who are being overwhelmed, overpowered, and overlooked.

I recently listened to a novel that was set in England during the first year of World War II, and part of the story focused on the work that was done at Bletchley Park to decode and decipher intercepted German messages. That novel got me interested in the whole story of codebreaking, so I just finished a non-fiction book about Bletchley Park. And it’s an amazing story. The Germans had these Enigma encryption machines that made it all but impossible to decipher their messages, and that’s what moved the British to put together this secret code-breaking institution at Bletchley Park that coordinated the work of thousands of people who worked in shifts around the clock to do the work of decoding messages.

Of course I’m amazed that there are people who had the minds to create those encryption machines as well as those who figured out how to create other machines that could decode the messages. This is where much of the pioneering work of computer science began, but it’s also amazing that there were these thousands of people who did really menial tasks day after day for a couple of years. It took a world of people doing mind-numbing tasks to operate these complex decoding machines and to do everything else that was necessary to carry out this massive undertaking.

And they couldn’t tell anyone what they were doing or what they did for several decades. Maintaining perfect secrecy was essential, and for the most part they were able to keep this endeavor a perfect secret. Most of the families of these remarkable people who worked at Bletchley Park thought their sons and daughters and siblings were doing meaningless clerical tasks that had no real bearing on the war effort.

I guess I’m just struck by the extent of collaboration that was in effect with this project. People were given clear tasks to do and they were conditioned not to ask why. On some level it was important that nobody really knew what other people were doing. They didn’t want many people to understand what was going on. So people were trained to do their one task with as much focus as possible and to trust that it was something that needed to be done.

I’m thinking this is the attitude we disciples are to have about our work of following Jesus, but this isn’t easy for us to do. We’re sort of conditioned to think we need to know now what will come of whatever we do. We’re living in a wiki-world, and we expect results quickly, clearly, and easily about everything we do. It’s not easy for us to be as patient we probably need to be when it comes to doing the work of God in this world, but our situation isn’t all bad.

Our computerized world has also provided us with some amazing opportunities to collaborate with people in incredible new ways. Our ability to be in communication with each other is beyond comprehension, and this can enable us to carry out God’s work in some powerful new ways. But there’s one thing the computer hasn’t provided for us. It hasn’t given us automatic access to the Advocate.

Gaining access to the spirit of Jesus Christ isn’t something we are able to do with a couple of keystrokes. The spirit of Christ has been provided for us, but we’ve still got to do the work of conditioning our hearts to understand the language of love in order to hear and understand those messages that God intends for us to get. The language of love isn’t encrypted in order to remain hidden from us, but it takes a lot of practice at carrying out the menial tasks of caring for one another to fully understand this language of the heart.

We have this opportunity to collaborate with God as those who continue the work of Jesus Christ in the world, and God will enable us to know what we can do if we will do the work that love requires. God has some unbelievable projects in mind for this world, and God is hoping we will get involved. It’s amazing what people can do when they put their minds to it, but it’s divine when people give themselves to God and do as the Advocate instructs.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Dwelling With Jesus

John 14:1-14

1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. 4 And you know the way to the place where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” 8 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. 12 Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

It was just after the last supper that Jesus spoke these memorable words to his disciples. Of course one of the things that makes these words memorable is that we often hear them read at funerals. It’s fitting that we read this passage on such occasions because it very clearly addresses the expectation of life after death. Jesus didn’t want us to live in fear of death. Jesus wanted us to live with the understanding that our relationship with God doesn’t end at death. He wanted us to trust that the kingdom of God is a community that extends beyond this world.

Of course this wasn’t something that the disciples were wanting to hear. Jesus spoke these words prior to his death, and they weren’t happy to hear him speak in that way. I think they were still hoping that Jesus was going to enter Jerusalem and establish a more tradition type of kingdom. Jesus had been telling them what was going to transpire, but it was hard for them to equate crucifixion with glorification. Their hopes for a glorious kingdom on earth had not yet died, so it wasn’t easy for them to hear him talk about going to prepare a place for them anywhere other than Jerusalem.

The disciples were frequently confused about the things Jesus said and did, but I think this is to be expected when someone embodies and articulates the truth of God. An eternal kingdom isn’t as easy for us to comprehend as a temporary kingdom. What Jesus wanted us to see and to understand isn’t easy for us to get our minds around.

I think most of us can identify with Philip, who wanted Jesus to be a little clearer about what he meant. Philip was a little weary of the images Jesus used, so he just came out and said what many of us are inclined to think. He said, Lord, just show us the Father and then we’ll be satisfied – which isn’t exactly a small request. It’s almost as if he said, just give us everything and then we’ll be satisfied. Philip sticks his neck out, but he’s not alone in his thinking.

Now maybe we can be a little critical of Philip because he was with Jesus when Jesus turned water in to wine, restored the sight of a man who was born blind, fed five thousand with two loaves and three fish, walked on water and raised Lazarus from the dead, but apparently that didn’t answer all of his questions. And maybe the point is that nobody will ever have all of their questions answered about the reality of God. The boundless nature of God is not something we can get our minds around, but even those of us who weren’t with Jesus when he did those miraculous things have been given all we need to know about the reality of God.

It’s probably natural to be like Philip and want more evidence of the presence of God, but we’ve all been given all that we need. God knows the language of our hearts, and God knows what we need to hear in order to trust that God was revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, but it’s still not easy to be a faithful follower. It’s hard for us not to let our hearts get all twisted up and troubled.

And Jesus knew this about us as well, and that’s why he told us not to let our hearts be troubled. Jesus knows we need to hear this, and he’s very clear about there being plenty of room in God’s big house, but it’s hard not to worry about all the things that are going on in our own little worlds.

Jesus didn’t want us to be burdened by the troubles of this world. Jesus wanted us to find our way in to our eternal home, and while I believe that our place in God’s home becomes much clearer to us after we depart from this world, I’m also convinced that we can get a foot in the door of God’s home while we are still occupying real estate on Earth. Jesus promised us a room in his Father’s house, but I sort of wish he had used that occasion to talk about his mother’s home.

And I’m going to use the occasion of Mother’s Day to invite you to think of the place that Jesus went to prepare for us as being in the home of our eternal mother. I’m not advocating that we change the language of the Trinity, but I think Jesus provided us with this image of providing room for us in his Father’s house in order to appeal to our affection for home. I don’t think Jesus was talking about the architecture of the place when he spoke of preparing a place for us – Jesus was talking about going home. Jesus was using the language of the heart when he said he was going to prepare a place for us in his Father’s house. I think Jesus was telling us that what he came to offer was the opportunity to dwell in the comfort of an eternal home, and for many of us, the comfort of home was established by our mothers.

I know this isn’t the case for everyone. Mothers are a lot like human beings – they don’t always give their children a taste of heaven, but a good mother is wonderful thing. In fact I would say it’s a divine thing. I’m pretty convinced that for most of us our image of God is highly influenced by the way we were treated by those god-like people we knew as our parents. It’s an image we have to get over to some extent, but I think the way we are nurtured as small children has a powerful impact on us, and for most of us that most primary impression of the world was given to us by our mothers. Fathers provide a lot of comfort as well – I’m not wanting to exclude us from the picture, but mothers are often the best at this comfort thing.

At least this was my experience. I was very fortunate to have had the mother I had. Now I could give you a list of things she might could have done better, but it wouldn’t be a long list. She made me feel welcome in the world, and I’m grateful to her for that. She was a very comforting person, and when I hear Jesus telling his disciples to not let their hearts be troubled I find myself remembering how well my mother could bring comfort to my troubled heart when I was a child.

My mother was a loving person, but she wasn’t what you would call an easygoing person. She didn’t have an overbearing personality, but she had a powerful presence. In fact, she didn’t really have to use words to let you know how she was feeling. We had some difficult times, but we mainly had good times, and I’m so grateful to her for giving me a powerful sense of belonging. She enabled me to know how good it is to have a place in a home. I had a good father as well. I don’t mean to take anything away from the role he played in my life, but I think it’s accurate to say that my mother defined our home, and I was blessed by the way she did that.

So when I hear Jesus talking about not letting my heart be troubled because he is going to prepare a place for me in his Father’s house I find myself thinking about that sense of belonging that my mother provided. I believe Jesus wants us all to experience the most profound sense of belonging, and I believe we attain that by trusting and loving and following him.

Jesus said a very bold thing to his disciples after he told them not to let their hearts be troubled and how he was going to prepare a place for them. It was in response to Thomas saying he didn’t understand where he was going that Jesus said, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

I think this is a passage of scripture that’s easy for us to misinterpret. I think the first thing that comes to mind when we hear these words is that we Christians have clearly made the right choice – that by claiming Jesus Christ as our savior we have put ourselves on the only legitimate avenue to God. Some people read this text as reason to gloat. Some Christians might be inclined to want to start chanting: We’re number one!! We’re number one!!   But I don’t think that’s the proper response to what Jesus was saying.

If you simply pull this text out of the context it’s easy to think Jesus was simply saying that anyone who worships God without using his name will never find their way to God, but I don’t believe that was his intent. It’s essential look at what was going on when Jesus spoke those words. It’s important to remember what Jesus had just done before he began this after-dinner speech. The last thing Jesus did before he began speaking to them was to wash their feet, and he did that to remind them of the way they were to treat each other.

