Thompson's Blog

The Art of Living

Matthew 5:1-12

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

I’m not exactly sure how to reconcile my affection for duck hunting with my trust in the wisdom of the Beattitudes, but I have unapologetic passion for both of these things. This isn’t the only contradiction I’m aware of in my life, but this one is particularly fresh, and I know I’m not alone in this regard. There are others here who love the words of Jesus as well as the opportunity to fire a 12-guage at a duck.

I know there isn’t a direct contradiction between the desire to acquire a limit of mallards and these words from Jesus, but you have to admit that there’s some discord between the aggressiveness of hunting and the serenity advocated by the Beatitudes. I mean it’s just not easy to explain how the explosiveness of a shotgun at daybreak fits with the admonition for peacemaking, but while this seems to be a blatant case of disturbing the peace, I’m sure this isn’t the worst way in which I neglect to bring peace into the world.

I’m not really troubled by my love for duck hunting. In fact I can testify that it can be a very humbling experience. While I am responsible for the recent death and injury of some beautiful birds, I had the very vivid experience of shooting three times at a large drake that was close enough to hit with a rock and not disturbing a feather. I don’t know if it was meekness that I experienced following that turn of events, but I assure you that left me with a profound sense of powerlessness. And on some level, I think these words of Jesus provide good news for people who are not operating from positions of authority, power and privilege.

It was a funny turn of events that I experienced the other day. I was in a really beautiful place. In fact, for a guy who loves to duck hunt I was in a bit of a paradise, but I stepped in to a place of deep misery – which then put me in touch with some spiritual truth. Failure to perform at a critical moment is not much fun, but there’s this interesting thing that can happen to us when we are not where we want to be. My duck hunting experience is pretty trivial, but it sort of sensitized me to the way in which our lives can be enriched by whatever comes our way.

These verses that we call the beatitudes point to the way in which there can be this odd reversal of spiritual fortune for us when we encounter the most difficult moments in life. And I’m thinking we’ve probably all encountered the remarkable way in which God’s grace is most available to us when we find ourselves in difficult places. Blessings don’t just come to us when we are at the top of our game. Some blessings are only available to us when we mourn, when we are poor in spirit, when we are hungry for righteousness, and when we are having to work for peace.

It’s interesting that the beatitudes are very much shaped like the teachings you will find in the Book of Proverbs. That’s a book Jesus would have been familiar with, but the wisdom Jesus shares is a bit different from what you generally find in Proverbs. The wisdom of Proverbs is more like good advice. They tend to provide instruction that will help you attain some success in life. Such as:

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

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

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

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

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

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

In some ways it’s hard for me to absorb what Jesus wants us to know. It almost seems that he instructing us to go out and find new ways to suffer and fail, but I don’t think that is the case. It’s some unusual wisdom that he’s sharing. Proverbs provide instruction on how to create the best opportunities for yourself, but the Beatitudes point to some good news that’s available to us when life doesn’t go so well.

The Beatitudes reveal that our relationship with God can flourish when our lives are not shaping up the way we might have hoped. And part of the wisdom that Jesus is imparting is the wisdom of being less connected to our own personal lives and more connected to the wellbeing of us all.

To embrace the Beatitudes is to value the most elemental aspects of life. These verses call for us to care more about living gently on the land and of seeking harmony with other people than for our own personal desires to be met. To harken back to my own experience earlier this week – I wasn’t very happy with my inability to shoot that drake that was right in my face, but I found myself being sort of happy for that bird that lived to fly another day.

These verses call for us to have a larger view than we are often inclined to have. Our primary concerns are often very self-oriented, and Jesus wanted us to live with a much larger sphere of interest.

And by having a much larger view of reality we can have access to hope when things don’t go so well at the moment. We all know that life is hard, but Jesus didn’t want us to have the attitude that life is hard and we should just get used to it. He wanted us to trust that there will come a time when we will experience a better world – a world that values mercy, humility, peace, and love. We may not all be alive to enjoy it, but if we can develop a sense of deep connection to others then we become connected to a community that extends beyond our own individual lives. Jesus wanted us to trust that better days will come and that we are to do what we can to help those days arrive.

As he said, blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Jesus wanted us to seek the world that we hope to see, and I believe God provides inner peace and wellbeing to those who do such holy work.  God wants us to trust that better days will come, and it will be a world where the meek and merciful will be at home.

These verses are very instructive to us on how we are to navigate this world and according to Jesus, compassion is to be our primary guide. We aren’t to be so caught up in ourselves that we don’t understand how connected we are to others, and that it is only through this effort to extend our connections that we will find happiness. It can be costly to exercise compassion, and this world doesn’t tend to reward compassion as much as it rewards self-promotion. Compassion can be viewed as weakness in a world that values aggressive strength, but Jesus didn’t want us to turn away from the costly enterprise of caring deeply for other people because he wanted us to experience the reward of true happiness.

Sometimes we get to enjoy the blessings of health and success and personal achievement. These are great things that are worthy of celebration, but Jesus didn’t want us to think that these are the things that can provide us with the most satisfaction. What Jesus taught is that we have access to a form of happiness that doesn’t depend on immediate rewards. Jesus wanted us to become so connected to the source of true life that we aren’t deterred by the turn of events of the day. Jesus wanted us to experience the kind of happiness that can come to us when the pronoun, we, becomes more important than I.

With these words we call the beatitudes, Jesus is inviting us all to engage in the art of living deeply happy lives. It’s not an easy art to learn, but to live a life guided by compassion for others and concern for the world is the most beautiful art we can ever produce.

Thanks be to God – Amen.

Catch and Release

Matthew 4:12-23

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

Most of us aren’t that familiar with Palestinian geography, so the reference to Jesus moving to the region around Capernaum doesn’t mean that much to most of us native Arkansans, but apparently it was not the area from which you would expect a Jewish messiah to come.  It was a multi-cultural region. Jews lived there alongside people of many other religions and traditions. Consequently, the Jews in that area were not highly respected by the Jews who lived in villages that were more purely Jewish.  Matthew refers to the imprisonment of John as one reason Jesus chose to move to that part of the country. It was a place where he could be more anonymous, but Matthew also found scriptural reasons to explain why Jesus would have chosen to live in an area that was outside of the region you might think of as the Hebrew Bible Belt.

Matthew used scripture to show that the messiah would come from that area, and it was his way of saying that Jesus had come for gentiles as well as the Jews.  Matthew wanted his Jewish readers to know that it was no accident that gentiles were brought into the fold.  It was God’s will for the messiah to launch his ministry from an area known more for it’s fishing than for it’s religious purity.

The fact that Jesus chose to live in a fishing village was an obstacle for some of the Jews. Many were expecting the messiah to emerge from the Temple, and they had some scripture to back up their expectations, but Matthew knew his scripture as well, and he provide some scripture to show that it was right for Jesus to begin his mission from an area that many believed to be spiritually corrupt.

But in addition to starting from a religiously questionable area, Jesus didn’t choose religiously trained personnel to join him on his mission. He didn’t select any religious authorities – he sought out some fishermen. Of course the fact that Jesus had an appreciation for fishermen is the thing that gives him the most credibility with some people, but that’s not the first move any of the religious experts would have predicted. It’s interesting the way Matthew portrays the authority of Jesus. He’s clear to show that it’s consistent with scripture, but the authority of Jesus wasn’t like anything anybody would have expected. Jesus was Jewish, but he was out of the box and off the chain.

