It Seems to Me -- The End

            I have been telling myself to write this blog post for weeks now. I intended to write it before I left Shawnee. I expected to write it as soon as we were a little more settled from the move. I planned on writing it as soon as the wedding was over. I anticipated writing it before we left for Minnesota. I was determined to write it while we were in Minnesota, or at least on the way to Kansas to settle Zach into school. I should have written it in the downtime between returning home and starting my new call. But here I am, sitting at my new desk, in my new office, in my new church home, three full days into the call, and I am finally forcing myself to write this.

            Why am I procrastinating more than usual on a writing project I have set for myself? Well, because this is it. This is the last piece I am writing for this blog. I started this creative exercise when I answered the call to serve as pastor of United Presbyterian in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Seven plus years later, I have left that call. I am now the Head of Staff at First Presbyterian Church of Pulaski, Tennessee.

If you were paying close attention to the first paragraph, you recognized that the last two months of my life have been filled with change. Most of the changes have been good and filled with hope. The most joyous is that I have remarried a wonderful, kind, funny, silly, lovely man named Brent Stoker. He is my best friend and the love of my life, and I am sure you will hear more about him down the road.

Yet, marrying Brent – such a wonderful and unexpected enterprise – brought other changes. The hardest one was leaving my church in Shawnee. What a dear congregation, filled with so much love and so much courage. Leaving them was harder than I could have ever imagined.

But on the other side of the sadness is the joy of moving home to Tennessee. Not only are Brent and I making a home for ourselves together, I have also found a home in my new call to Pulaski. This congregation is filled with so much love and so much courage. They fill me with hope.

Perhaps the two most poignant changes in this sea of change has been sending my baby, my youngest, my son, Zach, to college at KU in Lawrence, Kansas. I know Zach is more than ready for this transition in his life. I know he will do well. I know it is time, and that this is what is supposed to happen. But I miss him more than I can say. It is a quiet ache, always with me. But I am happy for him and delight in the adult he is becoming.

While Zach is entering the wide world, my father, my dear, sweet dad, is seeing his world narrow. He is slowly leaving this one for the next. When we said “goodbye,” to him in Minnesota, I knew that it could very well be the last time I see him on this side of the great divide between life, death and beyond. He is still with us, and I am so grateful for that, but I anticipate the ache to come. It will be a quiet ache, and it will always be with me.

With all of these changes, I knew that another change needed to be made. It was time to end this blog. I began it in the life that I have left. It is time for something new. I intend to start a new blog in the weeks to come. I do not yet know what it will be or where it will take me, but it seems to me that writing – even though I procrastinate and delay it as often as possible – is the surest outlet for my creativity, my imagination, my ponderings, my musings, my grief and my joy.

So this is it. "It Seems to Me" has been a work of love. Writing in this space pushed me and challenged me and helped me grow. Thank you for reading it. Thank you for following. Thank you for traveling this road with me. I know I’ll see you soon.

The Better Part -- Last Sunday at United Presbyterian Church

Luke 10:38-42

July 21, 2019

            Two statements. Both are true.

            In the last weeks, I have thought of nothing but this sermon.

            In the last weeks, I have thought of everything but this sermon.

            I have both avoided thinking about it at all costs, and I have spent hours ruminating on it. I have denied that it was coming, and I have worried that it was coming too fast. I have done a million other things than write it, and I have written it and rewritten it in my head.

            All of these are true. And now that we have come to this moment, even as I stare at the words on the page, I still cannot quite wrap my head around the truth that I am standing here in this pulpit, in this church, in the midst of this beloved congregation and preaching my last sermon as your pastor.

            Everything I have been doing these last weeks has been necessary. Everything has been needed. I have had to pack. I have had to finish up projects. I have had to complete to-do lists, and I have had to say my goodbyes to different people in different settings. But in hindsight, much of it seems like a distraction. It was easy to be distracted from the real and necessary work of preparing for this moment.

            In our passage this morning, Martha is distracted. As you know from the other times that I have preached on this passage, I bristle when we come to this particular story in the lectionary. Not because it is not a good story. It is. But I have said it before, and I will say it again; I think most interpretations of this story give Martha a raw deal. Too many portrayals of her make her out to be shrill and shrewish.

