God at Work in the Waiting

3-29-20

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, amen.

In 2012, after being a pastor for just shy of a full year in New Jersey, I was on deck to preach on November 4^th, less than a week after Hurricane Sandy. That Sunday, the church had no heat or light - and no printed bulletin either - but both services that morning were packed. It was All Saints Sunday, and this very text – Jesus raising Lazarus from death – was the gospel of the day then too. During worship, we sat in the natural light of the sanctuary, coats still on, after having Sunday School and adult forum by candlelight. Earlier that week, I remember waiting impatiently for the power to come back on – sort of like when that big storm went through here last year, and all those trees came down.  

Then, as we are now, we were all waiting for life to return to “normal… though for many of us, the “normal” may be long in coming, and may look very different than it did before.

We all know what waiting is like. Waiting for things to change, waiting for the suffering to pass, waiting with a hope that life will someday be better and that our distress will be a just memory.

Sometimes, our waiting is rewarded. The power comes back on. The baby is delivered safely. A potential employer calls and wants a second interview. But sometimes we wait, and we wait… and we seem to wait in vain. Either nothing happens at all, or worse… the thing we fear the most takes place.

Lazarus, Jesus’ friend, was not just sick. He was dying. And his sisters Mary and Martha knew that his only hope was for Jesus to come and heal him on the double. They sent word to Jesus, urging him to come quickly. Then they waited. And waited. And waited some more… until it was too late.

When Jesus finally arrived, Lazarus has been dead and buried for FOUR DAYS. There was no mistaking it for a coma. There was no chance of a sudden recovery. The memorial service was long over, and the luncheon leftovers all eaten.  In fact, the smell of death and decay had already set in – which is not something that we in twenty first century north America have much experience with. But it was a normal – though final – part of mourning the loss of our loved ones.

In her latest book, Mortician Caitlyn Doughty reports that one of the questions that she is often asked in her talks with kids about death is the question: “Can you describe the smell of a dead body?” Doughty writes that the smell of decay – which we imagine the sisters referring to – is not evident unless the person has been dead for several days, which Lazarus had. It seemed that Jesus had lost his chance to heal Lazarus – he was beyond saving.

Caitlin Doughty also wrote something interesting in her 2019 book that seems particularly timely. In this same chapter, she shares about Dr. Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis, who, in the mid-1800s, noticed that new mothers who were treated by midwives fared better than those who were treated by trainee doctors. Why would that be? The trainee doctors also had contact with people who had died… and handwashing was not a common practice yet. Dr Semmelwies came to see that contact between the two was dangerous for the women in labor.  “So, Semmelweis issued a mandate that hands must be washed between the two activities. And it worked!” Not such a big wonder to us now.  But he was proven right when “Rates of infection dropped from one in ten to one in a hundred within the first few months. Unfortunately, the finding was rejected by much of the medical establishment of the time.” (164)

Why? Because for doctors, “hospital odor” – or the smell that would have come from Lazarus – was a sign of prestige.  To put it crassly: Handwashing was resisted in the medical community at the time because “[this] smell was a badge of honor they had no intention of removing.” Not even for the safety of other people… specifically new mothers. How things have changed! Or have they?

Mary and Martha knew what this smell coming from the tomb meant, and it was both natural and also good news. It meant that it was too late for Jesus to arrive and save him. Mary and Martha had resigned themselves to the fact that they will never see their brother Lazarus again in this lifetime. Their waiting and their hope in Jesus seem to have been in vain.  

Then suddenly, they heard that Jesus is just outside of town, that he just heard the news of Lazarus’ death. Martha heard first and dashed out to confront him. She is the first to say what is also on Mary’s lips, which we heard a moment ago: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Mary and Martha thought that Jesus’ job was to PREVENT bad things from ever happening. Jesus was supposed to come and SAVE their brother from having to die – well, really just postponing the inevitable. Jesus was supposed to heal Lazarus BEFORE his illness became fatal. We may fault them for their “lack of faith,” – after all, this is JESUS we’re talking about…. But again, after all… WE know the end of Lazarus’s story.

