We all grow up with rules. Rules like:

Don't color outside the lines.

Don't hit your neighbor even when they bug you on the playground.

Don't leave the house without telling someone where you are going.

There are some of us who grow up liking such boundaries. They are like a blueprint that lead us to unlimited affirmation.

Then there are some of us who come out of the womb hating rules. We weren't born on our due dates and we've never been on time to anything a day in our lives. We love the joy of finding ways to do our own thing no matter what.

And there are those of us who land somewhere in between. We frequently drive above the speed limit but we wouldn't dare go against unspoken family rules of who speaks up at gatherings.

(For much of my life I've been in the rule loving group).

But, if you've been following my recent posts about vocation, you know that living a life without professional rules is something that I'm experimenting with. And in this journey, I'm realizing that I can be a happy and fulfilled minister without a church, without a retirement plan and without someone with authority providing constant praise-- imagine that?

Jesus' ministry on earth could be summed up in his relationship with the rules of the day.

In my preaching the past couple of weeks, I've noticed this: Jesus did not follow the rules. Not to the point of arrogance and not to the point of disrespect of persons, but he never was afraid to go against what was accepted or commonplace in the cultural context.

Jesus was the guy who had the audacity to submit himself to the waters of baptism (when he was God come to earth after all) and needed no affirmation by human hands.

Jesus was the guy who had the audacity to tell fishermen that they would do more with their lives than spend all their nights on smelly boats.

Jesus was the guy with the audacity to tell the crowd that gathered around him on the mount that "blessed" was not about earthly esteem but about peacemaking and meekness.

Jesus broke the rules because the rules themselves had become such a skewed parameter of what God's intentions for humanity were!

Or simply put: rules can keep discipline in and joy out. Rules can focus us on the expectations of others, not who we are as beloved children. Rules can hold us back from God wants to be in us. So Jesus showed a new way-- a way of freedom.

Don't get me wrong. Rules can be good. They can keep us safe. They can help us better live in community peacefully.

But there comes a time when all the big questions of life emerge and when we take a step back and evaluate the deeper meaning of things and we realize that rules aren't all that. They are just rules. And like the Dali Lama XIV once said: “Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.”

What are you doing lately to break the rules?

There’s been a lot of fuss over this royal baby this week hasn’t there been?

When would the Duchess give birth?

What gender would the child be?

When would they leave the hospital?

How would the new family get home?

And, finally what would the child’s name be?

Even if you haven’t been royal obsessed, it has been hard to avoid all of the sentimentality about the birth.

I was at the gym on Monday afternoon when all the TV stations broke their regularly scheduled programing to tell us all, “It is a boy!”

When Kevin came home from meetings on Capital Hill on Monday night, his first statement to me was “Did you hear about the birth?” Apparently all (but one) of the Congressional offices he visited posted congratulatory signs on their doors to Will and Kate. (Seriously do we live in Great Britain? Really?? I digress.)

Furthermore, the story blew up twitter this afternoon—all the commentary about this special boy’s name: George . . . just as it had done on Monday afternoon when a clergy colleague of mine tweeted, Kate Middleton, 1; Anne Boleyn, O. (I couldn’t help but laugh).

Commentators have spent lots of time talking about the great expectations for this baby Prince: how the hopes and dreams of the nation lie on his shoulders.

All this talk has got me thinking about another baby. A baby we don’t talk much about this time of year.

A baby worshiped as king by some wise guys, but such adoration was not followed by cameras tracking his first coos and burps.

A baby celebrated by the songs of angels, but a without even a proper blanket or place to lay his head.

Sure, you might say: "Why did you have to spoil all our 'royal fun' by bring in that baby?

The truth be told I can’t get the comparison of the two out of my head.

For as crowds cheer at the sight of Prince George and as a designer sells out of dresses similar to that which Kate wore out of the hospital on Monday, I have to think of the other baby.

THE baby who came into this world and lived among us as a commoner, the baby who would not grow up in a palace, and the baby who would face the kind of hardship in his growing up years that royal types like him might not be able to ever imagine.

I think of the baby that would grow up to say, "Those who want to be greatest among us must be last . . . and those who are last will be first."

I think of our modern world’s obsession with prince and princesses and celebrities, and any competition television show that will make us famous.

And in comparison I think of that baby, the baby who appeared in this world without pomp and circumstance among the adoring masses, but in the greatest posture of love.

And in of this, I can’t help but be reminded of moments in my own life when the royalty of God has shone the brightest. Not when I've brushed shoulders with a famous person like the time I saw Katie Holmes walking a NYC street, or when I had my picture made with the basketball star, Shaq at a fundraiser . . .

But, when I've been in remote villages, such as in the Philippines where voices of children made a desolate space beautiful. A time when I visited a family in the hollers of West Virginia, where a trailer became a sanctuary of prayer. A time when I was welcomed by friends at an all-African American church-- a church that loved me and nurtured my calling even though my skin color could have made me an outsider.

The royal baby is great and all (and I truly wish Will and Kate all the best!), but maybe for those of us who seek to follow in the footsteps of another royal baby born over 2000 years ago, the place for our hearts and minds to dwell are in places far, far away from the babies born in privilege and power.

For as followers of this one called Jesus, we are children of a different kind of royal king.

On this Good Friday noon, I couldn't help but stop and re-post this one of my favorite meditations for this day.

Jesus called out with a loud voice: “Father into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.”
Luke 23:46

“Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit.”

As we sit here with the very last word of Christ, death has come. We have reached the end of our watching and waiting by the cross.

If we read earlier in this passage, we know that symbols of this death were all around before Jesus spoke his last. Darkness fell over the whole land. The sun literally stopped shinning in disapproval. Many signs of God’s presence in creation were gone. It was a shattering moment— a moment that people of faith or no faith at all were forced to recognize. Everything was changing. Everything had changed with those last breaths of the one who was called God with Us.

Yet, if you have sat beside the death of any, you know that the last of the last words are always hauntingly important. They are the words that stick with us, that we hear played in our head over and over after they have passed. We recite them to others. We remember them often times more than anything else the dying person has said previously.

So, if you only listen to one word of Christ, hear this:

When Jesus uttered his last, we hear in this utterance an acceptance of his death. What we hear is not a combative last wish, or an “I wish I’d done more of this” or “Why really do I have to die this way?” Or, “Why aren’t there more people here mourning my death?” But, an, “I accept the fact that even though this all is so painful and uncertain- I WILL leave this earth in acknowledgement of my Father God.”

“Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit.”

Even more so, what we hear in Christ is a TRUST in the Father to handle what he could not—the outcome.

In his last words, Jesus showed a trust beyond what his human body could feel. Jesus showed a trust beyond what his human mind could reason.

Jesus showed a trust beyond the cursing and disbelief others might be whispering under their breath about him at that moment.

He was able to let go of human life and what many would call his hour of defeat without doing anything to control it with a heart full of trust.

Brennan Manning writes: “We often presume that trust will dispel the confusion, illuminate the darkness, vanquish the uncertainty, and redeem the times. But . . . our trust does not bring final clarity on this earth. It does not still the chaos or dull the pain or provide a crutch. When all else is unclear, the heart of trust says, as Jesus did on the cross, ‘Into your hands I commit my spirit.”

When we trust in the way of Jesus, we never really can prove the outcome. We never can be certain of what we think will happen will actually occur. We may never have our questions of “Why does a loving God allow this to happen?” answered.

But, it is this kind of faith centered trust that we will carry us through this Holy Week—to keep walking through Saturday, the darkest of all dark days.

It will be trust that will help us believe that all is not lost when the sun refuses to shine as darkness falls all over the land.

It will be trust in a God who SAID Christ would be raised on the third day that will help us leave this place in peace this afternoon.

It will be trust that helps us to also commit OUR spirits to God as we go through the valleys of the shadow of death.

Let us fear no evil. Let us remember that even walk through such a valley that God art with us. God is with us and will be through the very end.

AMEN

If you haven't seen Daniel Day-Lewis' Oscar winning portrayal of Abraham Lincoln this season, I highly recommend it.

What I love about this film, as many critics have said, is its humanization of Lincoln. Not only do you see his vocational struggles to lead the country during a turbulent time of war, but you see his difficult marriage, his parenting successes and failures, his erratic sleep patterns, his depression and most of all his perseverance.

One of the most striking aspects of film, in my opinion, came every time Lincoln told a story. Lincoln defused tense or a fear-driven moment with a tale: a tale would usher into a room clarity and grace. Or sometimes just more frustration! I laughed aloud on several occasions when one of his colleagues complained, "Oh, not another one of your stories." I could imagine this kind of complainant coming from me if I were there!

To his literal-minded critics, it seemed that Lincoln's use of stories were somehow a diversion tactic or simply a waste of time.

But, if Lincoln's bystanders listened closely they'd hear a nugget of wisdom for the challenges at hand. Stories, at least as this film portrayed, became a tool for abstract thinking, re-consideration of engrained opinions, and humor. All things difficult conversations needed to keep moving forward.

Most of all, Lincoln's use of stories helped everyone get on the same page. Or at least start asking the right questions.

Thinking about how Lincoln's stories became the balm to hold his family, critics and even the nation together-- has helped me to see Jesus' steps with greater clarity.

During Lent this year, I've been reading through a portion of Luke's gospel every day. It's been a long time, I have to say, since I've read a gospel straight through without any intention of preaching or teaching what I'm studying (what a refreshing change!).

Like Lincoln, Jesus used parables regularly to enlarge listeners' worldview, to re-shape their vision of God, and to abolish religious practice out of touch the good news for all people.

The Parable of the Lost Son is one such story that I know my lectionary preaching friends are wresting with this week-- one of those stories Jesus told that it is hard to preach out of such great familiarity!

But, like many who will hear sermons on this story this Sunday, Jesus' audience also struggled. "Couldn't you just get on with it?" many must have complained. For scripture tells us that these parables often fell on confused and frustrated ears. But this did not change Jesus' approach. He kept telling stories anyway.

I don't think Jesus' teaching would be the rich feast we find it to be today without his stories. The parables give show us God's vastness like nothing else could.

Yet, even with this true. I, like those first disciples and the crowd gathered around Jesus, often feel confused at Jesus' parables, especially those in whom I've heard countless times before. It's so easy to think the stories are simple (hey, I've got this) only to find that they're completely more complex than I ever imagined them to be.

But, the stories draw me in every time. They mesmerize me in fact. I'm glad they are there-- even if I would like to say to Jesus sometimes, "just skip the stories and make it plain."

