Jesus is Not Special

3-3-19

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.

One Saturday when I was in middle school, my youth group carpooled out to Devils Lake State Park, about an hour north of Madison. It was a gorgeous fall day as we trekked up and down the hills around Devil’s Lake and enjoying the spectacular view. After a while, though, I noticed that my knees were starting to feel sore – not from going UP the steep hills, but more from going DOWN them. This is apparently a common phenomenon among people who do a lot of climbing – it often takes MORE energy to get DOWN a mountain than to go UP… and sometimes climbers get into trouble when they use up ALL their energy on the way UP, and don’t have enough strength to get back down again.

It’s sort of a wonder, then, that Jesus came down the mountain at all. After all, who would not want to just hang out with Moses and Elijah, with just your 3 closest friends, and keep your clothes dazzling white when you lived in a dusty climate WAY before TIDE was invented. Jesus COULD have taken Peter’s suggestion of building some tents for Moses and Elijah too, so they would be tempted to stick around for an extended camping vacation. It sounds like heaven for an introvert like me. Just set up shop and make people come to YOU. Especially knowing what would happen to Jesus after he came down.

But if Jesus HAD stayed up there on the mountain forever here in Chapter 9, where would that leave the rest of us? Sure, Jesus would remain shiny and nice, flanked by the Big-League Prophets and Peter, James, and John. But then, Jesus would never have taught us the Lord’s prayer, which doesn’t happen until chapter 11. Jesus would not have taught his parables about God’s kingdom. Jesus would never have healed the sick and blessed children or encountered Zacchaeus “the wee little man.” Jesus would not have his last supper, and he would not have suffered, died, and risen again.

We can’t live up on the mountain, and neither can Jesus. Jesus obviously did come down the mountain, the very next day, and just in time too.  Almost immediately from the crowd that was following Jesus, a father comes forward begging for help. It sounds to our modern ears that his son is suffering from some kind of epileptic fit. Whatever the cause, this helpless child is suffering, and no on else but Jesus can help.

As Jesus approached the boy, the illness cast the poor kid down to the ground yet again, which must have been terrifying to witness. But Jesus got closer, and so his pristine, dazzling white clothes became covered in the dust that the convulsing boy must have invariably kicked up. And, both still covered in that dust, Jesus healed the child and gave him back to his father, who I’m sure was too overjoyed to notice all the dirt. His boy was whole again, and that’s all that mattered. I’m sure that father was glad Jesus came down the mountain.

Peter didn’t want Jesus to come down the mountain. Perhaps he was afraid that Jesus’s shiny special-ness might wear off if he didn’t stay up there. But what Peter didn’t know yet is that Jesus is for everyday use, not just for special occasions. He didn’t know yet that Jesus was serious about getting involved with the messiness of being human, and that meant getting a little bit dusty sometimes… and other times it meant staining his face with tears or even bleeding from a cross. But this is how we know that the love of God is real – real love gets dirty. Real love gets shabby and threadbare from use.

In that favorite children’s story, The Velveteen Rabbit, the stuffed toy that became so well-loved by his boy that all his fur rubbed of, his whiskers fell out, and his lovely brown coat had faded to a dull grey. This boy too became sick, and the velveteen rabbit stayed by his side as he got well again.

But when the boy was better, all his things – which were thought to be “germy” - were packed up to be thrown away, including the rabbit. As the rabbit sat out with the rest of the garbage that night, The Nursery-Magic fairy came to visit him. The rabbit’s scruffy and well-worn appearance proved that the boy had loved him very much. Love had already made the toy rabbit real to the boy… and so the fairy simply completed the process of becoming real by changing the toy rabbit into a real one.

I love what the Skin Horse says to the velveteen rabbit early in the “becoming real” process: “Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you…You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily…  or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off… and you get … very shabby. But these things don't matter at all.”

Being real is being a little rough around the edges, a little dusty and mundane. Because that is where we live MOST of the moments of our lives – up the mountain but also down it. 

As some of my United Methodist women clergy friends wrote in a devotional (We Pray With Her), “Life has those big, beautiful moments, but mostly it’s made up of mundane things…  The good news is that God is in the business of making mundane things holy.” (page 65) Another friend said to me, “Jesus is not birthday cake… Jesus is our daily bread.”