But we do not know the end of our own. We join with Mary and Martha, in asking their question:  Where WERE you, Jesus, when Lazarus breathed his last? And likewise, Jesus - where were you when this pandemic started? Where were you when people we know started getting sick, some of them seriously, some of the to the point of death? Where were you, Jesus… when you seem to show up much too late to do any good?

Jesus, amid his own tears of grief, went to the place of Lazarus’ burial. And in front of the giant stone shutting the cave where Lazarus lay, Jesus said, “Take that stone away.” Undeterred by the heavy stone, by the four-day-old grave, the reluctance of the sisters, the heckling of the crowd, unaffected even by the smell coming from Lazarus’ decaying body, Jesus called forth: “Lazarus! COME OUT!” And Lazarus… CAME OUT. Wrappings, and smell, and all.

With Jesus, death … leads… to life. In Jesus, we trust that, even in the midst of grief and suffering and death, Jesus IS present, and he is also working through us to bring about new life. He knows death all too well, including how it smells. But no grave could hold him; no stone could keep him in. And so we hope: even when we are filled with fear, and don’t yet see a way forward, as we wait for a new kind of normal.

Eight years ago, I preached in a chilly sanctuary full of people, and today I’m in a warm but empty sanctuary. And while I would never desire to repeat that experience, I can say that I have learned a few things from Hurricane Sandy. I have learned that a time of crisis really does reveal who people are at their core. I have seen God can and does use the compassion and generosity of people in times like these, and I hope you have seen these moments too, among the fear and the grief. And I encourage you to share these moments with one another. Where have you seen God at work in all of this?

Things are going to be challenging for a while longer yet – how long? We’re not sure. But we wait, with Mary, with Martha, and with Lazarus, knowing that our waiting is not in vain. The tomb will be opened, and we WILL be called forth, and unbound, to new and abundant life, alongside Jesus. Thanks be to God. AMEN.

Welcomed both Inside and Out

3-22- 20 
(This sermon was also livestreamed on Family of God Lutheran's facebook page) 

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, amen.

My friend Beth Wartick, a Lutheran Pastor in Iowa – shout out to her, though she’s probably live streaming her own service - Besides being an awesome pastor, she has written for the Living Lutheran magazine, which is pretty awesome. She writes that she remembers when she was ten, and her mom told her the story of bringing her– Beth - to worship, only to be brought up short by another member who insisted that, because of how Beth was borm, God MUST BE punishing one or both of them. Punishment for what, you might ask? You see, Beth was born with one arm.

In her article, Pastor Beth reflects – “When congregations never talk about disability, it sends the message to people with disabilities and their loved ones that they don’t really matter to the church. And when congregations talk about disability thoughtlessly or unkindly, it sends another message—that people with disabilities aren’t really welcome.”

We are good at making judgments about what’s on the outside – skin color, biological gender, cultural values or economic status, weight, height, athletic ability, physical differences or visible disabilities. What happens when we perceive people as their whole selves instead?

In reading her article, I appreciated Pastor Beth’s reflection on being both “a lifelong Lutheran and a lifelong person with person with a disability,” and the call to the church to welcome both identities. She writes: “… Every member of the body of Christ has the responsibility and power to make every other member welcomed and included. “

In this really long reading from the Gospel of John you just heard, we get to experience a pretty clear mode of how NOT to do this.

Jesus and his disciples walked the road, when they met a man born blind. When the disciples saw this man, they instantly judged him and his parents as sinners, much like the people at Beth’s parents’ church. In the minds of the people in his community, his disability was an outward sign of someone’s sin, which was a common idea, both then and now. What is the parents’ sin, the man’s sin, the sin of one of his ancestors? It JUST HAD to be one of them who was at fault.

