Thompson's Blog

The God Plot

John 20:1-18

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks be to God.

Amen

All’s A Twitter

Matthew 21:1-11

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks be to God. Amen

Fleshing Out the Dry Bones

Ezekiel 37:1-14

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

The Unseen Truth

John 9:1-41

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Uncontainable Christ

John 4:5-42

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

I appreciate John reading this long passage of scripture, but you just can’t cut out any sections of this episode. This was written as an entire story, and if you leave out a portion of the story you miss a portion of the point of this story. There are several accounts in the Gospel of John that don’t appear in the other gospels, and these stories that do appear are told with very intentional details. It’s only in John that we read about the wedding at Cana where Jesus turned water in to wine, it’s only in John that we learn of the nighttime conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, and it’s only in John that we hear of this midday encounter between Jesus and the woman of Samaria at the well.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Today’s story highlights someone who was more astute than your average disciple. Unlike the conversation that transpired between Jesus and Nicodemus, who was a man with impeccable religious credentials, but who lacked the heart and the mind to hear what Jesus was saying to him about the need to be spiritually reborn – this conversation that took place between Jesus and a woman who was able to hear what he was saying. We don’t know her name, and what we do know about her isn’t something that most people would want to be known about them. But she wasn’t intimidated by the truth – she was redefined by it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks be to God. Amen.

The Most Highly Effective Habit

Matthew 4:1-11

1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. 3 The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4 But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'” 5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'” 7 Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'” 8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; 9 and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10 Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'”

This is one of my favorite passages of scripture. I can’t identify with the extraordinary discipline and faithfulness of Jesus, but it’s an interesting story to me. The way Jesus responded to those temptations is not how I can imagine myself dealing with those same situations, but this story does portray Jesus in a way that reminds me of his humanity. You might say this story shows how Jesus dealt with a dilemma, and who among us has not had to do that. Jesus always seems to have known what to do, and that’s not my experience, but it’s somehow comforting for me to know that he didn’t go through life without having to make hard decisions. This passage very clearly portrays Jesus as being in the position of having to respond to some difficult options.

This is a story I like to think about, and while I it’s clear that Jesus was in a very needy situation when he was approached by the devil to provide himself with some immediate relief, I primarily see this story as the portrayal of the way he came to understand who he was and what he intended to do. This story describes the way in which Jesus came to recognize the extent of his power, and it shows how he decided he was going to use it. The devil didn’t approach Jesus because he was weak. The devil came to Jesus in the wilderness because he had come to understand how powerful he was. The devil approached Jesus because he was someone who was poised to do great damage to the power of death.

While I was in seminary out in North Carolina I volunteered in an urban ministry program that put me in touch with some interesting characters. One of the men I became acquainted with had spent ten years in prison for bank robbery. His name was William Solomon, and he was a man with some keen insight. He told me he had gone on some extended fasts while he was in prison, and they were powerful experiences for him. He described them as experiences that helped him see himself. He said on more than one occasion he actually had to be coerced into eating again because he liked the state of mind it put him in. He said the fasting was hard for the first week or ten days, but after that he said he entered in to a whole new mindset. William Solomon didn’t function so well after he left the imposed discipline of prison. He soon got himself back in to trouble. But the man I knew who emerged from prison was a very wise man. There were ways in which he helped me see myself in a clearer way.

I had an interesting wilderness experience the summer after I graduated from high school. I went to an Outward Bound course, which you might say is a self-discovery program that takes place in a wilderness setting. I spent 3 weeks with a group of people I had never met before backpacking in the Gila Wilderness of New Mexico. The true challenge of the experience was getting along and cooperating with about 8 other people under some extreme circumstances. But the most difficult part of the experience was what they called the solo, which was when we were placed in a spot for three days and nights alone and without any food. I had access to plenty of water, but we weren’t to build a fire or to wander far from where we were placed.

I basically spent my time thinking about and documenting what I wanted to eat. It was to be a time of self-reflection, and I did learn something about myself. I came to see how foolish I can be. I got pretty cold that first night, and as I lay there in the cold I thought about how I could build a bit of a shelter with sticks and leaves and the pancho I had been given. But when the morning came and the sun came out I warmed up and decided it probably wouldn’t be so chilly that night, so I didn’t do anything other than create a better pile of leaf debris to lay on. The second night I got just as cold, but when the sun came up the next day I decided that since I only had one more night I would just deal with it. I had plenty of time on my hands, but for whatever reason I opted for misery over ingenuity.

I like to think I would use my time a little differently now than I did when I was 18, but who knows. I didn’t fast long enough to get to that sweet spot of having additional clarity about myself and ultimate reality, but I believe that it happens to people who are able to exercise such discipline. Fasting has long been recognized as a powerful spiritual discipline.

Jesus had needs after forty days, but as I say, the tempter didn’t come to him because he was weak. Jesus was tempted because he had come to understand his power. We’re told that Jesus was presented with three temptations, but the truth is they were just three variations of the same question, which is: How would he choose to use his power?

