Thompson's Blog

Instinctual Faith
Matthew 15:21-29

15:21 Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” 23 But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” 24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” 26 He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” 27 She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” 28 Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

While we only read the story of Jesus interacting with this woman from the region of Tyre and Sidon, it’s very connected to the interactions that preceeded this story. It turns out that this Caananite woman wasn’t the first person he had recently offended. Just prior to this particular verbal sparring match, Jesus had encountered some Pharisees and other elders who wanted to know why his disciples didn’t follow the proper eating protocols , and that conversation hadn’t gone so well. Jesus responded to them by asking them why they had replaced God’s commands with human rules – complete with an example and a verse of scripture. He told them they were just like the hypocrites Isaiah was talking about when he said: These people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far away from me. Their worship of me is empty since they teach instructions that are human rules.

Jesus didn’t just pick on people who were below his social standing –Jesus was an equal opportunity offender.

Actually I don’t think it’s accurate to think of Jesus as picking on the Caananite woman. While it’s hard not to wince at the way in which Jesus spoke to her, I think it is important to see how this story fits in the larger picture, and when you do that, what stands out is the very positive way that this woman responded to the challenging words of Jesus – as opposed to the defensiveness of the Pharisees and the other Jewish authorities. Today’s story is not so much about who Jesus was. It’s primarily about the way that he was seen by other people, and who was most able to see the truth about him.

In some ways, it just repeats what we already know about the different ways people responded to Jesus. There are numerous cases where the people who were supposed to be the most attentive to the ways of God were the least likely to recognize the arrival of God’s most perfect representative, while those who were official outcasts were quick to recognize his godliness. That is also what we see in this story, but there is a nice nuance to this particular story. What we have in this story is not just the contrast between the blindness of the Jewish leaders contrasted to the attentiveness of the official Jewish sinners. What we have here is the spiritual attentiveness of an officially pagan infidel – someone who’s faith even Jesus seemed slow to recognize.

I think it’s helpful to know a little history of this northern part of Israel which was near the Phoenecian cities of Tyre and Sidon. Tyre and Sidon were on the Mediterranean Coast. Early on, the Israelites had considered that to be part of their promised land, but the Phoenecians had successfully resisted the conquest of Israel. They had rejected Israel in a variety of ways, so for the Israelites, the residents of Tyre and Sidon had come to exemplify God-forsaken gentiles. There was a clear division between them, and the Israelites considered the people of that region to be particularly hopeless.

It’s not obvious why Jesus intentionally stepped in to this notoriously un-Jewish part of the world, but this is where he was, and what transpired is quite compelling.

When Jesus first encountered this boisterously begging woman from that traditionally gentile place he responded to her as if she wasn’t even there – which is what you might expect from a self-respecting Jewish man. And I guess that’s where this story would have ended if his disciples hadn’t offered to get rid of her, but when they did, Jesus was moved to at least address her. And what he said to her was that he had been sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

His words seemed to have encouraged her to make an even more desperate plea for him to help her – she said, Lord, help me! and when she did Jesus responded with a line that sounds more like something you would hear from Archie Bunker than from the savior of the world. This is when he said it wouldn’t be fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.

Undeterred by these seemingly inhospitable words, the woman responded by saying that even the dogs get the crumbs that fall from the master’s table, and with that, Jesus enthusiastically commended her faith and announced that her daughter had been healed.

In some ways I think this story functions like one of those Zen Buddhist koans. A koan is a phrase or question that students are to ponder in which traditional logic is not much use. The most familiar koan I know of poses the question: What is the sound of one hand clapping? There’s not a clear answer to such a question, but by pondering a seemingly unanswerable question you can be moved to a new insight.

I don’t think there is a logical answer as to why Jesus went in to this part of the world where he said what he said and did what he did. In some significant ways this story just doesn’t make sense, and there’s not an obvious lesson to extract from this story. You can say it’s a lesson about the value of persistence, but that’s a bit of a stretch because if Jesus had been persistent in following his stated mission there’s nothing this woman could have said that would have altered his course. Clear logic doesn’t propel this story.

But if you toss out the need to follow clear logic (which is what I feel liberated to do) what stands out for me in this story is the way in which Jesus talked about the animals. Jesus brings up two different animals in this passage. He talks about sheep and he talks about dogs. Jesus said he was sent to the lost sheep of Israel but he nourished a hungry dog in Caanan. He said he was most concerned about the lost sheep, but he seems to have valued the instinct of a dog to discern who is in charge and to know how to get what it needs.

Sheep have the strong instinct to follow the animal in front of it. Sheep will follow other sheep to slaughter. Being a good follower is a fine instinct when you know who best to follow, but sheep aren’t known for having such wisdom. There were a lot of lost sheep in Israel because they had bad leaders. My sense is that Jesus stepped out of the official territory of Israel in order to find some fresh faith.

We don’t normally cherish the thought of being called a dog, but dogs have a pretty keen sense of understanding who’s in charge. This Caananite woman had a keen sense of who Jesus was, and she responded to him without any doubt that he could provide her with what she needed.

This woman didn’t just have persistence – she had a powerful sense of discernment. She knew he was the Lord of Life – regardless of what he said to her.

In my way of thinking, faith is not so much something we learn to have as much as it is an instinct. In fact if we put too much stock in learning what it means to serve God I think it can have the impact of dulling our instinct for faith. This is not to say we shouldn’t try to study and learn more about our history and our theology, but we should never engage in mindless following of rules and traditions. We should never replace our natural instinct for the ordinances of God with the rules of human beings. This was the nature of the conflict Jesus had with the Pharisees and the other leaders of Israel. Good teachers are valuable, and what good teachers do is to empower students to think for themselves.

Unlike sheep, who are inclined to follow whoever is leading — dogs are only responsive to their one true master. And we would all do well to have a dog’s sense of obedience to the truth of God in our own hearts and minds.

Jesus was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and the truth is that we all come from that house. Not everyone knows this, but Jesus knew it, and he revealed it when he encountered this Caananite woman. May we all nourish and cherish this instinct of faith that has been placed in us all by our one true common ancestor – the God of all animals, all people, all places, and all times.

Thanks be to God – Amen.

The Lurch of Faith
Matthew 14:22-33

22 Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. 23 And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, 24 but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. 25 And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. 26 But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. 27 But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” 28 Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” 29 He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” 31 Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” 32 When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. 33 And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

What kind of preacher calls his sermon, The Lurch of Faith? This is probably the most unappealing sermon title I’ve ever come up with, and it may represent a lurch on the part of this preacher, but it’s a line that speaks to me in a significant way. To lurch is to make an abrupt, unsteady, or uncontrolled movement, and I’m thinking that’s a pretty good description of Peter’s action in this story.

I must admit that I’m very influenced in my thinking about Peter’s behavior by a sermon I read that was written by Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor, a preacher and writer for whom I’ve grown to have great respect and appreciation. Rev. Taylor points out in her sermon on this text that when Peter sees Jesus walking on the water toward the boat all the disciples were in, he addresses Jesus in a manner that is very similar to the way that satan addressed Jesus when he was tested in the wilderness. Right after Jesus tells the disciples not to be afraid and he identifies who he is, Peter says, Lord, if it is you command me to come to you on the water. It sounds like more of a test for Jesus than an act of faith on the part of Peter.

Now I’m not saying that I would have known how to best respond to the sight of Jesus coming toward me on the water, but I’m not convinced Peter was operating with his highest mind when he said what he said and did what he did.

The more traditional interpretation of this story identifies the response of Peter to Jesus as a powerful expression of faith, and I can go with that line of thinking as well. I can think of Peter’s reaction to Jesus as a bold display of faith, and as a model of how we are all to step out of our comfort zones and on to the unknown waters of discipleship – complete with the proper way to act when our bold efforts fail. But I’m more inclined to think Barbara Brown Taylor is on to something when she identifies the devilish nature of Peter’s request.

She says: We have all got a little bit of devil in us, asking Jesus to prove himself by doing something spectacular for us. We want the burden of proof to be on him, not us. We want him to single us out for special treatment, to let us climb out of the boat and do a solo no one else gets to do – and maybe even get special credit for volunteering to do it (look at him, so brave, so faithful, such a spiritual warrior).

I love the way Rev. Taylor puts things, and the way she finds ways to bring texts to life. I don’t exactly know what Matthew wanted us to glean from this story – and in particular what we are to think of Peter’s adventure on the water, but I think it’s safe to say that what Peter does is not a perfect portrayal of faith. Peter may not have been badly motivated, but this is not the action of a man who had prayerfully considered what he jumped up to do. This was not so much a leap of faith – I’m thinking it was more of a lurch of faith.

And certainly a lurch of faith is better than a lack of faith. We don’t know what Peter was thinking on the front end of this episode, but we are told that at some point he began to think about where he was and what he had done, and at that point the normal forces of nature took charge of the situation. Peter was going down, but he had the good sense to cry out to Jesus, and Jesus saved him.