But Jesus refused to participate in this blaming and shaming. Instead, Jesus saw the man with more than just his eyes. He saw him through the eyes of God and viewed him as a child of God, worthy of love, instead of judgment and rejection. Jesus saw this man in need, separated from his community, and healed him. This is what Jesus is in the habit of doing – finding people who are on the outside.

And yet, even when this man who was born blind is now visually un-impaired, he is still on the outside. It’s almost funny, that after this man is healed, everyone in his life plays “pass the buck” with him. It’s as if once his “identifier” – being blind – is gone, he has no other identity in his community to speak of. They never saw him as a whole person – they only saw him as impaired, as someone to be pitied.

When his identity is taken out of that neat little box he had been placed in, people don’t know what to do! Their label for then man is gone, so he doesn’t make sense in their worldview anymore. It’s like they are grabbing at straws - accusing everyone of anything they can think of – the man is a sinner, his parents are sinners, Jesus is a sinner, this man must be Jesus’ disciple, back to this man must be a sinner…. And the man is driven out, back to the outside of his community.

While the man is again on the outside… Jesus AGAIN finds him. After Jesus gives him his sight, Jesus give the man something even better – agency… identity…. Empowerment. The man believed. And the man worshiped. But only once Jesus said, “…. You have seen him… AND the one SPEAKING with you is he.” Jesus went back to the sense that the man knew the best – hearing.

Jesus healed a lot of people, but he didn’t “cure” or “fix” everyone who could not see. But Jesus did come to wake us up and tune us in, to a new kind of reality. One where we are found and chosen by Jesus. A reality where no one thing defines who we are in our entirety. This reality is God’s reality, and it’s easy for us to miss if we’re not looking for it.

Those of us who drive on a regular basis know about something called “blind spots.” The first time you merge into another lane only to be honked at by another vehicle right there in your blind spot is a time you don’t soon forget.

Something looms so large in our minds that it pretty much blocks out everything else. Right now for most of us, that “big thing” blocking our view of the world is the Covid-19 virus and our world being on varying levels of hiatus and lock-down. Many of us have been putting in extra hours to keep everyone safe, or to construct a whole new way of doing things, including new ways of being the church.

Being safe, being healthy, washing our hands, buying toilet paper, staying up to date on the news… all these things we’re focusing on right now are not bad things. But when these things get in the way of fully being children of God by creating anxiety, inequality, and panic, we should probably scale back or reassess.  When we allow our desire for security to take over our lives, we miss the point of being part of God’s kingdom.  We box ourselves in by creating a world that is comfortable, yes, but is devoid of growth, risk, challenge, and even joy and love. Just as we box other people in when we only pay attention to what’s on the outside. But, to live in a box is not where God has called us to be – it is not who we are.

Unfortunately, many of us are sort of literally in a kind of box that we need to stay in, in order to remain safe, or in order to keep others safe. But even so, every single day, nearly every single moment, God breaks into our lives in surprising ways, providing us opportunities to respond to Jesus invitation. Right now, I am speaking to you in your phone or through your computer (hopefully!).  As I have been making phone calls to some of you, I hear that you are making calls to one another, checking in. This is the body of Christ at work! Keep it up! We are about keeping people included, even if we can’t see them in person.

This is a new kind of normal, not one that we had expected or anticipated…. Or are even properly prepared for, really. And some of us may feel off-kilter, at least I know that I do! Not unlike the man from this gospel:  this man’s entire existence had been turned utterly upside down… though he faced questions on all sides, by everyone he ever knew … he stuck with his gut, and stated what he DID know… “IF this man is not from God, he could do nothing.”

God IS doing something, all right. We might not be able to see what God is up to at every moment, with all of our fears and anxieties looming large. But we’re still here. The church is not what goes on in this building. The church is NOT the building. The church is you. Every week I say “Welcome, there is a place for you here.” But for the time being at least, that is going to change. Not the welcome part, but the “here” part. From now on, perhaps we should say, “Welcome, there is a place for you… with us. Wherever that ‘here’ may be for you.” Thanks be to God. Amen.