That was particularly important for Jesus to understand, but I believe this is something that’s critical for us all to understand about ourselves. Often we are more focused on how little power we have than how much power we do have, but we are all endowed with an element of power, and it’s important for us to decide how we are going to use what God has given us.

How we use our own power is something we all have to address on some level. As a pastor, I’ve been exposed to quite a few different forms of leadership development – which you might say is a form of power management. I’ve never been sent in to the wilderness for forty days, which, as I think about it would probably have been an effective way to get me focused on my task, but I’ve never actually attended that kind of workshop. I’ve spent a few afternoons in meetings that seemed to have gone on for an eternity, but I can testify that you can become a minister in the United Methodist Church without ever missing a meal.

I’ve been exposed to a good amount of good advice on how to best function as a church leader. I had a little training in the Stephen Covey time management system. He’s the person who wrote the popular book: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I’m not saying I ever adhered closely to his system, but it made sense to me. You might say he was a Methodist in regard to the way he proposed being methodical in the way you respond to the various circumstances that present themselves in life. He was an advocate of being proactive in the way you use your time instead of being constantly reactive to whatever comes your way.

His seven habits make sense, but he wrote an additional book that was called The 8^th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness. Like the first 7 seven habits, of which I only have a rudimentary understanding, I don’t have a deep understanding of what he identified as the 8^th habit, but the thing I understand him to be promoting with the 8^th habit is the idea of finding your voice and helping others find theirs. He uses this word voice, to describe what it is that truly has meaning for us, and while Stephen Covey doesn’t define what everyone’s principles should be, he recognizes that simply being efficient doesn’t lead to satisfaction.

The thing he had come to recognize is that it’s not enough to simply be effective. He identifies the fact that in order to be satisfied we have to be more than effective – we have to be focused on the thing that gives us meaning.

And that’s a good thought. Being highly effective at a terrible undertaking is a recipe for disaster. You might say that the Nazis were highly effective, but that wasn’t an undertaking that provided satisfaction for anyone. What we see in the life of Jesus and in the way he responded to the options that were offered to him is a person who was totally focused on that most highly effective habit – which is to live in relationship with God. When offered all the kingdoms of the world, Jesus made it very clear that his primary desire was to serve God and God alone.

What Jesus did was to reveal to us what it looks like when a person combines effectiveness along with the thing that is the most meaningful. He reveals what it actually looks like to be focused on the most highly effective habit, and this is the challenge for each of us, but it’s not an easy thing for any of us to embody. Serving God and God alone is not necessarily a strategy for being a successful executive in a large organization, and I wouldn’t exempt the church from being one of those large organizations. I’m not saying that you can’t be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ and also be the Pope or a bishop or even the pastor of a relatively small United Methodist Church, but I think this is the challenge we all face.

Our challenge is to continue to grow in our understanding of ourselves and in our relationship with God. And anyone who doesn’t think they can learn anything else about themselves probably can’t learn anything else about God. I believe our lives are totally intertwined with God. I believe we discover things about God when we learn things about ourselves, and I believe we grow in knowledge of ourselves when we come to understand more about God. I also believe it’s the work of the devil to try to separate us from God. It’s the devil’s work to make us think that we can find happiness apart from God.

We all know how impossible it is to fully define God, but we do have this one word that gets pretty close to defining who God is and that word is: love.

Jesus ended his encounter with the devil by saying we are to serve God and God alone. He didn’t say this at the time, but what he went on to do with his life and in his teaching was to show that when we practice love we are serving God.

We can be highly effective at many different things and create some remarkable organizations and structures. People figure out how to harness the power to do some amazing things, but there’s really only one thing we need to figure out how to do more effectively and perpetually that is: to love. To love God, to love ourselves, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. This is the one most highly effective habit we are to practice, and we have to keep practicing it our entire lives.

This story of Jesus being driven in to the wilderness has a great lesson for all of us. We all need to step in to some unfamiliar territory every now and then – that’s where we learn more about ourselves and our relationship with God. Of course stepping in to uncomfortable places isn’t something we easily make ourselves do, but fortunately there are those things that send us to places we would never have chosen to go. I don’t know if Jesus was hesitant to go in to the wilderness, but we’re told that it was the spirit that drove him there, and it was a good place for him to go.

It may not always be the spirit that drives us to places we don’t want to be, but you can trust that the Holy Spirit is with us wherever we are, and wherever we are there’s an opportunity to grow in our knowledge of ourselves and our God. And we will grow if we will always remember to exercise love – the one most highly effective habit.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

In God We Trust

Matthew 6:24-34

 ²⁴ “No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.^[a]

²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink,^[b] or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ²⁷ And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?^{[c] 28} And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹ yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. ³⁰ But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹ Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ ³² For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. ³³ But strive first for the kingdom of God^[d] and his^[e] righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

³⁴ “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

I was in a hurry last Tuesday morning when I needed to get my sermon text and title to Shirley, and I looked at the wrong liturgical calendar to see what the reading should be for today. Today is what the liturgical world recognizes as Transfiguration Sunday, but I chose a reading from the eighth Sunday of Epiphany. I’m guessing I’m the only liturgical geek in the room, and being liturgically confused has little impact on anyone other than a preacher, but it sort of messed with my preaching sensibilities. I could have ignored what I told Shirley and preached on one of the traditional transfiguration stories today, but there are rarely eight Sundays after the Day of Epiphany before the beginning of Lent, so we rarely read this particular passage of scripture, and I really like these verses. Consequently, I’m happy to have made this mistake. We can still call this Transfiguration Sunday, which is always the Sunday just prior to Ash Wednesday, but we aren’t going to read the story of Jesus going up on the mountain with Peter, James, and John and hearing how he became dazzling white along with Moses and Elijah.