Scribes and Pharisees didn’t get it, but fishermen dropped their nets and fell in behind him. No doubt, it wasn’t easy to be a fisherman in that part of the world. It would have been a job that required long hours, heavy lifting, endless repair-work, and meager pay, but it’s what you did if you were the son of a fisherman. I don’t think Simon and Andrew and James and John had settled on becoming fishermen after they dropped out of law-school or failed to get in to medical school. These men were expected to take up the nets that their fathers and grandfathers had been tending and repairing. It wasn’t the best job in the world, but before Jesus appeared it was probably the only job in their world-view.

But it’s probably not easy for us to put this fishing thing in it’s proper perspective. There are probably more people in our country who make pilgrimages to Bass Pro Shop than who attend worship on Easter morning. In this part of the world, fishing isn’t an occupation – for some it’s a reason for existence. We aren’t all infected with fishing fever, but we probably all know someone who is.

I’m not feverish about fishing, but I’ve come down with it every now and then. Sharla and I lived on the Little Red River for a couple of months during the summer prior to leaving for seminary in North Carolina. I caught a large trout on the first day that we were there, and I spent every available moment for the rest of that summer trying to catch another one.  I didn’t catch a tremendous amount of fish that summer, but I caught just enough to maintain my fishing affection.

So I’m not the kind of person who lives to fish, but I understand people who do. I understand how it can become an obsession. I don’t know how feverish the fishermen of Capernaum were inclined to be, but there’s something irresistible about hauling in large fish. It’s an overpowering experience. People who go after fish go after them with passion and ingenuity.  After living at Capernaum by the sea for a while, Jesus must have noticed this characteristic in the people who made their living fishing, and I think he saw that as a characteristic that would transfer well to the endeavor of Christian evangelism.

Jesus needed his disciples to be people who could give themselves to a pursuit with passion and ingenuity, and I think that’s why he first asked some fishermen to follow him.  And notice that he didn’t tell them that he wanted them to stop fishing and follow him, he told them that if they would follow him he would teach them how to catch people.

There are some significant differences between the fishing techniques that people used around Capernaum and the way that people fish around here, but I like to think that there’s no difference in the personality types of those who fished on the Sea of Galilee and those who go to the lakes and rivers around here. Jesus was looking for people who were wily, persistent, and undeterred, and that is often the case with people who like to fish. Of course people can get caught up in all kinds of pursuits, and I think it’s that capacity to get caught up in something that Jesus was looking for in his disciples.

But there are some clear parallels between fishing and Christian evangelism. In both cases you’ve got to understand what you have to work with and what it is you’re trying to do. Both of these endeavors require some strategic thinking and they both require an understanding of the mindset of others – whether those others are people or creatures. But probably the most essential characteristic of people who fish for fish or fish for people is persistence. Certainly not every outing gets results, but I think Jesus started with fishermen because they would have understood the value of hard work with little payoff. Even unsuccessful journeys onto the sea have benefits. Anytime you embark on an outing there is something valuable to be learned or experienced.

I may be making too much of the characteristics of fishermen. It may be that the most important characteristic we see displayed in this story is simple willingness. It was willingness that those first disciples showed when they were approached by Jesus.  They saw something in Jesus that motivated them to leave what they were doing and follow him.

Jesus was introducing people to something careful people didn’t talk about openly. The Kingdom of Heaven wasn’t the kingdom they knew to be the nearest. It was the empire of Rome that everyone knew to be in charge, and it was no small thing for Jesus to make mention of a more significant authority, so Jesus needed his disciples to be brave as well as willing. These first disciples wouldn’t have been unaware of the danger of this enterprise of discipleship, but they found Jesus’ call to be irresistible.

It’s not surprising that Jesus sought out people as resourceful as fishermen to join him in his mission to redeem the world, but he told them that they would be utilizing their fishing skills to catch people.

Now the thought of getting hooked isn’t a particularly appealing image, and I don’t think Jesus intended for his disciples to think of themselves as people who were to lure unsuspecting people in to hidden traps. The fishing for people metaphor breaks down at some point, but I think it’s fitting for disciples to engage in behavior that captures the attention of other people. It’s not a bad thing to lure people in to situations that would provide the opportunity for their lives to be transformed.

When I think of this fishing metaphor, I think we should engage in this practice of fishing known as “catch and release”. That’s when you catch the fish, but you don’t keep them – you let them go before they die. Certainly we followers of Christ aren’t to be in the business of roping people into irreversible confinement. We aren’t called to capture unwitting souls, but we are to function in such a way that we become captivating. And while we are to exhibit a way of living that is ethical and helpful, we aren’t called to dictate the way in which others are to define their lives. I believe that people find a radical form of freedom at the heart of Christian discipleship. Christians are guided by nothing but the love of Jesus Christ, and there’s nothing more liberating than the rule of love.

I believe our work as fishers of people is to utilize all of the resources we have to catch the attention of people who are hooked into bad situations, bad concepts of God, bad images of themselves, and bad ways of judging others and to point to the One who can redefine life.

The Kingdom of Heaven is still near, and we are invited to get caught up in it. Some people might not believe this, but there’s actually something better that having a giant bass on the line. The best thing that can happen to any of us is to get caught by the love of Jesus Christ and then to become released into the world as a new creature.

Jesus first found some fishermen to engage in this world-changing work, but he wasn’t just looking for some fishermen. He is looking for anyone who isn’t so caught up in their own business to be about his business, and that’s what makes us all available for that rich work of getting caught up in the Kingdom of God.

Thanks be to God!

Amen

Finding Jesus

John 1:29-42

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

Last week I mentioned the unusual pacing that Matthew employed in the beginning of his account of Jesus. He covers about 2000 years of Jesus’ genealogy in the first few verses of his gospel then slams on the brakes and talks about what went on during the months prior to Jesus’ birth in the next few verses. The gospel of John begins with an even more dramatic time shift. Within his first chapter he goes from talking about what was going on at the beginning of time to explaining what happened around 4pm one afternoon. It’s like going from looking at the moon with a naked eye to looking at it through a telescope with the power to focus in on a grain of moon dust.

I’m not exactly sure what to make of these powerful time shifts, but I suspect John was wanting us to see how God’s love and intention for the entire universe can actually become a very personal experience. By going from talking about what God was doing in the very beginning to what was going on at 4oclock one afternoon I believe John was pointing out that this same power that called the world in to being can provide light and life for us as individuals.

There’s some good information in this text, but Jesus doesn’t provide an extensive amount of instruction in this passage. He asks the men who began to follow him what they were looking for, and they answer by asking him where he was staying, and he answers them by telling them to come and see.

This is a pertinent conversation for us to have as well. Jesus asks: What are you looking for? And while the response of these potential followers seems a bit out of conversational order, their question is a good one for us to ask of Jesus as well: Where are you staying? To which he responds: Come and see.

This is good information and it provides some clarity about what we are up to and what we are up against. We aren’t unlike these first disciples. Jesus knows we are looking for something. In fact I believe he knows we are looking for him. We have the good fortune of being in this faith community that recognizes the value of following Jesus, but we don’t have that optimum experience of seeing him first hand in the flesh. We don’t have direct access to the charisma that somehow exuded from his being. I find myself somewhat envious of these men who saw him walking by and were compelled to follow him. Of course Jesus was pointed out to them by someone they already trusted, and maybe Jesus didn’t give them the immediate impression that they were looking for because you might say they had to be told twice before they left John and followed Jesus.

I’m inclined to think it would have been easier to be close to Jesus if I had seen him walking down the road and followed him to where he was staying, but as I’ve said before, I think Jesus always challenged people’s expectations. Who he is is not generally who we think he’s going to be, because what he offers surpasses what we think we need. I don’t guess it’s ever been easy for someone to find their way to Jesus, but it’s no less available to us than it was to those first generation followers. They had their obstacles and we have ours.