Living Water for Challenging Times

3-15- 20

(I also streamed this live on our church FB page) 

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, amen.

Nearly 8 years ago, the theme for Cokesbury’s VBS program was called “Everywhere Fun Fair.” Not one of their best or most memorable, but the theme of being a neighbor to all of God’s children, even across countries and continents, is still a pretty solid theme.  That fall though, an event happened that was MUCH MORE memorable: Hurricane Sandy. Just after the power went out the evening of the storm, I shared leftovers with my Jewish downstairs neighbor. When the storm subsided, the apartment complex was still without power. Four days later, when power was finally restored, my neighbor went out of his way to call a coworker of his to tell a mutual friend to tell me that power was back on when I wasn’t home to witness it. That was VERY neighborly of him!

Jesus’ call for us to be neighbors isn’t just for kids during vacation Bibles school, or only in dire circumstances for natural disasters when the power is out, or even now, as we face a lot of unknowns surrounding the increasing stress that the spread of the Coronavirus is bringing. Jesus’ call to be neighbors is a call for everyone, everywhere, every day. Karen Gonzalez, author of the book, The God who Sees: Immigrants, the Bible, and the Journey to Belong, reflects: “I had never realized how much the scriptures tell the stories of people who began as strangers and then became a part of the family of God.” And we certainly heard a perfect example of what living this out means from our reading from the Gospel of John…

Jesus had never met this woman before. They began their encounter as total strangers… At this time, the common practice was “social distancing,” but not for hygienic reasons. One of my seminary professors, Dr. Karoline Lewis, is a John scholar, and this is one of her favorite story in her favorite gospel. She writes: “Jesus shares is true self with the last person on the face of the planet whom people would have thought God could love… Not to the disciples. Not to the religious elite. Not to those in power….. [but he reveals his true self to] This woman. This Samaritan. [A woman] with no name, no credibility, no respect.”

And yet… SHE is the one chosen by Jesus. She is a person whom the world sees as fallen and sinful, though she is never described by or treated by Jesus that way.

Karen Gonzalez also reflects on this encounter: “Jesus reveals his identity as Messiah to this unnamed woman, and she is the first to spread the Gospel to her own people.” After her surprising conversation with Jesus, the woman departs joyfully – practically running - even leaving her water container behind at the well. Jesus transforms her life, her view of herself, even her calling. But she remains both a Samaritan and a woman. John shares with us – pointedly in fact – her gender and her ethnicity for a reason. Her social status is an integral part of this story, not happenstance or an afterthought.

In fact, her encounter with Jesus remakes her – through this conversation, her identity and purpose are found anew, and she sets out on a journey to share her powerful encounter with other people. But not in a way that makes her gender and her ethnicity submerged, changed, or covered up. It is because she is a woman, and because she is Samaritan, that she can become an emissary, or missionary, to her people. Who she is, and where she is from, is fundamental to HER story. Her testimony – “he told me everything I have ever done!” – tells us that she experiences being deeply known and loved by Jesus, just as she is. And this changes the course of her entire life.

The story of the woman at the well deeply affected Karen Gonzalez, who came to the United States from Guatemala as a child. For a long time, Gonzales believed that to be “Christian” was to shut away or even shed the parts of herself that made her different from “American Christians” – being a woman, being from Guatemala, being an immigrant, being a multi-cultural person. But, thanks to exploring the story of the Samaritan woman, and seeing herself in this woman’s encounter with Jesus as a whole person, Gonzalez now firmly trusts Jesus’ accepting her, in all her intersections, in all her “God-Authored Complexities” – as a Latina, Guatemalan, immigrant, and woman. Gonzales was able to say “yes” to her whole self, as a beloved child of God, because Jesus says “yes,” to all of her SELF.

The woman at the well is part of a long line and long tradition of biblical women who said an wholehearted “Yes” to the difficult call of God on their lives  – women like  Hagar, Vashti, Esther, Ruth, Mary mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Junia, Phoebe, and the woman at the well, just to name a few - some of the VERY few women in the Bible we get to hear from. These words we hear from the woman at the well are part of only 14,000 words that are spoken by women in the entire Bible.