We read that passage last year, and we’ll read it next year, but today we get some additional instruction from Jesus’ sermon on the mount. Like much of that sermon, what he has to say in this particular portion isn’t exactly easy to follow, but I think we can all agree that there’s something deeply comforting about these words. While it’s hard not for us to be anxious about many things and to have an inordinate amount of concern about our personal finances, I think we are all here today because we want God to be the one master we serve, and we want to live with a profound sense of trust in our one good master.

We are here because we believe Jesus to be the one who not only points to the path of true life, but who also enables us to travel on that path. Sometimes that path seems so clear and wide. Sometimes we know that we are beloved children in the hands of a loving God and we have complete trust that we are capable of serving God in all that we do. Sometimes we know exactly what Jesus Christ has called us to go and do, but then we get out of bed and things start getting complicated.

At least this is often my experience. In an instant I can go from feeling like I’m living in harmony with God and my neighbors into a situation where I’m confounded by my choices and distressed by what I choose to do. I don’t run in to this particular delima as often here as I did at my previous appointment, but a day hardly ever passed at my church in Little Rock where I didn’t encounter a relatively desperate person who needed something from me. I knew how to say no, but I tried not to be heartless about it, and it was a difficult thing to balance.

Here’s a case in point: one afternoon as I was about to leave the church I noticed that someone had set up camp in the back stairwell of the church – complete with a plastic curtain hanging from some pipes that stretched across the stairwell. This person had turned that small stairwell in to a bedroom. He had propped a piece of a palet up in a way that made a bit of a bed and there was a dirty foam pad on top of it along with some blankets. It wasn’t a nice bedroom but clearly this person had made a nest of sorts.

I didn’t like people sleeping outside of the church and I had made that clear to a number of people. I didn’t think it was safe for anyone involved – people inside the church or outside. I hated that people found themselves in such difficult circumstances that they felt like their best option was to sleep on our stairwell, but I just didn’t feel like that was a good solution.

This person wasn’t on hand for me to hear my rationale for why this wasn’t a good thing, but I decided to send that message by throwing the entire encampment in our dumpster – our locked dumpster. The only thing I left was the most significant article of clothing which was a rather heavy jacket. I didn’t feel too good about it, but it wasn’t a dangerously cold day, and there was a lot of daylight left. I’m not saying that’s what Jesus would have done, but it’s what I did.

I was a little anxious about how this person may have reacted to what I had done, so when I got to the church the next morning I walked back to that stairwell to see if they had left me any kind of message, and I was surprised to discover that the camp was totally reassembled and occupied. I was stunned by what I saw because as I say, I had put the entire encampment in our locked dumpster, and it was still locked.

I was both flustered and indignant and with as much authority as I could muster I announced to that sleeping man he had to wake up and move on and that I didn’t appreciate him turning our stairwell in to his bedroom. I heard a respectful apology come from behind the dirty plastic curtain, and as he began moving I went inside the church.  But I really couldn’t believe what I had seen.

The very things I had thrown in that locked dumpster had reemerged and the lock was still in place. Along with my confusion and indignation was also some curiosity, so I went back out and invited the guy to come inside for a cup of coffee. If nothing else, I wanted to know how he had gotten in that dumpster.

So he came in and over a cup of coffe I came to see him as a real person who had fallen on hard times and he came to see me as someone other than the jerk who had thrown away his stuff. His name was Don and he and I became pretty well aquainted with one another. Don was an incredibly resourceful person – with one of his skills being locksmithing. He had actually picked the lock on our dumpster.

What I experienced with Don and with many other people who found themselves living on the streets of Little Rock was the way in which God’s grace often abounds in the lives of people who don’t really have anything other than their wits and their trust in God. On one level, Don and people like Don have an existence that’s not unlike the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. I know in Don’s case, it wasn’t the life that he set out to live, but a couple of unfortunate events landed him without a home, and he had found a way to stay alive – both physically and spiritually.

I think that’s one of the things I’ve learned over my years in ministry. Peace of mind and inner security aren’t dependent upon having a well stocked pantry and a thick financial portfolio. Sometimes incredibly poor people have profound inner peace and sometimes very wealthy people have great anxiety about their circumstances. Certainly not having adequate food or medical care or housing is a terrible burden for many people and I don’t want to diminish the suffering that such situations create. It’s not unreasonable to be distressed when you don’t have access to such essential resources. And I hate that there are so many people who go without the things they need to fully blossom as the people God created them to be, but lack of access isn’t the only thing that keeps us from becoming fully formed in the image of God.