            “Jesus! Don’t you see that I am doing all the work around here and my lazy sister, Mary, is just sitting there?! Make her get up and help me!”

            And those same interpretations make Jesus’ words sound scolding and condescending at best, disparaging at worst.

            “Martha, Martha. You are distracted by many things. But only one thing is really needed right now. Only one thing is absolutely necessary right now. Mary has figured it out. Mary has chosen the better part. You should be more like your sister, Mary.”

            But I don’t think Jesus was scolding Martha. I don’t think he was chiding her or trying to treat her as some wayward child. I think, and I realize I could be wrong but let’s assume I’m not, that his tone was gentler and kinder than we read, interpret, or give him credit for.

            “Martha, Martha. You are so distracted by things that ultimately don’t matter. But what does matter is right here in front of you. You have this time to sit with me, this time to learn from me, this time to be with me. That is what Mary is doing. Now you do it too. That is the better part.”

            Mary was distracted. But she was also fulfilling her role in that household and her role in that context and culture. She was supposed to tend the house. She was supposed to show hospitality to guests. She was supposed to prepare food and drink and make sure that everyone was taken care of. But what she was supposed to do had gotten the better of her. While she was doing what was necessary, she had lost sight of what was important.

            It is easy to get distracted by all the things we think we need to do. But what really matters is something else. What really matters, the better part, is being here; being together; being in this moment now. I don’t want to miss this moment now. I don’t want to rush through this sermon, worried and distracted by all the other things I think must be done immediately. It is this moment that matters. And it is this moment that is the better part.

            Last night at Sue Winterringer’s house, we were remembering my first night in Shawnee. I was staying in her house. She and Jim were away. Mary Ann met me when I got into town, showed me where Sue lives and helped me get settled. She also took me to lunch at Chicago Street Deli and bought me a cookie. Talk about what matters! But about 2 am I woke up thinking I was having a heart attack. It turned out instead to be a gall bladder attack, but I didn’t know that yet. All I knew was that I was alone in a strange city, in a strange house and I didn’t know where the hospital was. It all turned out okay. In fact it has become one of my favorite stories to tell. It has become one of many stories from my time here. Like my first Christmas Eve service when Zach set his bulletin on fire, and Phoebe, Mary and Mary Ann rushed over and put it out. Thankfully, I did not actually see that happen. Or do you remember the Advent at the old church when Phoebe and I sang a duet together? Or how about the first time Brent came to see me and came to church with me on Sunday morning. I will never forget Amybeth’s reaction to this handsome guy visiting her pastor. I will never forget how warmly she welcomed him, and the very knowing look she gave me. Do you remember when Alice and I would put a stripe of purple in our hair every Sunday of Advent? Or the many different ways we would find to celebrate Pentecost? Or the different projects we would give all of you to help us accomplish? Do you remember the letters we had everyone cutting out for weeks to create the titles of Advent and Christmas carols? I will never forget Bill Weaver patiently cutting out letter after letter on Sundays before church. If your name is not mentioned, please know that it is not a slight. I could share stories and memories about each one of you, but we would be sitting here for hours.

            A phrase I often hear when it comes to work and to life is that 85% is just showing up. I know that I have not always been the most organized administrator. I know that I haven’t stayed on top of every idea I’ve had or brought every creative impulse I’ve known to fruition. But I hope that I have shown up. I hope that I have shown up for you when you needed me. I hope that I have shown up, because you all have certainly shown up for me and for my family.

            You have shown up for all the plays and musicals and band concerts. When Phoebe got the lead in Sound of Music, we had an entire Presbyterian row. 

            You have shown up for me when one of us has been sick. The night before Pauline’s funeral when I got a stomach bug or food poisoning or some alien took over my body and I was down for the count, Beth showed up with anti-nausea medicine and comforting words. When I went through a divorce and our lives fell apart, you showed up with love and compassion – for me, but even more so for the kids. I’ll never forget Wanda walking into my office when I was having a bad moment and just giving me a hug. I needed that hug. She showed up and you have shown up. You have shown up for me. You have shown up for Phoebe. You have shown up for Zach. You have shown up for us.