You might say that Peter became a model of faith – he became a person who knew he needed the hand of Jesus, but I’m not sure he is the best model of faith that we see portrayed in this story. There was another model of discipleship exercised on this boat and it came from the rest of the disciples who quietly stayed in their seats and paid attention to the situation. The other disciples didn’t add to the drama of the situation, but they all experienced the same sense of peace and deliverance that came to Peter.

It may seem odd that a story as supernaturally bold as this one would be a call for us to keep our seats and pay attention, but I’m not seeing that it’s particularly fruitful to simply jump up and do something without a clear sense of purpose. Actually it’s not accurate to say the disciples were just sitting still waiting for something to happen – they had been rowing in the direction that Jesus had instructed them to go all through the night. They weren’t being passive in face of the storm that had arisen, but they didn’t respond to the sight of Jesus approaching on the sea with anything other than reasonable fear and heightened attention.

And I like that. Now, I’m probably a person who is guilty of setting my sights too low, and of harboring overly modest visions, but I have no great love for grand displays of faith. Honestly, my passion is not so much to transform the world but to put together a worship service that makes someone’s life a little more bearable. I’m not out to whip up enthusiasm for the man who was so awesome he could walk on water and calm a turbulent sea, but I do hope to create some curiosity about Jesus in the heart of someone who isn’t seeing much hope coming from anywhere else.

Extraordinary feats of faith just aren’t my thing. I don’t even think it’s essential to believe that Jesus could alter the rules of nature, but I am inclined to believe that Jesus was so determined to reveal the truth of God there wasn’t anything that could prevent him from delivering that message. I don’t know what transpired on that stormy night on the sea in Galilee, but this story leads me to believe that Jesus can calm any storm that may rage in our lives. It also makes me think that in order to experience such calm we will probably need to exercise more patience and consistent effort than to jump up and launch a new initiative.

What jumps out at me from this supernatural story is the calm that came to the rest of the disciples who are hardly even recognized in this story. We know they were terrified. They didn’t know who he was or what was going on in the beginning, but they listened, they believed, and they were blessed. Maybe our calling is not to seek out our own dramatic displays of faith, but to have radical trust that God can come to us regardless of where we may be or what we are having to deal with.

I read a great quote last week by the Buddhist Monk, Thich Nhat Hahn, who is a person who has great love for Jesus as well as for Buddha. He said: The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth, dwelling deeply in the present moment and feeling truly alive.

I think he is speaking to the need for us to pay more attention to the ordinary things we are currently doing than to focus on the extraordinary things we hope to one day do. And I know this is something I need to hear. It’s easy to let the what if’s of life determine what I’m doing in the here and now, and when you give too much attention to the coming crises you spend a lot of time looking for miracle cures. When you forget to pay attention to what you are doing in the moment your life can become defined by one lurch after another.

I’m not particularly qualified to do a psychological analysis of Peter, but I will proceed to do so anyway. In some ways Peter strikes me as someone who tended to jump ahead of the moment. He didn’t pay as much attention to what was happening as much as he was thinking about the next step. There’s also this story of Jesus taking Peter, James, and John up the mountain where Jesus was transfigured before them. Jesus became dazzling white as he spoke to Moses and Elijah, and Peter immediately starts talking about building shelters for them. In that story, Peter’s words were cut short by God telling them to listen – don’t do anything – just listen to Jesus.

Of course we need people in the world who make things happen, but none of us need to get ahead of ourselves. We need to pay attention to where we are and what is happening before we spring in to action. Today’s story begins with Jesus going up the mountain to pray. And if prayer is anything it is a time of listening and paying attention. It is an effort to not get ahead of what God is doing, but to live in response to God.

Certainly there is a need for action in this world. There is an abundance of strife in the world right now. As we gather in our safe sanctuary this morning there are bombs are dropping in several different places in this world, and it’s hard to see how that’s going to stop before it gets a lot worse. It’s hard to know what to do about these large scale disasters, but we certainly need to be paying attention, and we need to encourage our leaders to pursue just policies – even if those policies may be costly to us. God’s will is not just for things to go well in the United States.

And these poor children who have been driven by poverty and violence to our border from their homes in Central America certainly need our attention and compassion. Once again, I don’t know how to fix that problem, but these are God’s children, and we need to respond to them in a godly way. I don’t know what the long term solution to that problem is, but in the meantime you can send some money to the United Methodist Committee on Relief who is on the scene providing some much needed assistance. In fact you can write those checks this morning – make them out to our church and write what they are for on the memo line.

There is a lot of work that needs to be done in this world. And of course we all have our own individual crises as well. Paying attention is not an alternative to taking action – these things go hand in hand, but we primarily need to remember that if we aren’t also reaching out for the hand of God we are sunk.

Our efforts to be faithful to God may well proceed with awkward lurches and misguided heroics, but God’s love for us remains consistent. The reign of God prevails over the power of bombs or the rules of nature. This is what we are called to remember, to trust, and to give our constant devotion. In times of peace, war, sickness or health – God is with us and is worthy of our attention.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.

God’s Eat Place
Matthew 14:13-21

14:13 Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. 15 When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” 16 Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” 17 They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” 18 And he said, “Bring them here to me.” 19 Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20 And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. 21 And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

In light of this story of a miraculous feast in the wilderness, it’s interesting to note that one of the very first things reported about Jesus was his refusal to turn stones in to bread when he was alone in the wilderness. If you remember, right after his baptism we are told that Jesus was driven in to the wilderness for 40 days by the Holy Spirit. He was hungry. He needed some bread, and while the devil’s suggestion that he turn stones in to bread doesn’t sound like a terrible abuse of power – Jesus knew that it was not the Holy Spirit talking. Those 40 days in the wilderness provided Jesus with great clarity of the difference between the promptings of Holy Spirit and the suggestions of an evil spirit. Jesus knew that there are times when we just need to feed on the word of God – he also knew that there are times when someone needs to show up with some actual bread.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had the pleasure of eating at Doe’s Eat Place, but I think I’ve eaten at Doe’s four times – twice at the Doe’s down on Markham and twice at the Doe’s in Fayetteville. It’s memorable to eat at Doe’s. They serve the largest steaks I’ve ever seen in my life. I think they also serve tamales, but I don’t like tamales. I don’t know what to say about their tamales, but I’ve shared some memorable steaks at Doe’s. And one steak can feed four people – especially if those other people like tamales. You should go to Doe’s with people who like tamales – they’ll fill up on the tamales and you get more of the steak.

Maybe they serve other things at Doe’s Eat Place (I know there have been some political deals cooked up there), but they are known for their steaks and their tamales. I like the elemental nature of a place like Doe’s. Like their name indicates, their objective is to serve food – it’s a place to eat, and it’s a good place to eat. It’s not cheap, but they serve good food.

But today our focus is to be on God’s Eat Place. Unlike Doe’s Eat Place, you never really know what’s going to be on the menu at God’s Eat Place, but when you feast at the table of the Lord you know you are going to leave satisfied. God’s Eat Place serves up a wide variety of sustenance, and while it’s not easy to find your way to the spot where God is serving, you don’t have to worry about the bill. God’s Eat Place is quite a place – it’s not easy to get there, you never know what’s going to be served, you don’t have to pay, and you leave with leftovers – abundant leftovers.

This is what I see happening in both of these feeding stories that are set in the wilderness. God provides, but the menu is different. On one occasion God chose to provide Jesus with the wisdom he needed to do battle with God’s adversary. On this other occasion God heard the prayer of Jesus for actual food to feed the desperate people who had followed him in to the wilderness, and God provided bread & fish.

I’m not saying that our God is fickle, but clearly there isn’t just one policy in heaven for dealing with hungry people in the wilderness. This has got to be maddening to people who want God to be represented by clear and consistent rules. We worship a God who is only consistently insistent upon one thing – that we love God and we love our neighbors. I know that sounds like two things, but those two things are so tied together they qualify as one thing. You will always find grace to be served at God’s Eat Place, but you won’t find it to be served the same way on every occasion.

God rarely cooks up the same thing twice. And it sort of drives me nuts when people try to define the nature of our faith with a bunch of rules. According to the Bible, God has been revealed in a wide variety of ways throughout time, and every time we become overly dogmatic about what God requires it begins to look a whole lot like the practice idolatry and that isn’t a good place to go. You don’t want to eat at The Dogmatic Eat Place – you fill yourself up with malnourishing food and you leave with a bad attitude.

But those of us who want to define Christianity in more open ways have to be careful as well. Even open-minded people can find ways of narrowing the nature of faith. It’s easy to turn good causes in to little gods, and it never works out well when we try to tell God what needs to be on the menu. The only way any of us get to enjoy the feast at God’s Eat Place is to show up with empty hands and a hungry heart.

Christianity is probably not the right religion for anyone who wants a set of unwavering directives. The way I read the Bible, God is consistently compassionate toward all people, but God’s compassion takes on many different forms. Sometimes God’s saving action takes the form of hard lessons. Sometimes it shows up in the form of bread and fish. Sometimes faithfulness to God requires us to engage in acts of self-denial – sometimes we need to have a party.

I guess there have always been people who have tried to define Christianity very narrowly and establish a clear set of rules that define the nature of Christian discipleship, but the God that Jesus revealed provides for people in different ways in different situations.