Many of us aren’t as troubled by what we lack in resources as we are by our lack of clarity about who it is we primarily serve. As surely as some people suffer from the problem of not having enough, some of us suffer from problems that come with overabundance. Many of us don’t worry about having enough to eat and drink and wear – we worry about having the right things, and making the wisest investments, and going to the best places. I don’t think any of us would want to trade the problems that come with having too much for the problems that come with having too little, but we don’t need to be unaware of the way in which our souls can be threatened when our bodies are comfortable.

Jesus is telling us not to worry, but I don’t think anyone has ever been able to stop worrying because they were told not to worry. In fact being told not to worry can become an additional source of anxiety when you find yourself unable to do what Jesus has instructed us to do. But it probably isn’t possible to simply quit worrying if there’s something you are worried about. But I think there are things we can do to live with less worry.

Sometimes the thing we are worried about is actually something we can do something about, and instead of worrying about it we need to get off the sofa and do something about it. I can testify that I can spend more time and energy worrying about something than it would take to actually address the problematic situation. I think we often consider worrying about something to be a good alternative to dealing with things, and that is rarely the best option.

But there are those things that come along in life that are simply out of our control. Many of the troubles that come our way just don’t have immediate solutions. Often we are helpless to fix the very real problems that invade our lives, and that’s often when we come to discover what it really means to put our trust in God.

Jesus told us to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and I guess some people learn to do that without first seeking those forms of security that the world can provide, but it’s often when we encounter situations that money can’t fix or there is no money to provide the fix that we discover the riches of heaven.

We have gathered today because we trust in this wisdom that Jesus both taught and embodied. Jesus didn’t just tell us to place our trust in God. Jesus showed us what it looks like to trust God. It’s a challenge for us, and there are no guarantees that we won’t have to break in to a dumpster to retrieve what we need to get us through a night, but he didn’t just want us to be comfortable. Jesus wanted us to know the joy of ultimate security – which comes to those who trust in God.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

God’s Perfecting Love

Matthew 5:38-48

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

The lessons from the last few weeks are all a part of this larger narrative that’s known as the Sermon on the Mount. It’s a series of lessons that pretty much indicate that everything you thought you knew is wrong. It begins with these verses that highlight the blessedness of all the conditions we generally try to avoid. Jesus said it’s good to be be poor in spirit, and that mouring is valuable, that meekness is rewarded, and that you are doing the right thing if you’re being persecuted. In those first verses Jesus reversed the notion of what it is that will truly make us happy, and then he proclaimed the need for his disciples to let these principles define our lives.

In the second installment of that sermon he said we are to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Jesus came to reveal to the world a new way of living, but it wasn’t just him who was to live in that new way. Jesus wanted those of us who claim him as our Lord and Savior to exhibit such new life. We aren’t to hide our light under a basket or keep the salt locked up in the pantry. We are to shine and to share our flavor with the world.

But it was in the third section of the sermon that Jesus got really clear in regard to what he was talking about, and you might say it’s some of the most difficult instruction that anyone has ever uttered. What we heard Jesus say last week is that we aren’t just violating God’s commandments when we act on our self-serving intentions, but that we are guilty as soon as we harbor unrighteous thoughts about other people. I did my best to argue that he was wanting us to forget about being righteous enough to be acceptable to God, but that’s not the only thing Jesus was doing when he spoke those words. I believe he was advocating that we hold ourselves to the spiritual standards of the law and not just to the letter of the law. Jesus was telling us to have true integrity. He instructed us to be profoundly honest, and open, and genuinely good hearted.

As I say, we’ve had some difficult lessons over the past few weeks. Clearly Jesus didn’t intend to market this new movement in a traditional manner – he didn’t sell it in an appealing way. Although he seems to have known what he was doing because we’re still talking about what he said and did, but it’s not a message that matches up well with the way we generally operate. And today’s passage contains the most difficult instruction of all.

What we have in this morning’s lesson is pretty much the opposite of what we generally value and practice. Under normal circumstances, we hate our enemies. We cherish retaliation. We love to win in court. We are careful about who we lend to, we are suspicious of those who beg, and I’m not just talking about you unprofessional Christians. I’m talking about us all. I think I’m talking about most of us when I say that we are not inclined to operate the way that Jesus tells us to be.

And it may be true that we North Americans are particularly good at resisting our enemies, winning in court, and taking care of our money, but this isn’t anything new. I dare say this instruction from Jesus was as foreign to his peers in ancient Palestine as it is to us. We North American Christians are a lot like other imperfect human beings, but Jesus is telling us that we can be better than that. We aren’t to simply be like other human beings – we are to be like our perfect heavenly Father.

Speaking as a person who isn’t great at anything, I find the thought of becoming perfect a daunting quest. Now I’m not being overly modest when I say I’m not great at anything. There are things I would consider myself to be good at doing. As I’ve indicated in previous sermons I think I’m pretty good at building things. I’m not fast, and I’m not outstanding, but I’m good at figuring out how to put things together. And I think I’m a good-enough pastor and preacher. I’ve never experienced miraculous growth or sparked a spiritual revival, so I wouldn’t call myself a great church leader, but I think I’ve taken good care of the flocks to which I’ve been appointed. I continue to aspire to be a good golfer. I would currently call myself a decent golfer, but I want to step up to the next level and actually think of myself as a good golfer. It’s too late for me to become a great golfer, but I still harbor the fantasy of becoming a good one.