            And when Brent came into our lives and made everything right again, you showed up for him. You showed up with love and welcome and excitement, even though I think many of you realized that eventually we would come to this day. You never faltered in your hospitality and in your kindness.

            For almost eight years you have shown up for me. You have taught me that the better part is to not only be in the moment, but to be in the moment with kindness and love. So I hope that I have done the same for you. I hope that I have shown up for you when you have needed me, and even when you haven’t.

            My second Sunday in the pulpit was the 10^th anniversary of September 11. I won’t say that it set a precedent necessarily, but it did push me to take on tough things in my preaching. And I have. I know that I have pushed you. I have challenged you. I know that I have preached some tough sermons over the years. I know that I have called us out in those sermons. But I preached those difficult sermons; I preached those touchy topics and hard passages, because you gave me permission to. I was never afraid or worried, as I have been in other churches, that I would be chastised for preaching a sermon that pushed us to see ourselves in a less than glowing light. I can only thank you all again and again, because serving you has made me a better preacher and a better pastor.

            But what I am most grateful for, what I am most thankful for, is that over and over again you have shown me grace. You have not only shown me grace, you have embodied it. You have been grace when my sermons fell flat. You have embodied grace when I’ve forgotten to do something. You have shown me grace when I have messed up or missed the mark. You have been grace to me at all moments, because you are a gracious group of folks. You have shown me grace when I haven’t been able to show it to myself. I can never thank you for that enough. When I find myself in difficult situations, dealing with difficult people, I tell myself to remember grace, to remember all the times it has been given to me, and that makes those frustrating situations a little easier to bear; and it makes me remember that the frustrating person in front of me is really just another child of God, needing grace too. I learned that here, in your midst, at your feet. I am so grateful.

            The better part that Jesus spoke about was not that Mary was the better sister or that Martha shouldn’t do what was expected of her. The better part Jesus spoke of was in recognizing that some moments require letting go of everything else and just being. Jesus was in their home, and everything else could fall away. They needed to be with him. They needed to just be in his presence, at his feet, learning, listening, with him. That was the better part.

            So let us just be in this moment. Everything is changing, it is true. I am leaving. My house is now in a moving van. I won’t be in this pulpit anymore, and life will go on for all of us in new ways: in good ways, in exciting ways, but not together. But for this moment, we are together. We are worshipping with one another as we do every Sunday. We are lifting up prayers and singing hymns and giving thanks. In this moment we are together and that is the better part.

            (a moment of silence)

           But as this moment passes and we move forward in time to new moments, let us remember that what keeps us going, that what gets us out of bed, that what gives us purpose is hope. We do not lose hope. We do not lose hope when things change. We do not lose hope when we say goodbye. We do not lose hope, because God does not leave us. God does not forget us. God does not abandon us. God is with us now, in this moment, and God is with us in the next moment and the next and the next. God is calling us into the future. God tells us over and over again that the future is in God’s hands. And those are good hands to be in. So we move forward with hope and we move forward with love. That is the better part.

            Thanks be to God. Amen.

I Have Seen the Lord! Easter Sunday

John 20:1-18

April 20, 2019

            There is something mysterious and wonderful about that time just before dawn. It is an in-between time and the light reflects that. The light at that time of the morning is strange. The light, pre-dawn, is not the velvety pitch black of three a.m. But it is not the glowing light of nine a.m. either. The sky is lightening but the sun has not yet risen. There is light, but there is not light. Even as the morning light grows and expands, shadows still linger. If you have been up and outside at that time of the morning, it is hard to know what is what. It is hard to know what you’re seeing. Is that a person sitting and thinking or is that just an old stump? Did that tree move? No wait, it’s an animal. Objects regain their sharp distinctions in the full light of day, but in the darkness of early morning, lines are blurred and edges are indistinct.