In some ways there’s an element of randomness to the way these disciples came to Jesus, and I’m thinking this is probably true for anyone who finds their way Christ. These first disciples happened to be out with John the Baptist when they saw Jesus walking by. Being with John the Baptist put them in a good place to encounter God’s saving grace, but they could have been in some other good place that day.

I don’t think anyone ever knows exactly where they need to be in order to discover God’s transforming power. Those opportunities seem to find us, and they often arise in unsuspecting ways. Of course we live in a part of the world where Christianity is the dominant faith, and we who grow up in the church are conditioned to be seekers of Christ, but I don’t believe people become passionate followers Jesus Christ because of familiarity with our faith tradition. It’s a good thing to grow up in a church and to be exposed to all the means of grace that are extended by the church, but familiarity with the church doesn’t always translate in to passion for Jesus. There are a good number of people who feel pushed to church on Sunday mornings by parents, spouses, or peer pressure, and we all know the love of Christ isn’t the only thing you can experience in church. There are a lot of people who consider themselves to be in recovery from what they experienced in church, but even bad church experiences don’t prevent people from encountering the true living Christ. Nor do model churches touch everyone in powerful ways.

I’m inclined to think that there’s always some form of miracle that occurs that leads us to that spot where we encounter Jesus Christ in a compelling way, and we almost always come to that place in a circuitous manner. Maybe it’s something the preacher or the Sunday School teacher says, but it might also be the voice of silent desperation that opens your eyes to presence of Christ in the room. It happens in such a variety of ways. Maybe we followed the advice of a friend or a respected elder. Maybe we fled from such advice and then ran in to Jesus in the words of a stranger at a bar. There’s no single path to the place where Jesus stays, but you can bet it’s more of a path than a freeway. I’m sure there were more than two people on the road that day who encountered Jesus and chose not to go see where he stayed.

There’s some mystery to the way in which God touches our lives and provides us with opportunities for spiritual transformation. It’s interesting for me to think about the path I’ve been on in my search to find where Jesus stays. I don’t want to portray myself as someone who has always taken the right fork on the path. I can be as dispassionate and lost as anyone, but I don’t stay dispassionate and lost. I don’t hold myself up as a model disciple, but I’m not always stuck in the ditch. I believe I have encountered the grace of Jesus Christ in my life, and in my heart of hearts I know I want to follow him. I believe he is the source of truth and abundant life and when I’m at my best I know that’s what I want. I also know that I’m the beneficiary of good people who have pointed me in the right direction.

Most of you know I grew up in the Wynne First United Methodist Church, and I was well nurtured by that church. I was given a good impression of God by that church, but I wasn’t an easy customer when I got to be college age. I grew to be pretty critical of the institution, but I wasn’t hostile, so I went up to the church one summer day when the pastor invited a few of us to his office between our freshman and sophomore years of college. The pastor wanted to know what we were all doing and said I was about to transfer from Hendrix to Fayetteville. He told me I should drop by the Wesley Foundation, which was the United Methodist campus ministry because he thought I would like the director, Lewis Chesser. His advice was confirmed by the church Education Director, Emily Cockrill – who some of you may have known in the past, and so when I got to Fayetteville I looked him up.

It turns out that the Wesley Foundation became my home away from home. It wasn’t a very churchy place, and I was very stimulated by the conversations that went on around there. Lewis had a Sunday morning worship service, and that became my favorite event of the week. Lewis would preach a sermon, but he invited feedback from the small group that gathered each Sunday. That turned out to be a form of reintroduction to Jesus that really spoke to me.

I spent the next two and a half years hanging around the Wesley Foundation. It was my primary community, but it got disrupted when I went home for Thanksgiving during what should have been my senior year and I got invited to go live and work in Vail, CO for a winter. I wasn’t exactly focused on what I wanted to do professionally, so that kind of break made good sense to me. Against my parents advice I took off for Vail in January of 1980, and I spent that winter and spring in the Rocky Mountains. I got a job working in a Chinese food restaurant called the Hong Kong Café that was at the base of the main mountain. It was a great job. I learned the whole system. I prepped a few days a week cutting vegetables and meat and making egg rolls and won-tons, and I worked cooking and washing dishes a few evenings a week. Sometimes I did double shifts. I genuinely loved working at that restaurant. I also enjoyed the skiing atmosphere.

I was having a lovely time, but I clearly remember thinking it was time to go when the mountaintop Easter sunrise service got cancelled because of a blizzard. I hadn’t been to church while I was out there, and that was probably the longest stretch of time that I had ever been away from church. I was looking forward to going to that service, and there was just something in my Arkansas soul that felt violated by a blizzard on Easter. I think that was the day I knew I would be moving back to Arkansas when the ski-season ended.

The owner of the restaurant invited me to move to San Diego, where he intended to open a similar restaurant. I think he valued my work ethic and cooking interest, but his offer wasn’t very compelling. It might have provided an interesting career path, but there were some people that I missed. And I missed my church.

I went back to Fayetteville that next fall with clear resolve to graduate. In addition to that, two other significant things happened over the course of that next year. I decided I needed to convince Sharla to marry me, and I decided that I would seek admission to the Divinity School at Duke. Neither one of those things were easy, but I was really clear about it. I remember thinking that I wouldn’t give up on either endeavor unless I got a letter from a lawyer threatening legal consequences to my continued pursuit.

I’m still trying to figure out how to be a good husband and a faithful follower of Jesus Christ, but I’m pretty convinced that my time in Vail helped me understand more about who I was, who I wanted to be with, and what I wanted to do. You can’t really predict how a path that seems to be going in one direction will deliver you to a destination in a far different place, but that’s part of the mystery of life. And I also believe that the Holy Spirit is always providing us an avenue to the source of true life. It’s often a very circuitous path, and it’s always an ongoing journey, but I believe we do have periods of clarity about who we are and what we need to do.

It’s not easy to define what it means to find Jesus. Finding Jesus isn’t like discovering a motivational speaker who can provide all the answers to life’s perpetual quandaries. But I believe if we are paying attention and seeking the truth we will get some good instruction in one way or another. Some of those messages and instructions will come from some of the most unlikely people. The preacher who told me to go meet Lewis Chesser was one of the least gifted preachers I’ve ever witnessed, but he gave me some transformational advice. I will always be grateful for the impact he had on my life. God doesn’t just work in mysterious ways, God works in unlikely ways!

Finding Jesus isn’t like finding a magic potion that you can keep in the medicine cabinet until you need to make a problem disappear. But I do believe Jesus can provide the deepest form of comfort when we encounter deep wounds. In fact it’s not unusual to discover something new about Jesus when we are facing our most challenging circumstances.

It would be nice if we could figure out exactly where Jesus stays and never leave his side, but that doesn’t seem to be the way it works. I don’t believe we are ever apart from the love and concern of God, but it’s hard to hear the clear voice of Jesus telling us what to do at every turn. But the living Christ is in our midst, and it’s a worthy undertaking to continually seek to discover where he’s staying.

Jesus is alive, and we can find him. He doesn’t just show up at church, but I believe it helps to join with others who are seeking him. In fact I believe we can help others find their way to Jesus. Others have certainly helped me, and as surely as you have been helped I would encourage you to help others. Maybe you know someone who needs an invitation to come to church. Nobody likes to get hounded about anything, but I don’t think anyone has ever been offended by a simple invitation to come to worship. This is a good place to come if you’re looking for Jesus.

I can testify that God can speak through anyone – even you and I!

Thanks be to God!

Amen.