Yes, Jesus pointed to himself as the only way to get to the Father, but he wasn’t pointing to himself as the one who knew the magic words that would open the gate to God’s kingdom. Jesus pointed to himself as the person who fully understood and practiced the perfect love of God. Jesus understood himself to be the way the truth and the life, and when he finished teaching his disciples everything he knew and praying for them to remain true to what he taught he willingly went to Jerusalem to face death by crucifixion.

Jesus didn’t speak these words in order to provide us with an attitude of religious superiority. Jesus spoke these bold words in order to remind us of how we are to live if want to dwell in the house of the Lord. Yes, it’s a privilege to abide in one of those rooms that Jesus talked about, and it’s a gift, but we need to have the right attitude about what it takes to be full participants in the household of God. The worst thing we can do is to have an attitude of superiority. The best thing we can do is to maintain an attitude of love and generosity toward everyone else.

When Jesus spoke of himself as the way, and the truth, and the life he had just washed their feet and he was about to give his life as an act of sacrificial love. The privilege that comes to us as Christians is the privilege to practice unbounded love. It’s like the privilege of being a mother or a father – you do whatever it takes to give life to your child.

We really have been provided a great gift from our heavenly Father – who is also our heavenly Mother. The son of God, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ has revealed to us the way to live as children of God. He provided us the truth about the power of love, and he has invited us to live the life that never dies.

So, Do not let your heart be troubled, believe in God, believe also in him.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Flocking to Jesus

John 10:1-10

1 Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. 2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” 6 Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. 7 So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

You can spend a lifetime in Arkansas without having any live encounters with sheep, but if you spend any time in church or in Sunday School you become exposed to the image of shepherding. I don’t guess I’ve ever known an actual shepherd, but I’ve been reading  the 23^rd Psalm for years, so I think nothing of saying that the Lord is my shepherd. It’s interesting to think of how much the economy of Jesus’ day influenced the language of our faith. It makes me wonder what images Jesus would have used if he had been from Arkansas. Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not leave Wal-Mart through the check-out line is a thief and a bandit. I don’t know if this would have made it through the centuries.

But the shepherding language has stuck, and it has created a curious situation for us. This is a case in which many of us are more familiar with the metaphor of shepherding than we are with the nature of the job. I become aware of this when I encounter texts like this where the terminology becomes more specific. I had to google sheepfold to find out what Jesus was talking about.

And the passage makes more sense when you know what a sheepfold is. Basically an ancient Palestinian sheepfold was a large pen made with rock walls that were often topped by thorns to keep thieves from climbing in and stealing sheep. Each village would have it’s own sheepfold where different shepherds would bring their flocks at night or for a period of time. Different flocks would mingle in the fold until their shepherd would come and call them together and lead them out. These people generally raised the sheep for their wool, so they would have the animals for years, and there would be a lot of familiarity between the shepherd and his sheep. The sheep would learn the voice of their shepherd, and they wouldn’t follow the song of anyone else.

Jesus used this image of sheep recognizing the sound of their shepherd’s voice to describe the way in which his followers respond to the sound of his voice.

When I was going through the process of becoming an ordained minister I was administered a test called the MMPI – the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. Actually because of a couple of mixups I took that test on 3 different occasions over the course of a few years. It’s one of those tests that asks a question and you choose between answers like: always, sometimes, rarely, or never. It got to where I could remember the questions and I did my best to answer them in a consistent manner. I didn’t want to present myself as having multiple personalities. I’ve pretty much forgotten what it asked, but there’s one question that I never really knew how to answer.

The question was: Do you hear voices?

And that’s an interesting question for a Christian to ponder. Do you hear voices? Now most of us know not to admit to hearing voices. People who hear voices aren’t known for behaving well. Some people take pills to keep from hearing voices. But who are we as Christians if we aren’t people who somehow hear the voice of Jesus? This very text indicates that it’s important to hear his voice and follow him.

I really can’t remember how I answered that question. I think I knew I should probably say never, but I also believe that I’m in need of hearing the voice of Jesus. I really wasn’t that concerned about how that would appear on my test results, but I remember being largely stumped by the question. Do I hear the voice of Jesus or don’t I?

I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a lot of voices in my head. Now before you make too much of this let me say that I don’t actually hear voices in my head. There’s a lot more silence in my head than there is a cacophony of voices telling me what to do. I don’t really hear different voices, but I find myself considering what others would say to me if they were in the room.

Of course this is what some people spend years and thousands of dollars trying to figure out by going to see a therapist. This isn’t a bad thing to do. In fact I think we would probably all do well to have access to someone who would listen to us as we wonder why we do the things we do, but hearing the voice of Jesus is a far different thing to hear than the voice of a mother or a father or a sibling or a spouse. We all know the needs and desires and agendas of the people who are naturally close to us, but the voice of Jesus is a different thing. It isn’t something we are accustomed to hearing. The voice of Jesus is like no other.

The voice of Jesus is that voice that calls us to a place that isn’t as familiar as the place where we are born or where we currently reside. The voice of Jesus is that voice that calls us to become extraordinarily loving.

I know a couple who have recently undergone the process of becoming approved as a home for a foster child. These aren’t people who are needing to do this for any reason other than their desire to make this world a more hospitable place for someone who’s world has been defined by insecurity and turmoil. What I know about this couple is that they are seeking to follow Jesus, and I can’t help but think that this is something that they have been encouraged to do by the voice of Jesus. This isn’t an easy thing that they’re doing, but I also believe it’s the kind of thing we do that puts us in touch with the thing Jesus referred to as abundant life.

We are remarkably individualistic in many ways. We guard our personal usernames and passwords of our various accounts with great diligence. If you are like me you need an app on your phone to contain the various names and passwords we use to gain access to our personal accounts. I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose or forget the password to that account. We are very individualistic when it comes to managing our personal business, but I think we are a lot like sheep when it comes to doing what’s expected of us. We have our individualistic agendas, but we’re also guided by our desire to blend in with the flock.

We don’t tend to think of ourselves as having a flock mentality, but we’re probably guided more by the flock than we may realize. What we eat, the way we dress, what we watch, and what we do is highly influenced by the flock to which we are associated. There are some flocks to which we are officially aligned, but there are others that we are less aware of, and I think we need to pay attention to the agendas of the various flocks to which we belong.

Just as the Pharisees of Jesus’ day weren’t providing leadership that actually led people into closer communion with God, I’m sure there are some voices to which we pay attention that aren’t leading us toward the abundant life that Jesus came to provide. Just as Jesus stood in sharp contrast to the accepted leaders of the flock in Israel 2000 years ago, Jesus is most likely calling us to step away from some of the familiar and comfortable trends of our day.

I listened to a heartbreaking story the other day about a woman who worked as an Iraqi translator in the early part of the war in Iraq. She became invaluable to the military commanders that she was working with. She became such a powerful source of information she was nicknamed, The Lion. She loved the work she did and she was really proud of what she did, but she was also devastated by the consequences of her work. Both her husband and her closest friend were killed because of her cooperation with our military. She had to flee the country along with her children, and she’s been living as a refugee in Jordan ever since. In spite of the recommendations of several military officers her application for asylum in our country her requests have been denied because of the fear we have in our nation of terrorists.

And of course it’s not unreasonable for us to want to be careful about who can enter this country, but our fear of terrorists has produced some policies that have done great harm to many individuals who have made great sacrifices for our country. And this is often the problem with a flock mentality. A flock can be very reactive to anything that poses any kind of threat to our personal security. And I think there are people who want us to maintain a level of fear in order to more easily control the behavior of the flock.

I think one way to see the difference between the dishonest leaders of Israel and the voice of Jesus was that the Pharisees and other religious authorities of Jesus’ day did their best to control the flock through fear and intimidation. There were severe consequences of not following the religious protocols of the day. For most people it meant that you were somehow ostracized from the flock if you didn’t do as you were expected. Of course Jesus was such a threat to the leaders of the flock they were moved to plot his execution, but Jesus didn’t lead his flock with the tactics of fear. In fact one of the things he said on many occasions was to fear not.

I think this is something that we need to recognize in ourselves. Are we motivated to do the things we do out of fear? If we are, I don’t think it’s the voice of Jesus that we’re hearing and following. In fact, Jesus may very well be calling for us to move in some frightening directions, but he doesn’t want us to be afraid. I know for a fact that my friends who recently opened their home to a foster child were terribly nervous about what that would be like.

But I also believe that it’s those steps we take that carry us out of the safety of the familiar flock that put us in touch with the flock of Jesus. I don’t believe we are all alone when we hear the voice of Jesus calling for us to take new steps in the direction of love. There is a flock of people who have responded to the voice of Jesus and there’s no better company to be found.

It’s not unreasonable for us to think of ourselves as one of Jesus’ little flocks, but it’s also important that we remain vigilant in the effort to hear the voice of Jesus. I know it’s a little crazy to talk about trying to hear the voice of someone that we don’t really see, but it’s the best way I know to describe what it is that we’re called to do. As Christians, our primary task is to live in this world without being controlled by the expectations of this world. We aren’t just to hear and respond to the various voices of conventional wisdom that are telling us how we are to be and what we are to do. Most of the voices we hear in this world are speaking to our fears and our self-serving desires, and those voices aren’t telling us where we are going to find true life.

It’s the voice of Jesus that can lead us to that place, and it’s his voice that we are challenged to hear. Jesus does continue to speak, and by the grace of God we will have the ears to hear and the wisdom to follow him.

Thanks be to God.