            The story of Jesus’ resurrection in John’s gospel tells us that Mary Magdalene came to the tomb on that first day of the week while it was still dark. I suspect that it was the darkness I have described. It was dark, but it was a moving dark, a muted dark, a dark dancing on the verge of day. In this soft darkness, Mary Magdalene made her way to the tomb. Maybe she thought she was seeing things when she saw the stone rolled away. Perhaps she thought the diffused light was playing tricks on her eyes. It was the shadows that made the stone looked rolled away. Surely, the tomb was still sealed and Jesus’ lifeless body still lay inside.

            But no, this was no trick of light or shadow. This was real. The stone had been rolled away. Mary assumed what most of us would. Jesus’ body had been taken, moved, so that his followers could not recover him; a further punishment and indignity on top of so much injustice. Mary did not hesitate or vacillate. She ran to Peter and the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and told them this horrible news,

            “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

            Peter and the other disciple both set off at a run to see what Mary was talking about. Although the other disciple ran faster and reached the tomb first, he did not go in. He just looked in and saw the linen cloths. Peter, reaching the tomb next, went inside. He too saw the linen wrappings that had covered Jesus’ body lying empty. And he also saw the cloth that had covered Jesus’ face, not lying with the other ones, but rolled up and lying by itself. Once Peter went in, then the other disciple followed. He saw the forsaken cloths and believed; but as one commentator wrote, he believed without comprehension. Yet whatever Simon Peter and this other disciple understood or did not understand, they did nothing about it. They made no decision to act. They did not rush off to tell the others. They said nothing else to Mary. They just returned to their homes.

            But Mary stayed. Mary stayed in that garden where the tomb was. She stayed even though the stone had been rolled away and the tomb was clearly empty. She stayed and she wept. She wept because Jesus her teacher, her beloved teacher was gone. We are not privy to her thoughts, but we have a direct view into her feelings. She wept at the absence of her Lord. And as she wept, she did what Simon Peter and the other disciple had done. She bent over and looked into the tomb.

            Maybe the half dark, half light had also played tricks on the disciples’ eyes; maybe they were unable to see beyond who was not in the tomb, and perhaps the angels who stared back at Mary were not there when Peter and the other disciple peered into the grave site. But when Mary bent over and gazed in, she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain – one at the foot, one at the head.

            They asked Mary,

            “Woman, why are you weeping?”

            “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”

            No sooner had these words left her lips, then she turned around and saw Jesus standing there. Was it the strange darkness that kept her from really seeing who was standing in front of her? She saw Jesus, but she did not see Jesus. She was in a garden, and she assumed this man was the gardener. He asked her the same question the angels had,

            “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?”

            Possibly this gardener had the answers she so desperately sought.

            “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

            Jesus did not answer except to call her by name.

            “Mary!”

            Then her eyes were opened. Then she saw clearly. When her teacher called her name – Mary! – she recognized Jesus. She saw Jesus. She knew Jesus. The darkness finally lifted. What had once been blurry and confused was now clear. Jesus was dead. But he is alive. He is resurrected. He is risen.

            Jesus did not come to Mary with an explanation of what happened in that tomb to make it empty. He did not offer a doctrine of resurrection. He did not preach theology of new life. He just called her by name – her name.

            Ultimately, isn’t that how resurrection comes to us? Isn’t that how belief and faith occurs? We can hear sermon after sermon, testimony after testimony about what we should believe and why, but it is when we hear Jesus calling our name … Amy, Brent, Lynn, John, Mary Ann, Beth, Barbara, Emily, Bette, Jack, Don, Wanda, Thomas, Phoebe, Zach, and so on … that we believe? Isn’t it when Jesus calls us by our names that we are able to proclaim “I have seen the Lord?!”

            God loves the world so much that God resurrected God’s son, but God also loves us so much, each one of us, that God resurrected God’s son, God’s self, for us, for each of us. It is not either or, it is both and. When have you experienced resurrection? When have you heard Jesus call you by name? When have you sat alone in the dark weeping, distraught because all that you knew was gone and all that you had hoped for was lost; and then Jesus called you by name, and you saw, and you knew, and you believed? Because that is resurrection. It is more than doctrine or theology. Words cannot describe it and ideas cannot contain it. Resurrection is Jesus coming to us in our darkness, in our sorrow, in our grief and calling us by name. I have seen the Lord in those moments. I have seen the Lord in my darkness. I have seen the Lord when I thought all was lost. I have seen the Lord, and my sorrow turned to joy, my desolation to hope, my certainty of death transformed to trust in the new life, new thing God is doing all around me.