This is true of Jesus himself. He wasn’t unfamiliar with the importance of self-denial and fasting. He exercised self-control, but he could also appreciate a good meal with wine. Jesus didn’t despise this world. Jesus sought to integrate life on earth with life in the kingdom of God. He loved life. He loved people. He loved the earth and all of it’s inhabitants, but he also was willing to die – to leave this earth prematurely.

The importance of living with reverence for God and compassion for our neighbors never subsides, but people who live with sensitivity to these holy objectives find themselves travelling in a variety of directions. People who love God are often driven to extreme places to find satisfaction for their hungry souls. This was certainly the case with this crowd that followed Jesus to this desolate place. Jesus had gone in to the wilderness in hope of having some down time, but he couldn’t shake the crowd – and it created the perfect setting for one of the most memorable meals ever served at God’s Eat Place. This is the only miracle story that is recorded in each of the four gospels. This was a meal that no one wanted to forget.

Of course timing is everything, and they needed such a feast. Jesus had just heard about the death of John the Baptist and that was an ugly turn of events. John the Baptist had been imprisoned for speaking ill of Governor Herod who had married his sister in law, Herodias, after orchestrating her divorce from his brother, Phillip. In fact this particular manifestation of God’s Eat Place in the wilderness is in direct contrast to the story of the feast at Herod’s Eat Place.

Caught up in the revelry of his extravagant party, Herod had announced that he would grant anything to his newly acquired wife’s daughter because she had danced so well for his guests. Prompted by her mother, the young woman asked for John the Baptist’s head on a platter, and Herod had to comply. John the Baptist’s head was delivered to the party.

The contrast between the slaughter at Herod’s Eat Place and the grace of the feast at God’s Eat Place couldn’t be greater. Herod had tremendous political power, a beautiful home, and excessive wealth, but his party ended with the sickening sight of a righteous man’s head. The world was diminished by the feast of Herod – the world was renewed by what happened in the wilderness. People’s bodies and souls were nourished by the feast that Jesus hosted. He and his followers were in the middle of nowhere with 5 loaves and 2 fish, but Jesus prayed to God, and God provided them with more food than they could eat. Those who ate at Herod’s Eat Place were left with an unappetizing sight — while those who shared food at God’s Eat Place were fortified for a lifetime.

Faithfulness to God can carry us in many different directions, and God can nourish us in many different ways. Sometimes we find ourselves is circumstances of plenty, and when we do we must do as Jesus instructed his disciples to do and share what we have with others. Sometimes we find ourselves in circumstances of scarcity – of not having all that we need to address the demands of life, and God is there for us then as well – reminding us that sometimes we are to feast on nothing but the word of God.

Jesus was very clear about the need for us to live with sensitivity to one another. People don’t dine alone at God’s Eat Place. If we want to be faithful to the God that was revealed by Jesus Christ we are not just to partake of the bread and juice that represent his living presence – we are to be that same bread for the world.

We have gathered today at God’s Eat Place. I pray that the words, the sounds, the people, the bread, and the wine that we are sharing this morning will provide the sustenance you need for your journey. God is a remarkable chef. God knows what we each need, and God knows how to nourish our hungry hearts. Thanks be to God for cooking-up all that we need as we journey through life. Amen.

The Aches and Pains of Creation
Romans 8:18-27

12 So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh — 13 for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ–if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. 18 I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; 20 for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

I’m not an avid reader, but I am a voratious listener of books. I acquire them either from the library or from an online book service called Audible.com. I recently listened to a non-fiction book called Astoria which was about a trading enterprise that John Jacob Astor envisioned around 1810. His intention was to create a global trading network that involved acquiring furs from the American northwest and shipping them to China where they could be sold for exhorbitant prices. While in China they would purchase spices and silk which were products he could sell for exhorbitant prices to the Europeans and Americans.

It was a large plan, and in theory a good idea, but it’s not a pretty story. Getting across the North American continent in those days was a treacherous undertaking – as was the journey by sea around the tip of South America. Astor sent one expedition overland and another one by sea, and they both made it, but the men who survived the journey were pretty much suffering from what we would call PTSD by the time they got there.

Had his global trading network materialized we might be sharing this continent with another nation called Astoria, but that didn’t happen. John Jacob Astor went on to generate huge wealth off his various enterprises in New York, but his northwest enterprise failed. It’s an odd chapter of American history, and it’s a story that portrays some of the aches and pains of creation. Between the suffering that the explorers underwent and the suffering they inflicted on the Native Americans that book wasn’t what you might call – easy listening.

But hearing that story made me want to know more about the history of our nation, so now I’m listening to a book entitled: The People’s History of the United States – which isn’t a book the kind of book you want to take to read on the beach – talk about the aches and pains of creation. The first chapter documents the plight of the native Americans who Columbus first encountered in the Caribbean Sea. Columbus had promised the king and queen of Spain to bring home gold and spices. About all the natives had to offer were really nice bird feathers, but that didn’t stop Columbus from trying to extract some gold from them.

There was a bit of gold on the Island of Hispanola, which is the Island we know of as Haiti & the Dominican Republic, and Columbus instituted a brutal system of mining that decimated the population. Between outright slaughter, slavery, disease and suicide – the native population of those Caribbean Islands was cut in half within two years after the arrival of Columbus – and the story get’s worse.

The aches and pains of creation.

Chapter 2 documents how the slave trade operated, and that about did me in. I’m only about 2 hours in to this 34-hour book. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to listen to the whole thing or not. I’m sure I’ll have to sprinkle in some fluffy detective fiction to my listening mix.

Human history is riddled with unfathomable suffering. And much of that suffering has been created by other humans. Christianity isn’t the only religion that has blessed bad behavior, but it has done it’s share of damage to the human family.

As Paul willingly suffered the consequences of his faith in Christ in a world that demanded obedience to Augustus Ceasar – I think he had a far different vision of the church than the empire-building and slave-blessing institution that emerged over the next few centuries.

Although even in his day, Paul wasn’t unfamiliar with misdirected faith in Christ. Paul was a compulsive letter writer because the churches he started were filled with people who didn’t know how to behave. You’ll find encouraging words in his letters, but you primarily find him providing advice on how to resolve conflicts within those young churches. Paul wrote perpetually because there were these ridiculous situations that needed to be addressed. You can read in 1st Corinthians how the Lord’s supper had become a situation where the people who got to the assembly first got full and drunk before the late comers arrived and found nothing to eat or drink. And of course the late comers were the people who had to work the longest hours.

Paul wasn’t naive about the nature of the early followers of Christ, nor was he flawless in the advice he shared, but he held out a good vision of who we should be. And he had hope that God’s Kingdom would one day prevail in this world.

His theological formula isn’t perfectly accessible to me, but the overall image that he provides in today’s passage makes some sense to me and gives me hope.

I find his concept of the world groaning in labor pains prior to the arrival of Christ to be really powerful. It’s an image that points to the way in which something new arrived in this world in the life of Jesus Christ, and through Christ we have this opportunity to become the adopted children of God, but he also speaks to the way in which this process of becoming incorporated in to the family of God is not yet complete.

I know this to be true for the world as a whole – I also know it to be true for myself. I have a sense of being fully accepted as a child of God, but I also know that I don’t fully accept all of the rest of you as my brothers and sisters. I want to be a good member of the family, but I’m still watching out for myself. I don’t want you to get in to my stuff.

But I also know how good it feels to share and to care for one another. Going to camp last week was a good experience for me. When I was asked by the director of last week’s Jr. High Ozark Mission Project Camp to be their construction coordinator – I knew it would be an experience of trying to put a puzzle together without all of the pieces, but I also trusted that I would find it to be gratifying, and I did.

The way OMP works is that kids come from different churches along with an adult driver for every 3 or 4 kids, and everyone is put in a family group that ideally involves people from different chuches. So each family group is made up of an adult driver with 3 or 4 kids that have never met each other prior to arrival at camp, and they are sent out to work on the yard or home of someone they don’t know. It is very much an experience of stepping in to a new family, and often it becomes a very rich experience. Sharla got recruited at the last minute to replace a driver that had a family emergency, and I think it’s accurate to say it wasn’t just a memorable experience for her – I think there was some richness to it as well.

I wasn’t in a family group, but I worked with different family groups who were trying to figure out how to build wheelchair ramps, replace fencing, or to build steps. It was pretty challenging, but it was very gratifying as well. I think it gives you hope when you do something helpful for other people.

We are all touched by the aches and pains of creation. We probably all contribute to those aches and pains as well, but we have also been touched by the redeeming love of Jesus – who revealed to us that this world is not ultimately ruled by tyrants. We aren’t all on our own to look out for ourselves. We are one family, and there is one God who loves us all and wants us all to love one another.

Aches and pains aren’t all bad. I came home from camp with some new pains and some familiar aches and they served to remind me how good it feels to work for someone other than myself. And while Paul makes an appeal for us to wait with patience for the new day that will come, I don’t think he is telling us to sit still and wait. I think it’s a lot easier to have patience when you keep yourself well occupied, and there’s a lot of good work we can be doing. It’s not within our power to fully establish the Kingdom of God on earth, but we can make this world a more hospitable place for someone, and when we do that we are both providing and being provided with a taste of the first fruits of God’s kingdom.