Thank goodness for the storytellers who keep sharing. Maybe one day we'll all understand.

Christ the King Sunday 2012: Matthew 16: 13-20

On a lazy Saturday afternoon, one of my favorite things to do is watch those home design shows that seem to come on endlessly on cable. I remember once being mesmerized by an episode of the show: “Flip That House.”

If you haven’t seen it, the basic concept is this: an individual or group with an interest in house design buys a place going into foreclosure or that is priced well below its market potential. Then, as fast as possible, they assemble the necessary work crew to fix up the house with the goal of selling it to make a huge profit. The concept sounds easy enough, but things never go exactly as planned . . .

On this particular episode, two first time flippers buy a two bedroom house in a Dallas, TX neighborhood with big dreams of re-doing the kitchen, installing hardwood floors in the living room and even building an additional wing for a master bedroom suite in only 8 weeks.

With dollar signs in their eyes, the two men charge forward with their flipping project without taking much time to consider a lot of basic elements about their house. To make matters worse, against the advice of the experts guiding them, they remodel the kitchen and do the repairs to the living room in record speed. They make promises to lenders that their house will be complete soon as their cockiness grew by the day. Yet, they hadn’t begun anything yet!

When construction began, the water pipes below burst and the whole backyard looked like a pond. Their land sat on a virtual wasteland! The foundation of their house was built on low land in a flood zone.

When the city contractors came to assess the situation after their flip was set back 8 weeks due to the faulty piles, they made the statement: “If you’d only thought about where the house stood in relation to the water lines, this would have never happened. Next time you buy a house you need to know more about the foundation!” If these guys had only listened to the advice of the experts, they would have saved themselves valuable time and money (and of course the embarrassment of showing all their bad decisions on national t.v.!).

Foundations are important. If we start on the wrong kind of foundation or build on the wrong kind of foundation, our house is bound to crumble no matter how good our intentions are.

Here we stand together—on one of our last Sundays as pastor and people. And I couldn’t think of any better way to do that than to end where we started. I don’t know if you remember (and several of you weren’t around then) that my very first sermon series here at WPBC was on what it mean to be a Christian and what it meant to be a Christian church. I knew back then in January of 2009 that if we didn’t begin our relationship with Jesus then our partnership would ultimately fail.

And the same is how I feel about our ending. If we don’t stick with Jesus, the work that we’ve done together will also be in vain. Because when it all boils down and all of life melts away there is only this one confession on which our faith finds it foundation: Jesus is Lord. And today, the Gospel of Matthew chapter 16 will guide us to ask ourselves the foundational question-- what is our church built upon? Is it built on the Pastor? Is it build on the people who attend weekly? Or is it built on something altogether different?

When the earliest disciples began to follow Jesus, they did so having very little idea about what following Jesus would entail. The word “Christian” wasn’t even conceived yet. When Jesus invited them to come along, they weren’t asked to recite a creed, or detail a confession about their new leader—they were just asked to follow. For, they would learn what they needed as they went.

And, as their journeys of following Christ continued to unfold, points of revelation came for all of them. As they got to know Jesus better with every miracle he performed, with every meal he blessed, with every sermon he gave, they came to crucial moments of decision. Who really was this Jesus that they followed? And what did this mean for their lives?

Several months prior to our text, a big moment of truth came to all the disciples. Much to their surprise, Jesus met them from the other side of the lake by walking on water. It was a moment of great divine revelation. It was there that all of them confessed about him: “Surely you are the Son of God!” This began in Matthew’s gospel the huge moment of illumination where Jesus’ humanity and divinity came together.

So, when we get to the sixteenth chapter of Matthew’s gospel, we might wonder what the big deal about asking the disciples was: “Who do people say that I am? Who do you say that I am?” Hadn’t the disciples already passed this test? Hadn’t they already confessed Jesus to be God’s Son? What needed to be said again?

Well, unique to Matthew’s gospel, these statements of confession are all about something all together different from a declaration of Jesus’ identity. The teaching moment for Jesus got at the larger plan of what following him would look like in the future.

After several of the disciples replied to: “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” by comparing Jesus to a line of prophets, Simon Peter jumps out on his own to answer for the group the main question: “Who do you say I am?” He replies: “You are the Messiah, Son of the living God.”

And after this exchange the rest of the dialogue begins to feel like a private conversation between Jesus and Simeon Peter.

The kind of talks you have with you parents when your siblings are not around, when they ask you to be the executor of their will. The kind of conversations you have with your favorite teacher who wanted to let you know that you had a gift in a particular subject matter and that you should definitely pursue it in college. The kind of conversations you have with your boss right before you get assigned to a new development at work. A sacred moment that you tend not to forget . . .

You see, Jesus knew something particular about Simeon Peter that no one had ever really cared about before.

Simeon was a leader. At his best, for good and for bad, he was willing to speak his thoughts aloud, courageously. And this moment, willingly, he spoke the truth about Jesus when others weren’t willing to go it alone. Simeon had the truth in his heart about Jesus that would carry the test of time—even when persecution came later on.

And because of this, Jesus spoke to him directly saying: “You are blessed, Simeon, son of Jonah.” Simeon, everything has changed for you now. I recognize that you get as much of me as you are able to understand at this point. I recognize that you love me and want to help me bring the goodness of God to those who are dying to hear a good word sometime soon.  

And while since the time of Matthew’s gospel being written there have been centuries and centuries of debate about what this passages means exactly—with many Catholics seeing this text as reasons for the succession of popes beginning with the disciple Peter and with many Protestants on the other hand saying, “No, no”, this is about a confession of Jesus as the Messiah as the central message of the church, we need not be divided. Because what this passage boils down to is the foundation that was being laid for a community that would sustain the test of time.

The foundation would begin with Jesus and seeing him as Lord of all.

The point of Peter’s confession being this: without understanding Jesus, the formation of the church would have no foundation. Peter would be one of the first leaders to help the early church get this truth. Jesus, Messiah, Son of the Living God, would be the crucial, irreplaceable beginning to this movement called God’s new covenant with man. So much so, that when some of the early church coverts were first called the name: “Christian” in the city of Antioch, which literally meant: “follower of Christ.”

Thus, to be a Christian is completely dependent on the identity of Christ—we cannot talk about what it means to call ourselves a Christian or a Christian Church if we do not begin with Jesus. Jesus is the Solid Rock on which everything we do as a community must stand. Our foundation must be as a community must be as Jesus intended for us when he began encouraging its first leader, Simeon Peter.

We all bring to this community our hang ups with what it means to be a Christian. I bring mine from the conservative evangelical home I grew up in and the overkill of Jesus-ness I received as a child. You might bring your hang-up about Jesus from another religious tradition or from no tradition at all.

And because of these things, there are times when all of us are afraid to be too Christian or even too “Jesus-y.” We don’t want to appear to be too radical on Jesus and thus non-accepting of our neighbor like the negative examples of Christianity we see on the news. We don’t want to scare people off through our words. Doesn’t everybody know about Jesus? What might be the point of continuing to talk about him, we wonder?

This whole confessing Jesus thing is something that I have really grown through and in and around during my tenure as your pastor. Being your pastor as taught me to love Jesus in new and deeper ways than I've ever grown. And likewise, you’ve grown. You’ve matured. You’ve confessed Jesus, especially some of you who said when I first came, "I'm not sure I believe in the resurrection. I'm not sure I believe in the divinity of Christ." Today you are stronger believers. And I am so proud.

But we can’t stop now. Jesus was and is the foundation of our lives if we say we Christians and Jesus has and will be the foundation of our church if we call ourselves a Christian congregation.

If we do not heed such a truth, we will find ourselves like the Texas house flippers—weeks, months and even years off course of what God has for us in our community. Or, we might find ourselves investing in projects and causes that while they may be good, may not to be the best that God has for our community. We might find ourselves wasting precious years, months, or days of our lives.

We must keep singing hymns and songs of faith in this place. We must pray in acknowledgement of the importance of Christ here. We must remember that identity of Christ is what makes us different from a spirituality group or a social gathering going on in Reston on a Sunday morning. We must keep asking Jesus in all our prayers what is his will for our moving forward.

If we call ourselves Christians, we share in the identity of Christ, bottom line. And it is in sharing in this identity that we have something lasting to share with the world—hope of new promises of new beginnings, of forgiveness as we keep trusting in him.

This is what I most hope for the future of WPBC. This is what my prayer is that you will continue to find your foundation in Jesus. That you will remember Jesus. That you won’t forget Jesus. That when you feel lost, afraid, or unsure of what is next that you’ll go back to Jesus.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, sweetest name I know. Feels my every longing. Keeps me singing as I go. Why don't you sing with me?

AMEN

Mark 10:17-31

Last week, we began by asking ourselves some big picture questions as a congregation: who are we? And where are we going? Following the lead of Micah 6:8, we answered by remembering that our first calling as a community is to do justice by simply opening our eyes and seeing people that we might otherwise overlook.  Justice begins with opening our eyes to see. But this morning, let’s take the conversation one step further—asking again, who are we?

If you are like most, you probably would answer this question based on where you find yourself in this moment of your life. I am a grandmother. I am retired. I live in Reston. I work in Tysons. I live in a brick house. I drive a Honda hybrid.

Though we know intellectually that we are more than our jobs or more than our titles or even more than what we own, it is very easy to talk about who we are by the stuff around us. It very easy to be people who are always out for the hunt for something more—just as a recent survey of American reported than a large majority feel that they deserve right now a 20% increase in pay or that if they made at least 20% more money than they made right now then they’d be happier.

But Micah’s exhortation encourages us today—that our second call as congregation is to be a people who “love mercy.” People who not only see the needs of those around them, but begin to use their resources they have—whether they be time, talent or even finances to come to the aid of others.

And in this calling, as we consider living it out, can come in direct assault to the ways and the stuff around us that we normally define ourselves by.  What if we didn’t buy the new I Phone 5 and instead sponsored a child monthly through a relief organization in lieu of that extra special data cell phone plan? What if we waited to purchase a vacation home and instead agreed to assist our grandchildren for paying for college? What if we left our high paying job (and thus guarantee for an early retirement) for a career in the non-profit sector where we knew we could use our talents for the great good of our community?

Ouch! This “love mercy” stuff is no easy calling . . .

However, as we take a closer look at our gospel lesson for this morning, we know that we are in good company.  The earliest disciples suffered from the same struggle too.  The cost of discipleship was in fact harder than their check-list faith paradigm from the past might have otherwise imagined.