            On this day of resurrection, on this day of celebration, on this day when we shout “He is risen, He is risen indeed!” when have you seen the Lord? You have seen him. I know it. That’s why you’re here. That’s why we are all here. Now tell the world. Fill every silence with the ringing sound of the good news.

We have all seen the Lord! We have all seen the Lord! We have all seen the Lord! He is risen! He is risen indeed! Amen.

This Moment -- Good Friday

April 19, 2019

Ecumenical Service at United Presbyterian Church

From the manger to this moment

what a narrow, winding path we’ve tramped.

On a starry night

we peered with shepherds

into the face of a newborn,

the messiah newly born.

We added our voices

To the angelic chorus

that rocked the heavens

with its raucous rejoicing,

and returned home by another way

with star gazers from afar.

We waited to wade in the

waters of baptism,

dropped our nets

and abandoned our boats

when the sound of his voice

reached our ears

and captured our hearts.

Our mouths gaped at the miracles.

Our eyes widened at the healings.

We could not understand that so many

could be fed with so little bread.

We did not understand

or grasp who He was.

But when He spoke of his death,

of the cruelty, sorrow and agony

to come

our imaginations failed us.

We failed Him.

From the manger to this moment,

we have not understood

or believed

or accepted

the cross.

Just two wooden boards.

Just two wooden boards.

But nailed together

And held aloft

They are our heartbreak.

They are our salvation.

He is our salvation.

From the manger to this moment

we have come.

In three days

we may dance in the streets with joy.

In three days we may make the world

ring with our cries of celebration.

In three days he will rise once more.

But today, at this moment,

we face his death

and our complicity in it.

Today, at this moment,

He dies.

The world is dark.

The powers and principalities have won.

Yet only for

this moment.

In the Doing -- Maundy Thursday

April 18, 2019

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

            I have reached the season of lasts. Last Sunday was the last Palm Sunday that I’ll celebrate with all of you. Tonight is my last Maundy Thursday, tomorrow is my last Good Friday … well, you get the picture. But as I think about all of the lasts that are rapidly approaching, I’m also remembering my firsts. Tonight I am specifically remembering my first Maundy Thursday service here in our congregation.

            I had led many other Maundy Thursday services before I came here, but there was something different about our Maundy Thursday service in comparison to the others I had been a part of. The first Maundy Thursday service that I led in our church was also the first time I had ever led or participated in a foot washing.

My memory is fuzzy on the particulars of how Alice and I decided to include the foot washing. I suspect, although I cannot confirm this, that it was Alice who brought up the fact that foot washing is often a component of a Maundy Thursday service. And if she did say that, then I probably confessed to her that I had never done that before. I had not even been here a year by that time, but I’m sure I would have been comfortable enough with Alice to also say that I was extremely uncomfortable with foot washing, and that I was unsure about taking it on in worship. Knowing Alice, she probably assured me that we did not have to have foot washing anywhere near our Maundy Thursday service. And knowing me, I probably replied well now that we’ve talked about it, I feel that we should go ahead with it. If it makes me this uncomfortable, it probably means I need to experience it.  

            Again, my memory is pretty fuzzy, but I imagine a conversation like that or something similar took place. What is most important is that we decided to wash feet. Actually, we decided that I would wash feet. And I did. I washed the feet of anyone who came forward. If you were there that night, you may or may not have realized how nervous I was about doing this. I wasn’t sure if there was a foot washing etiquette. Would I be turned off by it? What if I really hated doing it, and was this setting a precedent I would never be able to get out of?

            It is my job to be here tonight. This is a duty and a responsibility, and I take that seriously. And part of our service is the foot washing. Yet, even if this was not part of the job description and I had no obligation to be here, I would still be here. I would still lead this service, and I would still do what I’m going to do in just a few minutes: kneel down and wash your feet. Because far from being a precedent that I don’t know how to change, the act of foot washing in our service has made me appreciate and love this particular night even more. And what is more, washing the feet of the people I serve has made me love all of you even more.