There are some ugly stories out there of the ways in which people have failed to share Christ in a Christlike manner, but there are some beautiful stories as well. Our calling is to learn from the past and to go forward as those who have hope for a better day, who wait with patience, and who work with diligence to serve God and our neighbors.

Thanks be to God for our calling, our hearing, and our doing.
Amen.

Spiritual Horticulture
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

13:1 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. 2 Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. 3 And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. 5 Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. 6 But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. 7 Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. 8 Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9 Let anyone with ears listen!” 18 “Hear then the parable of the sower. 19 When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. 20 As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21 yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. 22 As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. 23 But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”

My recent bicycle trip has really messed me up – I’ve had a hard time readjusting to normal life. I sort of ducked-out of reality for two weeks, and I’m still recovering from that. The problem is that the most difficult moments of that trip were relatively light-weight troubles, and now, even the smallest obstacles get me all tangled up.

I really did take a break from actual problems during my trip. For two weeks I didn’t open any bills or other weighty paper epistles, nor did I check my email. I had some kind of automatic notice saying I was unavailable, and I just never checked it. I normally feel sort of bad if I don’t check it every few hours, but I didn’t open it for two weeks. I spoke to Sharla regularly on the phone and I had a few other phone conversations and text messages during that time, but I basically checked out for two weeks. Of course nothing did collapse. The world didn’t fall apart. The church stayed intact. My fantasy baseball team didn’t even fall to last place.

And I didn’t really plan to do this, but I decided not to watch any television while I was on my trip. I took a break from CNN and every other station in the world that wanted to get me to surrender my mind for a little while. I didn’t even listen to NPR.

I’m telling you, I entered a very different world for two weeks. It was a lovely experience, but reentry has been painful. Don’t get me wrong – it’s not all bad. I love being back with my family and friends. I like watching television and listening to the radio again. I’m happy to have lost my daily compulsion to eat convenience store fried chicken wings. And I’m grateful to have a job that enabled me to go ride my bicycle for two weeks, but honestly, that trip sort of ruined me.

I was reminded of how good I am at playing. I’m not a lazy person, but I’m good at pouring a lot of energy and effort in to things that don’t really matter. And real things can get me all wound up.

I don’t know about you, but there’s something in today’s scripture that I need to hear. I’m particularly sensitive to what I hear Jesus saying about the cares of this world. What I hear is that there are some of us who’s souls are particularly vulnerable to the concerns of this world. What I know about myself is that it’s hard for me to be properly responsive to the demands of this world without letting them choke the life out of me. And while taking a significant break from the regular responsibilities of life isn’t a bad thing to do, I don’t think escape from reality is the avenue that produces the abundant yields that Jesus spoke of.

It’s not easy for some of us to sort out the essentials from the incidentals, and it’s easy for me to feel like I’m living in the Little Shop of Horrors with all of life’s little tentacles wanting to swallow me up. Jesus was well aware of this problem, and this parable contains a clear warning to not let our lives be invaded by the thorns of worldly concerns. Keeping the demands of this world in perspective is much like the process of weeding a garden, and it’s probably a skill we can learn to develop.

When I was a child I didn’t know the difference between poison ivy and any other plant growing in the woods, but I didn’t have to have more than one horrible case of poison ivy before I learned what it looked like. I’ve had many outbreaks through the years, but I try to watch out for it and to stay out of it. Likewise, I think I probably recognize the difference between those opportunities in life that will feed my soul and help my neighbor and those that just feed my own flesh and ego, but I’m just not as quick to protect my soul as I am to provide comfort for my body.

These figurative weeds that keep us all tangled, twisted, distressed, and distracted are what you might call first world problems. These are the kinds of problems that come with a relative degree of affluence. When we give an overabundance of our time and attention to preserving and expanding our comfort, security and entertainment – we are allowing the weeds to take over the garden. When we become overly concerned about non-essential matters we are allowing the most valuable plant to wither. Jesus was very clear about this possibility. I believe this is a huge problem for many of us who orbit around our various devices and who feel the need to respond to every little piece of information that comes our way.

But there are these other obstacles to becoming well-rooted in the garden of God. Jesus spoke of the possibility of being gobbled up by birds or parched on arid rocks. We have an explanation of the parable in our scripture, but I find some additional meaning behind this image. I’m thinking that the seeds that fall on the path that never even have a chance to germinate are much like the people who hardly have a chance to take root in life. There are people who never have to deal with the weeds of life because they don’t get a chance to grow.

I don’t believe any of us are ever out of the reach of the Holy Spirit, and because of that I think abundant life is within reach of any of us, but I also have a hard time seeing how a person can ever mature and flourish when they grow up and live in the midst of nightmarish circumstances. I don’t worry about the eternal soul of a person who simply never has a chance in this world, but I believe God wills for us all to have daily bread and nurturing relationships.

I believe all of us who have been well nourished have a responsibility to help improve the conditions for those who are born in to hostile environments, and I believe this is a clear avenue for spiritual development.

I went on a tour last Thursday of the nearby non-profit organization called Our House, and I was hugely impressed by what they do there. I’ve known about Our House for years, but I had never actually been through the facility. Basically it functions as a homeless shelter for people who are trying to find work, but it’s much more than a place to spend the night – it’s more of a home for homeless people. They have services that help unemployed people become more employable, and they have programming for the children of the men and women who find themselves without homes. I love what they do there, and I want us to be a good neighbor to them. Like every other institution that’s operated by human beings I’m sure they fail in some ways to meet their high objectives, but it’s so good that there are places such as this that are trying to help uprooted families and individuals sink some roots and find new lives.

And of course, that’s hard work. And I think it’s the hard-work aspect of spiritual development that Jesus was talking about when he spoke of the seeds that fall on rocky ground. Such seeds sprout fast, but die quickly because they aren’t able to put down any roots. A seed that falls on rocky ground doesn’t really have a chance to put down roots, but Jesus wasn’t talking about the problem of people who never have a chance to sink roots. What Jesus was talking about here is the problem of people drifting away from living lives of faith because it’s hard.

And it is hard to be a person of faith. I know last week I talked about how easy it is to follow Jesus, but that was last week. I was just hoping to get you to come back this week, and this week I’m telling you the truth. Actually, what I believe is that following Jesus is easy when you find the path and you know you are on it – but that path is narrow, and it’s not easy to find.

Faith is hard because it requires us to work with our imperfect selves and our imperfect neighbors in our imperfect world. It’s hard to know how to manage our own lives and resources, and it’s hard to know how to help other people who are dealing with seemingly insurmountable problems, but we are to do all we can to love our neighbors as ourselves. It’s hard and it’s not full of immediate gratification.

Sometimes serving God means serving on a committee in the church and having to wrestle with roof-leaks and budget issues – which is about the last thing most people ever want to do. I don’t think anyone has ever joined a church in hope of becoming involved in church administration, but I do know there are people who leave the church when it gets hard and mundane, and while that isn’t always a bad reason – it’s not necessarily a good reason.

Unfortunately we don’t really get to choose what it is that makes our spiritual journeys difficult. It wouldn’t be so hard if we got to choose, but we don’t. In the parable, some seeds are said to have landed on fertile ground and took root without trouble, but I don’t think the point of this parable is to say that some people automatically develop rich spiritual lives. I believe what Jesus wanted us to know is that it’s a relatively small group of people who are able to navigate the perils of this world and to bountifully produce the grain of true life.

I don’t know, but I’m hoping the real problem my bicycle trip produced for me is not just the realization that I like to play more than I like to work. What I like to think is that it gave me a small taste of a more bountiful way of living, and I’m not content to go back on a diet of plain old life. I don’t want to get all wound up in bad weeds and vines, and I believe Jesus is the one who can help me find that fertile ground.

So many people came out to hear what Jesus had to say he had to go out on a boat to address all of them. People have always been hungry to hear what he had to say. It’s not always easy to hear what he’s saying, but he wants us all to sink deep roots in the richest soil there is. We are not to be ruled by our computers, our televisions, our finances, our animal instincts, or our political persuasions – we are called to abide in the Kingdom of God. It’s God who calls us, and it’s God who will enable us to find our way, but we won’t get there without putting out some effort – more effort than we think we can bear, but there’s more opportunity than we can even imagine.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be a short-lived sprout or a weed infested garden. I want some of those deep roots. I want to bloom and flower and produce. And I hope you do too! Amen.

Easy Jesus
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

11:16 “But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, 17 ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’ 18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; 19 the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.” 25 At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; 26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. 28 “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

I mentioned last week that I was presenting you with the easiest aspect of discipleship which is what you might call check-writing ministry. I think there is some truth to the ease of giving money as opposed to getting your hands really dirty, but today’s passage of scripture points to another way in which discipleship becomes easy – it becomes easy when your calling becomes clear.