Jesus is not special and doesn’t have to be put away up on a mountain to be kept safe to be used only on special occasions, like breakable fine china. Jesus also uses very “non-special” things for his work. Water and a promise become the means we are called beloved Children of God in our baptisms. Ordinary bread and wine become the means we are welcomed and fed by Jesus’s presence so that we don’t lose the strength to keep going down the mountain and survive and thrive in this dusty world. Jesus is with us every moment, in the breaking of bread, in the dust and in our tears, in our sweat as we work for justice.

We are about to embark on the season of Lent, which begins on Wednesday with a smudge of ash on our foreheads and a reminder that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. Jesus gets down there in the dust of life, and next week he’ll be spending 40 days in the dust of a barren wilderness. But we’ll take more about that next week.

For now, Jesus is both up on the mountain, shiny and savoring the glory of his identity of be the Beloved of his Father, before descending into the dust that makes up our daily realities. Jesus is up there on the mountain, but Jesus is also down here on the flat places as well – as he preached last week in his sermon on the plain. He is down here where real love gets a bit messy, and love might get revealed in the ordinary things, hidden in plain sight.

One of my favorite poems is called “To be of Use,” and part of it goes like this:

“The work of the world is common as mud.

Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.

Greek amphoras for wine or oil,

Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums

but you know they were made to be used.”

Real Love is not about the big birthday parties or cakes you got on your birthday – you saw their love every time your parents kissed your booboos better, or changed your diaper, or taught you how to tie your shoe. Real Love is not about the vows that you made on your wedding day in a white dress or immaculate tux, but it’s every time you said “I love you” before leaving the house, every time your spouse folded the laundry or loaded the dishwasher. Real Love is being present in all the little moments, not just the big ones. Real Love was made to be… useful. And it was made to be used OFTEN… every moment of every day.

This means that we might get a little dinged up on this journey called life. When follow Jesus’ example, WE are likely going to get dusty, smudged, faded, or even broken. Like one of our communion chalices – it came apart right at the seam. But we glued it back together, and we will be using it again. Jesus does the same – healing our broken and loved-off bits, so that we can continue to be vessels of the Real Love of God in the world. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Real Jesus, Real Life.

Sermon 4-29-18

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

Today is a very special day. This is the day that we will be welcoming Nate Karpinski to the Lord’s table for the very first time, along with his family, and all of you, members of Family of God. Do you remember your first communion experience?

Do any of you remember what your first communion classes were like? I asked some of you this question one night during Nate’s experimental first communion classes, which happened on Thursday nights during Lent at Panera Bread. Since Nate his age taking the first communion class, we invited all ages to participate in this eating and learning event, which I think everybody got a kick out of. I think many of us had a variation of the typical classroom experience, with memorizing and a lot of Bible reading. Fun fact: apparently during one of MY first communion classes, I rattled off the entire words of institution verbatim, which is when my mom tells me SHE knew I was destined to be a pastor.

What do you remember about the day of your first communion? What it in this church? …or at another church? How many of you wore a white dress or a fancy suit? Were you in second grade, or fifth grade, or a teenager being confirmed too? Did you bring your extended family with you?

No matter when or where or how you received communion for the first time, the important thing is that you DID… and that Jesus showed up.

During a First Communion Sunday at a church I previously served, an early teen looked at me with wide eyes as I poured communion wine from the pouring chalice into his little cup during communion. He asked in an incredulous whisper…. “is this real wine?” By some miracle I didn’t laugh out loud, but only nodded. Yes, this is real wine. Yes, this is real Jesus.

Over a month ago it was Easter. Yes, wow, times really flies! And during the week before Easter, which we call Holy Week, we remember on Thursday night the first time that Jesus instated Holy Communion. While eating his last meal before he was to be crucified, he passed a loaf of bread and a cup of wine to a room full of his closest friends one last time… and told them “This is my body… this is my blood.” These “friends” though, in just a few hours, would betray him, deny him, and abandon him before Jesus drew his last breath on the cross on Good Friday. That Thursday was THE first communion… much like today will be Nate’s first communion, surrounded by other Followers of Jesus – US…. People who ALSO betray, deny, and abandon Jesus… plenty of times.