            When Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, he was giving them an example of how to love one another. You love one another by serving one another. Love is not about how you feel, it is about what you do, how you act toward and live with others. If you love one another, then you serve one another.

            This is all right and true and beautiful. It is also hard and can sometimes feel almost impossible to live up to. But it has occurred to me that maybe Jesus understood something that us regular folks struggle to get. We think that loving leads to serving, and it does. I will say again that love is not a feeling. It is not only a noun. It is also a verb. Loving is what you do. But I also think that it is the serving that increases our ability to love: to do love, and to feel love. The doing increases the loving.

            I already cared about all of you when we shared our first Maundy Thursday together. But after washing your feet, I loved you even more. Our feet are not necessarily our most beautiful attribute. They get callused and tired and achy and smelly and roughed up. Just by living we put our feet through their paces – pun intended because I wrote it – every single day. But when you allowed me to wash your feet, to see them in all their imperfections, you allowed me to see you a little more deeply, a little more clearly. It was in the doing that I learned even more about the loving.

            In washing the disciples’ feet, Jesus set his followers a new commandment: to love one another as he loved them. That loving came in the form of doing, of service. Jesus knew that the way to show their love for him was to show love in the form of service to each other and to others. But maybe he also knew that the more they served one another, the more they did for one another, the more their feelings of love would grow and expand. Because I believe that it is in the doing that we learn love. It is in the doing for others that we truly learn how to love others. What would this beautiful and broken world that God gave us look like if we took that out in the streets? What would the world look like if we just realized that the more we do for others, the more we will love others?

            I don’t know, but I can imagine. I can imagine because I know from personal experience that it is in the doing that you learn the loving. I love you, so I wash your feet. And when I wash your feet, I love you even more.

            Amen and amen and amen.

Love Upon Love -- Fifth Sunday in Lent

John 12:1-8

April 7, 2019

            After two weeks of traveling in three other countries, and trekking around Israel, we had finally reached Jerusalem. We were staying in the Palestinian quarter of Jerusalem, and our group of travelers was scheduled to take an early morning tour of the old city. I could not wait! I could not wait to see this ancient metropolis, the one I had read about in scripture and envisioned in my imagination most of my life. But as we were making plans for the next morning’s adventures my roommate on the trip got sick; really sick. She had some ongoing health issues, and the travel had just worn her out. She said she just needed a day to rest and recover, and that I should go on the tour without her. But I was worried that her sickness was more severe than she was letting on. And even if it wasn’t, I did not want to leave her in our hotel room, sick and alone in a strange country. What if something should happen? What if she needed something? So I decided to stay with her that day. I went down to breakfast and told my professors – the trip leaders – what was going on. On my way back to the room, I ran into one of the hotel staff who had checked us into our rooms. I told him what was happening, and that we wouldn’t be able to have our room cleaned that day. He thanked me for letting him know, and we both went our separate ways.

            I had been back in our room maybe ten minutes when there was a knock at the door. I thought maybe it was somebody from our group checking in, but when I opened the door, it was the hotel clerk I had just spoken with. In his hands was a tray, and on the tray there was a teapot and some cups. He wanted to make sure that we were all right, and to please let him know if I needed anything else. Tears came into my eyes. He did not have to do that. There was no extra incentive for him. It was just kindness. It was an unexpected act of kindness and compassion that was sorely needed.

What we have in this story from John’s gospel is a moment of unexpected compassion and kindness. Versions of this story are found in all four gospels. In both Matthew and Mark, the woman who anointed Jesus with precious nard did so for the same purpose as in John’s gospel; it was about Jesus’ burial. Yet in Luke’s gospel, the woman who anointed Jesus was a sinner who realized how forgiven she truly was, and anointing Jesus was a response to this forgiveness. In each version, the woman’s actions were scorned. And in each version, the gospel writer records that Jesus told the people who grumbled about her to leave her alone. But only in John’s gospel, do we know her name. This woman was Mary, the younger sister of Martha. Her brother was Lazarus. We presume that this is the same Mary and Martha from Luke’s gospel. This is the Mary who sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to him while her sister, Martha, worked frantically to prepare the meal and clean the house for the Rabbi.