Amen

Hidden Treasure

Luke 24:13-35

13 Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14 and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, 16 but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17 And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. 18 Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” 19 He asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. 21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. 22 Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, 23 and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.” 25 Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! 26 Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” 27 Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures. 28 As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. 29 But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them. 30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. 32 They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” 33 That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. 34 They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” 35 Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

I graduated from high school in 1976 – right in the middle of what is arguably one of the most eclectic decades of the 20^th century. There was a lot of change during those days, and there was a lot of insecurity about the future. The war in Vietnam was over, but it had left a scar on our national psyche, the OPEC oil embargo of 1973 exposed an area of significant vulnerability, but it was over as well. We were armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons, so the possibility of a world-ending skirmish with the Soviet Union was in the air, but of course nobody wanted that.

This combination of both tension and relief produced some interesting fashions, and some great music. It also gave rise to the back to the land movement. I wasn’t a full participant in all of the oddness of the 70s, but I wore some of the crazy clothes, I loved the music (and still do), and I was fascinated with the kinds of things you could learn about in the Foxfire series of books. The Foxfire series of books came out of rural Appalachian Georgia, and they described how to build log cabins, butcher hogs, smoke meat, make soap, and every other thing people knew how to do before there was a Walmart in every neck of the woods.

Now I enjoyed living in a house with a television, but I was sort of fascinated with this idea of living off the land. There was a time when I imagined the lifestyle of a self-sufficient-hunter-gatherer-shepherd-farmer to be far more compelling than a professional career that came with a healthcare plan and a pension.

So I collected all of the Foxfire books, and I would go to the Cross County Library and read Mother Earth News, but my favorite book at the time was called Stalking the Wild Asparagus by Euell Gibbons. A book and a man made famous by Johnny Carson – who loved to make jokes about everything Euell Gibbons claimed you could eat if you were inclined to go find your food instead of buying it.

But I loved what Euell Gibbons had to say. His book described all of the wild foods you could find in various habitats and how to prepare them – along with a few anecdotes of how and when he discovered various wild delicacies. I didn’t find much of what he had to say to be easily accessible, but I actually did stalk some wild asparagus. Other than where it grows, there is no difference between wild asparagus and domesticated asparagus, and one interesting thing he said about asparagus is that you can often find it growing wild along railroad track levees.

There was a railroad track that ran behind my grandparent’s house, and I discovered that there was in fact some asparagus growing in places along that levee. I would have to walk about a half a mile to find a dozen sprouts, but they were there, and finding an asparagus plant was like finding a hidden treasure.

Those asparagus spouts weren’t easy to find – even when you were looking for it, but I never would have seen these plants if I hadn’t been alerted to watch for them. That was about the most success I ever had as a back-to-the-lander, but it was a good lesson for me to pay attention to what may be at hand.

I never would have thought to look for asparagus along that levee if I hadn’t been told of it’s possibility, but that little exercise has left me looking a little closer to see what I might find regardless of where I might be walking. Once you’ve found something in a surprising place it leaves you being more sensitive to finding other things in surprising places.

And I don’t guess anyone ever encountered as good a thing in a surprising way as when Cleopas and his fellow traveler suddenly came to realize they had been walking with the risen Christ for several miles. They hadn’t expected to see him, and they weren’t able to recognize him until that moment when he did the thing he had done with his disciples at the last supper. It’s interesting to think about how this all happened. How could they have not recognized him as they went along? And then, what exactly transpired that enabled them to see who he was? We don’t have easy answers for these mysterious things, but what we do have is the testimony that these men encountered the living Christ when they invited him to stay with them and they broke bread together.

And you can bet that these men never saw a stranger again without wondering if he or she might be the risen Lord who had come to spend a little time with them. I dare say they never missed an opportunity to give thanks to God before they broke and shared bread. And you can’t read this story without thinking that this could happen to one of us. You just never know where you will encounter the presence of the living Lord, and it’s always a good idea to get together and to share blessed bread.

I said the 70’s were sort of strange days, but I don’t guess there’s ever been a time that wasn’t unusual in some way. In some ways this world just keeps getting stranger, but there is one way in which this world never changes. The world is almost always torn up in some terrible ways. We don’t all suffer equally and there are certainly some places that are more torn up than others, but none of us get through life on Earth without being touched by some breathtaking pain.

These men who were walking to Emmaus were certainly feeling the stab of unfathomable loss. They weren’t out enjoying a hike in the park. They were slogging through the aftermath of a terrible tragedy when Christ joined them on the road, and that’s often how it happens for us.

I had a couple of friends in seminary who experienced an unfathomable loss a few years after we had all graduated and gone on to our various lives. Kelly and Dale were two really nice people who met and married while they were in seminary, and they both went back to Alabama to work as pastors. They each had their own church, and on Palm Sunday in 1994 a tornado dropped out of the sky and hit the church where Rev. Kelly Clem was the pastor. It happened just as their worship service was about to begin and it killed twenty people in the congregation – including Kelly and Dale’s 4-year-old daughter.

I had lost touch with them, and I still haven’t been in touch with them, but I’ve followed their story to some extent. There was a video produced not long after the event that was pretty incredible to watch, and there have been a few different articles in various publications about them. They were as devastated and lost as you would expect anyone to have been in the aftermath of such an event. There are no guidelines for how to proceed after such a thing, but they proceeded about as gracefully as anyone could. It’s an event that forever changed them, but it didn’t destroy them.

In one article, Kelly made it very clear that nobody can fully understand what someone else is going through, but her loss has clearly sensitized her to the loss of others. She doesn’t pretend to know what it’s like for anyone else to lose a child. She makes no assumptions about what other people experience, but she said that she never felt as if she had been abandoned by God. Even as she felt the rawest pain she sensed that God was with her. She was somehow able to connect the suffering of Christ with her own suffering.

This truth became particularly clear to her several years after the event when she and her family were on a trip to Spain. Here’s something she wrote in an article for Interpreter Magazine:

As my family toured around, I became transfixed by a beautiful sculpture with Jesus on the cross and Mary standing beneath him. Tears gleamed in her eyes, and her arms were posed as though cradling a child who is not there. Tears welled up in my eyes, as I had a moment of understanding. “This is my life, my story,” I thought to myself. “I am part of God’s story.”

Terrible things happen in life, but the good news is that God is with us when those terrible things happen, and it’s often in those terrible moments that we see how our own stories are connected to the most beautiful story that there is. We don’t always see this so clearly in the heat of horrible moments, but those moments can make us extra sensitive to the horror of what Jesus experienced, and hopefully more open to the truth of his resurrection as well.

This story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is not just the story of what happened to one man 2000 years ago. It’s as Rev. Kelly Clem came to realize – This is my life, my story. When you look at Jesus on the cross, you are looking at pure vulnerability, horrible pain, and unfathomable wrongness – but you are also looking at an act of perfect love. Jesus on the cross is the perfect portrayal of God’s love. God’s love was executed and buried, but it didn’t stay that way, and we are celebrating that truth today.

We don’t all discover this truth and our connection to it in the same way, but knowing this is the truth makes us keep an eye out for it. I suspect that one reason Kelly Clem didn’t feel abandoned by God when she lost her child was that she was already very familiar with the story of Christ’s crucifixion. She had known in her mind not to equate devastating loss with divine abandonment, and I’m guessing that helped her during her experience of unfathomable loss. She knew to keep looking to Jesus for help, and it came.

There are events that happen in this world that wound us deeply, and deep wounds leave scars, but God wills for our souls to do more than fully recover – God wills for us to find new life regardless of what has happened to us.

You have to keep an eye out for it. The truth of Christ’s resurrection from the dead isn’t easy to see or believe. Like the travelers to Emmaus who didn’t recognize who was with them for the longest time, we can remain oblivious to the presence of the resurrected Christ in our midst. But I’m telling you that as surely as you can find asparagus on a railroad levee or beauty in a 70’s love song, you can find new life in Jesus Christ – even if you are feeling as good as dead.

This is the good news – thanks be to God!

Amen.

The Germ of Life

John 20:19-31

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

This story of Thomas and his refusal to believe without seeing is one that many people find some level of kinship with. I can see myself in Thomas to some extent. It’s not that he didn’t trust Jesus – it’s more like he was having trouble trusting his friends. Or maybe it was just that he felt like he had missed out on something and he wanted what they had. That’s certainly an emotion I can find within myself. Few of us are as demanding of proof as Thomas was, and fewer of us have such visceral experiences of the resurrected Christ. Most of us find reason to trust this story without extraordinary encounters with the risen Lord of Life.

But some people have powerful experiences that convince them of the resurrected Christ. The Christian writer, Ann Lamotte, tells the story of how she felt like Jesus was following her in the form of a cat for a couple of days, and then as she lay in bed recovering from years of alcohol and drug abuse she had this sense that Jesus was crouched down in the corner of the room watching her. She said he wouldn’t leave her alone so she gave up her old way of living and started following him.

I’ve never had an encounter with what I considered to be the actual man, Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified and raised from the dead, but I do believe I’ve encountered people who were infected by his spirit and they passed the germ on to me. And that’s what Jesus did to those disciples who were gathered in that locked room out of fear of their religiously persecuting peers – he breathed on them and infected them with the Holy Spirit.

This is a really interesting image for me to ponder – this experience of being breathed on by Jesus.