I could go on about the things that I think I’m good at or aspire to become good at. I’m good at talking about myself, but greatness is an illusive thing. I’ve just never had the drive to pursue greatness in anything. And I would be in total despair about this instruction of Jesus to become perfect if I thought it was going to require the same kind of effort it takes to become a world class athelete or musician or pastor for that matter.

No doubt there’s some practice involved in becoming a more perfect follower of Jesus Christ, but I don’t think there’s a level of effort that will get us there. I think what Jesus is calling for us to do is not so much a matter of working harder as it is of becoming more familiar with the one who can enable us to become more than we could ever train ourselves to be. If we want to become more than the average human beings that we find it natural to be, I think we must find ways to spend more time with the perfect One who made us.

I’m having a little lesson in this right now. I’m not taking a class on centering prayer or anything like that – although I think that’s something that might be good for me to do. But I am studying under a great master – that master mechanic, Tommy Clark. He’s not here today, so I feel free to talk about him. Tommy is currently revealing a great mystery to me. He’s guiding me through the process of overhauling the engine of the parsonage lawnmower.

Now I’ve had a basic understanding of how an internal combustion engine works for as long as I can remember, but I had never actually taken an engine apart until about a week ago. And I never would have undertaken such a project if I didn’t have someone like Tommy Clark in the shop telling me what to do next. A person might could have found enough youtube videos to guide them through the project, but that wouldn’t have worked for me. I’m glad to have a live person on hand who knows the territory and who provides me with the confidence that we’re actually going to get the thing back together. Everything we’re doing makes sense to me, but it’s not something I would ever have done without his assistance.

Now granted there’s some difference between learning how to put new rings on a piston and learning how to engage with an enemy in a loving way, but the similar thing is the necessity of a partner in the mission. Jesus isn’t telling us to independently gather our resources together and teach our hearts and minds to do everything differently from the way we’ve been conditioned to behave for our entire lives. Jesus knew enough about us to know that we don’t have the wherewithal to behave in an entirely new way because we’ve been told to do so, but he also knew that we aren’t on our own in this endeavor.

He told us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. I don’t think any of us have the discipline to do all of the things Jesus said to do on our own. None of us would ever become adequate disciples if it was up to us to train ourselves to react to our adversaries and our solicitors and our tormentors with anything other than predictable resistance and conventional wisdom, but through Christ we have access to some unconditional love and some unconventional wisdom.

Jesus isn’t just giving us some verbal instruction on a new way of living, Jesus is providing us with access to a new form of instruction and a new resource for life. Jesus isn’t just telling us how to behave, he’s telling us to give ourselves to the One who can enable us to be different.

These aren’t easy days for us to know how to treat one another. This world is an unpredictably dangerous place. Certainly there’s a level of conventional wisdom we need to exercise in order to keep ourselves and our families safe from people who are guided by malice and greed and endless need. But Jesus doesn’t want us to simply be safe and removed from the needs of other people. Jesus wants us to abide with God in heaven. Jesus wants us to open our hearts to the presence of God, and to allow God to instruct us on how we treat other people.

Learning how to treat our enemies and our adversaries with something other than animosity and revenge is an incredibly difficult thing. It’s not as easy as loosening some bolts and inserting some new parts. It’s an overhaul of our soul, and it requires some work that’s beyond the expertise of anyone other than our heavenly master-mechanic.

There is some work for us to do, but I don’t believe we are just to try harder to be nicer people. I believe our work is to become more committed to opening our hearts to the loving presence of God. I don’t really know how to instruct you to do this, but I believe we all have an instructor within us who is seeking to guide us in that more perfect way of living. We call that instructor the Holy Spirit.

Now I hate to think of having to do something like this, but maybe what some of us need to do is to spend more time with the television off. Maybe it means being being less attached to our phones and computers. Maybe it means spending more time alone. Maybe it means making yourself more available to other people. The Holy Spirit has unique instructions for each of us, but I believe there’s something each of us can to to make ourselves more available to the guiding hand of God in our lives.

Our objective is clear – we are called to become perfect. It’s a high standard, but Jesus wasn’t you’re average self-improvement coach. Jesus didn’t just want us to get a little better at being spiritually minded. Jesus wanted us to be born again as children of the most high God. It’s the challenge of our lives. It rewards for eternity.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

The Underlying Good News

Matthew 5:21-37

5:21 “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire. 23 So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. 25 Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. 26 Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny. 27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell. 31 “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. 33 “Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.’ 34 But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 37 Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one.

I’m guessing this isn’t anyone’s favorite passage of scripture. It’s not mine – not because I don’t think there’s something good for us to hear, but because I always have this fear that someone is going to walk out of the sanctuary while it’s being read. Without doing a little probing in to what this actually means for us it’s sort of a terrifying passage. I mean we’re inclined to think that Jesus was more forgiving of people’s failures than we understand the Jewish authorities to have been, and I don’t think that’s an improper understanding, but this passage makes him sound like a member of the Taliban.