As recorded in Mark 10, Jesus has had a hectic day of ministry but a man comes running toward him after the blessing of the children. This man was a courageous young fellow as he risked ridicule by humbly approaching this Teacher everyone was talking about.  Clues from other gospels help identify him by the title of Rich Young Ruler.

And because of his wealth, this was also a guy who we can imagine got everything his heart desired—only the best social status, the best camel his dinari could buy, and handsome garments to wear to prove to the world that he was somebody. Basically, his life was on a direct path where everything was as it should be. (Though I’m sure he still thought he needed 20% more!)

Furthermore, from this passage, we gather that even in the religious realm, the Rich Young Ruler was the kind of guy with every t crossed and i dotted— he followed the commandments of his faith doing everything that was expected of him.

However, one huge unanswered question mark remained. Was he completing the right to-do list? The Rich Young Ruler wanted to know if his efforts to be a godly person were enough to get him on the “Who’s Who of God’s People” yearbook.

Thus, we hear him uttering this question to Christ: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” in verse 17.

And this question is not just one that 1^st century Jews were asking themselves—it still lingers as one of the most pondered questions in the modern-day.

Answer the question in a book of 150 pages or less with good marketing and you’ll be a bestselling author. Speak prophetically about the nature of salvation with specific dates about Jesus’ second coming and you’ll be the founder of a new branch of Christianity. Preach a five step salvation plan and you might just be a pastor of a growing mega church.

But why? I believe it’s because there is something in all of us that craves a checklist faith: we want concrete answers. We want a rubric that leaves us with a chart full of gold stars from God at the end of our lives. And we want all of these achievements in a package we can easily understand, so we’ll have time left where we can cram in everything else in our lives that we think is important.

In the same way, the Rich Young Ruler truly got this desire of ours. In his craving to know what Jesus’ bottom line was for salvation, he was just asking to see the black and white meaning of eternal salvation. So, why couldn’t Jesus, this good teacher, just tell him? He knew whatever it was, he could do it.

In typical Jesus fashion, he steers clear of an easy answer and adds an impossible addendum to the commandments he was already keeping in verse 21: “Go, sell everything that you have and give it to the poor.”

“What, are you crazy?” the man must have thought, “This is NOT what I expected to hear!”

For, he knew he could not give up everything as Jesus said. Jesus was asking for ownership of ALL of his life, not just the part he could easily give him.

Having a conversation about money and faith . . . Oh, this would be too hard. Impossible in fact, for a guy like him, as everything in his life was tied in some way to physical possessions.

Asking this man to give up his stuff was more than just a call to poverty (as this passage is not just about money), but it was a call to complete surrender of his life. It was a call to acts of mercy, to a lifestyle of mercy.

Thus, we read in verse 22 that the man’s “face fell” upon hearing Jesus’ exhortation. He journeys away saddened by the proposal. For, he could do nothing.

And, the Rich Young Ruler was not the only one for whom to love mercy would be difficult.

The disciples found themselves confused too. Was there any possibility of salvation for them either? Peter (as always) quickly speaks: “We have left everything to follow you!” Peter wants to make it clear that if anyone had made great sacrifices, they certainly had. Wouldn’t that certainly be enough for his kingdom? And while Jesus says their efforts will be recognized, he doesn’t directly answer the question. Because to love mercy was not something that could be translated  into a black and white spread sheet or action that could be qualified by human standards . . .

Because perhaps because Jesus’ life provided a completely new paradigm of loving neighbors that would not be dependent on human ability to follow the law . . .

Perhaps because salvation would take its cues from the cross— a place of self-emptying, a place of unselfish love, a place where the mercy of our Lord the gift given for us all!

You see, the type of kingdom the Rich Young Ruler, the disciples and even you and I are often looking for is one where we don’t have to suffer. A kingdom where we can be sure of our salvation we had the right answers or a kingdom where our faith does not have to change our daily to-day lifestyle, vacation plans or shopping trips to the mall. Many of us live on fixed incomes after all. We’ve made decisions about what to do with our finances years before we retired. There is no way we could change now!

I feel I would remiss if I didn’t interject here that I totally understand how hard this is, to open up a conversation on acts of mercy that flow out of our pocketbook.

Not even pastor types, with a Revs in front of their names are experts at mercy. We too like our stuff as much as the next person.  (It is true, that I have been accused on many occasions of having a love obsession with my IPad or my purse collection).

Maybe this is why Jesus said in verse 25, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

Did you know that in Jerusalem there is an eye in the needle gate? Kevin and I saw it ourselves a couple years ago on a trip to the region.

In ancient times, the needle of the eye gate was purposely built with a very small entry way so to prohibit invaders from coming into the city. However, this safety feature was not without its disadvantages. What if they wanted to get necessary goods into the city?

When traders wanted to come into the city of David with their camels (or other animals) loaded with goods, they could not fit in the gate. The only way for the camels to get in “the eye of the needle” gate was for the owners to unload their goods and leave it outside until someone else was able to bring it in through another way.

So, to is our work if we are going to be people who enter the kingdom of God as lovers of mercy.  If we are going to be people who live in the city of God, then we are going to have unload on a regular basis, so to make room for of God’s ways in our lives.

But, why? Really, why mercy? Could that just be left to someone else?

Biblical commentator, David Lose, answers the question in this way—we love mercy because:

The way we spend our money (and I would add here time and talents) “has a great impact on the welfare of our neighbor. Notice that Jesus doen’t just tell the man simply to give his wealth away, but rather he tells him to give it to the poor. . . . Jesus invites not just the rich man but all of us to imagine that we are, indeed, stewards of our wealth, charged to use all that we have to best care of all the people God has given us as companions along the way.”

We love mercy because there are those whom we need to assist that will not otherwise have what they need unless we give. Simple as that.

He also adds that we are to love mercy because:

The way we spent our money (or our time and talents) has a great impact on our own welfare as well. Consider [how our relationship with what we earn ourselves] can mask our dependence on God and each other by creating a sense not just of independence, but actually of not needing each other. . . . Jesus knows there are few things more important than for us to do than to share our abundance.”

We love mercy because it is good for us. We remember who our Creator. We remember to whom we belong which is to ALL our human brothers and sisters. We remember that just as we give, we receive.

How did this passage end? Look with me at verse 31. It’s a favorite of mine: “But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

This my friends, is THE radical message of the teachings of Jesus. Our life is found loving mercy. For as we give we might just find that no matter how much money is or is not in our bank accounts, retirement funds, or how much our savings bonds are worth, we’d rather love mercy than be in love with our new car, dream vacation or even season tickets to our favorite sporting team.

Hear me not say today that Jesus is not anti-stuff or anti fun. God, I believe wants to us to enjoy what brings us delight and what we’ve been blessed with. What good is it to have anything if we walk around feeling guilty about it all the time?

But, in the end, we are to love the most is mercy. Our lives as Christians are to overflow with mercy. Or church is to overflow with mercy—not just when we have enough in savings or our building suddenly stops aging or when our pledges get over a certain amount for the year ahead or even when we have a certain number of people in worship, when we think we can afford  it. Nope. Mercy is never about cost and benefit analysis. Nope. Jesus says, “Be merciful now. Be merciful now. It’s what I’ve asked you to do if you want to follow me.”

AMEN

Claiming Jesus: John 1:1-18

On July 14, 2012-- only more than a week ago-- an op-ed article appeared in the New York Times that has been all the rage of debate online and in progressive circles ever since.

Ross Douthat titled his edgy piece, "Can Liberal Christianity Be Saved?" He wonders about the future of the institutional church in particular the progressive among us, those of us who are willing to say more what we are for rather than we are against, those of us who champion God's love for all people, and don't claim as a Christian people we have a one track highway to God.  We usually feel pretty good about ourselves for this, but he muses what is our future? Will we ever see the glory days of the 1960s and booming church growth again? Will the progressive church of today be the progressive church of the future?

Using the  progressive branch of the Episcopal Church as an example, Mr. Douthat says:

As a result, today the Episcopal Church looks roughly how Roman Catholicism would look if Pope Benedict XVI suddenly adopted every reform ever urged on the Vatican by liberal pundits and theologians. It still has priests and bishops, altars and stained-glass windows. But it is flexible to the point of indifference on dogma, friendly to sexual liberation in almost every form, willing to blend Christianity with other faiths, and eager to downplay theology entirely in favor of secular political causes.

Yet instead of attracting a younger, more open-minded demographic with these changes, the Episcopal Church’s dying has proceeded apace. Last week, while the church’s House of Bishops was approving a rite to bless same-sex unions, Episcopalian church attendance figures for 2000-10 circulated in the religion blogosphere. They showed something between a decline and a collapse: In the last decade, average Sunday attendance dropped 23 percent, and not a single Episcopal diocese in the country saw churchgoing increase.

We could use this opportunity to pick on our Episcopal friends and stick our self-righteous Baptist noses up and say that this is their particular problem and not ours, but such is far from true. We are just singing a different verse of the same song. Churches like ours might have steady growth in membership over the long haul, but in the short-term, we aren't. Where do the large flocks of remaining interested church goers attend on Sunday morning if they go to church at all? It's fundamentalism driven, we will hand you your faith in a box, type of mega churches with their own parking garages. But, he doesn't say that our more conservative church friends have ALL the answers either.

But what I find interesting about Mr. Douthat's comments are that they dis-spell the myth that many of us in this community have in our heads about why people don't attend church.

Rather than thinking that the church is just so out of tune with the culture and if we could just "hip" ourselves up with an attractive mailing or two, more people would come, he suggests we are asking the wrong questions altogether. If the stats of the Episcopal church are any indication, there is NO amount of liberalism or open-mindedness, that is going to attract newcomers to us. So, can the liberal church be saved?

I think a better question than the one asked in the article is, "Do we know we are as a Christian people?" or "What does it mean to follow Jesus?"

In our gospel text for this morning, we have the opportunity to examine a favorite scripture text that is speaks to the nature of this Jesus, for whom we say our faith is built upon. It's a passage rarely read in worship outside of the first Sunday after Christmas. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

It's a text paired with the Christmas celebration narrative often, because unlike the gospels of Luke and Matthew, the writer of John's gospel just starts things out this way. No Jesus in the manager. No shepherds. No wise men. No, rather we read of a light shinning in darkness and the darkness not overcoming it.  It's one of most beautiful pieces of poetry in all of the gospels-- in fact is a sermon in itself (so I could just read it again and sit down . . . but I'm not).