Getting breathed on is something most of us do our best to avoid. I don’t really know how it is in other countries, but we Americans do our best to keep our breath to ourselves, and to avoid the breath of others. And when we do share our breath with other people we want it to be pretty scrubbed.

And of course we know that you can catch things from the breath of other people. I love my little granddaughter, but daycare has provided her with some powerfully infectious breath. She happily shared her breath with Sharla back in the fall and she was sick for weeks. We adults know to watch out for infectious breath. We don’t always succeed at keeping our safe distance, but understand the concept.

So if find this image of being breathed on by Jesus to be pretty intriguing. The idea of catching something from Jesus is a powerful concept, and it’s an easy way for me to imagine the Holy Spirit being transferred. We generally think of infectious breath as being a bad thing, but could there be anything better than being infected by the germ of Jesus Christ?

I’m remembering something along these lines that happened in the wake of my mother’s sudden death. People were bringing all of this food over to my parent’s house, and we were needing more refrigerator space than we had. My mother was a person who had trouble throwing things away. She kept a clean and neat house, but every drawer, closet, storage space, and refrigerator was stuffed to the gills. And of course she had more than one refrigerator. There was a refrigerator in an outside storage room that had items of all sorts of unknown origins and dates.

A neighbor came over and offered to help in some way and I took her out to that refrigerator and I told her to throw out anything she wouldn’t eat because we needed space for the good food that was pouring in. After a while I went out to check on the situation and as she was telling me what she had done she pointed to this one mass of white goo in the trash bag that she said she had no idea what it was, and I suddenly felt ill because I realized she had thrown out my mother’s sour-dough starter.

Now it’s not like that was starter that had been passed on to her from her ancestors in the old world. Her sour-dough starter was from a recipe that I knew about. I’m not sure how long she had kept that particular batch of sourdough going, but her sourdough bread and pancakes were something that my sister and I both loved, and having some of her sourdough starter is something I knew we would both cherish.

But I was looking at it in a trash bag with lots of other things in and around it. I tried to act calm, and I thanked her for what she had done, but I told her not to throw anything else in that bag. I went inside and got a spoon and a bowl and I managed to salvage about a cup of relatively pure sourdough starter. Over the next few weeks I fed that small amount of starter until I had enough to divide between my sister and I and we were both so happy to have it. It felt as if we were somehow preserving some of her germs.

We both kept our batches going for a few years. I kept mine at the Wesley Foundation where I regularly made bread to lure students in to a Bible study. Unfortunately I came in one day and discovered that someone had thrown my starter away thinking it was old pancake batter. That student saw a new facet of my personality that day. It was fortunate that before I said or did anything truly regrettable I remembered that I could get more from my sister.

It may have been an unhealthy obsession of some kind, but I loved keeping that starter going for a long time. I cherished the idea of keeping some of her good germs alive. My sister and I both let it go at some point. I think our children are pretty happy that they don’t have to keep their grandmother’s sourdough starter alive.

We don’t generally like to be infected by anything, but what we see in this passage of scripture is that we are invited to become infected by the breath of Jesus Christ and for that powerful germ to become the dominant force within our lives.

Given the gruesome way in which Jesus was killed, I can’t see that anyone would have continued to speak his name if people hadn’t caught something that brought them back to life. It’s entirely believable to me that those original disciples were assembled in a room behind locked door, but they didn’t remain in a state of fear and seclusion, and it makes sense to think that they caught what Jesus had.

We’re gathered here on the first day of the week, but we’re not behind locked doors. We don’t feel threatened by our association with Jesus, and I’m happy about that, but I can’t help but wonder if we haven’t somehow developed some immunity to whatever it is that lived in the breath of Jesus. I mean, has the world really become a place that’s more accommodating to the spirit and truth of Jesus Christ? Or have we somehow made the message of Christ more accommodating to the world?

This isn’t an easy question for us. I know there are people who have very clear answers to this question. There are people who can point to the exact ways in which the message of Christ has been coopted by the changing morals of society, and how this needs to be remedied, but I don’t think it’s so simple. I don’t believe the problem with the church today is our failure to adhere to the moral codes of previous generations. I’m not saying that we haven’t lost some valuable traditions over the years, but there are other traditions that needed to be lost. Our challenge as Christians is to continually redefine what it means to be faithful to Christ in our time, and this is never simple.

I’m sure there are ways in which all of us who call ourselves Christian fail to live as morally upright as a perfect follower of Christ would do. It’s important that we seek to define what it means for us to be faithful to Christ as individuals and as a faith community, but I don’t think this is ever a simple task. I believe the spirit of Christ calls for us to engage in the struggle to define faithful living, but we must always pursue this with humility and grace.

It’s a very personal struggle for each of us to figure out how to live in relationship with other people as we respond to the call of Christ in our lives. It’s just not easy to define how faithfulness to Christ should play out in everyone else’s life. I believe the rule of love calls upon each of us to treat one another with a near impossible level of integrity, kindness, generosity, and faithfulness, but I don’t believe it calls for us to decide exactly what that means for everyone else and then to judge them accordingly. I think we get lost in the weeds when Christianity becomes defined by many rules instead of the one commandment that Jesus taught – to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

This isn’t the one rule that guides the bulk of what goes on in this world, and the sad thing is that we are often more infected by those germs that guide this world than we are by the life-giving spirit of God.

It’s interesting to me to think about the competing germs that are in the air and how our lives are affected by these competing forces. It’s not as easy for us to identify the spiritual germs that are in the air as it is to culture the biological ones. We don’t have the spiritual equivalent of petri-dishes where we can take swabs from our mouths and see what grows, but I think it’s helpful for us to consider the what it is that’s guiding our hearts and minds to do what we do and to pursue what we pursue.

Like Thomas, we weren’t in the room on that first day that Jesus appeared to the disciples and breathed his breath on them. We haven’t had the extraordinary experience that Thomas had a week later, but we have had the good fortune of receiving this germ of life that came from Jesus Christ passed on to us. We haven’t had the actual breath of the resurrected Christ fall on our faces, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been touched by that holy bug that lived in his breath.

I believe in the Holy Spirit. I believe it’s in our midst and can guide our hearts and minds in the direction of true life. As surely as we harbor all kinds of bacteria all over and in our bodies I believe we can harbor this holy germ within us as well and that it provides us with access to the kingdom of God.

I believe the church should be the place where people catch and share this holy form of infection that provides us with that kind of assurance and hope that those first disciples experienced. It’s not easy for us to maintain the kind of atmosphere where the air is thick with the presence of the Holy Spirit. We Christians have always found it hard to balance our spirituality with our materiality, but this is what we are called to do.

We have our obstacles, but we have a living advocate as well. This germ of true life that was in Jesus Christ is alive and well and in our midst. May we be infected by that same life-giving spirit that brought those first disciples and Thomas back from the brink of fear and dread. May the Holy Spirit that was in Jesus Christ fill our hearts and minds and souls and put us on that path of true and abundant life.

Thanks be to God. Amen

The God Plot

John 20:1-18

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

One of the things I cherish about the Christian religion is that it’s shaped around a story. Of course there are many stories that make up the story of our faith, but our understanding of God is shaped by this collection of stories that we have in our Bible, and you might say that this collection of stories fit together to provide us with one story. It’s the story of our relationship with God. It’s not always a pretty story. We humans have not always responded to the gracious initiatives of God with faithful love, but God has never given up on us. In fact God has often responded to our failures with new initiatives. God knows that we don’t always do the right things, but God also knows that we love a good story, and instead of giving up on us when we have shown ourselves to be less than as loving and forgiving as we aught to be – God does something that grabs our attention in a powerful new way.

Good stories are powerful things, and we modern Americans have access to some great stories. I know I’m a huge consumer of our modern forms of storytelling. In addition to the standard cable packages of programming on television I have subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon Prime, Audible, and a variety of podcasts. I’m not saying all the stories available to us are good for us to read or hear or watch, but we do have access to some great storytelling through a variety of forms of mass media. I mean it’s pretty amazing to me that you have pulled yourselves away from the television this morning to hear a story that you’ve already heard.

Actually it’s not so amazing to me. I guess this is the best story that we know – this story of the way in which God turned what appeared to be the worst moment in human history in to the most amazing moment ever. The resurrection of Jesus Christ – the story that changed everything. It’s not so surprising to me that you would turn off the tv and show up for worship today. You can count on hearing a good story today. You never know about the quality of the sermon, but the scripture lesson is going to be good.

Easter Sunday is actually an intimidating Sunday for a preacher. At least it is for this preacher. You can’t really top this story with another story. You can’t really build on this event that altered the course of the universe. I’ve pretty much made peace with the intimidation of the moment over the course of the last thirty years, but I have a very vivid memory of how it felt to prepare for my first Easter sermon. I honestly remember wishing God would somehow provide me with some form of actual speechlessness prior to my first Easter sermon.

But I had no hint of laryngitis or any other excuse to avoid preaching on that first Easter, and I think I got through it without destroying anyone’s faith. And over the years I’ve come to understand that a preacher can’t really get in the way of this story. I’ve heard some weak Easter sermons, and I’m sure I’ve preached some less than stellar Easter sermons, but the truth of this story has a form of resilience that defies the power of a preacher to mess it up.