The Backstory

Matthew 3:13-17

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

It’s interesting to think about the way Matthew begins his account of Jesus. He wants us to know where Jesus came from, so he begins the story by tracing his genealogy back to Abraham. Those begats don’t make for particularly compelling reading, but it’s an amazing thing to cover 42 generations of Jesus’ heritage in 15 verses. In the second half of the first chapter, Matthew describes the particular events that led up to Jesus’ birth, and then he takes an entire chapter to document the first couple of years of Jesus’ life. During those first two years Joseph was moving the family around quite a bit to escape the evil intentions of Herod and his son Archelaus. We get a good amount of information about that, and at the end of Chapter 2, Jesus was about the age of a toddler and they were living in the region of Galilee.

It’s an interesting pace of storytelling. In the first half of the first chapter, Matthew covers about two thousand years leading up to the introduction of Mary and Joseph, and the second half of the chapter takes us through the months leading up to Jesus’ birth. He documents the first two years of Jesus’ life in the second chapter, and then there’s about a 30-year gap between the end of Chapter 2 and the beginning of Chapter 3.

I don’t know exactly what to make of this, but one thing Matthew seems to be doing is pointing to a lot of history without getting bogged down in the details. This probably isn’t the way I would have done it. I have a hard time not sharing the background details of why I need to go to Walmart. But Matthew didn’t have that kind of trouble. He didn’t get caught up in the details of what led to the birth of Jesus, but he did point out that a lot had gone on prior to his birth. He didn’t tell the backstory, but he let us know that there is a backstory – a really long and significant backstory.

Matthew does share some significant details about the time of Jesus’ birth. He wanted us to know that Jesus was born in to a world that was full of political strife. I think that’s why he told us the business about Herod and Archelaus, but that’s all we know until Matthew begins telling us about John the Baptist at the beginning of Chapter 3. And that’s when we learn about the religious strife that was going on at the time. There was this tension that existed between the way the executives of the Jewish faith were managing God’s affairs and the way John the Baptist understood the need for faith to be more urgently exercised. We don’t know what prompted Jesus to show up at the Jordan River to be baptized by John, but from the way that John reacted to Jesus we know that there’s a story. We don’t know what that story is, but it serves as an invitation for us to imagine what may have gone on with Jesus over the course of those years.

Last week I mentioned the way my revered professor, Dr. Herzog, interpreted the nature of sin, which was the abuse of power. But the other most memorable thing about Dr. Herzog was the way he described the nature of Jesus Christ.

Jesus is understood in a lot of different ways. Many books have been written in hope of defining who Jesus was. There’s this ongoing effort to define the proper relationship between his divinity and his humanity. I haven’t read enough of those books to elaborate on the various ways in which Jesus is defined, but Dr. Herzog had a line that was very meaningful to me about Jesus. Dr. Herzog said: Jesus was the man nobody knew.

This is not to say that we can’t know anything about Jesus, but it is to say that Jesus has the capacity to surprise all of us, because on some level Jesus isn’t who we think he is. If you think about it, I don’t think there’s a story in any of the gospels where Jesus reacted to someone in a predictable manner – especially when someone thought they knew what they were going to get from Jesus.

This is the very case with Jesus showing up to be baptized by John. John thought he should be the one getting baptized by Jesus, but Jesus insisted that John baptize him, and that turned out to be what needed to happen. The Holy Spirit came down like a dove and confirmed the righteousness of the moment.

Matthew begins his gospel with some clear information about Jesus’ heritage, but he also includes this 30 year gap in the early life of Jesus. We don’t know what went on during those years, and I think this confirms the fact that we don’t exactly know who Jesus was.

We know a lot about the backstory of Jesus Christ. In fact every one of those begats that Matthew mentions is a whole series of stories that somehow reveal God’s way of thinking and God’s intention for our world, but there’s a limit to what we can know about the backstory to Jesus.

As I mentioned to the kids this morning, I recently went to see the movie: Rogue One. I like the Star Wars saga, and I think I’ve seen all of the films that have come out over the years, but I’m not really familiar with the way in which one episode fits in to the whole picture. By the end of any given movie I sort of understand how it fits in the grand scheme of things, but I’m usually the last person in the theater to get it, and I quickly forget it. Of course the movies make a lot more sense if you know going in what’s going on, so I don’t fully appreciate how clever the writing and the scenarios really are, but I can testify that you can be pretty entertained by the movies without keen awareness of the backstory.

It’s good to know the backstory, but it can get in your way as well. I’m not saying that a true Star Wars fan can’t enjoy a new episode as much as I can, but I’m probably not as critical of the films as an avid fan. I don’t have as many expectations, and expectations can get in the way.

What you already know can overshadow what you can learn. And I think this is particularly true about Jesus. It’s good to study Jesus, and it’s really helpful to know the history of Israel and what was going on when Jesus came along. We can never learn too much about who Jesus was and where came from so to speak, but we can never allow what we know about Jesus to fully define who he is and what he can do for us.

There is this problem of creating Jesus in our own image and of using Jesus to justify what we already believe and what we want him to do for us. You might say this was the main problem Jesus faced as he went about in Israel. Jesus didn’t meet the expectations that many people had for the savior of Israel, and this was so problematic for some people they were motivated to kill him. They were too attached to what they believed to be able to see what was true.

It’s good to know the old stories of our faith community, but we can never allow what we think we know to define what we are sure we need. Jesus knows what we need and it’s rarely what we think we want. Jesus is not necessarily who we think he is. I’m not saying that we don’t think highly enough of him. In fact some people think too highly of him. They think so highly of him they can’t relate to him.

It’s my understanding that the Catholic tradition of praying to Mary developed because people thought Jesus was too holy to hear their lowly prayers – they could relate to Mary easier than they could to Jesus. I’m not saying that Mary wasn’t a fine and compassionate person, but Jesus didn’t want to be seen as someone too important to be bothered by our petty needs. The elevation of Jesus as a distant deity is a distortion of who he is. Jesus Christ is in our midst, but his presence is illusive and particularly hard to find when we aren’t open to who he is and where we might find him.

It’s not that Jesus doesn’t want to be known. I believe the living Christ wants us to seek him and to follow him. Jesus has something to offer each of us, but we won’t know what that is until we make the effort to get near to him.

As surely as we are all dealing with our own set of challenges and obstacles, we are all in need of a different encounter with Christ. Some of us probably need to get near enough to him to hear him tell us to get off the sofa and go do something. Some of us probably just need to see that he’s sitting on the sofa with us and trying to provide us with the assurance that things are going to be ok.

I believe Jesus showed up to be baptized by John because he fully understood what it means to be a human being. I don’t believe Jesus was just like us because unlike us, I believe he was a human being with a perfect understanding of God. But I don’t believe he was so perfect that he couldn’t understand how flawed we can be. Jesus was the embodiment of the perfect love of God, and it’s that perfect love that enables Jesus to embrace our imperfect selves. I believe Jesus chose to be baptized because he wanted us to know that he is with us in every way. He is immersed in this world and he will be with us to the very end. The power of Baptism is a mysterious thing, but on some level it symbolizes the way in which the grace of God can have power over our lives.

The grace of God isn’t the only thing that shapes our lives. There are many different forces that have had impacts upon us – some of which we understand and some of which we don’t. We’ve all got our own backstories, and Jesus understands those stories better than we understand them ourselves. It’s often the pain of those experiences that moves us to seek closer encounters with Christ, and by the grace of God we can grow in our relationship with our living lord. We may not fully understand what we need from Christ, but I believe Christ knows how to touch us in the ways that we need.

The good news is that we don’t just have a backstory. There’s an ongoing story that we are each a part of, and our challenge is to allow the living Christ to be the director of that story. God only knows what that story may become, and that’s what makes this so exciting. We are invited to become incorporated in to the most epic saga of all time.