In my way of looking at things, one of the hardest things to deal with in life is the ongoing confusion I have in regard to what I need to be doing. Often it’s not the tasks themselves that I find intimidating – it’s determining what I need to do and how I need to do them. We live in a very complex world, and it’s hard to know how to focus in on the most essential matters.

I made reference to this in the sermon I preached just after finishing my bicycle journey – how liberating it was to have such a single task each day, but that wasn’t the first time I encountered that truth. I’ve been put in touch with this truth on previous occasions.

I recall having such an experience a few years ago when I was the director of the Wesley Foundation. I had gotten our Board of Directors to sign-off on building a yurt – which is a round dome-type structure that is made from what you might call minimalist materials. I had navigated the process of obtaining a city building permit — which was no small task. It didn’t really fit the standard construction project, but the round platform that would be the floor of the yurt was much like a deck, and when you build a deck the posts are to sit on concrete footings that are 2’ x 2’ wide and 18” deep. And that’s no big deal for most decks. But this yurt platform was designed with 30 posts underneath it. And it needed six more posts to hold up the entrance ramp and rear steps. This project was going to require us to dig 36 large and square holes in a yard that was filled with tree roots and large rocks.

I agonized over how to get those holes dug. I went to a couple of tool rental companies to see what kind of equipment they might have to expedite that process, and no one ever presented me with what I considered to be the magic power-tool. But one day a friend brought a man over to talk about the project, and this man assured me that he could dig those holes just like I needed them with a small back-hoe. He was so confident – and I was so relieved. We drew up a contract and I paid him a portion of the fee on the front end so he could go rent what he needed.

My friend and I arrived at the Wesley Foundation early the next morning before the man was due to arrive. I remember sitting outside drinking our coffee in great anticipation of what was going to happen that morning. About 30 minutes after the man was due to arrive we both began to have that sinking feeling you get when you begin to suspect that you have been conned. That man never showed up that day or any other day. He did make the mistake of answering his phone a couple of days later and I at least had the opportunity to ask him what he thought God would think of him stealing money from the church, but that was the last communication I ever had with him.

But that experience had one other unintended consequence. I felt so angry and humiliated by the scam it gave me the determination I needed to get those holes dug. With the use of plain old shovels, picks, go-devils, axes, a sawzall, post-hole diggers, and a couple of big heavy iron poles we got those holes dug. And when I say we, it was me and whoever happened to drop by during those hole-digging days, and there were quite a few people who got in on that activity. It was an epic undertaking and a glorious experience. For about two weeks I had an incredibly clear agenda. The work was hard, but the yoke was easy. I had no doubt what needed to happen and we got it done. I almost felt grateful to that man who ripped me off. I don’t think I would have had the wherewithal to engage in that undertaking if he hadn’t lit that fire in my belly.

And I’m thinking this is often the way it goes with our efforts to follow Jesus. We spend a lot of time and energy in relative states of confusion about what it is that we need to be doing. Good cases can be made in regard to the various directions we need to go – there’s always a lot of information to be gathered before we actually take action in some way. There’s always something else to be considered before we move in a bold manner. Stalling often seems like the prudent thing to do. But gratefully there are these people or circumstances that come along that call us to action. The situations aren’t always pretty, but the need becomes clear.

It’s interesting to think about the people and circumstances that helped shape John the Baptist. John the Baptist was a pure hearted man, but he grew up in the midst of a highly compromised religious community. I’m guessing John the Baptist became as extreme as he did because he saw how phony and distorted the religious executives of his day had become. The scribes and Pharisees were so proud of their vestments it made John the Baptist want to wear untailored hides. They were so careful to observe their food laws it propelled John the Baptist to eat bugs. They used their authority to keep people under their control and confused about who God was and what God required it lit a fire in his belly that enabled him to speak truth with power to all the people.

We think of John the Baptist as being a bizarre character, and certainly there were people during his own lifetime that thought he was out of his mind, but it’s not that hard to see that he was driven to those extremes by the maddeningly unfaithful nature of the religious culture of his day. John the Baptist didn’t decide we wanted to go do something unusual – he simply couldn’t be a part of what was going on in Israel at the time. There comes a time when action becomes easy.

John the Baptist went to extremes to express his faith, and certainly he was considered too extreme for some people – people who were more concerned with the way things looked than with the way things were. And those same people considered Jesus to be too common. They weren’t prepared for their messiah to eat and drink with anybody – especially with nobodies. We United Methodists didn’t create the notion that religion should be for respectable people who behave well. This has been a problem for a long time.

But it’s still a problem. People who go to church are often more interested in maintaining the way society operates than in challenging the evils of our day. People often go to church in hope of improving their standing in society as opposed to standing against policies that protect the privileged and victimize the poor and disenfranchised.

But you know about this problem. You know how distorted it all can get, and you don’t come to this church to improve your standing and maintain order. If that’s why you are here you are confused. This is not a good place to make business contacts. I wish it was, but it’s not.

The fact that we are a struggling and marginalized church makes me think we are doing something right, but I don’t take too much comfort in that. I think there’s some truth to the fact that our numbers suffer because of the ways in which we try to accommodate distressed people. And no doubt we have put some people off by embracing the label of a Reconciling Church. But these things have their appeal as well.

I honestly can’t blame our struggling nature on our bold faithfulness. Our frailties are also due to lack of organization and clarity of purpose, and as the senior pastor of this church I feel a large share of responsibility for this problem.

But I also believe that growth and vibrancy are more dependent upon faithfulness than to effort. I believe our task is more of an exercise in hearing what God needs for us to do than it is an exercise in doing anything. This is not to say that we don’t have work to do – hard work. But if it’s God’s work it’s also easy work – the kind of work you do without question and without hesitation.

I’m praying for that kind of clarity for us. I want this church to grow. I want it to be vibrant, and I believe that will happen when we have a renewed sense of calling and understanding of what we need to be about. Faithful following of Jesus isn’t easy like it’s easy to sit and watch television, but it’s not without it’s own form of ease. The ease you have when you are working as hard as humanly possible at the most important thing you can possibly do.

Please join me in praying every day for this church and for your own sense of calling. Pray for guidance and understanding and for a renewed sense of what you can do to help sustain and strengthen the body of Christ that this world so desperately needs.

It’s really quite easy – thanks be to God. Amen

Hospitable New Year!
Matthew 10:40-42

10:40 “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. 41 Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; 42 and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple — truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

As most of you know, our annual meeting of the Arkansas Conference of the United Methodist Church concluded last Sunday afternoon in Rogers. We began meeting on the previous Thursday and for about 3 days I had no idea what day it was. Our Annual Conference usually begins meeting on a Sunday afternoon and concludes on a Wednesday afternoon, and this shift was totally disorienting to me. I had a conversation with Sharla on that Saturday morning about taking care of some business that clearly couldn’t have happened on a Saturday – but I was totally oblivious as to what day it was!

And of course Annual Conference isn’t like anything normal. You come together in a room with about 2000 of your United Methodist cousins – most of whom you don’t know, but you know you’ve seen them somewhere before. You follow very specific protocols in regard to speaking and voting, in a room without windows or anything else to remind you of what time it is or where you are. It’s honestly a very disorienting experience.

But the last thing that always happens is the reading of the clergy appointments. It’s become more abbreviated in the last few years. Each District Superintendent only reads the names of the people who are going to new appointments, but this is a very orienting event for me. Because at that moment – after all is said and done, my job becomes very clear to me.

Life as a United Methodist Pastor is far more predictable these days than it was a few decades ago. It used to be that pastors and families often found out where they were going when appointments were read at the end of Annual Conference. I’m sure there was better attendance at the final event of those conferences than there is at our final reading ritual. I’ve never seen anyone burst in to tears or praise when their name and appointment was read, but I’m guessing that was a regular feature of that event in earlier days.

There are no surprises for us, but I try not to miss this concluding event. It reminds me of what I am to be about for the next twelve months. And the truth is that all United Methodist ministers who are under appointment are only provided with annual contracts – which aren’t even that solid. The language in the Book of Discipline is that we are appointed at the pleasure of the Bishop. The Bishop generally leaves pastors alone when the relationship is working, but the pleasure of the Bishop has been known to change mid-year.

I feel that what’s going on here is relatively pleasing to the Bishop. We aren’t knocking the ball out of the park, but we’re getting better. Our stats are improving, and we’re playing well with each other.

Today’s scripture reading speaks to the importance of being nice to each other. There’s a little mystery involved in this short passage in regard to the distinctions between the rewards of prophets as opposed to the rewards of righteous people, but I don’t think many people read these verses and come away wondering what they mean. There may have been some specific protocols for welcoming prophets that we don’t quite understand, and there may have been some people who were labeled as officially righteous people that felt particularly good to have around, but what I hear Jesus saying in this passage is not esoteric theology. What Jesus is talking about here is how valuable it is to be nice to whoever it is that comes our way.

You don’t have to have a degree in theology to understand what this is about. In fact what I hear Jesus saying is that we need to forget about our degrees and our positions in society if we want to be people who make room for God in our lives. This business of following Jesus isn’t rocket science – it’s more like home economics. It’s the practice of hospitality – which in some ways is harder than complex mathematics. It shouldn’t be that hard, but it gets hard when we forget that we are all human beings who deserve to be loved and we begin to think that there are distinctions between us that make some people more valuable than other people.