This story reveals who it is that reigns over this world, and it’s good news for the world. There’s a good plot to this story – it’s not a painless story to recall, but it’s got the best ending ever. The man who perfectly embodied God’s love prevailed over the iron fists of evil, and that’s a story I want to hear over and over. What this story tells me is that God wills to redeem this difficult world in which we live, and that’s a story I need to hear every day. God doesn’t turn all of our devastating moments in to amazing victories, but I believe we’ve all experienced enough of the redeeming grace of God to know that this story is true.

God’s love isn’t a factor in this world. God’s love is the factor. Terrible things happen in this world, but God is the author of this story of life on Earth, and in time this story is going to play out well.

Things don’t always go as we want them to, and there are periods of time when things don’t seem to be going well at all, but it’s important for us to keep looking for answers and trusting that God’s good love can redeem any situation.

There’s one little detail in the way John tells the resurrection story that captures my attention in a good way. Of course it’s worth noting that Mary stuck around after the other disciples had come and gone. They seemed to think that they knew what was going on, and they declared that they believed, but the scripture says that they had yet to understand what had happened. Mary knew that she didn’t know what was going on, so she stuck around, and after the others had left it says she bent down and took another look in the tomb. And it was at that point that she saw the angels in the tomb and they asked her why she was weeping.

Mary was the first to understand what had happened, and she was first because she didn’t give up to soon on her pursuit of the truth. Sometimes it just takes a while for the fog to clear and the truth to be revealed. In this case it was only a matter of minutes, but I think the message is for us not to give up to quickly on any situation. The plot of this story didn’t unfold immediately, and Mary was well served by her patience and her desire to understand. It’s so good that she took one last look in to that tomb.

A couple of years ago on a beautiful spring afternoon I made plans to join a couple of friends for a round of golf at War Memorial Golf Course in Little Rock. It was one of those perfect Arkansas afternoons, and I was so excited about going out there to play. I had come from the church, so I needed to go in and change out of my going-to-work clothes in to my going-to-play-golf clothes. I was getting my stuff out of the back of my car and somehow I dropped a golf ball on the parking lot. It was on a slope and my ball was bouncing away from me so I started chasing after it and I tried to grab it right before it went in to a storm drain, but that was a terrible mistake. Not only did I fail to catch the ball – when I bent down to grab it my pocket calendar slid out of my shirt pocket and went in to the drain about the same time the ball did.

Now I didn’t see my entire life pass before my eyes at that moment, but I saw a full year of my life drop down in to the abyss, and it made me sick. I’ve been getting these little black pocket calendars from Cokesbury since I began working as a pastor, and it had become critical to my operation as a legitimate human being. I had begun to keep a few annually recurring things on my phone calendar, but my little pocket calendar is where I kept all of my more immediately scheduled events as well as every other little note I thought I should document.

That’s a round of golf I remember because I was absolutely miserable the entire time. Good shots felt meaningless. Bad shots reinforced my poor opinion of myself. I felt so lost. I really didn’t know how I was going to find my way in to the immediate future. It was as if my life had gone down that storm drain. I was devastated. I remember trying to comfort myself with the thought that I hadn’t done anything that would require me to hire a lawyer, but that was cold comfort. The sight of that calendar falling out of my pocket and sliding in that drain kept playing over and over in my mind. It was an unbearable 18 holes of golf.

When we finished I revisited the scene of the disaster, and it was only then that I noticed the man-hole cover that was set back about a foot from the curb and the storm drain. I had no idea how those things were constructed, but I pulled out my trusty Swiss-army knife and pried up the edge of that man-hole cover, and to my absolute delight I saw my pocket calendar down there. It was about 4 feet down, and it was sitting on a mound of dirt that was surrounded by some running water. I couldn’t believe it – I climbed down there and retrieved my life as I knew it to be.

Now what I know is that my life would have been ok if I hadn’t retrieved that little black book from the bowels of the Little Rock storm drain system. In time, I would have regained my footing. I might even have developed an aptitude for navigating life in the 21^st Century and learned to keep all of my scheduling information on my phone. Finding my pocket calendar wasn’t on the level of an actual miracle, but I can tell you it put me in touch with the joy of resurrection.

This story of the resurrection of Jesus Christ provides me with assurance that things will be ok regardless of what kind of loss we may experience in life, and I’m always grateful for those little ways in which I’m reminded of this beautiful truth.

That experience at the golf course also reminds me of the value of revisiting perplexing situations. I like to think I acted a little bit like Mary in the way I continued to explore the situation. It’s never a good idea to give up on something important without fully exploring every possibility. Persistent pursuit of the truth is valuable whether you are dealing with a cosmic reality or a personal dilemma.

God is the author of the story that has pulled us together today, but it’s good to take note of the role Mary plays in this story. Mary wasn’t someone who played a prominent role as a follower of Jesus prior to his crucifixion, but she played the most significant role on the day of his resurrection. She was the last person remaining at the tomb, and she became the first person to fully experience the joy of the most monumental moment in world history. She also became the first person to tell this remarkable story.

This story has been passed on for a couple of thousand years and all over the earth. It’s a life-altering story. To trust in this story is to trust that we have hope regardless of what we face in life. Unfortunately, the world isn’t ruled by this story. Too many people still believe that there are forms of power that exceed the power of God. This is true of people in all walks of life and it moves people to behave in all kinds of terrible ways.

This world continues to be torn up by people who aren’t guided by the truth of this story, and it’s not unusual for any of us to fail to trust in the power of God when lesser powers make themselves available, but these things don’t change the truth of this story. The good news is that we don’t have the power to disrupt the intentions of God, and God’s intentions are clear. God wants us to know of the power of love, and God wants us to allow that power to guide our lives.

We Christians have a good story and we need to stick to it because it’s the most valuable thing we have ever been given. When you keep this story in your heart you know that God is on our side and that we can deal with whatever may come our way.

Life can get complicated, but the plot of this story is clear. God’s love will prevail on Earth and God’s truth will be revealed. Christ our Lord has risen indeed!

Thanks be to God.

Amen

All’s A Twitter

Matthew 21:1-11

1 When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.” 4 This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying, 5 “Tell the daughter of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” 6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; 7 they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. 8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” 10 When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” 11 The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

Before Twitter was an app for a phone it was an idiom. And that’s a sentence that wouldn’t have made any sense to anyone 10 years ago. Actually it would have made sense to a few people. The social networking service we know of as Twitter was founded in 2016, so it’s a little over 10 years old, but I suspect it remained pretty mysterious to most people for the first few years of its existence. I know it did for me.

I remember having lunch with a guy five or six years ago who tried to explain it to me. He was a very social-media minded young man and he thought it would be a great tool for me and the church I was serving. He did his best to explain how it worked and what it was good for, but it just didn’t make sense to me. I couldn’t get my mind around the value of people writing these short messages. I didn’t understand the notions of following and retweeting. This guy established a twitter account for me, but it remained dormant for a couple of years.

I didn’t understand the value of Twitter until I went on my long bike ride to the Atlantic, which was about 3 years ago, and that’s when I came to understand it’s value. I found it to be a great way of letting people know where I was and what was going on each day. It made sense to me for people to follow me on my trip, and I actually developed a bit of a following during that trip. I think I may have had about a dozen followers prior to the beginning of my trip, but I had over a hundred before it was over.

You’ve got a lot of time to think when you’re moving along at about 10 miles per hour, and I discovered that my mind is well suited for thoughts that can be expressed in 140 characters. I became a compulsive tweeter during that trip, but I haven’t maintained my enthusiasm for that method of communication. The thoughts I have as I walk through the aisles of Wal-Mart just aren’t as interesting as were my thoughts as I made my way to the sea.

But now I’m a compulsive twitter reader. I was slow to understand it’s value as a communication tool, but now I don’t wait until the evening news to find out what’s gone on during the day. I check Twitter to find out what’s been going on in the world over the course of the last hour.

Of course before twitter was an app or an idiom, it was a noun. It was the word we used to describe the sound that a bird makes. Now an idiom is the common use of a word for something other than what it originally meant, and I wouldn’t have known that if I hadn’t looked it up, but I did, and this is your English lesson for the day. So before Twitter became one of the most popularly used social media tools, this word was primarily used as an idiom, and it referred to a flurry of activity. If things were a twitter, it didn’t mean there was a bunch birds tweeting, it meant there were a bunch of people stirring around in an atmosphere of giddiness.

And I’ve said all of that in order to say that things were a twitter in Jerusalem when Jesus came riding in to town on that donkey. Few people knew what was actually going on, but lots of people knew that something was going on. They didn’t have access to Twitter, the app, but they weren’t without their communication networks, and the word had gotten out that something significant was about to happen in Jerusalem.

Communication is such an interesting thing. It’s so interesting the way that information is generated and shared. We think of ourselves as having these amazing communication tools and devices, and we do have an amazing amount of access to information, but I’m not sure if this has helped us gain more access to the truth. As surely as we are able to receive near instantaneous blasts of information about what’s going on we’re also presented with instantaneous bursts of commentary and doubt about what’s going on and we filter that information through our variously preferred lenses. I think this pretty much leaves us in the same situation of the people who were in Jerusalem on the day that Jesus rode that donkey in to Jerusalem. It was a boisterous occasion and the sounds that accompanied him were fueled by many different agendas.

What we are looking at this morning is a portrayal of a moment of high tension in a religiously supercharged place, and we have a few short lines to help us understand what was going on. No one was doing any real time tweeting in this situation, and Matthew used more than 140 characters to describe this situation, but he chose his words carefully to help us get a sense of what was going on at this moment in history. I’m sort of seeing this morning’s passage of scripture as a tweet from one of the most significant gatherings of people in the history of the world.