So, as we begin to digest this word for us today, one thing is very clear and that is: John's high Christology. In fact, if you wonder where the church got his Trinitarian Christology that has been our legacy since the 4th century all discussions must go back to John 1. In other words, this gospel does not imply that Jesus was just another person, rather that Jesus was and is divine and has been such from the beginning. Not just from the time of his baptism as Mark's gospel presupposes, or from birth as explorations of Matthew and Luke might suggest-- but before creation itself.

This connection is made even in the original Greek as the word for word-- logos, is in fact the same word used in the very first sentence of the creation account in Genesis. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." When did Jesus become God, according to John's gospel? Jesus was already God and has always been God.

Yet what is most astonishing about the Word that was with God and the Word that was God in the beginning is what we read in verse 14, "And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory of a father's only son, full of grace and truth."  Not only are we told who the Word is but we are told that the Word became flesh, a man, and lived among us.

Thus, God did not love us from afar, as the "big man upstairs" as many of us comically refer to God from time to time. No, God love us up close, flesh to flesh. God wanted us to know who the Divine was so much that we were given the most surprising: a visitation of the holy.  

And in the incarnation,  we were given a concrete, flesh and blood human being who walked on our earth, who drank from our rivers, who bathed in our streams, who felt our aches and pains, and who tasted the tears of our cheeks-- so that we could get to know and SEE for ourselves (or in our modern case hear for ourselves) what God is really like. Martin Luther in fact said, " The mystery of Christ, that He sunk Himself into our flesh, is beyond all human understanding." It's beyond human understand, I believe because we have not known a love like ever! And, most of all, God wanted us to experience love!

Recently, I was visiting with a family not affiliated with any religious community in our area, as I was preparing to lead the funeral service for their son, recently deceased in a car wreck. As I sought to get to know the family better, asking questions about the life of their son, I found it was hard to keep them on track of the conversation of the information I needed to get from them. Instead of answering my questions about planning the funeral service, they kept wanting to tell me about all the long time neighbors and friends who kept popping in their home to visit over the past couple of days.

It was like a broken record of kindness. They especially told me about all the family members, coming into DC from other parts of the country who hadn't been to visit in ages who wanted to be with them during this difficult time of loss-- not just through a card, or over the phone, but in person-- through human to human contact. It meant the world to them, I could tell, to be surrounded by tangible signs of love at this difficult time. And the love in this community of folks, and thus of the legacy of the deceased became apparent in story form.

And, such I believe is true of the story of "Word became flesh" from John 1. God knew there would be no other way that we'd know how loved we were if God did not become one of us and initiate contact that could be for us the symbol of love.  God wanted to hit the "re-start" button the relationship-- God wanted deep and abiding relationship with each of us. And so Jesus came and showed us how.  

This gets to the heart of the Christian message of what means to be a Christian, what it means to follow Jesus, and what it means a collective group of believers gathered at a church: we are to be in relationship with this one, Jesus, who came to earth to be in relationship with us.

However, it is at this juncture that I know I might lose some of you. I might lose those of you who have long given up the notion of having a "relationship with Jesus" or "inviting Jesus into your heart" because you feel such a sentiment is a part of a branch of the Christian church that asks you to check out your brain when you wake up or love only certain people or read scripture in a prescribed way. I hear you on this and am right there with you.

We, as the progressive wing of the Church of Jesus Christ, have often thrown out the baby with the bath water when it comes to talking about  relationship with Jesus. We've circumvented the conversation by loving Jesus with our minds, with our theology, but not with our hearts, not with our bodies, and not all that we are. And we wonder why people say they find God more in a yoga studio or a meditation class than in a church worship service?

But, I believe what John 1 is asking us to do is reconsider and possibly even redefine our spiritual language so that it always includes room for conversation, connection and communion with the Divine.  Conversation one on one with Jesus. Jesus, the word that became flesh and dwell among us, longs, who wants to be who we lean upon as w e live our lives, day in and day out. And  so as we do we keep asking ourselves and each other: who is Jesus? How can I talk to him? How can I love him? And how can I share Jesus' love for me with others?

The embodiment of Jesus aspect of our faith, I believe is what we as "liberal" Christians are missing-- even as we have our heart open wide to all kinds of folks in the world: all colors, all genders, all people, we miss out on the most important relationship and that is with Jesus. We've become so invested in the "box" of church looks like (stand up, sit down, listen, go home) and faith looks like (honor God through our right belief) that we've robbed ourselves of how incredibility mind-blowing and transformational our faith can be.

For we have been given through Jesus the gift of  a God who truly can say, "I was one of you. . . ."

The gift of a God whose real presence can come very close-- closer than even the dearest friend to us. . . .

The gift of a God who says, no matter what I am going to find a way to be in relationship with you and love you in a way that touches your whole being.

This is what we need, my friends. This is what the church needs my friends. Who cares if "liberal Christianity can be saved?" or not. What should most keep us searching in the night is "Do we know Jesus?" And if we do, "How can we know him more?" For when our lives are connected to the life of the Divine, what will be will be in our churches, no matter how large or small they are.

So, today, will you join me in re-committing your life to a relationship with Jesus? Will you join me in worshipping God not just in the rote routine of words on a page, but words that speak of the Word who was God? Will you join me in love Jesus with your hearts, knowing that he dearly loved our hearts before even the creation of this world? Will you join me in claiming Jesus as we sing, "Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, just to take him at his word and to rest upon his promise and to know thus saith the Lord?"

I love Jesus . . . even as a socially progressive Christian. What about you?

AMEN

As our series of "Sermons by Request" continues, I had an opportunity this week to explore Isaiah 53:1-6 and do some theological reflection of my own on theories of atonement. Thanks for reading. 

I can remember the last time that I sought to directly evangelize a person to Christianity-- I was 20 years old and serving as a summer mission intern with Son Servants, a Presbyterian youth camp organization.  No one in this ministry organization told me to evangelize directly to the children with phrases like "If you died tonight do you know if you'd go to heaven?" but I was the evangelical Southern Baptist in the group-- and witnessing was just what I thought I needed to do.  I was a perfectly pious leader sadly at the time. Sigh.

One week of this particular summer's experience, after the team of youth volunteers and I led a group of children on the Indian reservation in South Dakota in a series of art and craft projects, we took them out to the playground near a lake.

One girl in particular, I'll call her Ana, became very attached to me quickly. She wanted me to push her and push her on the swings on the playground and climb with her on the monkey bars. For the entire playtime, Ana would not leave my side. Maybe it was because I had given out the juice and cookies only minutes earlier and she looked like she hadn't had a good meal in days. But, regardless, feeling good about the connection I'd made to this 9-year-old girl, I felt convicted about the next thing I should do-- I needed to tell her about the great divide her sins had caused between her and God and that Jesus paid the price on the cross so that she could live forever with the Lord. I did not want to have her lack of opportunities to receive the gospel to be my fault. 

I don't remember much about the rest of the conversation or even if she prayed the 1, 2, 3 step "I am a sinner, Jesus died for my sins, and I'm so thankful God that I can now go to heaven" prayer I offered her. But I do remember being stopped in my tracks internally as the group prepared to go back to the campsite where we were staying, wondering what in the world I had just done? Though such a practice wasn't new to me (I'd been through the same routine countless times before with other kids in summer programs-- trying to lead them to faith), this time I really began to think about the theology behind my words.

Was this, I wondered, what the gospel were really all about? Was the gospel something that can be melted down into a 5 step plan that makes children feel sorry for their sins knowing the Jesus replaced their punishment on the cross? All I knew in that moment was that I needed to think some more about what all of this evangelism I'd been so interested in was really all about before I tried it again.

I don't know if you've ever been the instigator or recipient of a  "let me tell you about the atonement for sins that Jesus offers you" conversation (I'm sure you've at least seen one example like this on tv), but often our Old Testament lesson for today is among the most quoted scripture passages on this topic. It's a passage that is often read at Good Friday services meant to explain what the crucifixion of Jesus means for those of us who seek to know and follow him today.  It's a passage that centuries and centuries of Christians have claimed as among their favorite-- and was among the favorite passages submitted among the congregation last month.

And, with all of this true, I'm going to stop at this juncture and give you a mini-commercial on how reading Old Testament or Hebrew scriptures are best read (which applies to our sermon for this morning and all other times when our focus text comes from this part of the Bible).

Always, always, always, do not interpret scripture out of its original context. And I repeat: always, always, always do not interpret scripture out of its original context.

It would be very easy for us at this juncture to read Isaiah 53:1-6 into story of Jesus-- to say that the Isaiah writer was actually giving us a prophetic message for what would happen in the incarnation of Christ thousands of years later. And, while yes, we can't help but understand our reading of anything from Isaiah (and the other prophetic books for that matter) in light of the WHOLE story of the Bible as we read it cover to cover which includes the formation of a new Christian community, we can't forget the context of the original hearers.

We can't forget those who first received these words: the people of Israel who would soon be asked to return home from exile in Babylon.  

We can't forget what upheaval and change they would be asked to embrace as they returned home. We can't forget the pain and suffering the leadership would face, in particular, for being obedient to God's plans for their lives.

We can't forget that a particular message to a particular people was being prescribed-- a message that had a lot to say about suffering.  What was the point of suffering after all? Did participating in it actually have any redemptive value?

I think, though with all of this being true about the importance of paying attention to the context of the original Isaiah hearers, we can't have a discussion about this passage without talking about Jesus. For tradition has dictated through the years that Isaiah 53 is indeed directly talking about Jesus. And if you look at the front cover of our bulletin for this morning, you'll notice it's a picture of person's back tattoo with this verse of scripture on it. And it is in the shape of a cross.  You don't have to go far until you realize for traditional Christians, Isaiah 53 has become a playbook for Christians seeking to explain atonement-- what Jesus dying on the cross really meant and means.

But, to answer the question placed before us in the sermon for this morning: "The suffering of Jesus means what?" we must be stay with the crucifixion of Jesus more than just one day every year-- if that at all (for in fact, the Good Friday service is one of the most poorly attended worship services globally in fact. . . But that's a whole other sermon). We must learn to stick with the hard questions of faith-- even if they make us squirm in our pews a little bit more this morning.  Hard words like "atonement."

If I say the word atonement-- a most basic theological definition of this word is Christ's work of redemption on behalf of humanity.

I want to share with you two camps of atonement theory-- not to just to help your theological education and understanding of the text before us today-- but because so much of how we explain our faith to our neighbors (via evangelism or not) has a lot to do with how we describe atonement. And, it is so much a part of popular rhetoric about Christianity.