This isn’t news to any of you, and frankly it pretty intimidating to extract a sermon from a passage that’s so easily understood. These three verses don’t provide me with an easy opportunity to dazzle you with my keen grasp of systematic theology. You probably won’t have to take notes this morning.

In fact it may be that you’re going to have to make an effort to forget what I’m about to say. Because what I want you to know is not so much about how you are to treat the people you come across who need some special attention – I think you all know you need to be nice to people who need special care. It’s not always easy and it’s not easy to know how to help people who are in dire circumstances, but certainly we all need to pay attention to the various voices of need that we encounter in life. We need to take note of the fact that it very well may be Christ himself who comes to us and asks for help with the necessities of life.

I hope you won’t forget this, but what I primarily want you to hear is that this very church is a little one who is in need of a cool drink of water. This church needs your personal and financial support.

And you are hearing this from a person who has always had a problem with preachers who find a way to turn every passage of scripture in to an appeal for money. I don’t recall Jesus ever taking up a collection after making one of his memorable public appearances. Jesus didn’t consider the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth to be dependent upon the strength of his movement’s treasury. Money was not that important to Jesus. If anything, he saw the abundance of money as more of an impediment to spiritual development than as a powerful resource for ministry.

I’m very conscious of Jesus’ suspicion of money, but I don’t think Jesus was just talking about water when he referred to the importance of helping the little ones. He pointed out earlier in his ministry that a person can’t live by bread alone – you certainly can’t live by water alone either. It takes a full compliment of goods to keep a body alive, and it takes a lot of money to keep this particular body of Christ alive.

The truth is that the level of giving to this church is better this year than it was last year. It’s been a lot more fun to be on our Finance Committee this year than it was last year, but we are far from being financially solvent. We aren’t close to paying what we call our apportionments – the amount we are assessed from the Annual Conference. And we have some rising needs in regard to our regular operations. I won’t belabor you with the particulars, but if you want to know more about our financial pressures let me know. I’ll be happy to provide you with details.

I have no shame in letting you know that we need more money because I consider this church to be in the position of one these little ones who Christ lifted up as being particularly rewarding to support. I’m not on the same page as the preachers who propose that your contributions to this church will come back to you with tremendous financial dividends. I never knew Jesus to indicate in any way that our rewards would come in financial means. So don’t expect your financial gifts to this church to pay financial dividends, but it’s not wrong to expect some reward for your giving.

I can tell you that this church is a very special place. I believe this church is one of those little ones that Jesus wanted his followers to watch out for. We’ve created an identify for ourselves that is very unique in our United Methodist church family, and the Arkansas Conference needs us to be strong and viable. We don’t just need more money, but money is one of the things we need more of.

I never make any assumptions about what people are able to give or not give. It may well be that everyone here is already giving everything they are able to give. It’s not for me to be the judge of such things, but it is my job to remind you of how important it is to provide for this corporate child of God who is on the forefront of the struggle for justice for people who are not fully accepted.

In our work to advocate for the removal of the disciplinary restrictions against non-heterosexual people we are providing cool water to those who have been told that they aren’t fully deserving of a place at the United Methodist table. And so it is without any hesitation that I’m asking you to be as financially generous as you can be to this church, and don’t hesitate to tell your affluent friends of our needs. We are in a position of needing to make some difficult decisions and those decisions would be a lot easier if we had some more money.

Anne and I have had our contracts renewed by the Bishop for another year, and I want this to be our most fruitful year ever. I’m hoping this church will become overwhelmed with the kind of fruit God provides as reward for faithfulness. I’m trusting this can happen regardless of how much money we are able to collect, but I’m also trusting that you will hear what I’m saying and do what you can to help this church out.

You may not like hearing me be so blunt about equating Christian discipleship with giving money to this church. But let me remind you that what I often hear Jesus asking for is far more costly than our dollars. The truth is that I’m letting you off easy this week. It’s so much easier to write checks than it is to do what I so often hear him asking us to do. But hey, it’s the first Sunday of our new year together – I thought it would be good to start out with an easy appeal.

And I’m not saying that I can be bought, but if this church would step up it’s giving it will put me in such a good mood it’ll be hard for me to dredge up any of that hell-fire type of preaching. You may not think I can go there, but you probably didn’t think I could spend 10 minutes begging for money either. I’m not threatening – I’m just saying I care a lot about how things go here, and I’ll do whatever I feel I need to do to nourish this sacred body.

Let me remind you – I’m the guy who recently rode his bicycle to the Atlantic Ocean. I can get wacky. I can go to extreme places. In fact I have every intention of becoming even more wacky and extreme in my work with you. I want us all to get so caught up in the loving spirit of Christ that they will do a story on us in the AR United Methodist entitled Local Church Has Lost It’s Mind – But It’s Heart Is Well Intact.

We’ve got a new year before us – let’s live it well. Let’s give it all we’ve got!
Amen

This isn’t what I consider to be a good sermon, it’s a little too wordy or something, but I don’t get to preach when I get it just right. I preach on Sunday morning — ready or not.

Our Intermodal God
Matthew 28:16-20

28:16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Today is Trinity Sunday on the Liturgical Calendar. I’m sure that’s a day you all have circled on your calendars. Who doesn’t get excited about Trinity Sunday – besides me!

Being the relatively non-academic preacher that I am, I’ve never been an enthusiastic articulator of the theological concept of the Trinity. I’ve never done much wrestling with how we define who God is and how God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are related. Creedal formulas are about as interesting to me as obscure mathematical formulas, but I do have some interest in how things work, and I do have some curiosity about the way in which we interact with the various ways we name God.

And while I’m not equipped to contribute to the academic debate of how we define God, there’s some interesting history surrounding the earliest debate about our Trinitarian language. It was hammered out at the Council of Nicaea in 325CE under the supervision of Emperor Constantine, who called the bishops of the day together to establish a standard understanding of how God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit were all related. I don’t think Constantine had an opinion on how the formula should come out – he just wanted a clear policy.

The primary debate was between Arius and Athanasius – two men who each had significant followers and who had different opinions about the nature of Jesus. Arius was an advocate of the thought that there was a time when God was God alone. God later decided to enter the world in the unique form of Jesus, but according to Arius, Jesus wasn’t a coequal partner from the beginning. Arius had an image of God that was more along the lines of a monarch who made decisions about what needed to happen in what we might call a unilateral manner. Arius considered Jesus to be above us regular mortals, but not equal to God.

It’s surprising that Constantine didn’t operate as the decider in this debate and go with that model of reality. It seems like that would have been the preferred choice of an emperor, but he was willing for the theologians to make their arguments and to put it to the will of the body, and it turns out that the position of Athanasius was found to be the most acceptable.

Athanasius argued that Jesus had been coeternal with God – true God from true God, as you will find it stated in the Nicene Creed. Athanasius believed that God was best represented by a relationship and not a monarch. The power of God was not exhibited in acts of force, but through perpetual self-giving to the other. The primary debate between Arius and Athanasius concerned the relationship between Jesus and God, but of course the role and origin of the Holy Spirit was also at play, and it was equally believable to Athanasius that the Holy Spirit had been in the mix from the beginning as well.

Constantine wanted a clear policy on these issues, and the Athanasian formula carried the day. The Trinitarian language that has largely been accepted by the Roman Catholic church as well as most protestant churches came out of this 4th Century church council meeting, and we’ve been trying to figure out what it means ever since. Constantine was relatively kind to the losers of the debate. Arius and his primary followers weren’t executed. They were just exiled to a relatively remote island where they couldn’t rally much of a revolution.

I’m not unhappy that we have this Trinitarian language. I like to think of God as being represented as a relationship as opposed to a monarch, but of course for us to try to define the nature of God is not really within our pay-grade – so to speak. We aren’t equipped to understand what we’re talking about, but that doesn’t stop us from trying.

And with that bottom line established, I shall proceed to declare how I understand our multi-faceted God to interact with us. Other than the male bias that is so present in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit formula of God, I’m comfortable with the concept of a Triune God. As I say, I love to think of God as being represented by a mutually self-giving relationship. That not only makes sense to me, it’s instructive. It gives me a sense of how I am to be as well. I’m not to rule over whatever beings happen to fall under my authority. I am to do as God does – which is to live in a self-giving relationship with others.

Our scripture this morning is pretty instructive, and while it can come across as being a bit authoritarian – that’s far from what it is. I think the methods of going out and “making” disciples has been pretty heavy handed at times. Sometimes we disciples emphasize the wrong words, and there have been some pretty forceful ways of making disciples, but if we would make disciples in the manner that Jesus taught and exhibited there wouldn’t be anything heavy-handed about the way we go out in to the world to do this holy work.

Jesus wasn’t instructing his disciples to go out and impose their limited theological understanding upon the rest of the world, Jesus was trying to provide courage to his fledgling group of followers to do what looked impossible. What we think of as the Great Commission took place on an un-named mountain in a gentile region of the country, and the small group that Jesus addressed weren’t all convinced that the story was going anywhere. Honestly, this scene would be comical if it were to be portrayed in a film.