It’s interesting to think about the various agenda’s that were represented in the crowd that day, and how Matthew revealed those agendas with very few words. The retrieval of the donkey for Jesus to ride on is an indication that there were lots of people who were ready for their messiah to arrive, and there were people willing for Jesus to be THE ONE. This donkey wasn’t made available to Jesus because one of the disciples knew someone who knew someone. Jesus sent unnamed disciples to get the donkey, and the story indicates that it was available because it was Jesus who sent them and he gave them very clear instructions on what to say. This little detail speaks to the unprecedented authority Jesus had with people who were open the actual presence of God.

But there were many different agendas represented in Jerusalem at that time. In those days Jerusalem was probably swollen to two or three times it’s normal size for the Passover celebration. Many of the people who came to Jerusalem were angry over the foreign occupation of their nation. Israel was occupied by the Romans, and they hated paying taxes to Rome. These people had a shared vision of a new king who was going to purge their homeland of those foreign occupiers and their demand for money. You can bet many of these people were lining the streets to welcome this man named Jesus that they had heard rumors about. These people were shouting hosanna with the zeal of political partisans.

The political leaders of Israel weren’t as enthusiastic about an uprising as were the Jewish populists. They didn’t like being occupied by the Romans, but they were more practical in this regard. Instead of wanting to throw off the Roman yoke, they concentrated on maintaining their Jewish identity within the Roman occupation. The Romans actually provided a degree of protection from other potential invaders who might be more hostile toward their religious practices. The Romans allowed them to keep the Temple practices going. There probably weren’t many of them lining the road as Jesus came in to town. They had no interest in getting any undue attention from the Romans.

The Pharisees represented the most powerful party within the Jewish community, and they had their own way of dealing with Roman occupation. They sought to maintain their Jewish identity by promoting strict observance of Jewish rituals. They were real big on the practice of offering sacrifices at the Temple, and this was a large operation with a very clear set of religious protocols.

In order to make the proper sacrifice, you had to have the right quality of pigeon or goat or whatever type of animal you wanted to sacrifice, and of course there were people on hand to sell those religiously approved animals. It wouldn’t do much good to bring an animal from the farm because the men who approved the animals for sacrifice were closely associated with the people who sold the authorized blemish free animals. The people who sold the blemish free animals had to have religiously approved money, so there was this side operation of getting your money exchanged.

This political and religious arrangement was very satisfying to the people who oversaw the Temple operations, but it put a lot of pressure on the people. They were taxed by the Romans and gouged by the priests. They wanted some relief, and Jesus looked like the man who could deliver what they wanted. Of course the religious leaders saw Jesus as the one who could mess up a relatively good thing. So they might have been lining the streets as Jesus came in to town, but they weren’t cheering him on.

This is what Jesus saw as he rode into town on that donkey — an abundance of abuse and confusion about who God was and what God wanted. Tremendous and diverse passions and agendas met on that day in Jerusalem. It was a formula for the high drama that would play out in the days to come.

And a significant thing we should acknowledge is that Jesus wasn’t unwilling to be noticed as he entered Jerusalem. Jesus understood these various agendas that were at play, but he didn’t try to stifle the enthusiasm of the people who greeted him. This wasn’t the safest way for him to enter Jerusalem, but at this point in the story his concern for his own safety was over. In his earlier days he had tried not to make a large show of his work because he didn’t want to be eliminated prematurely, but he was entering Jerusalem in full daylight with great attention.

The fact that the people were greeting him with acts of adoration and this shout of Hosanna was not something that would have gone unnoticed by the Roman authorities or their Jewish collaborators.

This is a scene that would have been ripe for tweeting and retweeting. Matthew says people were asking the question, Who is this?, and I think this is the question we are all to be asking of ourselves. Who is Jesus? And what are we hoping to get from him.

Jesus wasn’t a tweeter in the current sense of the word, but we would all do well to follow him and the messages he provides. He doesn’t send them out in 140 character bursts, but he has essential information for us. It’s not as easy to access those messages as it is to check a Twitter account, but we what Jesus has to say is so much more important than anyone any of us are currently following on Twitter.

We have a large challenge, and it’s the same challenge that those people of Jerusalem had when Jesus entered that city. Our challenge is to not let our own petty and personal desires overshadow our desire to know who Jesus really was and what he had to say. Our opportunity is to allow Jesus to be the most important person we follow in life. The living Christ doesn’t have a Twitter account, but we can follow him. Things are a twitter in our world, and we need to be able to hear the message of Christ above all the other messages we are bombarded by on an hourly basis.

You don’t need a Twitter account to gain access to the most essential information anyone can ever get. It doesn’t come in 140 characters, but it can come in to our hearts if we will open them to the Holy Spirit. The loving message of Christ seeks to guide us on to the path of true life.

Thanks be to God. Amen

Fleshing Out the Dry Bones

Ezekiel 37:1-14

1 The hand of the LORD came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. 3 He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord GOD, you know.” 4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. 5 Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6 I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the LORD.” 7 So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8 I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. 9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” 10 I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. 11 Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ 12 Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. 14 I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act,” says the LORD.

I don’t want to create any unease this morning, but I’m in some unfamiliar preaching territory this morning. As you have noticed, I’m using a text from the Old Testament for our scripture, and this isn’t something I do very often. Chances are, nobody’s going to get hurt as a result of my inexperience, but we’re in some uncharted territory.

It may not seem like a big thing. And you would think a seminary trained pastor would be certified for preaching from both testaments, but it’s a different undertaking on some level. I’m oriented around preaching from the gospels which are very focused on Jesus and I don’t believe the prophet, Ezekiel, wasn’t thinking about Jesus when he wrote these words. It’s not in conflict with Jesus, but it’s not about Jesus. Of course a lot of people have wondered what Ezekiel was thinking about when he wrote some of the things he wrote, but this is such an iconic text it’s worthy of our attention. No doubt this is a passage Jesus would have been familiar with and it’s interesting to think of how it might have somehow shaped who he was and what he did.

On some level I feel that when we look at Jesus we are looking at a person who was able to put flesh on the essential bones of the Hebrew scripture. I’m certainly influenced by what I believe about Jesus when I look at this passage from Ezekiel, but I also believe it’s good for us to try to understand what Ezekiel was saying to the people of Israel when he shared his remarkable vision.

So I’ve done a little homework, and here’s what you should know about the situation. The prophet, Ezekiel, was living in or near Jerusalem the time that King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon conquered the Southern Kingdom of Israel, which was the region known as Judah. This was going on around 600 BC, and Nebuchadnezzar exiled many of the leaders of Judah to Babylon. That was a terrible thing, because the people of Israel believed God resided in the Temple in Jerusalem. The Babylonians knew this about them, so carting the Israelites off to Babylon was a great way to make them suffer. But things continued to deteriorate between the Israelites and the Babylonians, so the Babylonians actually destroyed the Temple in 587 BC.

Ezekiel was one of the Prophets who saw all of this destruction coming. And even before the exile occurred he had tried to warn his people that they needed to repent of their unfaithfulness to God in order to avoid the pending disaster. But they didn’t heed his words, and they found themselves in this horrible situation of living in Babylon and knowing that their revered temple had been destroyed.

This is the background for today’s reading. And I sort of get the context of the situation, but honestly, I don’t even have the illusion that I understand what they were feeling. Now I think I’ve probably mentioned how I didn’t exactly feel at home in the part of the world where I was first appointed as a pastor, but I assumed God knew how to get there. And that’s not how the Israelites felt about Babylon. They felt like they were living in a place that was cut-off from God, and it’s not easy for me to enter in to the mind of these people who felt so utterly removed from the presence of God.

Now in my opinion, Jesus was very clear about the place where God abides, and it isn’t a place at all. The spirit of the living God is not confined to any particular place. Jesus didn’t want us to connect God with any piece of real estate, but I don’t think it’s unusual for any of us to find ourselves living in a situation where we feel cut-off from God.

I know there are degrees of alienation from God, and I don’t want to engage in any kind of comparison in regard to the various ways people feel removed from God. Certainly there is always someone who has experienced an even greater degree of alienation from God than what someone else has experienced. But it’s accurate to say that the Israelites who were living in Babylon in the early part of the 6^th Century BC, were experiencing a dark night of the soul. They couldn’t help but believe that God had abandoned them – and for good reason. They were conscious of their unfaithfulness, and they couldn’t see how their relationship with God was going to be restored.

But Ezekiel could. Ezekiel had always been able to see unusual things. In fact people are still trying to figure out what he was talking about with some of the things he described seeing. Because of his visions of those multi-wheeled vehicles in the sky he’s become the patron saint of UFO enthusiasts, but he’s probably best known for this vision he had of the valley of dry bones that were mysteriously and profoundly brought to life by the word of God.

The surviving people of Israel couldn’t see how they were going to make it. They were cut off from the land and the traditions that they considered to be their link with God – until Ezekiel shared with them this vision that God had placed within his heart.

And when we read of what Ezekiel saw we don’t have to get caught up in the biology of how dry bones could be reassembled as actual human beings. We are invited to get caught up the theology of a man who had been called by God to bring hope to some people who were living in utter despair. We don’t have to wonder what this is about because we know what those exiled Israelites came to understand – which is that true life is a mysterious gift that isn’t controlled by the powers of this world. King Nebuchadnezzar had been able to wreak havoc for the people of Israel. Their loved ones had been killed, their families had been torn apart, their glorious temple had been turned to rubble, but the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel. God provided Ezekiel with a vision of life being restored to those who’s lives had been turned in to dusty bones.