This may sound like a lot, but all of the words that women speak in the Bible can be read out loud in less than 2 hours. For reference, the Gospel of John would also take about 2 hours to read out loud. To read the whole Bible out loud take almost 72 hours…. That’s three days straight. But ALL the words of women would be completed during a round trip to and from Philly on a good day.  And so, the mission work that this woman is doing on behalf of Jesus takes on even more importance. Every word she says, to Jesus, and to her people, take on even greater significance. Especially when HER sermon – which was extremely effective, was just one sentence long – “he has told me everything I have ever done!” That’s all the missionary training this woman needed – a conversation with Jesus.

When you hear the word “mission,” we think about traveling to faraway places, not people in our own backyard.  Maybe as a youth you’ve been on a “mission trip” to another part of the country, or possibly your family have been on a work camp trip, or sponsor a child through an organization, or raise money for world hunger. These are very worthy means to spread God’s message of love and can enrich our own faith communities in many ways.

However, “mission” is not necessarily something that happens far away.  Being “a missionary” is no longer the special ministry of a dedicated few. We are ALL missionaries for the gospel, here in our very own Buckingham and Bucks County. There are people right here, in our own community, who need a word of hope in their lives…. Especially right now. They are probably right in front of you: your neighbors, coworkers, customers, and even friends and family members.

Trust me, you don’t need a specialized degree in ministry to be a messenger of the gospel.  The woman at the well didn’t. Jesus gave her everything she needed. Just as she did, you can simply let your words and actions do the talking – by going out of your way to help another in need, by comforting those who mourn, taking care of those who are sick or lonely, by carefully using your God-given resources, by taking the time to read the Bible or pray as a family, remaining calm when the world around us wants to increase our panic-buying of toilet paper. Our mission is to speak a word of hope when its hard to find some calm to hang on to, to point to the person – Jesus – to keeps us going in times like these.

Living out your life with faith can be a powerful witness to others.  And others WILL take notice. You may be asked questions. That’s ok – don’t feel that you need the “right” words to tell people of how the love of Jesus changed your life. Like the women at the well, just speak from your heart and the Holy Spirit will do the rest.

This is God’s mission, after all. Our part in that mission, every day, but especially during times of stress and uncertainty, is sometimes to also let our actions be message – in being a neighbor by caring for our neighbors near AND far. We are about to leave this place for perhaps an undetermined about of time. This week has proven that we never really know what the next day will bring. But we will always remain connected – as neighbors – through our love for one another. We, like the woman at the well, can leave our jar behind knowing that Jesus is our living water, and will sustain us. So, when someone asks you – using the appropriate amount of social distancing, of course – what is getting you through this difficult time? We, along with this woman, can say, “Jesus.” Thanks be to God. Amen.

Don't Leave the Room, Leave Room

3-8-20

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, amen.

During my reading week, I read Barbara Brown Taylor’s newest book called Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others. Taylor is an Episcopalian Priest turned Religion Professor at a small liberal arts college in rural Georgia. While teaching her Religion 101 course, she and her students would have may adventures learning about Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and in the process, Taylor – the professor – ended up learning a much deeper and wider appreciation the central tenants of her own faith.

And really, what can be more central to our Christian faith than the words of “John 3:16”? Plastered on bracelets and billboards, quoted over an over again until we have heard it so much we have no idea what it means… sort of like when, as a kid, I would say the same word over and over again until my brain could no longer process it, and instead my ears only heard meaningless syllables.

John 3:16 John 3:16 John 3:16 John 3:16 John 3:16 John 3:16 John 3:16 John 3:16

You see what I mean?