Jesus was once more a guest in the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus; and as we learn in the first verse, it was six days before the Passover, and Jesus had raised Lazarus just before. Martha served the meal. Lazarus, who had been dead but was resuscitated, was at table with Jesus and the others. I can well imagine that there was a great deal of activity happening in every corner of the house. There must have been noise and movement, talking and serving. And in the midst of all this hustle and bustle, Mary took a large amount of perfume made from pure nard and began to anoint Jesus’ feet with it. As she anointed his feet, she wiped them with her hair. The perfume was expensive and it was rare. It was found only in the Himalayan mountain range or in other remote parts of India and Asia. I suspect it would have been bought from traders along the Silk Road, and I also suspect that under normal circumstances it would have been doled out, drop by precious drop, in order to prevent any waste. Waste was not on Mary’s mind however. We are not told the precise amount that she used, but I imagine she was prepared to pour out the whole lot, lavishly and lovingly on the feet of the Rabbi she loved.

            All of those watching this had to have been shocked by Mary’s behavior, but it was Judas who spoke up. He complained that if Mary had access to such an expensive nard, why wasn’t it sold for a lot of money? That money could have been given to the poor instead of poured out. In an aside, John explains that Judas didn’t give a hoot about the poor. He only wanted the money for himself, because he was a thief and stole from the common purse.

            Jesus immediately defended Mary’s actions, but his response is disturbing to our ears.

            “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

“You always have the poor with you?” That runs contrary to everything Jesus has said about the poor and the weak and the vulnerable up to this point. Jesus’ whole ministry, his whole life, was about taking the side of the poor, the marginalized and the oppressed. He came for the others in the world – the forgotten, the lost, the lonely. But in this story, his attitude about the poor seems almost cavalier. 

            The biblical scholars that I read speculate that Jesus was not dismissing the poor. He was referencing verses in the Old Testament that stated that there would always be poor people and people in great need; therefore they should always be welcomed and cared for. It is unlikely that Jesus suddenly decided that the poor didn’t matter. But when Mary began to anoint him, he knew that this was a moment of compassion and kindness that was not only nice but necessary. He was still with them, still living, but that was about to change. He would soon die a criminal’s death. The rituals and rites of burial would be denied to him before his execution. Mary anointed him for his burial while she could. She showed him love while she could. It was a moment of compassion.

            I keep emphasizing the word moment because this story is about a moment of compassion in the midst of many other moments that were anything but. Knowing the larger context, knowing about those other moments, is important for understanding what’s happening in this particular moment. As it states at the beginning of the passage, Jesus was at table in the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus. Lazarus had been dead but was now alive, raised only recently by Jesus from the tomb. Raising Lazarus caused many people who witnessed this miracle to believe in Jesus. But it had also frightened and worried many more. Once you’re dead, you’re supposed to stay dead. That’s the only decent thing to do. If Jesus had the power to change the order of life and death, then he was too powerful. The chief priests and Pharisees knew that Jesus had to be stopped. If more and more people believed in him, then the Romans would find out and destroy them all. Perhaps he could bring others back from the dead, but surely he could not change that ending for himself. So a plot to kill him was put into motion.

            Jesus must have been fully aware of this plot, because John states that from that time on Jesus could not move about openly. He went to a town called Ephraim, which was near the wilderness, and he stayed there with his disciples; until they came to Bethany and the house of Mary, Martha and Lazarus.

            Yet this dinner party did not go unnoticed. In the verses following our story, we learn that when people discovered where Jesus was, they came in great numbers to see Jesus and to see Lazarus who was raised from the dead. This made the powers that be even more nervous. Lazarus was literally living proof of Jesus’ power. Not only did Jesus need to be silenced, Lazarus must be silenced too. Immediately after our story, a plot to kill Lazarus was hatched.