Unlike the exiled Israelites, we aren’t people who share a common sense of crisis, but I don’t think any of us are unfamiliar with the experience of crisis. And I may be wrong about this, but I’m guessing most of us have been drawn in to the church because of some kind of crisis. There are many other factors that attract us and connect us to the church, but I suspect many of us are here because at some point we have been in need of the healing and the hope and the support that we get from the church – the living body of Jesus Christ. The church represents a message and a type of community that we don’t get from anywhere else.

I believe most of us are drawn to church because we have had the experience of recognizing that having flesh on our bones and breath in our lungs isn’t enough. Fortunately, we haven’t had to march past a valley that held the dry bones of our friends and family members who were killed by hostile invaders, but we are people who know what it feels like to experience tragedy and loss. What we know is that our lives can be reduced to dusty rubble while our bodies are still fit and we are living in the homes of our choice.

I’m guessing most of us have witnessed and experienced something along the lines of a valley of dry bones. Life can be very hard. It’s not unusual for people to feel like they are standing in the middle of a valley of dead, dry bones. It’s more or less what some people see as soon as they wake up in the morning and it’s the last thing they see as they go to bed at night. Some of us don’t see the dusty rubble of life until we wake up in the middle of night and wonder how in the world we will ever find a way to navigate the deathly obstacles that loom so clearly before us, but this image of standing in the middle of a valley of dry bones describes a type pf landscape that many people know too much about, and it’s hard for some people to believe that this isn’t the final and most real scene.

I’m grateful to say that I don’t regularly harbor such a scene of despair in my mind, but I know what it feels like to stand in such a place. I can’t really explain why I stepped into such a place, but there was a period of time in my life that I was tormented by despair. There was a time when I was a young adult that I had trouble seeing anything that provided me with hope. I may well have had some kind of chemical imbalance going on in my brain. There may well have been some kind of pill I could have taken that would have helped me see things a little differently, but what I know helped me was coming to hear a message that redefined reality for me in a significant way.

I was searching for something that made sense to me, and I am grateful to say I found a church that presented Jesus in a way that spoke to me. I wasn’t a newcomer to church, but I needed a new view of Jesus, and I found a place where I came to experience the unconditional and healing love of Christ. I didn’t have an instantaneous experience of healing when I stepped in to the campus ministry community at the University of Arkansas, but I know I was helped by what I came to hear about who Jesus was, and how loving God really is. Such talk of Jesus didn’t immediately resolve my deep sense of despair, but in a gradual way I came to trust that things were going to be ok.

The external features of my life didn’t change at that time, but I came to see the world in a new way, and that changed everything. And I don’t think what I experienced is that different from what the Israelites experienced when they heard this message from Ezekiel. He was telling them that they weren’t cut off from the love of God and that with God there was hope for their future.

God didn’t actually put new flesh on those dry bones, but God used Ezekiel to speak a word that put new life in to the hearts of some people who were feeling as good as dead.

I believe this passage of scripture is a powerful portrayal of how powerful words can be in our lives, and how a gracious word spoken at a critical time can make all the difference in our lives. Ezekiel provided a vision to some people who were without hope for a future, and it turned everything around for them. It had the ring of God’s truth to it, and it changed the course of their lives.

I believe God wants us all to find our way in to abundant life, and I believe God can use us any one of us to be the bearer of that message. Ezekiel’s message wasn’t really any different from the message of Jesus – it is the message of God’s abundant love for us all and God’s ongoing desire for us to abide in the kingdom of God.

It’s a beautiful thing the way that God uses people and words to spread this timeless and divine message of God’s love and concern for each of us.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

The Unseen Truth

John 9:1-41

1 As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. 4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6 When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, 7 saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. 8 The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” 9 Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” 10 But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” 11 He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” 12 They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.” 13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. 14 Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. 15 Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” 16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. 17 So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.” 18 The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight 19 and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” 20 His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; 21 but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” 22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. 23 Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.” 24 So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” 25 He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” 26 They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” 27 He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” 28 Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. 29 We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” 30 The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. 32 Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” 34 They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out. 35 Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” 36 He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” 37 Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” 38 He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him. 39 Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” 40 Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” 41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.

This story opens with the disciples asking Jesus what they considered to be a very legitimate theological question.  In fact they probably thought their question would be pleasing to Jesus.  They were trying to show him how they wrestled with big religious questions, but I’m thinking the response they got was far more profound than anything they expected. What Jesus did was to use their question and the blind man they had encountered to totally dismantle conventional religious thinking about the way God operates.

I think it’s worth noting that the Book of John was the last of the Gospels to be written about Jesus. It was written at a moment of crisis in the Jewish community, and I’m sure that had an impact on the way John told this story. Things had gotten bad between the Jews who loved and followed Jesus and the more traditional Jewish community, and the followers of Jesus had been expelled from the synagogue.

I think it’s probably hard for us to imagine why loving Jesus was such a scandalous thing to do, but it was, and it created terrible tension within the Jewish community. Jesus didn’t just represent love and light to those who were invested in traditional ways of seeing God. He represented a threat to established order, and the nature of that threat is revealed in this very story.

This good question the disciples thought they had asked actually revealed the bad understanding of God that Jesus wanted to correct. They didn’t simply ask Jesus why a man would be born blind, they asked Jesus who’s fault it was: the man or his parents?

And Jesus found this to be an excellent opportunity to turn their thinking upside down and reveal a whole new way to understand God. Of course in so doing he further alienated himself from the religious authorities. The leaders of the Jewish community presided over very clear understandings about the way God operated, and they weren’t ready for misfortune to be seen in any way other than as judgement from God. When something bad happened they were certain that there was someone to blame. They had very clear answers to why things happened and how God operated.

I don’t know what makes some people more comfortable with uncertainty than others. And of course we all have different levels of discomfort with different kinds of uncertainty. It drives me crazy to not know where an unusual sound is coming from in the car or why I have a certain pain in one spot or another. These are the things I want to know and I want to know for sure. But certainty about other things isn’t so important to me.

I had a recent encounter with a Baptist friend who somewhat jokingly pointed out that we Methodists just aren’t as clear about some things as the Baptists are, and he said he had some appreciation for that because it’s a burden to have to carry around the truth all the time. I really didn’t know if he was kidding or not, but it was funny to me.

I tend to have more appreciation for people who harbor a reasonable degree of uncertainty about what they know than those who have no doubt about anything. I once heard a professor give a very thoughtful and informative answer to a question that a student asked, and the student responded by saying how interesting that was, and to that the professor said: And it might be true. Which was funny and maybe a little unsetting to the student, but I think the professor preferred to promote curiosity more than to disseminate information.

Certainty is a fine thing when it’s right, but certainty can be a terrible thing when it’s combined with a lot of authority and it’s not right, and that’s what was going on with the religious authorities of Jesus day. And the way they portrayed God was just wrong. In fact this whole episode raises the question of who was actually born blind.

I’ve never been around too many people who were blind, but when I was the pastor in Mammoth Spring I had the good fortune of becoming acquainted with a couple who were both completely blind.  They had both gone blind as adults due to diabetes, and they had met and married while they were in the Arkansas School For the Blind in Little Rock.  They were from Jonesboro, but they had chosen to live in Mammoth Spring because they had found a small house above one of the shoals on the Spring River, and they liked the sound of the water.

They were a remarkable couple.  They were largely independent, and they had actually done much of the remodeling work in their house on their own.  I was over at their house visiting one day, and I needed to go to the bathroom, so I went in and shut the door only to discover that I was in complete darkness.  They hadn’t bothered to connect the light fixture yet. I came to understand that blind people have different priorities when it comes to doing remodeling.

Mike was the man’s name and he was actually able to operate a table saw and several other power tools.  When I remarked that I was amazed that he could do such a thing, he responded by saying that people who are blind are less likely to get their fingers cut off on electric saws than sighted people because blind people don’t make as many assumptions as sighted people do.

And I guess that’s often the problem with us sighted people – we make too many assumptions. And not just when we are operating power tools.  It was the people who thought that they could see that gave Jesus the hardest time. They made too many assumptions about their own righteousness and because of that they lost more than fingers.

This story of Jesus healing the man born blind is a powerful portrayal of the need for us all to be mindful of the ways in which we can be blind to the truth. It’s easy for us to see how blind the Pharisees were to the righteousness of Jesus, but I don’t think it’s so easy for us to see the ways in which we buy in to the false images of God in our own day.

This story has a happy ending. The man who was born blind not only gained his sight but came to see God when he looked upon Jesus. And this is the same happy ending that can occur for us, but this story also reveals the powerful way in which darkness can take hold in the lives of people who are under the illusion of serving God. This story isn’t just an indictment of a small band of misguided religious leaders. I believe this story reveals the extent to which any of us are capable of going in order to protect our favorite illusions. We love to think of Jesus as being the light of the world — until that light begins to bear down on the blemishes that we would rather keep concealed.

The scary thing to me in this story is that the Pharisees, the bungling villains of the story, were people who had dedicated themselves to serving God. They certainly knew more scripture than the man who was born blind, and yet the man who was born blind was the only man who was willing and able to see the truth. There’s good news in this story, but it also serves as a warning to all of us who call ourselves disciples.  It’s a warning for us not to assume that we can see as clearly as we sometimes like to think we can.