But Jesus wasn’t being foolish or funny. Jesus spoke of the powerful authority they had to go out and spread the good news of God’s enduring and ever-present love, but his presence was the only evidence of that authority. They were without numbers, conventional resources, or even a likely story. There wasn’t any real reason they were going to be able to convince anyone to believe what had happened and what it meant for the world. But at least some of them proceeded.

And it turns out that this message and this way of relating to one another was uncontainable. It wasn’t because they had all the resources they needed to get this message out that the Christian faith has endured and expanded the way it has. This story would have died if it had been up to this small group of men. They had not shown themselves to be exceptional leaders in any way, but they had been chosen to be the bearers of the good news of Jesus Christ, and God empowered them to deliver the message.

I don’t fully understand the doctrine of the Trinity, but what I do understand and believe is that God comes to us in different ways and God uses us in different ways. It’s sort of a simplistic analogy, but I found myself thinking about the way products are shipped around the world.

If you spend any time on an interstate highway you will notice that a lot of trucks carry containers with the word, intermodal, on them. And those trucks aren’t pulling traditional trailers that are attached to wheels. They are pulling trailers that have these intermodal containers attached to them. Containers that were packed in China or some other country across an ocean and carried by ship to a port where they were put on trains, trucks, or barges and carried to some other inland transportation hub where they would be transferred again until they arrived at their final destination.

Then we throw our obsolete electronics in those same containers and they make the same journey in reverse. These are called intermodal containers because they are designed to be transported by different modes of transportation. These intermodal containers have a uniform size and a standard method of connection to one another, to ship holds, to railroad cars, and to truck trailers. It’s an impressive system of moving items from one part of the world to another. What gets moved and how those products are extracted from workers and the land isn’t necessarily a pretty picture, but the transportation system itself represents some remarkable human ingenuity.

Intermodal transportation is an easy concept, and that’s how I suggest we think of the Trinity. What we have at the heart of our faith is a uniform package that comes to us in a variety of ways. What we call the Trinity is some divine ingenuity – it’s God’s intermodal means of communicating with us.

The uniform message is that we are all of sacred worth, and we can live our lives in a sacred manner. God loves all of us regardless of what we may profess to believe or not believe, but we don’t automatically live our lives in relationship with God. We have the opportunity to become more connected to the Kingdom of God, and that opportunity comes to us in different ways.

Life itself speaks to the creatively powerful nature of God, who willed our world in to existence, but we also need some instruction. We need to hear the teaching of Jesus Christ and to see his example. The church is the bearer of this message, and as Jesus told his original disciples, we all have work to go and to do. God needs people to share the good news about self-giving love. This is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, and it’s the Holy Spirit that provides us with the knowledge and the courage to be Christ’s disciples.

Honestly, it’s hard to talk about the various ways the message of God is communicated without sounding esoteric, preacherly, or boring – which I consider to be the unholy trinity of preaching possibilities, but I love to think that there is this consistent life-giving message that God will find a way to deliver to each of us.

And what I mean when I say that we worship a Triune God is that we have a multi-faceted inter-modal uncontainable eternal and ever-present God. Trinitarian language doesn’t capture all that there is to say about the ways in which God comes to us, but it’s a good start.

And with that in mind, I actually do have hope that you will have an exciting Trinity Sunday!
Amen.

I’ve included in this sermon a story that I didn’t hear from the original teller of that story, but I trust the source from which it came, and I remained true to the way I remember hearing it. That’s all I know to say.

The Holy Spirit Narrative
I Corinthians 12:3b-13

3b No one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit. 4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. 12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body–Jews or Greeks, slaves or free–and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

We live in a world that is full of information. I would say we are bombarded by information, and what you understand to be the truth depends on who is providing that information. The truth is an illusive entity, but there is not a shortage of voices out there presenting their particular version of the truth.

The most obvious manifestation of the varieties of truth that are offered might be the way the news is presented on various cable networks. You get the right-wing perspective on what’s happening in the world by watching Fox News. You get the left-wing perspective by watching MSNBC. And of course if you think the missing Malaysian airliner is the only thing that’s happened in the world this year you can watch CNN.

This recent story of the POW exchange with the Taliban is a great example of the different ways the truth is presented. There are a variety of narratives about this US soldier named Bowe Bergdahl, who was held captive by the Taliban for 5 years. It doesn’t even seem like the Democrats are on the same page with President Obama, but the Republicans certainly have a different perspective on that event. There are a lot of different people portraying that situation in a wide variety of ways. I’ve heard Sargeant Bergdahl described as everything from a war hero to a traitor. There are a number of narratives that describe the truth about this event. How it is portrayed probably reveals more about the agendas of the people who are telling the story than what actually occurred, and I’m guessing this is usually the case.

The narratives we get in regard to what is going on in the world come from many different directions, and those voices are often better reflections of the values of the people who are providing those narratives than the actual circumstances. Certainly some narratives are more accurate portrayals of the truth than others, but it’s hard to keep our political persuasions out of the way in which we interpret reality.

But it’s not just our political persuasions that inform the way we define the truth. I guess the very nature of a religious community is to pass on it’s particular narrative of reality. I think the essence of a faith community is to declare what it believes to be the truth about the big picture. This is what religious communities do. People are nourished by these big picture narratives – people are destroyed by them as well.

History is filled with stories of the way in which the church has continued to define reality in ways that defy the facts on the ground. Perhaps the most amazing example of that is the way in which the Roman Catholic Church refused to acknowledge the heliocentric or Sun-centered design of the universe for about 300 years after Copernicus revealed his understanding. They made some gestures of acceptance after 200 years, but they didn’t remove all statements of resistance to this model of our solar system until 1835, which was a good 300 years after this truth had been revealed.

Unfortunately, religious institutions are known for not letting the facts interfere with their view of reality, and this often plays out in bad ways. I don’t believe spiritual truth is ever at odds with scientific truths, but I believe there are truths that come to us from beyond the reach of scientific discovery. There are these messages that come to us from God’s Holy Spirit – that powerful messenger that reveals the agenda of God. An agenda that changes the directions of people’s lives and alters the course of human history. In my opinion the Holy Spirit is a force that surpasses all other forces, but it’s undetectable to any scientific instrument or observation.

And while the way the Holy Spirit works is incomprehensible, there are these things that happen that can only be described as the work of the Holy Spirit to transform lives and to redeem the world.

I heard a story not long ago about something that happened in the church where Rev. Frank Shaefer was the pastor. You may remember that Frank Shaefer was the UM pastor in Pennsylvania that was defrocked for conducting the marriage of his son to another man. But before that trial ever took place there was another situation in his church that was equally compelling.

In to this relatively traditional United Methodist church came a couple of women who lived together as a married couple. They were older women, they didn’t hide the nature of their relationship and they were not well received by some of the more conventional members of the church. I don’t know exactly how that manifested itself, but there was one woman in particular who didn’t approve of their relationship, and she didn’t hide her feelings. This traditionalist woman was a person of strong convictions, and she was genuinely troubled by their non-traditional relationship.

Well, one of the women in the same-sex couple had a stroke, and it affected her ability to walk. She was in rehab. for a period of time, and when she got out she was only able to walk by speaking the word, step, each time she wanted to take a step. The first Sunday that this woman returned to church was a communion Sunday, and she was determined to walk down to the communion rail to receive the elements. She had been sitting at the back of the sanctuary, and as she made her way to the front she spoke the word, step, with each step she took.

The traditionalist woman was also in church that day, and as she sat and listened to the woman make her way toward the altar, her heart melted, she started crying, and she was moved to get up and help the woman get to the bread and wine.

It’s as if that word, step, repeated over and over turned in to a type of mantra that opened this woman up to the work of the Holy Spirit. And I think that’s always what the Holy Spirit does. It enables us to take those small steps that move us in entirely new directions.

Today is the day we celebrate the arrival of the Holy Spirit in to our midst. It’s a wonderful gift that God has provided for us. I love the fact that we have this divine voice that seeks to provide us with a whole new perspective on what’s really going on in the world. It’s the source of a redeeming narrative regardless of what seems to be happening on the ground.

The Holy Spirit is not the loudest voice in the room. And too often we stay so tuned in to those more conventional voices that define the world in such familiar ways that we don’t even know that there is this other way. In fact I think it’s a rare moment when we let go of the usual narratives that define who we are and how we see others and allow God to reveal the truth about ourselves and our neighbors.

It’s easy to get stuck. It’s hard to take those unfamiliar steps in new directions, but we aren’t on our own. The Holy Spirit isn’t a bully. It doesn’t force it’s way in to our lives, but it’s a relentless advocate.

It may use the sound of a simple word, step, step, step, … to creep in to our hearts and turn the world upside down, but you can trust that the Holy Spirit is out to exploit every little crack we have in our concrete viewpoints.