But of course, John 3:16 DOES mean something… it is the verse-identifier of one of, if not THE MOST memorable and memorized verse in the Bible. When you hear “John 3:16,” you all know that this is shorthand for (say it with me) “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

But sometimes the shorthand gets in the way of the words themselves. Before today, did you know remember this is a quote of Jesus? And that he’s taking to someone else? did you remember that this is part of a conversation? John, of course, is the book of the Bible this quote comes from (one of the four Gospels, at the beginning of our New Testament, to be specific)…. Coming from the third chapter of this book, and in particular the 16^th verse in this chapter. We forget that there are other verses in this chapter, others chapters in this book, and other books in the Bible.

We remember this verse but forget the situation this happened in – for this, we might actually feel sorry for poor Nicodemus. In Holy Envy, Barbara Brown Taylor also feels bad for poor Nick – I’m going to call him Nick - And devotes a whole chapter in her book to talk about him, because of how his silence has been used against him throughout the ages.  He was left in the dark, both literally and figuratively. In other words, he’s “Nick at Night.”

But why is it that he come by night – was it to be hidden and not seen by others? We often interpret his behavior as embarrassment or secrecy. But maybe he came by night because it’s a better time to talk about important things. How often is it easier to talk about deep matters by candlelight, or the flickering of a campfire, than it is to talk under florescence lights, or by the bright light of full daylight?

Nick does not begin his conversation with Jesus by being on the offensive. His first volley is not attack, but praise – “we know you are close to God” he says. But “Poor Nick” is a literalist. He does not know that he is in John’s Gospel, where nothing is ever (only) as it seems.” (164) In the Gospel of John, Jesus loves to speak in loaded language. Water is never just water, bread is not just bread, and night and day mean so much more than where the sun is located in the sky. And birth is not just your everyday, contraction-filled, counting the dilated centimeters – type birth.

No one enters this life without being born from a mother, and similarly no one enters the kingdom without this birth from the Holy Spirit. But what was so mind-blowing to hear for Nick at the time has become rote for us hearing these astonishing words from Jesus two thousand years later. Christians in the twenty-first century throw around the term “born again” much like we throw around “John 3:16.”

Barbara Brown Taylor, in her holy quest to dig deeper, further wonders: but “What if [Jesus’] purpose is not to enlighten Nick but to endarken him…” and to remind him of the limits of what we humans presume to know about God. 

Nick’s problem then becomes not that he DOES NOT know… (sorry that was a lot of nots!) … but the fact that he thinks he SHOULD know.  His fault wasn’t his unbelief or his lack of faith. His fault was placing too much faith in the wrong thing – the confidence of his own knowledge of the divine, rather than being open to the workings of the Holy Spirit and the unknowing that she brings. He expects an answer from Jesus, and instead gets a whole big mystery.

“As far as I can tell, the only things Nick did wrong on the night he met with Jesus was to leave the room.” Taylor asserts. I would add, he also didn’t “leave room.” Nick’s un-knowing made him uncomfortable. If only he had leaned into and made room for his discomfort a little bit longer.

All this birth talk in reference to God and conversations about the Holy Spirit makes us uncomfortable too. Barbara Brown Taylor goes as far as to claim, “If I am born of HER (the holy spirit), she is my mother…. She comes, she goes. She gives life to all creation.” The Holy Spirit is beyond our control. She causes us to bump unto people we wouldn’t normally be in contact with. She drops us off in unexpected places to experience new and different ways of being in the world.

We don’t get to choose how and when we were born, and if you have ever experienced pregnancy, you probably are aware of a profound loss of control over your own body. Perhaps had Nick been a woman or a mother, he may have heard these words from Jesus – and felt the movements of the Holy Spirit – a little bit more clearly or receptively. Birthing is hard, and being born is hard. The light blinds our brand-new eyes, and we are expected to breath in a whole new way we aren’t used to. There is a reason that they say the first few months of life are like a “4^th Trimester”… it takes a while for us to get used to the unexpectedness of being born… and perhaps if we had been giving a choice, we might opt to stay in that womb forever.