I don’t think it’s wrong to think of Jesus as expecting us to hold ourselves to high standards of living, but I don’t think the point of this passage is to beat ourselves up for falling short of those expectations. In fact at the same time that Jesus is very clearly directing us to live our lives with the highest levels of integrity, I think he’s also telling us to let go of our usual standards of judgement.

I mean there may be someone in the room who has never been angry with anyone, but if you’ve got a pulse, you have probably stepped in to that territory that Jesus very clearly identifies as a bad place to be. And I don’t want a show of hands of people who have violated Jesus’ definition of adultery, but he expands the definition in a way that is beyond anything you will find in a dictionary.

People who have personally experienced divorce don’t need any more scrutiny than what they’ve already undergone, so we don’t need to further highlight that unfortunate turn of events, but these words aren’t intended to heap a blanket of judgment upon the divorced among us. Jesus was addressing a culture where men were totally in control of the divorce proceedings, and he was pointing his finger at those men who took advantage of a loophole in the religious law to serve their selfish pusuits. And there’s a larger principle here that we all are capable of violating – it’s probably not so hard for any of us to serve ourselves at the expense of someone else in a socially acceptable manner.

I’m not exactly sure what to say about this business of making oaths other than to say that Jesus saw something going on that was disturbing. I think he must have witnessed the way people sometimes used a flurry of words to obscure what they were actually saying. I’m thinking Jesus would have a lot to say about the way in which we try to manage our images regardless of how we behave or what we actually do. Jesus valued honesty over image. He considered it to be essential for there to be no room between what we say and what we do, and I’m not sure who has a perfect record in that regard.

So while it sounds like Jesus was taking a page from John the Baptist’s playbook when he spoke these words, I don’t think the message we are to take away is that we’re all doomed. I think Jesus would say that we are all doomed if our hope is built on our ability to live up to all the standards of the law, but I don’t think our relationship with God depends upon our ability to meet every expectation. I think Jesus spoke these words because he was wanting us to see ourselves more clearly than we are often inclined to do. And by recognizing our internal blemishes he wants us to become less judgemental of others and more open to the new life that can come to us when we let go of who we think we are.

I think Jesus actually wanted us to experience some despair when we heard these words. This isn’t anyone’s favorite passage of scripture because he wasn’t trying to make anyone feel good when he spoke these words. He was wanting us to let go of any illusion we may have about our religious righteousness in order for us to experience a more authentic relationship with God.

Now the truth is, we United Methodists aren’t so legalistic when it comes to many things. We actually greet one another in the liquor store, we own up to not knowing everything about human sexuality, and we don’t ostracize people for getting a divorce. In fact these are some of our best recruiting tools. I know a good number of United Methodists who were former members of other denominations until they got a divorce or came out of the closet. I’m glad we’re less judgemental about these things than are some other denominations, but this doesn’t really help me to be a less judgemental person. I can feel overly judgemental about those other denominations who are so legalistic. This issue of judgementalism is an insidious problem. Intolerance can take on many different forms.

We don’t experience religious shaming in the way that the first generation disciples would have known it to be practiced. Our culture wars are different from theirs, but there aren’t any of us who are unfamiliar with the feeling of being shamed. Some of us may have had parents who were experts in the field of shaming. Some of us may continue to hone our own expertise in that field. Of course you don’t have to be a parent or a religious authority in order to do some powerful shaming. Facebook and twitter have made it possible to shower some righteous indignation upon the heads of so-called friends, aquaintances and perfect strangers. Social media shaming has become a new art form for some people.

We don’t experience the same sort of legalism that those first generation disciples experienced, but I don’t think any of us are unfamiliar with either end of this problem. And Jesus was serious about our need to overcome this problem. In fact he was pretty graphic about it. He said that when we identify the perpetrator of this problem we should eliminate it, and he wasn’t talking about eliminating flawed individuals from our community. He was talking about eliminating the obstacles that exist within ourselves. If it’s your eye that offends you pluck it out. If it’s your hand – cut it off.

Clearly I think we’ve got some hyperbole going on here, but you may remember the story from a few years ago of the rock-climber who’s hand was trapped by a boulder when he and the boulder slipped down into a tight canyon, and he literally saved his life by cutting his hand off. His name is Aron Ralston and he wrote a book about the event entitled: Between a Rock and a Hard Place. The story has been made into a movie called “127 Hours”. I haven’t seen the movie or read the book, but I saw a special about him one evening so I’m almost an expert on the matter.

It’s an incredible story, and I was struck by the degree of clarity he experienced in regard to what he needed to do in order to live. It’s an epic story, and while it’s an extraordinary case of a person having to do an unfathomable thing, I think it points to the way in which our priorities become very clear when we recognize what’s keeping us stuck. We all get caught between a rock and a hard place every now and then, and that’s often where we are when we recognize what we need to do. The situation that unfortunate rock-climber found himself in is more gruesome than our usual painful place, but I think the common experience that we may all understand is that heightened sense of clarity that comes to us when we allow the illusions of ourselves to evaporate.