Thanks be to God for this opportunity to become evermore integrated in to this ongoing story of the way in which God is redeeming this world through the grace of Jesus Christ – the one who meets us where we are and guides us to where we need to be.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Heavenly Navigation

Matthew 2:13-23

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

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

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

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

It’s a beautiful thing the way God chose to be born among us, but today’s scripture serves to remind us of how ugly things can get in this world – even when God is on the scene.

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

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

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

Herod is the perfect illustration of this truth. When he realized the wise men were wise to his plan to destroy the newborn King he didn’t mess around. He sent soldiers to kill all of his potential rivals. There was nothing subtle or self-deceptive about King Herod. He had power and he knew how to use it. I guess there are some people in this world who operate in such clearly self-serving ways, but it’s rarely so blatant. Most power loving people have some self-deception about their misuse of power. Many times people confuse their own desires with holy causes. This would certainly be the case with the religious leaders who rejected Jesus, but I don’t think it’s unusual for any of us to get those things confused.

I think our own John Wesley had some confusion about that early in his ministry. As a young man he made a trip to what was then the American colonies. He was intent on being an evangelist to native Americans, but when he got to Savannah, GA he spent the bulk of his time trying to navigate the chaotic dynamics of pioneer life. Things weren’t as structured in Savannah as they were in Oxford, and he wasn’t really able to establish any kind of outreach ministry to the natives. He primarily functioned as a parish priest, and he established a bit of a romantic relationship with a young woman named Sophie Hopkey, but he was very conflicted about marriage.

Upon the advice of a friend Wesley cut off relations with her, but he didn’t engage in any actual communication about this to her. Nor did he let go of his romantic interest. In the meantime she got tired of waiting for him and she proceeded to marry someone else. This made Wesley mad and he responded by refusing to serve her the sacrament of Holy Communion when she and her new husband showed up for worship.

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

It’s sort of a sad story, but Wesley responded to the unfortunate situation in a productive way. He engaged in some serious self-examination, and that put him in touch with some people who were able to minister to him in an effective way. All of this ultimately led to his rebirth as a man who felt forgiven by God and motivated to share this grace filled experience with others.

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

The professor I most revered in seminary, the late Dr. Fred Herzog, was not someone I perfectly understood. He was a very thorough scholar and I was mediocre student, but I loved what I did understand him to say. And one of the main things he believed was that it’s easy for our understanding of Jesus to be colored by where we stand. People who are powerless have a different perspective on Jesus than people who are in positions of power and authority. He was very sensitive to the way in which our interests are shifted by access to power, and he believed that people who are in the most vulnerable situations often have the clearest understanding of the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

I loved the way Dr. Herzog interpreted the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He thought the story of them eating of the forbidden fruit was not just a portrayal of disobedience – he believed it revealed the most elemental nature of sin. Dr. Herzog believed that the root problem of sin is usurpation. I had to look that word up, but what usurpation means is to take hold of something that doesn’t belong to you. If you are coveting, stealing, killing, or forming any other plans to acquire anything else that isn’t yours to have you are engaged in some usurpation – you are abusing power to get something that isn’t yours to have.

I had to go to seminary to learn that word, but nobody had to teach me how to do it. Usurpation is something we all understand whether we know it or not. We all know what it feels like to seize something that doesn’t belong to us. Most of us are probably pretty petty usurpers, but, it’s the root cause of the worst forms of God-less behavior. And I think it’s a pretty good way of describing how sin plays out in our world. I think if you examine any particular act we would identify as sin you will find it to be an inappropriate use of power. This is true on an individual level, it’s true for large scale conflicts and controversies, and it was certainly the case when Herod sought to eliminate the child that God had provided for the world.

We’ve got these inclinations to take hold of things that aren’t ours to have, but we aren’t alone in our efforts to resist those God-offending behaviors. What we see in this morning’s text is the way in which Joseph was warned in a dream to take measures to avoid the evil designs of Herod. God may continue to send messages in dreams, but that’s not the primary way God provides us with instruction. I believe there are a couple of ways God moves us to live in harmony with true life.

One thing I believe is that it’s really helpful to stay in close contact with other people who are seeking to live in relationship with God. I believe God speaks to us through the wisdom of other people. It’s important to be in touch with people who love God and who want to abide with God. People like that can help us find our own way. They can see things about us that we can’t see for ourselves. I believe this is why the church is so important. Yes, it’s good to come to worship and hear what the preacher has to say, but the best thing that happens when you get involved in a church is that you become connected with a number of other people who can help you navigate the trials of life. You are much less likely to do spiritually ignorant things when you are friends with spiritually sensitive people.

I also believe that God provides us with some direct knowledge of the truth if we will make ourselves available to hear God’s subtle instructions. Like I say, it’s not my experience that God comes to me in a dream and tells me to pick up and move or anything else. If God is speaking to me in my dreams God needs to be a little less random with the imagery. I believe God wants us to know the truth, and we are best able to hear God’s truth when we learn to clear out all of the noise we get from far less noble agendas.

I don’t know where those noisy self-serving messages come from, but it seems to me that they are much easier to hear than that voice of truth that comes to us when we learn to silence the noise. We aren’t on our own in the process of learning to live in union with God, but it’s not the easiest thing to do.

Living in relationship with God isn’t an easy undertaking, but it’s the only way to find true peace in life. There are many things that seem like they might provide us with what we need, but there’s only one thing that provides true peace, and that is to allow God to be the navigator of our life. It’s not easy to allow that to happen, but it helps to be around other people who are trying to live in relationship with God, and it helps to carve out some quiet time with God. God wants to be in touch with us. It can happen, and it will happen if we will be diligent in our desire to live in union with God.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Plan B

Matthew 1:18-25

18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 23 “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.” 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

As most of you know, Sharla and I have a house in Little Rock. It’s a place we’ve had for more than 20 years now, and it’s been under construction for the last 18 years. We knew we needed more room when we bought it, but it took me about 2 years to figure out that I was the only carpenter I could afford to hire. Once I had that experience of laying floor joists and then standing on a floor that I had built, construction became a bit of an addiction. It’s hard for me to finish things before I begin new things, but Sharla has sort of operated as the construction manager, so I don’t move on to new projects without her understanding and approval. This compulsion I have to add on our house has worked pretty well for us. I get to buy tools and cut holes in our walls, and occasionally we have new rooms to occupy.

I currently have a couple of unfinished projects, and it’s not unusual to find me on a Friday or a Saturday doing something that I may or may not fully understand. If you’re ever in Little Rock on a Friday or Saturday you should call and see if I’m engaged in some kind of project. I don’t want to brag on myself, but it’s sort of amazing what you can do if you spend enough time doing it. And I think that’s one of the things that I’ve learned from my work as an amateur carpenter, plumber, electrician, and mason. You don’t really have to know everything about what you’re doing to get started on something, and once you get going it usually becomes really clear what you should have done.

So one of the things I learned early on was the value of using good screws for construction. It takes a little longer to put things together with screws, but it’s so much easier to take things apart when they’re held together with screws. A nail-gun can fasten boards together instantly, but it takes forever to undo things that are held together with nails, and you tear it all up in the process. It’s so much easier to unscrew a doorway that isn’t quite right than to pull boards apart that aren’t in the right place. And high quality screws are so much better than cheap screws. The heads don’t strip out easily.

Some people may know how to do things right the first time. What I know is how likely it is I’m going to have to do something over and how valuable it is to be open and equipped to back up and start over. I would have been miserable at actually working in the construction business. Give me enough time and I can do good work, but I’ve discovered that I generally have no idea how long it will take me to get something done.