But the Spirit is persistent… much like the voice that Elsa is haunted by in Frozen 2 while her life seems to have finally settled down into some sort of version of normal after her adventures in the previous movie. Though the signature song of Frozen 2 is certainly no “Let it Go,” we can all relate to Elsa’s reluctance to give up all the good, stable life around her – to stay in her safe, comfortable, predictable sphere. She doesn’t want to hear it; she doesn’t want to know more… because it will change things.

 Similarly, Nick might say to Jesus if Nick were a Disney princess in a Disney movie, he might sing along with Elsa: “You're not a voice, you're just a ringing in my ear. And if I heard you, which I don't, I'm spoken for, I fear… I've had my adventure, I don't need something new, I'm afraid of what I'm risking if I follow you, into the unknown ...”

Except that… Nick DOES HEAR that call again… and he does come back into the story after he fades away. At the end of the Gospel of John, after Jesus has died and is about to be buried, there he is, ready and waiting, burial spices in hand. Together, with Joseph of Arimathea, these two men carefully wrapped Jesus’ body and prepared it for burial, a task that was normally relegated to women. In a way then, these two men also prepared Jesus for his rebirth… his birth from above, his resurrection. These men labored, not knowing for sure what would be next, as they laid his body in the darkness of a tomb…. That in the end, became more like a womb for the new life about to arrive.

I might summarize Barbara Brown Taylor’s whole book using a quote from this chapter on Nick: “Once you have given up knowing who is right, it is easy to see neighbors everywhere you look.”  Something new is at work being born in us… with the Holy Spirit as our midwife. Sometimes its going to feel uncomfortable, and it might even be painful. But it is in the service of making room - making room for the work of the Holy Spirit, making room for the new thing that is to come, making room for all people to be welcome. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Red Light, Green Light, Lent Light

3-1-20

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and savior Jesus the Christ, by the power of the holy spirit, amen.

On my way to Trinity Wednesday night for our joint Ash Wednesday worship, I got stuck at the light on the corner of Old Dublin Pike and Main Street. As the stop lights cycled through for everyone else multiple times, the light for the straight lane – the one I was in - stayed red…I started to worry as the time grew later and later. I still had to stop here to grab my alb and stole. I worried that Pastor Nancy would wonder where I was. I had to ask myself – am still supposed to be a rule-abiding citizen, even when it seems like the rules are not working properly? Just as I was about to give up on that stationary lane and try to sneak into the left-hand turn lane to find another way, perhaps risking cutting off another car, or at least being rude … the light finally turned green again, and life proceeded as normal. I needn’t have worried because I showed up at Trinity right on time.

Lent is kind of like that. Ready or not, it’s time to pause, take stock, and make note of the brake lights and the stop lights. Ready or not, it’s time to travel through the wilderness, take the slow lane or even a different route…. Knowing that in 40 days (minus Sundays), we will still arrive right on time, exactly where we need to be.

Now we may not find ourselves led out into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit this Lent, as Jesus did. We may not face a serpent or the devil face to face. We may not have the ability to turn stones to bread or ever be offered all the kingdoms of the world. But we DO have one thing in common with Jesus in the wilderness - an identity given to us by God. Jesus had just come from his baptism, when his freshly recognized and newly blessed identity as the Son of God was called into question. And we too are called Children of God in our baptisms, and we too find ourselves under the world’s scrutiny before the water on our heads has a chance to dry.

On the verge of starting his earthly ministry, Jesus had to define what it meant to be “the son of God.” Was Jesus going to reflect a kind of power and glory that the world could easily recognize? Or would Jesus set his agenda according to God’s definition of power and glory?

The first temptation does seem pretty harmless - After all, it wouldn’t hurt anyone if Jesus did a little magic on those rocks so he wouldn’t be hungry AND angry – or HANGRY as the cool kids say. I would have turned those stones into bread in a heartbeat, and probably added some hummus too, faster than you can say “Grab a Snickers.” But, Jesus saves his divine breadmaking skills for another time, to feed 5,000 hungry people rather than feed himself only, which happens later in the Matthew’s Gospel.