It’s sort of a terrible thing to realize we aren’t as capable, or righteous, or generous, or honest, or forgiving, or faithful that we would prefer to think of ourselves as being, but such moments of clarity can be powerfully humanizing. And it’s probably when we profoundly let ourselves down that we are most capable of seeing how God seeks to lift us up.

On one level, it seems like Jesus was being even more legalistic than the Pharisees when he equated anger with murder and lust with adultery, but what he was really doing was revealing the opportunity for transformation that comes to us when we let go of our illusions of righteousness.

Of course Jesus was concerned about all the ways in which we harm our relationships with one another and with God, but he wasn’t focused on the rules because he knew that the rules are much more complex than they are generally portrayed. Certainly it’s a bad thing to engage in murder or adultery, but it’s also hurtful to be angry or lustful. It’s also hurtful to be overly righteous. The good news is that it’s by coming to grips with such things that we open ourselves to richer relationships with ourselves, with other people, and with God.

The wording in this passage is harsh, and frankly it leaves me feeling like a damaged good because it brings focus to my inability to be as loving, faithful, honest, and kind as I understand God wills for me to be, but these words also keep me from being as judgemental toward other people as I am sometimes inclined to be. Jesus was exercising some judgement, but Jesus didn’t just want us to live our lives with false understanding of ourselves or of God. He didn’t just want us to be righteous, he w wanted us to experience the power of God’s resurrecting love. Such redeeming love would be more fully revealed after he was crucified, but I believe this transforming love is something that we can experience in small ways throughout our lives.

I don’t want to diminish the pain that we experience when we find ourselves in terrible places, but it’s only when we recognize where we are that we see what we need to do. We aren’t redeemed by our ability to be righteous. We are redeemed when we encounter the grace of God at those moments when our needs overshadow our capabilities. It’s not that God is waiting for us to grovel, but it’s hard for God to touch a heart that’s full of self-satisfaction.

The good news is that there’s nothing that disqualifies us from growing in our relationship with God, but what Jesus has to say isn’t all good news. It is possible for us to behave in ways that get in the way of our relationship with God and one another. In fact there is no end to the ways we can get in the way, but thanks be to God there’s always a way back. Our relationship with God is always a work in progress – as it is with everyone else. May God’s grace abound as we seek to find our way through the canyons of life and into the light of God’s eternal kingdom.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Salt and Light

Matthew 5:13-20

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

I love salt. I probably fall under the category of being a salt fiend. I don’t like low-sodium canned goods, and I think it would be easier for me to eliminate meat from my diet than salt. I love meat, but I love to put salt on it. I don’t know if I would like it very much if I couldn’t put salt on it. Now I’ve also got high blood pressure, which could be a big problem, but I’m so grateful that there’s this little pill that I take each morning that keeps my blood pressure under control in spite of my love for salt. There may be people who eat more salt than I do, but I would compare my love for salt with that of anyone else. So I find this morning’s imperative to be the salt of the earth a compelling message.

Of course there are a number of uses for salt, so there are a number of ways for us to interpret what it means to be the salt of the earth, but I like the idea of living as such a valuable substance. And one way for us to take this is to think of ourselves as those who bring out the goodness of others. In a sense, we are to enhance the flavor of other people.

When I was in campus ministry I witnessed a situation that I hope never to forget. One of the best things that went on at the UALR Wesley Foundation, was the way in which it functioned as a crossroad. I encouraged people to simply stop by and hang-out, and it became a place where new friendships were formed and sometimes former connections were reestablished. So I was visiting with a former student named Mickey one day who had dropped by for a visit when a current student named Charles wheeled in on his electric wheelchair.

I introduced them but it turned out they had previously encountered each other. Charles wasn’t aware of their connection, because it had occurred right after he had had the accident that put him in a wheelchair. He was at UAMS, and that period of time was largely a blurr for him. Mickey was working there as an orderly at the time, and what he witnessed made a powerful impression on him.

Mickey said he had never seen such a remarkable parade of people stop by to check on anyone. Mickey and Charles didn’t officially meet at the hospital, but after seeing all of the people who dropped by to check on Charles, Mickey said he made a vow to himself. He didn’t know who Charles was or what he was like, but he decided he wanted to live the kind of life that would be so well appreciated by other people. I think Mickey was already a pretty nice guy, but it gave him a new sense of focus and resolve to be a good friend and family member.

We don’t always know how we affect the lives of other people. We can be powerful influences on other people without even knowing it. And it can be the small things that we do that can have powerful impacts. As we all know, a little salt can go a long way. I’ve owned up to being a salt fiend, but I’m not really somebody who drowns my food in salt. I just like a little salt on everything. And I think that’s a good way for us to think of discipleship. We don’t always need to make large productions of our efforts to follow Christ. We just need to let Christ inform all that we do.

Just as a little salt can bring out the flavor of a great piece of meat, a little salt can turn some of the most bland foods in to really nice things to eat. You know, I love to smother a hot baked potato in butter and sour cream and cheese and peppers and olives and of course salt, but I also love to pick up a cold left-over baked potato and eat it with nothing but some salt on it. And I think there’s a lesson there about discipleship.