My capacity to back up and do something over isn’t a particularly efficient way to operate, but I don’t think it’s an unusual way to get things done. In fact that’s the very thing I see Joseph doing in this morning’s passage of scripture. Joseph had a plan, and it was a reasonable plan. When he found out that his fiancé was going to have a child that he had not participated in conceiving, he decided he would break off their marriage in a manner that would bring the least unfortunate attention to Mary. Joseph was doing the most honorable thing he knew to do, but it turns out that there was a more faithful thing to be done. Plan A was very reasonable, but Plan B was the one that was going to change the world, and Joseph had the good sense to make the shift.

I consider this story of Joseph having a plan and then replacing his plan with a new plan to be very endearing. Joseph is the kind of person I understand. I haven’t had the kind of dream that he had, but I know what it feels like to change my course of action. I think that’s probably a universal experience. I’m reminded of that old saying, If you want to make God laugh, make a plan. It’s not unusual for any of us to find ourselves in need of a new direction, and while new plans can be unsettling or disturbing, they can also be divine.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a big fan of Richard Rohr, a Franciscan monk, who does a lot of writing and lecturing about what it means to be a Christian in today’s world. He believes that our challenge as Christians is to recognize that we are sons and daughters of heaven and earth. And it’s not easy to hold those two identities together. Such dual residency can create dilemmas for us. It’s not easy to take care of our business on earth in a way that honors our allegiance to heaven, but that’s what we are called to do.

And often it’s when we get too focused on the business of earth that we come to see how we’ve neglected our business in heaven. I’m not saying that Joseph was unconscious of what God was doing when he decided to break off his engagement with Mary, he was actually trying to be sensitive to her situation and true to his understanding of his faith tradition when he made the decision to break off the marriage, but this business of heaven can be very unpredictable. It’s easy to do the wrong thing before we do the right thing, but that’s not so bad. The bad thing is not to be open to those promptings we get from the Holy Spirit to go in new directions.

It’s so much easier to live as a child of the earth than a child of heaven. I had a conversation with a friend the other night that I don’t speak with often. He’s got a good sense of humor and at one point he asked me how the Lord’s work was going. I told him I thought it was going ok, but that God doesn’t come out and say much to me. I told him I thought I would probably hear something if I was terribly off track, and so I interpreted the silence to be a good thing.

I wish I could tell you I got clear messages from God, but I don’t get them any more than the rest of you. I’ve known a few people who claimed to get messages from God, but I never believed the voices they were hearing were actually from God. I’m not saying that it doesn’t happen, but I don’t believe it regularly happens in such obvious ways. I believe our communication with heaven is generally very subtle, but I believe it happens.

We’re told that the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, which in itself is a pretty subtle manner. There were no corroborating witnesses to his dream, so he could have chosen to remain with his reasonable plan, but he chose to believe that what he heard in his dream was real and from God.  I don’t generally have dreams that change the course of my life, but I do know the feeling of being prompted to do something.

I have a preacher friend who I don’t see often, but he’s someone I try to stay in touch with. He doesn’t live far from Jonesboro, so I sent him a text one day last week to see if he wanted to meet for coffee the next day when I was going to be in Jonesboro. We met and it turned out that he really needed someone to talk to about a few things. He told me that God had lead me to get in touch with him. I didn’t really know that’s what had happened, but I’m inclined to believe that he was right. That seems to be the way in which God operates. We don’t get loud messages from God, but we have these people or situations that appear on those little screens we have in our hearts, and we need to respond to those subtle promptings if we want to be children of heaven as well as of the earth.

I saw another preacher friend last week who has a different problem. I believe he needs to listen to his body telling him he needs to be a little less responsive to those situations and individuals that well up in his heart. He’s helped create an outreach program within his community that has become incredibly effective. They distribute food, they provide hot meals for people, and they even provide housing for a few individuals and families. It’s an amazing program, and he has been the primary organizer and facilitator of the outreach center, but it’s worn him out. He’s really tired, and he rarely is able to have any down time.

The work he’s doing is great, but I don’t believe our allegiance to heaven should cause our earthly lives to become unbearable. Of course as soon as I say this I’m reminded of how Jesus’ faithfulness to God caused him to die on a cross. I do know that it’s generally very demanding on our earthly lives to abide in the kingdom of God, but I don’t believe God calls us to engage in the kind of work that makes our earthly lives unbearable. We aren’t just children of heaven. We are also children of earth, and it’s important for us to be present for our friends and families and to engage in work that’s both beneficial and sustainable. We need to be attentive to the word of God in our lives but we also need to hear what our bodies are telling us.

So there’s this balance we are all challenged to strike in order to fully live as children of heaven and of earth. I don’t think it’s unusual for us to let our lives get out of balance and for us to see the need to embrace Plan B. I say Plan B, but there are probably Plans C, D, E, and so on. In order for us to fully live as residents of heaven and earth, we are always in need of some adjustment.

This wasn’t the last dream Joseph had in regard to his role as the father of Jesus. He would soon be warned in a dream that he needed to pack up and get away from the threat of bodily harm to this child that God had provided for him, and Mary, and the world. This baby would grow up to be the perfect embodiment of a resident of heaven and earth, and he would empower us to live similarly balanced lives.

There’s an awesome responsibility that comes with accepting Jesus as our Lord and savior. It means that we can’t just listen for the demands of the marketplace to provide us with the information we need to shape our lives. We’ve also got to live with sensitivity to the voice of the Holy Spirit that provides us with the information we need to make those adjustments that will enable us to abide in the Kingdom of God as we go about on earth.

You might say we are to construct our lives with screws instead of nails. Nails are quick – especially when you use a nail gun, but it’s not unusual for us to make significant adjustments to the way our lives are shaped. I’m not saying there aren’t situations we need to nail down for good and as quickly as possible. Certainly there are some behaviors and undertakings that we need to steer clear of, but God has not called us to be rigid statues set in concrete. We are to live our lives in perpetual response to those subtle but powerful promptings of God’s Holy Spirit. And in so doing we are able to establish full residency in heaven and earth.

This possibility of fully living on earth and in heaven was perfectly revealed in this child that was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born to Mary and Joseph. It’s a gift to abide in the kingdom of God. May we be perpetually open to the new ways the living Christ appears to us.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

What Do You Want For Christmas?

Matthew 11:1-11

2 When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples 3 and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” 4 Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. 6 And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” 7 As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? 8 What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. 9 What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10 This is the one about whom it is written, ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ 11 Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

I’m not exactly sure how this tradition of Christmas gift giving came in to being. I’m sure a google search would provide me with some insight, but I don’t want the facts to get in the way of what I’m inclined to think. And what I like to think is that this gift-giving tradition has grown out of our sense of having been given a great gift in the life of Jesus Christ. I know there’s some disconnect between the material indulgence we engage in during this time of the year and the birth of Jesus in a stable, but this is what we’ve got and I’m not upset about it.

Maybe I should be, but I’m not. I know there’s some crass commercialism that goes on in the name of Jesus Christ, but I also know that this time of the year inspires extra giving and extravagant acts of outreach to those who are in need. There’s some contradiction in the way we celebrate the birth of Jesus, but I choose to believe the goodness of the way we behave this time of the year outweighs the badness. I know it’s foolish to think we can go out and buy some happiness for ourselves or others, but it is possible to purchase a little pleasure, and I can’t believe God is offended by our desire to have some fun.

Clearly, John the Baptist wasn’t having a good time when he sent his disciples to make this inquiry of Jesus, and the fact that he had become a prisoner is an indication that this world often goes off the tracks in a bad way. John the Baptist seems to have become distressed over what was going on, and it caused him to wonder if Jesus actually was the one who had come to redeem Israel. It’s hard not to associate good times with blessings from God and distressing situations with some kind of abandonment from God, and I think John the Baptist was maybe feeling like he had been mistaken about the identity of Jesus. Back in Chapter 3 he expressed certainty about who Jesus was, but here in Chapter 11 he’s not so sure. Things hadn’t gone the way he expected, and it was distressing to him.