Realize this morning for sake of time and our brains not exploding, I'm painting with some broad strokes here. There are indeed more than two camps of atonement theories, but I believe in light of Isaiah 53, these are the two we should most understand. I don't always say this, but feel free to take notes if this helps you follow me.

The first camp of the theories is that of substitutionary atonement or in more basic terms the phrase, "Jesus died for our sins."

It's the camp that says that what Jesus did on the cross was to right many wrongs committed by all humanity. And there is a wide spectrum to this belief of atonement. There are some who believe in substitutionary atonement who say that Jesus had to die as a payment for our sins; Christ suffered for us so that we didn't have to.

And at then at the other end of the spectrum there are those who say that the substitution Jesus made was more because God demanded it. God took the life of Jesus as a payment for our sins.

But in either case, the phrase, "Jesus died for our sins" boils down to our being asked to simply believe in Jesus as Savior so that the substitution of our unrighteousness for Jesus' righteousness can take place.

This camp is the most popular of the theories of atonement through Christ tradition. Just pick up any hymn book and turn to the "death of Jesus" section and what you will find are statements about how Jesus paid it all, how we've been washed clean in the blood of the lamb or Jesus took our place on the old rugged cross.

But problems with this theory arise when you take a step back and see the larger picture of what was going in the suffering of Jesus from this perspective. The largest problem is that if you say, "Jesus died for my sins" then you also profess that God set up the crucifixion of Jesus. God brought suffering on Jesus.

Or as Phyllis Tickle once said, "It's a huge example of divine child abuse." And for many of us stomaching following a God like this is too much to bear. In fact, Sojourners magazine just this week, published an article about how seeking to convert someone by starting the conversation with "Jesus died for your sins"[i] can be the scariest thing you could say-- and should be avoided.

However, there is another camp of the atonement theories and this is the representory or exemplar perspective.

In this camp, Jesus was sent to earth to represent God to us. We who were living in sin, we who had fallen short of God's best for us, we who had gone off course of God's original intentions for humanity, were given Jesus so that through him,  we could find our way back home to the right path. Jesus showed us a different way to God-- a perfect way.

 However, as this theory goes, Jesus did such a great job of showing us God that those with power in his world during his time did not like him. They didn't like him so much that they had him killed.

Therefore, this leads us to recognize that if we follow Jesus and the path he set out for us to know God better, we should not be surprised if we are killed too. For in fact didn't Jesus say to his followers, "whoever loses his life will find it?" 

It's a theory in the end that takes the focus off Jesus as the recipient of divine punishment and instead directs us to the cost of discipleship. If we want to follow Jesus, this theory says, then, we must be prepared to suffer.

And it is here at this point that we arrive again at a great point to sit with our Isaiah passage yet again. A passage which speaks of a servant (though undefined who) which suffers.  We read of a servant who  in verse three "was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity . . . has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases."

It's not a type of suffering that we read is just in vain. It's not a suffering just for suffering's sake-- because the Divine is mean and trying to bully his subjects into submission. Rather, it is suffering that makes a difference because God is revealed in it.

For as the servant forged a new path of righteousness and integrity, even in the face of evil, the onlookers of the person going through the suffering saw God.

The onlookers saw God's grace.

The onlookers saw God's message to the world that even though we've all messed up, we've all made some not so good choices in our lives, the Divine says back to us, "You are ok. And I love you."

When I think back to those days of seeking to convert the children on the playground in South Dakota (with some shame of course of my misguided approach), what I most wish I could go back and tell Ana, my young friend with mad skills on the monkey bars is: get to know Jesus.

Get to know this man who loved you even before you were able to love him. Get to know this man who wanted you to know your heavenly parents-- your always loving parents, always forgiving, always providing parents more than anything, so badly that he gave up everything so that you could have this chance.

And come and learn of Jesus' suffering too-- how he was rejected for doing the right thing.  For you, Ana will suffer much in your life (if you haven't already), and you'll need to know that someone has been there too. Jesus suffered to the point of death so that in his life, he could show us the way to God.  And the God you'd learn more about through Jesus is the God who loves you already more than you could ever imagine!

Because atonement theories or not, isn't this what all of us long to hear? That we are loved. That God sees us, especially in our moments of deep pain.

That Jesus not only offered us through his life (which included suffering) a way to be in deep relationship with God. 

And that as we suffer in this life,  our pain, as we give it back to God for God to use for divine purposes in this world can be redemptive too?

AMEN

When In Doubt: Befriend Jesus

John 15:9-17

Have you ever thought of yourself as a friend of God?

And what an unusual piece of scripture we have before us this morning. If you are like me, you think of friend as a more casual word, not a word meant for the one called the King of Kings and Lord of Lords that we know as Jesus

In our gospel lesson for the day, we are told this earth shattering, game changing fact-- for those of us who are on the journey of getting to know Jesus-- we are called Jesus' friend.

Look with me at verse 15: "I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father."

As we consider today the idea of being in friendship with Jesus, such could have a multitude of different meanings based on your life experiences-- what having friends in your life has meant to you.

For some of us, our friends become like our family, those in whom we claim among our dearest of the dear. For others of us, having and maintaining friendships has become one of the most frustrating types of relationships in our lives because they haven't come easy to us. For, as fast as some of us seem to make friends, we lose them.

For it is true that friends can be some of life's greatest blessings or some of life's greatest headaches, right?

A friend to you might be someone who we know and love and share some of life's best and worst times alongside, but sometimes friends are those people who abandon us when hard times come. Sometimes when supposed friends smell trouble in the waters that surround our life they jump out faster than we have time to blink.

A friend might be someone who we trust with everything, share our secrets and our deepest thoughts,  but sometimes such friends are those who break our hearts worst than known enemies. Sometimes friends are those who share what we never wanted any other ears to hear-- stabbing our hearts deeper than we ever could have imagined.

A friend to you might be someone in whom you can call to visit if you need to borrow something or who can tag along with you to an activity you both enjoy, but sometimes friends are people who are people who don't really know us at all. We may spent time we them, but never do our conversations flow into the deep waters of what makes life, life (drama of course). We can be easily surrounded by "friends" and feel like we have no friends at all.

So when Jesus, in his final discourse to the disciples in John's gospel calls us friends, we might find ourselves confused, unimpressed or altogether unsure of what being identified as Jesus' friend might mean for us.

Friendship-- how we identify who is our friend, how we relate to our friends, and ultimately what it means to have friends in our lives has been something that philosophers and theologians have been writing about for centuries. In the 5th century B.C.E. philosopher Pythagorus famously said, "Friends have all things in common." Aristotle is remembered for saying, "Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies."  Great theologian Thomas Aquians said, "There is nothing on this earth to be more prized than friendship."

Because even though we all struggle with the question of who are our friends and what it means to give and receive love from them -- at the end of the day, we all, in one way or another want to know that somebody is our friend. Helen Keller once said: "Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light." And, I 100% agree.

I recently attending a conference where a well known pastor was quizzed by eager clergy about her experiences in the church. One of the first questions asked of the speaker was, "What did you say in your first conversation to the church leadership when you began at the church?" We all sat on the edge of our seats, expecting her to say something about growth strategy, finance or something that could be transcribed into a leadership book. But, no, the pastor speaker conveyed, "I asked each member of the church leadership team if they would be my friend. I had just moved to the area," she went on, "And I really hoped that someone would want to hang out with me. I was really afraid that I wouldn't have any friends."

And, like this pastor, we'll do almost anything to understand it, create more networks for them to flourish within, and attend to throughout our lives-- even if it means joining a social network for friends like Facebook or Twitter, even if we don't like the computer. We'll make an exception with social sites  to keep up with and reconnect with our friends over the chasm of time and distance.

And, I believe that Jesus gets this about our humanity.  As we talked about last Sunday, from even the moment of creation when light came from darkness, we came about relationally. Like our Triune Creator, Jesus knows, we too are made for relationships. And,  Jesus walked in our human skin too, didn't he?

And, Jesus calls all of us FRIENDS.

Earlier in John 15, the gospel writer gave us one of the greatest metaphors in all of the stories of Jesus. We are told by the Lord that "I am the vine and you are the branches."  In such a descriptor of a plant-- something we all can all understand, we are told of how we are not just lowly human beings like puppets being manipulated by a divine on a string. No, we are told that we are part of the main event, with our proper place of course: we are the branches and Jesus is the vine but a part of the stalk of the plant nonetheless. We  our were made to be interconnected with the work of our vine-- Jesus.

Jesus says, "I do not call you servants any longer . . . I have called you friends. For a servant does not know their master's business" but in friendship, we are given a relational way to live among God. Not as lower class citizens.  But, as partners. . . . as we abide in God, we know and can do what it is God is already doing. As friends, we are included in the community of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

But what does this mean? If we befriend Jesus, what might our lives begin to look like?

Look with me at verse 13: "Greater love have no man than this, than a man lay down his life for his friends."

Such is a verse I was asked to memorize in Sunday School as a child, and because I've had the words stuck in my head this long, I've often pondered what they mean.  And usually I've been confused. I mean when in an average day are any of us asked to give our lives for our friends-- in a literal way?. To be a friend means I have to be ready to give my life for another person? Heavy stuff, right?

Professor Dave Lose from Luther Seminary puts it like this:

Love does indeed call at times for sacrifice, but sacrificing for another and being less of a person isn't the same thing. At its best, sacrificial love invites us to live more fully into the kind of person we are called to be.

 I think that's what Jesus means when he says "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends" (15:12-13).

Jesus isn't less of who he is called to be by laying down his life, but more.

Lose goes on to write: I know this is complicated, and again open to abuse -- not all sacrifices are holy -- but when I look at some of the loving sacrifices people have made for me (my parents, my wife) or that I have made for others, we were never disgraced or devalued by making those sacrifices but actually lived more fully into who we were called to be.[i]

And this is what it all boils down to. When we befriend Jesus and walk in the way of loving others, as he taught us to love, we will be asked to sacrifice. But sacrifice of our lives not to become less, but to become more.

This is what friendship is ultimately all about.

When I think about all the examples of strong mothers, sisters, and aunts that we celebrate on a day like this, I can't help but think that the strong women many of us will choose to revere, are those who have become less as they've given to others, not more.

Several years ago I was introduced to a woman, Mrs. Sims, through visits in her home who attended a church I was serving. I was eager to visit her on the first time I drove up to her house because of all of the wonderful things I 'd heard about her from other members of the congregation.