So, Nate…you are in good company. You too will be surrounded by sinners like me and all of those gathered here. As our funeral commendation goes for those who have died in the faith… “Sheep of God’s own flock… sinners of God’s own redeeming.”

When Nate… and each of us… were baptized in the Family of God – not necessarily this church, but maybe so… but I mean God’s family of faith existing in all times and in all places… when we were baptized, we were claimed by God as beloved children, welcomed into the fold. But as we grow up, life… gets complicated. We graduate from high school and college, face a world full of tough choices, and find ourselves unable to extricate ourselves from institutions and cultural norms that are inherently racist, sexist, classist, homophobic, xenophobic, and otherwise harmful to other members of the Body of Christ. We sin, both knowingly and unknowingly. We fall, and we fail. We hurt one another, and we hurt creation. We fall victim to the lie we tell ourselves – that I contain multitudes, that I can/ and should/ have it “all,” than I can do all things by myself and all my own strength.

When Jesus told his disciples on that night, the night he was betrayed, his disciple still believed the lie too. They still believed, even after three years of hearing Jesus teach, witness Jesus working signs and miracles, hearing Jesus minister to the outcast and the outsider. Even after all that, they were still waiting for Jesus to arrive in majesty, to right all the wrongs in a blaze of glaze of glory and establish a kingdom (with them in power too of course).

But in just a few hours they would fall away… Judas would hand Jesus over to the religious police by a kiss of friendship…. Peter would deny Jesus not once but three different times… and the rest of his disciples would run away and hid, leaving only the faithful women to stand at the feet of the cross to mourn the death of their hope and dreams for a revolution.

They couldn’t do it. They tried to be faithful on their own strength and failed miserably.

Which we all do. They couldn’t do it on their own, because none of us can. What usually happens to a branch when it falls off of the tree, like during one of those big snowstorms we have a few months ago? It stops growing. It no longer produces leaves or flowers or fruit. But the branches that are still connected to the trees? Have you notices how beautiful all the blooms are becoming? They cannot bloom…. Or grow fruit or seeds, unless they are connected to the trunk.

Which is why Jesus created a way for us to be connected to him.  We cannot grow, or bloom, or create fruit, or makes seeds, without the sustaining and life-giving power that comes from Jesus. This is the power of God’s love for us, which comes from the weekly gathering around the Lord’s Table, to receive a small bit of bread and just a little bit of wine. Every week we hear the words “The body of Christ, given FOR YOU… the blood of Christ, shed FOR YOU.” Jesus lived, died, and rose again FOR YOU.

As Lutherans, we are both remember what Jesus said and did for us…AND we celebrate that Jesus is ACTUALLY HERE, in the earthly elements of bread and wine. Jesus is present in REAL things… things that week can see and touch. The waters of baptism welcome us into God’s family… and the bread and wine of Holy Communion connect us to Jesus …. And it connects us to one another, to all people of faith, through all times and all places.

We have tried to explain it… but words fail us. But we do believe: This is real bread. This is real wine. This is real Jesus. This is real connection. And this is real sustenance for the journey ahead.

So whether this is the first time you are experiencing Holy Communion… the fiftieth time… or the five-hundredth time… you are welcome to receive strength for your week. There is a place for you here, at the Lord’s table. As you come to the table today – even though we don’t partake around the table per se - I welcome you to be extra aware of what’s happening, as if you were experiencing it for the first time.

When you come forward, whether you are accompanied by your own immediate family, or you come forward alone, know that you are NEVER alone … you are surrounded by your family here, and beyond these walls. As you reach out your hand to receive the bread, be aware of how in need we are of the love and grace that Jesus offers us… and when we reach for Jesus, he will never leave our hands empty for long. As the wafer is places in your hand – just a very small taste of what God has given us – you will hear the words “The body of Christ, given for you.”

And as you take the wafer and dip it into the wine, remember that Jesus is the vine that we are connected to, who give us this life, just as blood that courses though our bodies carries what we need to all part of our bodies. Through “the blood of Christ, shed for you…”, through the sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf, we too are made part of Jesus’s Easter victory over the power of death.

And lastly, as we walk back to our place in our favorite pew, we know that we won’t be staying there for long. After we have received this gift – for the first, fiftieth, or five-hundredth time – we are sent out into the world to bear fruit… fruit of love in a world that is very lacking in love right now. Thanks be to God, amen.