When the disciples asked Jesus why the man was born blind, he answered them by saying he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. I don’t take this to mean that God puts people in painful situations in order for God to come to the rescue, but I believe that God can be revealed in any situation if we will have the eyes to see and the hearts to understand, and that is an ongoing challenge and opportunity for all of us.

On any given day we can be as blind as a Pharisee or as clear eyed as the formerly blind man was when he saw Jesus for the first time. Of course most of us are somewhere between those two extreme positions on most days, and our challenge is to maintain the kind of spiritual hunger that will move us ever more closer to the light and away from that kind of darkness that’s perpetuated by self-satisfaction.

Somehow we must learn to be as diligent and intentional as is a blind man at a table saw in our pursuit of God’s truth and how we shape our lives around that truth. The Pharisees weren’t intentionally hiding the truth about God’s ways – they were blinded by a culture and a religious tradition that had no regard for the light of Christ, and it caused them to be unable to see what was true. They didn’t have to react to Jesus the way that they did, but it’s not easy to go against the pressure of peers and the expectations of society.

I think the lesson for us is to maintain vigilance over our hearts and to pay attention to those things that challenge our cherished assumptions. Gratefully we aren’t as judgmental of people who are born with unfortunate conditions as they were in Jesus’ day, but it’s easy for me to believe we harbor our own forms of cruel judgment and distorted views of who God is. There’s an insidious nature to sinful behavior – there’s always a way for it to be masked by righteousness. Often we don’t even know of the ways in which we’re cooperating with darkness, and this is why we need to be attentive.

We should all have the wisdom of a blind man at a table saw and make no assumptions about what can happen if we aren’t careful to protect our hearts from the conditioning of our world to make quick judgments of people and situations that we don’t fully understand.

We are very fortunate to have the wisdom and love of Jesus to guide us. Gratefully we haven’t been trained to reject what he did and taught, but we don’t need to think our only task is to claim his as our savior. Our job is to embrace and to share the kind of love he had, and we don’t need to assume that’s an easy thing to do.

Of course we are also fortunate to have the help of the Holy Spirit in this regard. We aren’t on our own to figure out how to share the love of Christ. And as surely as God’s works were made known in the life of the man born blind, those same works can be made known in each of us.  Thanks be to God. Amen.

The Uncontainable Christ

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.”

I appreciate John reading this long passage of scripture, but you just can’t cut out any sections of this episode. This was written as an entire story, and if you leave out a portion of the story you miss a portion of the point of this story. There are several accounts in the Gospel of John that don’t appear in the other gospels, and these stories that do appear are told with very intentional details. 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 midday encounter between Jesus and the woman of Samaria at the well.

In the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, & Luke, we read more about the parables Jesus told that were designed to disrupt the wrongheaded ways people thought about God, and to introduce people to the true nature of the kingdom of God. But you don’t find any parables in the Gospel of John. In John’s gospel you have these long narratives of interactions Jesus had with different people that portray the unique personality and message of Jesus. John tells these stories in ways that are designed to help us see the truth about God, the truth about Jesus, and the truth about ourselves. These stories are set in a land and in a time that are far removed from where we are today, but in essential ways these stories are incredibly familiar. This encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman could have taken place yesterday in the Walmart parking lot.

I dare say this very story did happen yesterday somewhere. It’s what happens when someone comes to see a despised rival in a new way and in the process of engaging with that person they encountered the presence of the living God who redefined everything.

This isn’t something that happens regularly in the Walmart parking lot, but I think John wants us to understand that you just never know where you might run in to the living Christ, and when we do it redefines everything.

We American Christians living in the 21^st Century aren’t very sensitive to some of the nuances of this story, but here’s the thing: here was a lot of courting that took place at wells in ancient Palestine. You may recall the story in Genesis of the way Abraham sent his servant back to his homeland to find a wife for his son, Isaac, and it was at the old family well that this servant saw Rebecca coming to get water, and he found her to be fair to look upon and available for marriage. The marriage of Rebecca to Issac turned out to be an agreeable arrangement for everyone and that’s what happened.

Later on, Isaac and Rebecca’s son, Jacob, was ready to get married, so he ventured back down to that same part of the world where he encountered Rachel at the well. Things got complicated, because of some shifty business on the part of Rachel’s father, but they were eventually married and the point is that it all started back at the well.

And there’s another courting scene that took place at a well. Moses had fled in to the wilderness to avoid the wrath of Pharoah, and it was while he had stopped at a well that he met Zipporah, who went on to become his wife.

This is how people met before there was Match.com. You went to the well. Women were the primary water haulers of the day, so that’s where men went in hope of meeting eligible women.

I’m not saying this is why Jesus was lingering by the well when the Samaritan woman came for water. Jesus wasn’t looking for a wife, but the people of Samaria were in need of a more faithful relationship with God, and that’s why Jesus was interested in speaking to this woman.

While there were some powerful unspoken connotations about what went on at wells, the dynamics between the Jews and the Samaritans weren’t so subtle. You might say there was raging hostility between those two ethnic groups. They all claimed Abraham as their ancestor, but this conflict went back to the split between the Northern and Southern kingdoms of Israel. That was a civil war that had never really been resolved, and over the centuries those two regions had developed far different religious traditions. The southern kingdom, which was known as Judea, considered themselves to be far more religiously pure, and it’s probably accurate to say that they were. Judean Judaism was far less influenced by outside religious traditions. They weren’t without religious distortions, but in some essential ways they had maintained the basics of the faith.

The region of Samaria had embraced the traditions of their neighbors and their captors, and it’s accurate to say that it wasn’t very true to the instructions that had been established by Moses. And this is probably what Jesus was calling attention to when he pointed out to this woman that she had had five husbands and the sixth man she was living with wasn’t her husband.

Now when we hear him speak of her having five husbands and living with a sixth man it’s hard for us to not think of her as simply being morally off the scale, but I don’t think it’s helpful for us to simply think of her as a horribly loose woman. It’s not unreasonable to think that she had some issues, but I think the bigger point is that there were some issues with the community she came out of. The faith of the Samaritans was a mess, they needed access to some light, and that’s what Jesus knew. Jesus didn’t encounter her to condemn her. He encountered her in order to provide her with some living water and she had the heart and the wisdom to accept it.

Today’s story highlights someone who was more astute than your average disciple. Unlike the conversation that transpired between Jesus and Nicodemus, who was a man with impeccable religious credentials, but who lacked the heart and the mind to hear what Jesus was saying to him about the need to be spiritually reborn – this conversation that took place between Jesus and a woman who was able to hear what he was saying. 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 was redefined by it.

This is a powerfully telling story. It reveals so much about the way things often go on in this world, and the way in which God can break in to our ordinary routines and transform our lives. The man who thought he already knew everything approached Jesus at night because he was afraid of what might happen if he openly embraced what Jesus was teaching, and he remained stuck in his uninspired life. While the woman who came from an officially unholy part of the world who was known for the number of husbands she had had became what we might think of as one the first great evangelists. She was able to lead her whole city to Christ.

I think one of the most telling details of this story is the fact that she left her water container at the well. She went to the well in need of water, but what she obtained was something that wouldn’t fit in a container. Or maybe the right way to think of this is that she became the container for the living water that she acquired from Jesus.

And that’s how we are to think of ourselves.

Unfortunately, like Nicodemus, it’s so easy for us to be controlled by the boundaries that define who we are and where we are to go. It’s easy for us to be controlled by the expectations of our jobs and our traditions, our families, and our peers. And that can be so deadly.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m no fan of President Trump, and I’m still not converted to his vision for our country, but I will say this about him. He doesn’t seem to be constrained by anybody’s expectations, and on some level I have to give him some credit for that. He recognized that there was some thirst in this nation for our president to behave less like a politician, and he has certainly shown a lot of willingness to be an unconventional politician.

I don’t have uncritical admiration for people who have the capacity to live by their own rules, but that’s a powerful characteristic. It’s not easy to go against conventional thinking. It takes a rare form of strength to live like that. I don’t really like the unconventional way President Trump is proceeding, but I do think he’s showing us what it looks like to be guided by something other than the usual set of expectations. I’m not going to get in to any further analysis of who he is or what he’s doing. There’s no end to the debate about what needs to happen in Washington, but I think he’s providing us with an example of what it looks like for a person to be uncontained by conventional wisdom.

It’s no virtue to simply buck expectations. In fact there’s a lot to be said for behaving properly and doing what’s expected, but our highest calling is not to fall in line and to do as we’re told. And there’s something truly amazing that happens to people who encounter and embrace the uncontainable grace of Jesus Christ. Their lives become defined by something far more essential than conventional wisdom.

This business of following Christ is actually an unsettling undertaking. It can be very disruptive to the normal order of things to embrace the uncontainable love of Christ because it doesn’t defer to cherished traditions and familiar worldviews. Nicodemus represents a man who was primarily concerned with maintaining the normal order of things. The woman at the well represents a life redefined by the love of Jesus Christ. There are many variations of life between these options, but it’s clear who it is that made the best choice.

Jesus Christ seeks to encounter us all in ways that will redefine who we are and how we live our lives. I’m not sure where it is we go that’s like that well where Jesus encountered the woman of Samaria, but Jesus knows where that place is, and you can trust that he’s out to engage us there.

Thanks be to God. Amen.