When Paul describes the body of Christ as being made up of people who have these different gifts and abilities he is describing what the church would look like if we were able to turn off those shallow narratives that define who we are, and to hear who God is calling us to be. I think we all have an abundance of gifts that remain hidden until we are able to let go of those voices of oppression that limit our understanding of ourselves and our universe, and we are able to hear that still small voice that reveals the truth about who we are and how life can be.

Thank God we aren’t limited to the narratives of the right or the left, the traditionalists or the liberationalists. The good news is that there is a larger narrative than any of us can imagine, and we are invited to be a part of that story. We have this offer to abide in this world as unique members of the body of Christ – informed and empowered by the Holy Spirit to become truly alive.

I believe it was the power of the Holy Spirit that enabled Copernicus to figure out that the sun didn’t revolve around the earth. It took the Holy Spirit another 300 years to convict church of this truth. The church can be a little slow to get it sometimes, but the church can’t contain the transforming power of the Holy Spirit to redefine the narratives of our lives, and to move us toward true life. The church is a little slow, but it has a role as well, and we shouldn’t underestimate the power of the Holy Spirit to transform it as well.

It’s a beautiful thing we are celebrating today. We are not just defined by familiar narratives. We are caught up in a much larger story than we even know. A beautiful story of the way God is seeking to redeem our world, our church, and our very lives. Thanks be to God.
Amen.

Writing my thoughts each evening during my bicycle trip was such a nice experience. I had some good lessons on the road. I hope I learned something that I can carry over in to my standard routine. If nothing else, that trip helped me generate at least one sermon. Here it is:

Our Glorious Destination
John 17:1-11

1 After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. 5 So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed. 6 “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; 8 for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. 11 And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.

I’m really grateful to have been given the opportunity to spend two weeks on a bicycle ride. Although I guess it wasn’t as much of something I was given as it was something I just did. Sharla says I didn’t ask her if I could do it. And I don’t guess I asked for any kind of permission from the church to abandon my post for two weeks. I just sort of announced that I had this half-baked plan to ride my bicycle to the Atlantic Ocean and nobody stopped me. My Uncle Jack tried to veto the plan, but I only gave him voice – not vote on this deal. And honestly, I’m very lucky to have his voice in my life. Whether I follow his advice or not I cherish being in communication with him.

I’ll try not to beat this thing in to the ground, but this bicycle ride really was a profound experience for me. It was a trip that required a lot of physical effort and focus, but in some ways it was an easy undertaking. I spent very little time during my trip trying to figure out what I needed to be doing – I just did what I knew I needed to do. And having such a single-minded agenda was quite a luxury. I generally spend a lot of time and energy either trying to figure out what I need to be doing or second-guessing what I chose to do, and it was wonderful to have this simple agenda. Get-up, get-going, watch for cars, rest, eat, tweet, drink, repeat.

I moved at a relatively slow pace for two weeks and I had some very elemental experiences. I got wet. I got cold. I got hot. I got thirsty. I got hungry. I got tired. I got desperate. I received help. I cherished good water. I enjoyed eating. I was warmed by the sun. I was relieved by shade. I pushed myself. I was propelled by the prayers and encouragement of other people. I reconnected with some friends and family members. I prayed. I sang(nobody was there to listen, so I sang really loudly). I thought. I enjoyed listening to music. I met nice people. I noticed birds and animals – both dead and alive. I came to feel like an animal – a very privileged animal.

I haven’t used this word to describe my journey, but today’s scripture has brought the word, glory, to my attention, and I think I could use that word to describe my trip. It was a glorious experience. It was a relatively short trip in the grand scheme of things, but it was a very full-filling period of time. It’s not a trip I would recommend, but I’m so glad I took it. I don’t know how it will impact my work or my life, but I feel very blessed by it. It left me feeling grateful to be alive and on this planet, and it left me wanting to more fully understand what it means to go on this journey with Jesus to find the most glorious destination of all – this thing Jesus referred to as eternal life.

I think we often think of eternal life as an experience we will have at the end of this life, but that’s not the way in which Jesus speaks of eternal life in this passage. Jesus prayed that we might find eternal life in this life. Jesus prayed that we might experience eternal life prior to death. I’m not saying that eternal life doesn’t extend beyond our life as we know it on this planet, but eternal life is available to us during this life.

Jesus said we are in touch with eternal life whenever we come to know him and the One who sent him.

Connecting with Jesus is the way we come to experience eternal life, but coming to know Jesus is not so simple. This quest for eternal life is a mysterious undertaking. There are a lot of questions that come to mind when I think about the way we come to know Jesus and the One who sent him. What does this mean? How do we do that? Where does that journey begin? And do we ever really get there?

One of the nice things about my bicycle journey was that I had a really clear destination. There’s nothing particularly significant about riding a bicycle to the Atlantic Ocean – other than the fact that it’s a very well-defined boundary. It was a contrived destination, but it was a clear goal. If you are riding east it’s the end of the road. And as I mentioned earlier – it was nice to have such a clear agenda. It allowed me to be very single-minded in my pursuit. And there is a lot of freedom to be found in that level of single-mindedness. You don’t have to wonder what you need to do next.

And I’m trying to figure out how that translates in to this most glorious of all pursuits – the search for eternal life.

The search for eternal life is not a journey that any of us are just now beginning. I think we begin that journey before we even know that it’s something we want. I believe we are given an appetite for this more abundant form of life before we can even speak the words, and I believe we are nourished early on by the fruits of God’s mysterious presence in ways we don’t even recognize. In fact I believe the arrival of eternal life in to our lives is always a gift that comes to us. It isn’t something we control in any way, but I believe it is possible to become more receptive to this elevated form of living. I also believe we can become desensitized to those opportunities God provides for us to experience this eternal form of life.

Jesus spoke of having given to us the words that God spoke to him. It’s as if Jesus gave us words that provide us with the clues we need to help us become more sensitive to who God is and what God desires. And when I think of key words that Jesus spoke I think the most important word we have been given is this word, love.

If we want to know and experience God we’ve got to practice this thing we call love. And I’m telling you – it is not something we can do without practice. Because the kind of love Jesus talked about wasn’t the easy kind. Jesus didn’t just want us to love people who are like us – he told us to love people who don’t like us. He didn’t just want us to love people who are easy to love. Anybody can love loveable people – that doesn’t take much practice. But the kind of love Jesus wanted us to embrace has no boundaries. He didn’t just want us to love beautiful, kind, and nice people. When Jesus told us to love our neighbors as ourselves he was talking about everyone – including mean and nasty people.

Jesus wants us to love with a form of single-mindedness that we rarely have about anything. He prayed for us to be able to do that because he wants us to experience eternal life. And he knew that if we would learn to keep love as our primary agenda we would find a form of freedom and togetherness that we rarely experience here on earth, and it would enable us to become more receptive to this gift of eternal life.

We don’t exercise this kind of love with single-minded attention, and that’s why another one of his key words comes to mind – forgiveness. If we want to know who Jesus was and to better understand the One who sent him we need to make room for forgiveness in our hearts. I don’t think we can love Jesus if we don’t love the concept of forgiveness. It’s not that Jesus did anything wrong, but he certainly loved people who did wrong things. Jesus didn’t see anyone as being outside of the circle of redemption, and we shouldn’t either. This is not to say that we should simply be accommodating to any kind of behavior. It’s not unloving to resist bad behavior, but such resistance must always be accompanied by forgiveness.

The other key word that comes to mind when I think of what Jesus taught is compassion. If Jesus was anything he was compassionate. I don’t think you can understand why Jesus did the things he did if you don’t understand compassion. Jesus was moved by compassion. He responded to people with compassion. He exercised compassion. If we want to know Jesus and the One who sent him we have to be people of compassion as well.

I had a really great adventure on my bicycle ride to the Atlantic. I had a number of gratifying experiences along the way, and I’m hoping to learn something from the enterprise. I mean I could give you a pretty good list of practical things I learned. At the top of that list would be to study a topography map before you chart your course and determine your destinations. But I don’t just want to know how to plan a bicycle trip more effectively. There was something refreshing about life on the road that I like to think I can incorporate in to life in Little Rock.

I believe a part of what made my trip interesting was knowing that if I didn’t pay attention to what I was doing I wasn’t going to make it. I had to watch the road. I had to watch traffic. I had to pay attention to where I was going. I had to pace myself properly. I had to secure food and water and shelter. I had a type of hyper-vigilance that I don’t normally exercise over how I spent my time and energy.

But what I’m thinking is that Jesus prayed that we would embark on the most glorious adventures of all – the pursuit of eternal life. It is a far more challenging enterprise than riding a bicycle over the hills of northern Alabama and it will take longer than 12 days. It requires us to pay close attention to where we go, what we do, and how we treat people. We have to push ourselves every day if we want to put ourselves in the best position possible to experience eternal life. It is no small thing for any of us to practice love, forgiveness, and compassion. Failure is always a possibility.

But there is no better offer. And we can have no better advocate than the one who prayed for us to be successful in this adventure of faith. We have a great challenge before us. We aren’t ready for it – we have no idea what it will require, but who can resist this invitation to experience eternal life?

A glorious destination awaits – let’s go!

Amen