"Mrs. Sims," others all told me, "is one of the most godly women in our church. There seems like there is nothing she won't do. She teaches the children. She maintains our church kitchen. And did you know that she and her husband adopted 5 special needs children from foster care system? She's so amazing." With such flattering praise before I even met her, my hopes were high. I couldn't wait to learn from her! BUT I was soon deflated when I knocked on her door for our first meeting.

Mrs. Sims' hair looked like she had not experienced a proper shower in days. Food from her children's lunchtime was all over the floor and on the walls. As much as I tried to ask her questions, she looked so exhausted that she barely could keep her head up. As I looked into her eyes, it seemed that any sort of light from soul-fulfilling work was not there. She later told me she felt like a do-gooding robot and that she just couldn't ever say no out of guilt.

I left her home on this occasion and several others quite concerned not only about the mental and emotional well-being of Mrs. Sims, but on the state of the church that would exalt the "godly" service of a woman like this who clearly was of course helping people, but helping them at the cost of her own soul.

When you and I are on a path of following Jesus-- who has called us friends-- we are asked to live a different way than  most of have come to understand friendship in our past experiences.

Being friends with Jesus is not about a one-sided relationship-- the kind where one person does all the talking, all the giving, all the serving and the other does nothing in return.

Being friends with Jesus is not about having the life sucked out of us-- the kind of friendship where we leave the presence of a friend and feel so exhausted that we wish we'd never spent time with them before.

Being friends with Jesus is not about constantly talking to know what our friend is thinking or going years on end without saying a word-- because real friends simply can't reside in one another's lives like this. Real friends don't have to talk all the time to close nor can they go years without speaking and still have a strong connection either.

Rather, being friends with Jesus, as John 15 teaches us, is about abiding. Verse 9 lays it clearly out for us, "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love."

Our series this resurrection season has begun each week with the statement . . . when in doubt. And as we end today this series, I can't think of any better way than to go back to this aspect of our lives which we all can understand: friendship.

When we find ourselves lost on this resurrection path from time to time and doubts will floods our gaze, but  we always have an invitation back to the center: Jesus calls us friend. And we are asked to befriend Jesus back.

It's a relationship that is never static but always changing, always inviting, always calling, always asking us to come and grow as branches on that great vine.  It's a relationship we've all been chosen for and asked to participate in not as servants, but as beloved.

Because I believe that as we come to friend Jesus, and take in the love that He has for us, we are able to love one another in the ways in which he loves too. Ultimately, it's the love of Jesus that brings us all together in a place like this.

AMEN.

Give Us a New Name!

John 20:19-31

What’s in a name? Does it really matter what we are called? Anyone been called the wrong name lately-- even if the person didn't mean any harm by it? Such a situation can bring out all the frustrations in our bodies, can't it? The names we give ourselves and we are given by others are important and often change the trajectories of our lives.

Start a conversation with an expectant parent who just found out the gender of their child and you'll find one obsession on their minds: the name. No wonder expecting parents often time spend hours flipping through those “1001 Names” books, looking for just that right “feel” of a name for their new son or daughter. They want to give their child the best and most meaningful name they can. Names matter!

As for me, even though my name is one that is popularly shortened or modified, I've never liked being called anything other than Elizabeth. Even though I hear names of others sometimes that sound pretty or more interesting than my own and even went through a phase in college where I wanted to be addressed as Liz (but it never stuck)—Elizabeth is just who I am, like it or not. I imagine many of you might feel the same about your name as well. We are who we are called.

But, beyond the names we are all given at birth, we are also given descriptive names  that often say a lot about who we are too. We might have been known as the “the smart one” or the “pretty one” or the “athletic one.” We cling to these positive descriptions of our selves-- claiming their complete worth, shaping our becoming through all our growing up years.

Then, there are those names which speak to our less than stellar moments which stick to us like post-its that we can never seem to find a way to get off our backs, no matter how hard we try. Names like “the cry baby”, “the dumb blond” or even “the black sheep of the family” follow us too. Even though these names come to us sometimes because of one person’s moment of stupidity or insensitivity, such names haunt us in pain and frustration any time we recall them. We always remember the time when we were called ___ as much as we'd like to forget.

In our gospel lesson for this morning, we are met by a disciple of Christ who also has a name lurking around him, although he is never called this by Jesus or anyone else in the text. You all know his name. If I say Thomas, you think________. (Doubter) It's hard to complete a sentence with Biblical Thomas in it without the name, doubter descriptor isn't it?

We remember Thomas by this famous scene in John’s gospel of Thomas refusing to believe that Jesus was risen until he saw and put his finger the marks of the nails in his hands and in his side.

Even though scripture gives him another name Didymus which means literally “The Twin,” we don’t think of Thomas by the name his momma provided; rather, we call Thomas: Thomas the Doubter or the Doubting One. And while Thomas’ nickname: the Doubter was much better than the other disciple we have nicknamed: Judas as the Traitor, I imagine that if I did a pre-sermon quiz this morning, few of us would rank Thomas in among our top five on a “Best of Jesus’ Disciples” list.

We remember Thomas for his name of "doubter." Because of his moment of doubt as recorded in John, Thomas would be remembered for his failure, not his later moment of belief.

But, I offer you this morning that in calling Thomas the doubter and dismissing his significance from the gospel means we are really missing an opportunity to get to know this faith hero and a confession of faith that we as resurrection people can model our church after. Maybe, we need to give Thomas a new name in history.

Let’s first consider the scene. On Easter evening, the disciples (minus Judas who has died and Thomas who is for some unknown reason away from them) are locked in a room scared out of their pants, hoping that the religious leaders won’t come to arrest and crucify them like they did to Jesus.

Mary Magdalene knocks on their door sometime that afternoon and to tell them what seems like a ridiculous story. She claims she had “seen the Lord” alive at the tomb.

Yet the disciples are seemingly unmoved by her testimony and continue to stay locked in their upper room. And then when evening falls, the risen Christ comes and stands in the midst of the disciples saying “Peace to you.” Jesus SHOWS them his hands and his side and breathes on them the gift of the Holy Spirit and departs yet again.  It was quite a moment of resurrection before their eyes.

The obvious problem is that Thomas is not there. Thomas does not see Jesus. And when he returns and hears the great story of what has transpired, he makes a particular request in verse 25:

"Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe."

I stop here to point out that while Thomas asked for proof, to see Jesus’ wounds for himself: he only wanted a viewing of what the other disciples had already seen. It was not more “doubtful” than any of the other of the 10.

In fact, it is important to note that the disciples had received similar testimony from Mary Magdalene before seeing Jesus for themselves but didn’t believe just like Thomas.

So, if we were playing the blame game, we would need to call out all of the disciples as doubters. Thomas was not alone in wanting to see for himself.

As the story continues we realize that a week later all of the disciples (including Thomas) were again the room with the doors shut. Jesus comes to speak explicitly to Thomas. What is most interesting about this part of our text is the interchange between Jesus and Thomas after proof is offered—notice with me again verse 27. Jesus tells Thomas to “Reach out your hand and put in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” A better translation of the last part of this verse would read: “Do not be unbelieving but believing.” To which Thomas replies in complete belief saying: “My Lord and My God.”

And, I dare say  in this confession that a transformative work took place Thomas: he was a new man, empowered by the fact that his faith came from not merely seeing Jesus, but professing his fully name.

And in these five words, Thomas makes the greatest confession of Christ found in all the entire Gospel of John, saying not only that Jesus was Lord, but that he was God incarnate! In fact, this is the only time any disciple of Christ “gets” him enough to link his identity with God. Thomas, thus, provides the Gospel of John with its bookend.  Just as the gospel began with the statement: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God,” Thomas rightly names Jesus as the Word, God who was and is the great I AM. And in naming Jesus as God, Thomas gave the church a  statement of faith, saying what it meant to have life in the resurrection power of Jesus’ name. Who are we asked to call the Resurrected one? My Lord and My God! Just as Thomas did!

Consider the rest of the story taken from one chapter over in John 21. We find Thomas again at a crucial moment of faith. He’s out fishing with the boys when Jesus comes to meet them. Through being there, Thomas became one of the key witnesses at this crucial appearance final appearance of Jesus in the book. Thomas gets a second chance. Moreover, according to historical tradition, Thomas goes on to proclaim this name of Jesus throughout his life. He becomes a Christian missionary in India in fact, risking his life to bring the gospel to those who had never heard.

Thus, in the case of Thomas— how he NAMED Christ in our text for today became not only a catalyst for the message of the John’s Gospel to go forth but his personal sense of mission too. Thomas received power from the name of Jesus that empowered his own name, his own life and his own purpose for living.

As people of the resurrection, how is our confession of Jesus as Savior and as Lord-- just as Mary modeled before us this morning-- going to change our names too? How might our association, our dependence on the name of Jesus shape everything we say and do as a community?

In a small North Carolina town where I once served as a pastoral intern in seminary, I once overheard a conversation that struck a nerve in me and I've never forgotten. At a local diner, two men sharing a relaxed conversation over a cup of coffee. I was "trying" to study my Greek verb flash cards two booths away for an upcoming exam, but got distracted.

I knew the first gentleman in the booth. He was a regular attendee at my church, though he didn't remember meeting me. I began to listen in when the second gentleman loudly offered to the first that he hadn't been to church in years. Going on to say with a big bite of a donut in his mouth: "There's no difference between membership at a church and country club."

"How so?" my church member asked.

The non-church attendee said both groups had dining halls were people gathered to eat.

Both had Sunday worship services of sorts- the churches in sanctuaries and the country clubs on the golf courses (singing praises to the best golfers of the day).

And who serves in leadership positions, he said, at each often have a lot to do with race and family position-- "For you just don't go to any church or any country club and become President," he noted. "There's a selective process." And he concluded by offering, "So why do you want me to come to your church again? I think the country club route would be more fun and without the guilt."

And in response, my church member said nothing. And said nothing. My jaw dropped a little as I observed the silence.

(Silently, I cheered the church member on in my head, trying to give him messages of delightful things to say about how much he loved our gatherings (and my sermons of course), what a difference a relationship with Jesus had made in his life, and how I knew being part of a church community had brought him closer to his wife and his grandkids who recently joined the choir)

But, none of my seminal messages worked it seemed. Finally, the gentleman who was my church member spoke and added that the golf course did sound more fun so he might try it out the next Sunday. What???

As part of the internship, I shared weekly mentoring sessions with the senior pastor. I couldn't wait to tell him about what I heard at the diner. I expected the pastor to respond in outrage to what I'd heard, promising me that he'd put on his holy high shoes and give the congregation a talking to about their evangelism practices the next Sunday. But, he didn't seem as outraged as I had hoped. And he didn't start condemning the congregation from the pulpit the next week either. But he did tell me that he'd have a special message to offer.