We don’t know how John received the answer to his question. We don’t hear from John again in the Gospel of Matthew. He was executed soon after this by Herod. Certainly things can go perfectly wrong in this world. Those who serve God in the most faithful ways can be treated in the most horrific ways, but this isn’t God’s will. God’s desire is for people to be touched in healing and restoring ways, and that’s what Jesus revealed. When John’s disciples asked him if he was the messiah he responded by saying that the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. Jesus identified who he was by saying what he was able to do, and what he revealed was the way in which God worked through him to touch the most vulnerable people in the most redeeming ways.

Jesus reveals to us what the work of God looks like, but such work isn’t always so clear. If it had been clear to John the Baptist he wouldn’t have had to ask if Jesus was truly the one, and this is saying something because Jesus considered John the Baptist to be one of the most holy men to ever live. John the Baptist loved God and lived to serve God, but even he couldn’t quite tell if Jesus was the chosen One of God to redeem the world.

So often, what we are looking for doesn’t match up with what we get, and it’s critical for us to know how to be open to the new thing that can happen instead of the thing we were hoping to find. I was reminded of this as I listened to an interview on the radio with Mary Tyler Moore. I heard the interview on Friday, but it was recorded in 1995, and it was replayed because of the recent death of her husband, Grant Tinker, who was the producer of the Mary Tyler Moore Show.

I enjoyed the interview because I am old enough to have watched the show regularly – which ran between 1970-1977. One of the best characters in that show was Ted Baxter. Ted’s character was a news anchor on a local television station, and he is best described as a silver-haired self-important imbecile. Mary Tyler Moore played one of the producers of the news program, and she regularly had to deal with the situations that were created by Ted’s unfortunate combination of pomposity with idiocy.

Mary Tyler Moore said the writers of the show were looking for a younger man to play the part of the self-important news anchor. They were looking for someone who might serve as a love interest of hers, but they were instantly taken with the way Ted Night portrayed that character. He wasn’t what they were looking for, but they were taken with what he brought to that part and they adjusted. The show might have been successful if they had found the character they wanted, but in my opinion, Ted Baxter, made that show work. A self-important imbecile can create a lot of great situations.

This isn’t a show that changed the world, but it provided some good entertainment, and as I’ve already indicated, I don’t consider a little pleasure to be a bad thing. I consider entertainment to be a gift, and I don’t think God is put-off by our inclination to share gifts with one another.

There is, however, a problem that can occur. There is a problem when we have unreasonable expectations about what we are to receive. When our son was young he used to create these elaborate and extensive Christmas lists. Santa didn’t say Ho Ho Ho when he saw his list – Santa would laugh out loud! But Lucas didn’t expect Santa to deliver everything. His theory was to list every possibility in hope of getting some portion of what he wanted.

I operated by a different theory when I was a kid. I never really made a list for Santa Claus. It’s not that I didn’t want anything, but I was always hoping for something to show up that exceeded my expectations. We all have our strategies for getting what we want, and hopefully we all find ways of accepting what we get – for Christmas, and in life.

I don’t think Jesus met anyone’s expectation for what the savior of the world would look like. John wouldn’t have sent his disciples out to ask about him if Jesus had turned out to be who he expected. John didn’t reject Jesus, but he didn’t quite get him. I’m guessing he was expecting a little more retribution, but what Jesus was delivering was this message of relief to those who were the most victimized by the powers of this world. John the Baptist was driven by authentic love for God, but passion for God doesn’t always translate in to understanding of God.

Jesus considered John the Baptist to have been the greatest of all the prophets of Israel, but Jesus didn’t think he had the greatest understanding of the kingdom of God. And that’s what Jesus wanted us to seek. John was well motivated, but he didn’t quite grasp the unbounded nature of God’s love.

Of course, Jesus certainly didn’t meet the expectations of the religious executives of the day. They didn’t get John the Baptist either. They weren’t well motivated or well informed. They could only see what would be best for their own enterprise. To give them some degree of credit, they were convinced that they were already doing the work of God. They weren’t open to anything new, but they probably weren’t consciously opposed to the movement of God. They were just blind to the truth by their own sense of self satisfaction.

So we see in the Bible this range of people who set themselves up with the wrong expectations of the incarnation of God. It’s easy to want to be more like John who was executed for his beliefs than to be like the religious authorities who contributed to execution of Jesus, but our primary objective is to have an even better understanding of God than the finest prophet that ever lived. Our invitation is to be open to the kingdom of God as it was revealed by Jesus Christ. Our challenge is to not let our passion or our preferences get in the way of our relationship with the One who truly reveals the nature of God.

So what do we want for Christmas? I don’t think it’s wrong to want to have some fun giving and receiving gifts from those we love and care for. As I say, I love this tradition of giving that has grown up around the celebration of the birth of Jesus, but I think it’s important that we always seek to expand our circle of giving. It’s pretty self-indulgent to limit our giving to those who can return the favors or who are within our own families. And it’s wrong to think the best gifts are the ones that cost the most money, but the worst thing we can ever do is to think we fully understand who Jesus is and what it means to follow him.

The presence of Jesus Christ defies all of our understanding. Jesus is more gracious than we can ever expect and more demanding than we can deliver. Jesus is more challenging than we can imagine, and he’s more forgiving than we can conceive. It’s a good thing for us to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ in to our lives each year because we are always in need of a new encounter with Christ. Jesus Christ is far more alive and present than we are regularly open to believe, but he’s also more illusive than you would expect from the savior of the world. It’s not easy to encounter Christ, but Jesus is always there for us when we are in our greatest need.

I don’t know what you are hoping to get for Christmas, but what I hope we all are able to receive is a fresh encounter with the One who truly comes in the name of the Lord.

Thanks be to God!

Amen

(What you need to know about the setting for this sermon is that we had secretly invited the Newport Greyhound football team, managers, and assistant coaches to attend our worship service and to stay for a catered lunch. The head coach is a church member and regular attender, and we wanted to surprise him with their attendance. It was a great experience for our congregation to honor him and the team for their good season. They made it in to the quarter finals of the state tournament — which far exceeded expectations. The entire team wasn’t on hand but a significant portion of them showed up.)

Uncle John’s Wilderness Experience

Matthew 3:1-12

1 In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, 2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3 This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.'” 4 Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5 Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, 6 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 7 But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruit worthy of repentance. 9 Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 10 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 11 “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

During these weeks that lead up to the celebration of the birth of Christ, we try to put our hearts and minds in the right spiritual zone. This particular Sunday, the second Sunday of Advent, is traditionally the Sunday we read one of the texts that focuses on John the Baptist, because there probably isn’t anyone that had more focus on the need to be properly prepared for the arrival of Jesus Christ.

I think it’s important for us to take a close look at John the Baptist and to think about what he had to say, but in all honesty, he’s a little intense for me. There’s a reason they call him John the Baptist and not John the Methodist. I think we might have some Baptists in the room this morning, and we’re glad you’re here. I hope you can stay awake.

John the Baptist doesn’t talk like a Methodist. We Methodists put a high premium on getting along with each other. We don’t tend to get very clear about what people aught or aught not be doing – which is our strength and our weakness. We’re pretty easy to get along with, but I know that sometimes it’s more important to be honest than to be nice. I don’t think the Newport Greyhounds have had such a successful season because the coaches were primarily focused on being nice. I may be wrong about that, but I’m guessing they can get real clear about what’s expected and where there’s a gap between performance and expectation.