The same happens with the other two temptations. Instead of throwing himself off a roof to test God plan for him, Jesus instead shows his resolve do follow God’s will, to trade being lifted high on a building to being lifted high on a cross. And instead of seizing the opportunity to rule all the kingdoms of the earth for himself, Jesus instead will open the kingdom of heaven to all who follow him. In the rest of his ministry, we can see how Jesus’ time in the wilderness prepared him to fulfill his baptismal identity.

In the wildernesses we find ourselves in, be they physical, emotional, or spiritual, we too find our identity tested. We are constantly tempted into thinking that, as we are right now, we are not good enough to be children of God.

Most of us are aware of our limitations and our hang-ups, and the tempter takes every opportunity to remind us where we fall short with a never-ending commentary in our brains – Surely, we are mistaken if we think that God has chosen us. Surely, God wants us to work a little harder at being God’s children. Surely, we need to prove that we are worthy of being chosen.

I imagine something similar going through Eve’s mind while she listened to the clever arguments of the serpent in the garden. When the serpent told her that eating the fruit would make her more like God, to have knowledge of good and evil, she jumped at the chance. She did not trust that God had created her good, just as she was.

The story of creation in the book of Genesis is so epic that there is not just ONE version of the story but TWO (You can look it up for yourself on Page 1 of your pew bible)… and at the end of the second one, God gave free reign of the garden Eden, but said, “You can eat from any tree in the garden, except for one. Don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or you will die.”

But if you didn’t already know the answer, you would probably easily guess what happens next - the snake convinces Eve to try the fruit from the forbidden tree. Eve eats, then Adam eats. Their eyes were opened, and they knew there was trouble in paradise. In the Sara Bareilles, called “Eden ,” Eve tells us her side of the story -  “Walking in the garden was a serpent-shaped heart and he told me – ‘What is broken cannot show, and “less than beautiful” is worse than unholy.’”

The snake of course was wrong… but Even and Adam found that out the hard way, and in the song, Eve reflects, “…. Now I'm wide awakened and still paying for the poison they sold me.”

The Adam and Eve in all of us all too often trust the words of the crafty serpents around us, rather than the incredible promise that we are loved and claimed as God’s children. It’s hard for us to see ourselves as God sees us. We look into ourselves and only see what is lacking, and so comes our tendency to reach for too much power, too much security, too much comfort in order to fill the gaps. This is the poison that the serpent – and the world – is selling. But God sees us a different way. When the rest of the world tells us the opposite, God tells us that we are worthy, we are loved, and we are enough.

In Jesus, God’s love is shown to the world. In Jesus, we see that the love of God would go to any length for us, and would travel any distance, and would even go to death and back for God’s beloved children. We certainly long to hear these words on a daily basis.

One meaning of Lent is “to lengthen,” like the daylight hours in the coming spring, that hopefully will arrive someday soon.  The purpose of Lent is to makes US “long” for this new life – We long to stop causing and receiving pain.  We long to be out of the night and we long for the return of the dawn.

Lent is not for us to improve ourselves with sacrifices to become more worthy or more holy come Easter Sunday. Lent instead takes us through the wilderness to reflect our own shortcomings, to remind us to let God be God. Not so that we can feel guilty at where we have fallen short. But so that we can get out of our own way and be nothing less than members of God’s family. It’s been said that when Martin Luther felt tempted to despair by the devil, he would shout in response, “I am baptized!” Not “I was”, but “I AM.” Present tenses. True in this very moment.

The trip through Lent every year takes us from a garden to a wilderness and back again, from human sin and transgression and death to resurrection, from the ash crosses of Ash Wednesday to the shadow of the cross on Good Friday, through the Garden of Eden, to the garden of Gethsemane, to the garden that contained Jesus’ empty tomb. Every year, we tell the story, to remind ourselves who we are and WHOSE we are. “I am baptized.” Present tense. Now and forever. Thanks be to God, amen.