But, he got into the pulpit the next week claimed one simple point: Jesus is Lord.

He said that naming Jesus as Lord was what we as a church needed to keep claiming and claiming and claiming again for why it was we did everything. He challenged us all to take this name-- even if it was brand new for some of us-- and place it as a banner over all aspects of our lives.

When nursery workers changed diapers, washed little hands and played with play dough  in children's Sunday School, do so in the name of Jesus being Lord.

When volunteers show up to clean the gutters or wash the pews on church work days, do so in the name of Jesus being Lord.

When we sing hymns, and pray prayers and give our tithes and our offerings, do so in the name of Jesus being Lord.

When we decided what to make, prepared and set out our covered dishes for church lunches, do so in the name of Jesus being Lord.

And say it with me, whatever we do and wherever go in the future as a community, we do so with the name of Jesus as Lord going first.

And what wisdom this was! To join for worship each Sunday in the name of Christ, we are given an entirely way of existing in this community which speaks to EVERYTHING that we do.

And while sure, there will always be those who "don't get it" who don't understand why centering ourselves in God and in community is worth it, we keep going. We keep teaching the children. We keep washing the windows. We keep making the Sunday meals. We keep saying the name. We keep professing Jesus as Lord, in the footsteps of our dear brother Thomas, believing, trusting that this confession of faith connects us now and forevermore with the resurrection power we need in this world to make a difference.

Today, the cry of our hearts must be Lord: “Give Us a New Name.” For there is no other way than in the name of Christ that we or our church can go forward in God’s mission to the world. Our own name just won’t do. So, come Lord Jesus, give us your name, a name new to some of us for the first time, and to others of us a name we’ve forgotten. Come and teach us how to live in unity with one another as claim together this hour that you are Lord.

AMEN.

Promise in the Night Lenten Series: I am the Lord

Isaiah 43:1-7 with Mark 14:43-46, 53-62

This morning as we begin our conversation together about this week's promise in the night-- Jesus saying to us, "I am Lord." I think it might be good if you are willing to work with me here for us to take a time out and talk to each other before I get into the main ideas of what I would like to share with you. So this is what I need you to do. Make sure you are sitting next to somebody. No one is allowed to sit in a pew by themselves. If you are a guest visiting with us, know that our church is quite informal and friendly (like I hope you've experienced already today), so we welcome you to participate in this discussion with us too.

And this is what I want you to share as you feel comfortable with one another: "Who is Jesus? And what does Jesus mean to you?" Share your answer to this question in a small group of 2 or 3 sitting close beside you. If there is anything I know about Washington Plaza, it is that you don't have trouble being honest with one another, especially when it comes to matters of faith. So, in this spirit of "there is no wrong answer" I invite you to share with one another right now, "Who is Jesus? And what does Jesus mean to you?" (SHARING)

I hope that as you shared with your neighbors, you learned something about them that maybe you didn't know before. . .  The question of "Who is Jesus?" is central to the gospel passage we find ourselves in this morning. For, just as we have been preparing for the past two Sundays as we read of the plot Judas set into motion to turn Jesus over to the chief priests, at this juncture of Mark 14 starting with verse 53, it is all happening.

 The elders of the religious councils have come to Jesus with swords and cubs and have taken Jesus into custody. And though there seems to be little credible evidence against him, with everything said against him appearing to be hearsay, Jesus is put on trial. In this trial, he is accused of the most serious of religious crimes at the time. He says he's the Son of God.

Look with me at Jesus' exact response in verse 62 of Mark 14. After Jesus was asked, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed one?" He responds by saying, "I am . .. And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven."

If Jesus wanted to beat around the bush and speak in politically correct language of the time, this was not the way to go. In a culture that held so much respect for the name of God--- not even writing out all the letters when putting God's name on paper-- saying that you were "the Christ" was heresy.

Let me be clear here when I say, that it is this very confession: "I am the Christ" that led to his death.

Though centuries of strained Christian/ Jewish relations and a lot of Judas haters out there who want to place the blame on a the Jewish people as a whole or on the one bad apple disciple-- these players in the drama played minor, very minor roles in the larger drama of what God was doing in the life of Jesus.

Because in the end, Jesus came to this dreadful juncture of his life for one simple reason. He said he was Lord. This dark night was ALL about Jesus' Lordship. The chief priests, the whole Sanhedrin council and Judas for that matter were simply players in the story (and the players could have been anybody) who helped to illuminate this truth: Jesus was Lord.

Can you imagine how dark this night of betrayal, arrest, and interrogation must have been for Jesus?

Can you imagine how lonely he must have been?

Can you imagine how abandoned Jesus must have felt by those he trusted the most?

Can you imagine how Jesus' human nature desperately wanted to call upon the bands and bands of angels and archangels and strike down all who sought to speak wrongly of him?   But at the same time,  his heart burst in compassion for those misguided in truth?  What a conflicted, hurt and deserted place Jesus was in!

Where was the hope? Where was the promise for the night? Where was the light?

If we turn over to our Old Testament lection for today, what we find are words of comfort for a group of people, who like Jesus, found themselves in an unfortunate situation.  All was not right with their world either.

The children of Israel lived in Babylon in exile, and had lived there for a very long time. The prophet exhorts them: soon they'd be asked to go back to their homeland, even as they'd grown quite comfortable in this foreign country. They'd be asked to deal with the ways in which they'd fallen short of God's best for them. They'd have to face up to their own darkness, the blindness of their own hearts. And, they'd be forced to make changes for the journey that awaited them. 

And while the word of the Lord could have been harsh and accusatory, it's not the promise we hear as chapter 43 of Isaiah opens. For the promise begins in the shift of how the Israelites were addressed: "BUT NOW, thus says the Lord, he  created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine."

And what follows are some of the most beautiful words of comfort in scripture-- words that I wrote down and put on the wall of my bedroom as a teenager to get me through some difficult times-- words that I often read now at every funeral I preach in an effort to speak words of comfort to mourners-- words that speak of God's promise to walk with us even in the darkness of dark nights.

Look with me at verse two: the Lord says, "When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you."  WHY? Because we are told, "For I am the Lord your God."

Such is a promise full of dramatic metaphors which illustrate God's promise to walk with us no matter what situations we find ourselves in.

What is most interesting to me about this passage is what it doesn't say about the journey of faith.

It doesn't say that we won't pass through rivers. It doesn't say that we won't walk through fires. It doesn't say that flames won't get anywhere near us. Though most of us would like to assume that if we just try hard and love well and live the best life we can that life's darkness nights won't find us, Isaiah's promise of prophecy does not guarantee us this at all. In fact, if we have found ourselves deep in rivers or in the middle of fires, or feeling as though our lives are going to crumble at any moment, then we are in good company. We are well acquainted with what it means to be a human being-- just as Jesus experienced on his dark night too.

But even though our lives are full of troubles and there will be moments when the nights of winter seem long and unending-- we receive a hopeful promise. Jesus is Lord.

And not just any Lord-- a word that might be scary to our independent sentiments of a society. But a Lord who loves us unconditionally, a Lord who pledges to be in our lives no matter what, a Lord who holds out joy for us when it seems to be the emotion we fear we'll never experience again.

Look with me at verse four, "Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you , I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life."

It's a love letter for a particular people, a love letter from a God who wants to show forth the light of the good news. I am the Lord.

I don't know where you are in your journey of faith this day-- believer growing, eager to go deeper in your faith, skeptic standing on the sidelines not ready to say you believe in this Jesus story yet, or somewhere in between, but I dare say wherever we find ourselves this morning, we've ALL had experiences where we've experienced God's presence with us, especially in difficult times.  (For it seems our awareness of God seems to be softened to receive most memorably when we hit a place of helplessness, lostness, or even feeling as though our lives are so bad "that there's no place to go but up.")

For me, one such time when I felt God's presence with me came when I was on my first trip out of the country to Africa as a freshman in college. Alone, I traveled to spend three weeks with some missionary friends of our family. Eager to experience the culture of some new nations and to be with folks I thought at the time were some of "God's best people on earth" (i.e. the American missionaries) I boarded the plane and set out for what I thought would be a life-changing adventure.

However, the trip turned out completely not as I expected. These missionaries, I admired from afar, turned out not to be the welcoming bunch I hoped they'd be-- to me a young adult hoping to follow in their footsteps one day. None of them really seemed to care to get to know me at all. The missionaries were among some of the most rude, selfish-centered and arrogant people I'd ever met. You could imagine how crushed I was. All my dreams for a career in international service felt ruined. There was no way I'd want to work in a community like this! What in the world, was I then going to do with my life? And did I even want to follow this God?

But, in spite of the unfortunate turn of events, grace found me. This grace came from two women, whom I don't even remember their names anymore who I worked alongside as I taught at Bible camp during one of the weeks I spent with the American missionaries. These two women, from the US like me, but in particular, came with the purpose solely of teaching some of the missionary's kids while their parents sat in meetings. And, I have to say, if I ever met an angel on earth, I know it was these two women, who said they were from Alabama. They nurtured me, welcomed me to teach with them and showed me through their actions that I was not as alone as I felt at the time. God spoke through me and my broken spirit at the time to say, "I am the Lord; and it is going to be ok." I don't know if I would have made it back home in one piece if it weren't for these two women.

In the same way, one of the things I hear most often from you, even those of you who still have great doubts about your faith and wonder if you are a Christian at all, is that you've experienced God's presence in dark times of your life. You've had experiences where you've encountered this promise in the night of "Fear not, for I am with you." You've received comfort from something you can't explain in rational terms. You've experienced what you can only call the divine. And these are moments that we remember.

But the thing is that though many of these experiences are impactful in the moment, our memory as a human race is short. How quick we are to forget! How quick we are to doubt! How quick we are to throw up our hands in disgust, wondering why we find ourselves drowning in rivers again, feeling as though we have no life-preserver to help get ourselves to shore!

Such is why today's promise in the night is so important. Jesus is Lord. For in fact it is the promise, if we remember nothing, I mean absolutely nothing else about the Christian life, it is the promise we need. Because knowing and believing that Jesus is Lord changes EVERYTHING about our personal lives, about our life together as a church and about our outlook for the future.

And because Jesus is Lord as we walk this journey in community, everything begins to look different. We get out of our pettiness, our focus completely on ourselves, and we look up to the one who is the Lord.

When we are figuring out who is bringing what for coffee teams on Sunday morning and how to clean the tables, we remember: "Jesus is Lord."