That’s what’s going on with John the Baptist in this morning’s passage of scripture. John the Baptist had a clear understanding of what people needed to do to be prepared for the coming of Christ, and he had no hesitation to share his thoughts about the gap between what they needed to be doing and what they were actually doing.

John the Baptist had a powerful impact upon a lot of people. He drew people out in a way that was unprecedented. Nobody had ever done what he was able to do. People made this difficult journey out in to the wilderness to hear what he was saying and to be baptized by him. He spoke in a manner that touched people who were hungry for an actual encounter with the truth of the living God. Of course not everyone was so well motivated. There were some people who came out to see him because they were sort of threatened by what he was saying, and they were on more of a reconnaissance mission than a pilgrimage. John the Baptist had a special message for them and it wasn’t warm and fuzzy.

John the Baptist did some powerful work. He got people’s attention in a way that was without comparison, and he enabled a lot of people to change their lives in a way that made them ready to receive the truth and the message of Jesus Christ. And while John the Baptist was an authentic messenger of God, I think it’s worth noting that we aren’t primarily followers of John the Baptist. We, who call ourselves Christians, are followers of Jesus Christ. John the Baptist was an important messenger, but he wasn’t the perfect embodiment of God’s message to the world. The perfect messenger of God was Jesus Christ, and John the Baptist did the good work of pointing to Jesus.

John the Baptist wasn’t the savior of the world. John the Baptist is more like a crazy uncle to the world, but I don’t mean crazy in a bad way. He’s our crazy uncle in the best possible way. I love this uncle of ours. He was the real deal. You don’t live like he did without being driven in a powerful way. And I believe he was driven to do and to say what he did because he loved God and wanted to speak the truth. I’m glad we don’t all have to live like he did, but he did what he did because he was totally committed to serving God. He’s our spiritual uncle, and we need to hear what he had to say.

Aunts and uncles play an important role in our lives. They’re sort of like parents or guardians. They love us and they want the best for us, but they aren’t fully responsible for us, and that makes them a little freer to reveal who they are. Aunts and uncles can say and do things that parents are more hesitant to reveal. Parents want to maintain order in the house. Aunts and uncles can say what they think and then leave.

I had great parents, and I loved my parents, but I got some things from my aunts and uncles that I never would have gotten from my parents. My uncle Rodney and aunt Helen invited me to join them on a trip to Montana during the summer after I finished the 9^th grade. I had never been to the Rocky Mountains, and that was an amazing trip. Uncle Rodney showed me how to catch wild trout in a Rocky Mountain rushing river and that was about the most amazing thing I had ever done. He was a large man who had big ideas and who knew how to carry them out. He was also a man of great faith. He lived a highly principled life. He never touched a drop of alcohol, but he knew how to have a good time. He could identify the comedy of almost any situation.

My aunt Helen just had her 90^th birthday, and I got to see her last Saturday. She’s just about the best person in the world, and she’s probably the most humble person in the world. They had a birthday reception for her at her church, and she was afraid nobody would come, but people of all ages and stations in life came and went for 2 hours to tell her how much she meant to them.

And I had the good fortune to ride down to her party with my uncle Jack. My uncle Jack is someone who knows how to connect with people in an astonishing way. He is a man who fully understands how to extend hospitality. Unlike my uncle Rodney, if uncle Jack thinks you might like to have a glass of wine he’ll make sure to have a case of what you like on hand. He understands the value of friendship, and he treats his friends well. My father wasn’t exactly cheap, but let’s just say he like to cut things sort of close. And my natural tendency is to be a bit of a skimper, but my uncle Jack has revealed to me the value of providing more than enough for other people.

I’ve been blessed with good aunts and uncles. I could go on about others, but my point is that I’m the beneficiary of many good relatives who have helped shape my life. But you don’t have to be a blood relative to people to receive those kinds of blessings. I believe one of the great blessings of life is the way in which we come in contact with people who aren’t our actual relatives, but who function as aunts and uncles. These are the people to whom we choose to be related. It’s not unusual to refer to a beloved person who is a bit older than we are as an aunt or an uncle – it’s a title we sometimes give go the people we revere for the guidance they provide.

Of course we educated people have become much more sophisticated in the way we define relationships, so we now call those people our mentors, but to call someone a mentor doesn’t capture the affection you have for an aunt or an uncle. You don’t love a mentor like you love a brother or a sister or an aunt or an uncle or maybe even a coach.

I never had a great relationship with a coach. The fact that I wasn’t very strong or fast or committed probably has something to do with that, but I had a great relationship with my 10^th grade biology teacher. His name was Wes Shaver and he grew up in Tuckerman. I know some of you knew him. Mr. Shaver had a powerful impact on my life. He was smart and funny and caring and he made me want to be smart and funny and caring. I may not be so smart or funny, but I try to care, and he showed me what that looks like. Being exposed to him made me want to be that way. I stayed in touch with Mr. Shaver, and he had an ongoing impact on my life. He died not long ago and I miss him, but what he did for me remains.

Good aunts and uncles and coaches and teachers show us what we can be, and that’s a beautiful gift. I became a preacher because of a man named Lewis Chesser. We’d be late for lunch if I tried to explain how I got mixed up with him, but I’ve been a United Methodist minister for right at 30 years because of him. I don’t know if he gets credit or blame for his influence upon me, but he had a powerful impact upon me.

We in the United Methodist Church claim John Wesley as one of our spiritual uncles. He lived in England in the 1700s, and his own spiritual reawakening prompted a powerful movement within England and the Anglican church. And our Uncle John Wesley was powerfully moved by what our Uncle John the Baptist had done in the wilderness. John Wesley created small groups of people who came together to support one another and to hold each other accountable. These small groups transformed an uncountable number of people, and the only thing he required of those who sought to be a part of one of those groups was that they had the desire to flee the wrath to come – which are words that came from the mouth of our uncle John the Baptist.

Both John the Baptist and John Wesley were concerned about our spiritual wellbeing, and they didn’t want us to go through life without regard for God’s desire to be at the center of our lives. And if we don’t allow God to define who we are we are likely to let some other things control our lives that will lead us in to highly destructive behavior. I don’t believe God is vindictive, but I do believe we get ourselves in to some ugly situations when we live without regard for God and our neighbors.

God doesn’t demand that we allow love to be our guide through life, but something is going to guide our lives, and if it isn’t love it’s going to be something that’s going to create trouble for ourselves and others.

Last week marked the death of Fidel Castro. He and my aunt Helen were born the same year – 1926, and he died on the day we were having that party for my aunt. One of the first things I heard on the news that day was that there were these large gatherings of people who were celebrating his death. I’m sure there were some people who loved him and who felt loved by him, and they weren’t celebrating his death, but the fact that there were these large groups of people celebrating his death got my attention. What a sad thing it is when thousands of people are moved to celebrate your death. None of us make great decisions at every moment of our lives, but who wants to live the kind of life that causes people to celebrate your death.

Our good uncle John the Baptist didn’t want us to live in such an unfortunate way. He wanted us to seek the source of true life and to be nourished by the goodness of God. It’s not an easy thing to allow God to be at the center of our lives. In fact we’ve got to go out of our way to enable God to guide our lives, but that’s the good thing that can happen to us if we are willing.

People had to make an effort to find John the Baptist. He didn’t make it easy to hear and to respond to what he was saying, but successful living is never an easy thing. The easy thing is to not pay attention, to not make an effort, and to not care about God or your neighbor. But the richest thing is to listen, and to hear, and to love, and to care. John the Baptist wasn’t an easy person to be around, but what he said was true, and where he pointed was right. The Lord of Life was coming in to the world in the life of Jesus Christ. He has come, and he can be the one to guide our lives away from wrath and in to the light.

Thanks be to God!

Amen.