When Jesus tells us to be the salt of the earth I think he’s telling us we can help create opportunities for abundant life regardless of what’s going on in life. As surely as a little salt can turn a bland starch into a memorable late night treat, I believe a person of faith can provide great hope and comfort in the midst of any situation.

Many people know of the courageous and bold leadership that Dietrich Bonhoeffer provided during his work as a pastor in Nazi Germany. At great personal risk he provided guidance for people of faith who sought to resist the evil ways of Hitler’s government, but what’s not so well known is the simple pastoral care he provided during the last few months of his life. He was imprisoned during that time, and following the war the survivors who were with him in prison as well as some of his guards testified to the way in which Bonheoffer provided them with simple forms of comfort. He brought a form of life into a very deathly situation. He provided some salt for a tastless situation, and it made things better for everyone.

Of course, there are many different uses for salt.  Really salty water can gag you or make you sick, but it’s so good to gargle with when you have a sore throat.  Using salt for a medicinal purpose is not as appetizing as the seasoning image, but it does carry with it the idea of bringing relief and healing, and that is certainly an aspect of discipleship as well.  There are some obvious wounds and sore spots in this world that would benefit from the application of some disinfecting salt solution. There are a number of ways for us to be the salt of the earth, and we disciples need to engage in some strategic thinking about how we can enhance life and heal wounds.

There are many lessons that can be drawn from the salt proclamation, but maybe the most important thing for us to keep in mind is the way in which it’s value is derived from how it’s used. Salt has very little value in and of itself. We aren’t just called to be an inert substance that can kill about anything, but on it’s own can’t keep anything alive. As salt of the earth, our value is in how we relate to one another.

But Jesus didn’t just want us to think of ourselves as salt. He also called for us to think of ourselves as the light of the world.

Because we have have had the good fortune of encountering the grace and peace of Jesus Christ we have become equipped to be the bearers of that same grace and peace. Jesus hadn’t been around his disciples long before he told them they were the salt of the earth and light for the world. Hearing the words of Jesus and following his teaching is all that we need in order to become these essential elements.

Embracing the image of discipleship as light is a timely image right now because the world of lighting has undergone a revolution. A trip to the lighting aisle of any store reveals a whole new world of lighting options. You can still find relatives of Thomas Edison’s incandescent light bulbs, but those have largely been replaced by a newer generation of lighting devices. You probably don’t need me to recall the recent evolution of lighting in the USA, but think about how this has played out over the last few years.

Thomas Edison’s style of light bulb served us well for over a hundred years, but the truth is that such bulbs actually create more heat than light. When you see an incandescent light bulb you are witnessing a tungsten wire having enough electricity pass through it to make it glow, which means it has reached a temperature just over 4000 degrees, but it doesn’t burn up because it’s in a vacuum and there’s no oxygen to enable it to actually catch on fire. It was an ingenious invention, but it’s not the most efficient way to generate light, and fortunately we’ve become more sensitive to the value of energy efficiency.

Fluorescent bulbs have been around for a while, and they are much more efficient because they create light by passing electricity through a gas that glows under very specific circumstances. It took a while for scientists to figure out how to package that process in a bulb small enough to screw in to a conventional light fixture. These compact fluorescent lights or CFLs were an improvement, but they contain a trace of mercury vapor in each bulb – which is a toxic substance, so they didn’t prove to be an optimal solution to our lighting needs.

And that leads us to this new form of lighting that has largely replaced both incandescent and compact fluorescent light bulbs. Light Emitting Diodes or LEDs have found their way in to our world. I don’t really understand the science, but what I do understand is that they are even more efficient than CFL’s, they’re more resilient, they’re smaller, they don’t create much heat, there are no toxic disposal issues, and they can create some cool colors.

LEDs have revolutionized the lighting world, but there is a sense in which we’ve had some LED’s on hand for the last 2000 years. Jesus didn’t think to call his followers LEDs, but that’s what he wanted us to be – light emitting disciples. You may have been wondering when this science lesson was going to turn back in to a sermon, and this is that moment because I see a lot of similarity between theses two types of LEDs. You pass a little energy through a light emitting diode and you get some colorful light in an efficient and resilient manner, and I’m thinking the same can be said of a light emitting disciple.

You touch a light emitting disciple with some power from the Holy Spirit and the world becomes a more illumined place. We are called to be the bearers of God’s light, and that calls for us to be both the recipients and the transmitters of that form of grace that can be well described as light. And we need to be as wise as those people who are constantly researching the way to make a better light bulb. We need to think about how we can be more efficient in our transmission of God’s grace in to the world. How can we be more resilient and colorful and enduring in our work to share God’s love? It’s a beautiful thing that Jesus has invited us to be.

We’ve been challenged in two very different ways, and there are innumerable ways for us to live out these divine possibilities. Some of us are more salty than others. Some of us burn a little brighter than others. But we all have our opportunities to be the bearers of God’s gracious presence to people who are needing a taste of heaven and some light on their path.

God be with us as we seek to embody these powerful words of Christ.

Thanks be to God. Amen.