When we are choosing what color to paint our walls in our bedroom with our spouse and really want to strangle him or her for their tacky taste, we remember: "Jesus is Lord."

When we are deciding if we will buy just one more thing at the mall or make our pledge to the church- we remember: “Jesus is Lord."

When we find ourselves bickering and then not speaking to a dear friend for weeks-- we remember: "Jesus is Lord."

When quick fire backs of anger seem more enticing than going the extra mile in life-- we remember: "Jesus is Lord"

When folks slander us, speak ill of us for reasons we know are untrue - we remember: “Jesus is Lord"

And, most of all when we find ourselves in bleak situations when we wonder how in the world we are going to get out of bed and face another day, we remember what? "Jesus is Lord."

For this promise in the night or in the day or in the in between can make all the difference in our lives my friends. For when we get out of the framework of this life is about me, me, and more just me, we realize that though the road of following the Lord may be rocky and though the journey may be long, we have this larger truth in which to cling. And what is it? Jesus is Lord.

AMEN

Promises in the Night Lent Sermon Series

I Will Remember You: Genesis 9: 8-17 with Mark 14:10-21

Can you remember the last time you got forgotten, left out of something you should have been included in or felt altogether betrayed by someone you trusted?Anyone experience such this week? There can be no more lonely feeling when someone acts without concern for your feelings, especially in a public forum.

And, if we were to take time this morning and share such stories, all of our tales would be different. But, there would be one thing in common and that is, we all have "I was not remembered" stories. Somehow being mistreated by those who love us most happens to be part of what it means to be human-- a world where all is not as it should be.

And, certainly Jesus-- as we examine his life as it was lived here on earth-- 100% identifies with us in his shared humanity. Though he was called, "Emmanuel, God with us," Jesus was not a man immune from some of life's deepest pains of betrayal.  He certainly knew what it was like to feel left out.

In the gospel lesson we heard read at the beginning of the service this morning, taken from Mark 14, we read of one such moment in Jesus' life when he experienced a great loss. And it is in the moment  of our text that we begin to see Jesus' dark night of the soul unfold.

For three years of learning, of traveling and of serving alongside of him, Jesus particularly chose each companion for the journey. No choice was random. No choice was made without care. No choice came from Jesus simply picking just anybody he saw when he woke up one morning.  No, there was a greater plan. Each disciple came to the super 12 dream team with just the right gifts for the tasks at hand. And most of all, when Jesus called each, he loved each one. He loved them so much that he desired to take the time to invest in their lives in a deep way.  In particular, with the disciple, Judas, Jesus trusted him enough to make him the chair of the finance committee-- a great responsibility.

And it would be Judas, a leader among the group,who went to the chief priests and promised to help plot Jesus' death. (And we all know that dreadful things can happen when money and power begin to mix). No loyalty. No remorse. No gratitude for all that Jesus had done for him. Simply, Judas, a close friend would betray him. Therefore, Jesus' last supper with his followers, a meal that we remember and celebrate to this day, would become tainted by Jesus' words of, "I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me-- one who is eating with me."

Hear this: Jesus did not even get his last supper in peace-- even death row prisoners get better than this! Judas-- not a naysayer in the crowd, not a haughty religious teacher, not even a Roman solider, but one of Jesus' beloved sitting around his supper table turned against him. Betrayal ran deep. It was a dark night. It was a very dark night indeed for Jesus.

Over the course of the next couple Sundays throughout the season of Lent, we're going to sit with Jesus in some of these very dark moments. We'll do this to see what we all can uncover about the "nights" in our lives too. 

We began this conversation, if you were able to make it, almost two weeks ago at our Ash Wednesday service. We began by sitting in the darkness. Realizing that as we turned out the lights and sat in the pitch dark, past sun down, that even in a sanctuary with little natural light-- there was still light. Even if light was faint or seemingly small-- light was still with us.

With this metaphor as a guide for us today and for the next couple of weeks, let's ask ourselves, as we sit with Jesus in this moment of betrayal, is there any hope for us in such similar experiences? Or are there times in our lives when we are simply screwed and without hope at all?

Using our Old Testament lesson as our "promise text" for today, let's uncover how in the most desperate of life-destroying places, we serve a God who says to us always, "I will remember you."

What we get as we dive into the lection taken from Genesis 9, is the happy ending of a story which I believe most of us know.  When I say, Noah you say, "ark?" Right? If we spend any time in church as children, the Noah story is one that we most certainly learn if not from popular culture or even the recent movie, Evan Almighty.

In the "kids version" of this Bible tale, we learn that God loved Noah and though he was going to send a flood to destroy the whole world, Noah and family would receive protection.  Not only was Noah's family saved, but 2 by 2 of every living creature. For their salvation, they all piled into the ark the length of several football fields that Noah and his sons had built for this grand adventure of faith. It's a sweet story about God's love for those who love him back. The end, right?

Well, the more you and I really dig into this text, the more, I can imagine that you'd say like me that Noah is no Bible story for kids. It's no Bible story that is all about the beautiful murals that we paint on church nurseries. Genesis 6-8 are chapters of the Bible that we should actually place age limit on before teaching it. For within, it's a pretty scary tale of divine anger, abuse, destruction and eventually of new beginnings-- if we can stomach it long enough to get to the end.

And this is the real story: for much as creation began with God's desire to "make man in God's own image" and to be in relationship with a beloved creation called man and woman-- things did not go as planned in those early years of the earth. God wasn't very happy. No, God was not happy at all.

No need to watch soap operas, for in fact, Genesis 3 through 6, gives you all the juicy drama you need of creation not exactly respecting their Creator. Man began to hate woman. Woman began to hate man. Sons became jealous of one another and lives were taken in anger.  Everyone on the earth began to do what was right in their own eyes. God's grand plan of peace, harmony and love all was awry. You could say in fact, that God felt betrayed. What God expected from humanity, what God longed for in humanity simply was not.

And, so we see God becoming angry-- a view of God that we often don't like to admit or even talk about is there-- saying to Noah in Genesis 6:13, "I am going to put end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them."

Yes, we read of a very direct God who wants creation gone. It was not a game. No, not a game at all. We hear words of regret that creation happened at all by our Creator."What a mess has come of my world! Why did I need humanity in the first place?" God says. Scary words, if you ask me.

And, so the flood waters come and they come. And, after the 40 days and nights of rain, we learn that only Noah, his family and the ark full of animals is left on the earth.  But this is the grace: the flood becomes the re-creation moment for God to get the do-over.  God is up for trying again.

Theologian Elizabeth Webb writes this about the state of things after the flood waters begin to reside, saying this: "All of creation is given a new beginning, a new opportunity to live in the harmony that God intended. Note, however, that this new beginning is also a continuation; God does not create new beings, but begins anew with a remnant of the beings created in the beginning."

And these are the new beginning words scripture tells us came from God in verse 8 of Genesis chapter 9, "As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals and everything animal of the earth with you. . . . I will establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth."

And so an agreement between two parties (God and humanity) for  God not do something ever again is established.  We call this agreement a covenant. And, while there will be other covenant giving moments as the story of scripture goes with folks like Abraham, it is important to note here how unique and special this particular covenant was. And, not for the obvious reasons of this covenant coming with a sign-- a rainbow in the sky-- but because of what was asked of humanity in this covenant making story.

And the answer is nothing. God asks man and woman to do nothing in return as this covenant was made. God will do all the work. It's not a conditional covenant, an "if/ then" promise that we will see later on in the history of the nation of Israel, but with Noah and all of us-- it is an eternal covenant. The "I will never send a flood to destroy the earth again" promise is a statement that God is making and says will be kept forever. Forever.

Hear this again, only God has a responsibility. Only God.  Which is a another way of God saying to all of us, "Ok, human beings, in my effort to be in relationship with you in the future, I am not going to go the route of total destruction again. I am going to work with you. I am going to be with you. And no matter how many different ways I have to try and no matter how suborned and disobedient you become toward me, I am going to keep at it. I am going to keep pursing you. Why? Because I love you. And, I won't let you go."

Several weeks ago, as several of you might know from reading my blog, I sat glued to the television set for four hours as singer Whitney Houston's funeral went on and on. In this "world goes to church" sort of experience CNN broadcasted the entire service without commercial interruption. As the memorial came to a close as a family friend, Marvin Winans, offered a homily. Though I struggled to follow his train of thoughts at points, one message of he offered mourners has stuck with me ever since. In referring to some words of the Apostle Paul when he writes that God shall supply all of our needs according to God's riches and glory in Christ Jesus-- Pastor Winans says, God is telling you today, just as he told Whitney over and over in her life, "I've got this." "I've got this and so you don't have to worry about the rest." Just trust me. "I've got this."

And, I think in many ways, this is what God was saying to all humanity in the covenant making of the rainbow-- "I've got this. I promise you. I will stay in relationship with you my beloved children no matter what." Every time you look up at the sky and see a rainbow, know that "I've got this."

What balm, then this is to our weary selves who are sitting in the dark, crawling in the dark, wandering in the dark if God had lost God's mind-- like I'm sure Noah and family felt as they de-boarded the ark that day. That to us, that to all of us, God promises this eternal good: "I will be in relationship with you. I will remember you, no matter what."

It's hard to accept such a light into the dark parts of our lives, isn't it? Because it is rare if ever that we receive such a gift of a promise kept that we are remembered, that we are loved,  that we are seen  even when it feels that everyone else has tossed us away and thrown us aside. Even our most beloved friends and family sometimes turn their backs on us. If it happened to Jesus, it most certainly will happen to us.

But, "I will remember you" is the promise that God offers us today-- a promise as bright as a radiant rainbow on an afternoon of summer rain. It's a promise that no matter how abandoned we feel, no matter how dead our most important dreams seem, and no matter how dense the fog is around us that we couldn't possibly even stand without help-- God will remember us.

God will guide us to light. And, no we are not going to have to stay in the darkness forever. For we serve a God made known through Jesus Christ-- who too once cried out from the cross, "My God, My God why have you forsaken me?" and rose to life on the third day.

And, what a gift to our Lent waiting in the dark this year. Because if you know anything about the dark nights of betrayal-- often it is at these low points of our own lives that we can't even fathom moving an inch. But, we need not worry. God is with us and says what? "I will remember you."

Today we have the opportunity to eat of this supper that the Lord persevered through-- even as it was that night for Jesus that a friend became an enemy-- and eat of the bread and drink of the cup, that our Lord drank. For we are remembered forevermore.

Let us taste and see that the Lord is good as we go to the table.

AMEN