            So this is the context in which this moment – this moment of kindness and compassion – occurred. Murderous schemes were in play both before and after. The tension and fear must have been palpable. Yet in this time of fear and anxiety, Mary, who once sat at Jesus’ feet to listen and learn from him, took a place at his feet once more. And she anointed those dusty, dirty, tired feet with precious perfume. She wiped the perfume away with her hair. It was an intimate act, a loving act. No doubt her actions scandalized everyone watching, because that kind of intimacy between a man and woman would never have been displayed so openly; and it certainly would not have been acceptable in private for anyone except a husband and wife.

            Yet however inappropriate her actions might have been, however socially unacceptable and taboo, it was not a time for following social codes or rules. It was a time for compassion. It was a time for kindness. It was a time for love upon love. Somehow Mary understood this. Maybe she realized what his disciples could not; that she only had a short time left with her Teacher. She only had a short time left, and in that moment the minister needed ministry. He needed compassion. He needed kindness. He needed love as he prepared for what lay ahead: pain, cruelty, betrayal and death. She responded to that need with her whole being. That moment required compassion, so leave her alone.

            Mary did what Jesus had been doing all along; she showed extravagant, over the top, abundant love upon love. The Greek verb used to express how she wiped his feet with her hair is the same verb used to describe Jesus washing his disciples’ feet. Mary mirrored the abundant love upon love that Jesus showed and embodied: to the poor and the vulnerable, to the lost and the alone, to those who would betray him and to those who would walk away. Jesus was the incarnation of God’s abundant and extravagant and over-the-top grace upon grace and love upon love. In this moment Mary reflected that abundance. She mirrored that compassion. In this moment showed that same love upon love.

            How often do we find ourselves in moments where that love upon love is needed? Do we respond with abundance, with excess, with extravagance or do we respond more stingily? Do we mete out love and grace only in infinitesimal portions, guarding it as though love could somehow be used up or run dry? How many moments are there when we have the opportunity to show love upon love? How many moments are there when we can also reflect the love upon love showed to us daily by God? As we move closer and closer to Good Friday’s sorrow, be aware of those moments. Look for them. Welcome them. Fill them with love upon love. Because the good news is that God fills all of our moments with love upon love, if only we had eyes to see and hearts to feel.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Amen.”

Reckless Waste -- Fourth Sunday in Lent

Luke 15 

March 31, 2019

            As the scene opens, preacher is talking about the story we have in front of us today: what’s otherwise known as the Prodigal Son.

“We’re all prodigal children at some time or another,” the preacher tells his flock. “But God can guide you home.”

            The congregation usually so engaged and attentive, always rewarding the good word from their preacher with “Amens” and “Hallelujahs” are distracted. There is another kind of music drifting up from the riverside. The soulful sound of blues interrupts the preacher’s sermon. Not just any soulful sound of blues, but blues being sung by the preacher’s very own prodigal daughter: Shug Avery. In response, the choir is encouraged to sing, “God Is Trying to Tell You Something.” And as they begin to sing, that refrain – God is trying to tell you something – winds and drifts down to the folks jamming at the edge of the river. Shug stops singing; listening, listening, listening. She smiles, a sort-of sad smile, but the edges of that sadness are blurred by hope.

            “Speak Lord,” Shug sings. “Speak Lord.” Then she begins to walk, and all the people gathered around her follow. As she walks she sings, and as she sings, she walks. She walks up the wooden dock. She walks up the long road, the dirt road, and at the road’s end stands the church; the church that loved her, the church that rebuked her. She walks faster and faster, singing louder and louder. It’s as if the music is carrying her, calling her. The soloist in the choir can hear her. The people in the church can hear her. Her father can hear her. She and all the people with her walk and dance and sing their way into the church; Shug is at their head, singing with joy, singing with love; just singing and crying and crying and singing. The whole church is singing. The choir is singing. God is trying to tell you something. Speak Lord. Her father has stopped preaching altogether. He takes off his glasses and stares at his daughter who is coming from a long way off. She walks up the aisle toward him and stops, staring back at her father, singing and waiting and wondering. Would he cast her out? Would he turn away? He doesn’t move. He stares at his daughter, and his eyes and his face tell her what he cannot say. He loves her. He loves her. He loves her. She moves toward him and when she finally reaches him, she throws her arms around him. Slowly, as though he was trying to remember how, he wraps his arms around her too. In the midst of the singing and the tears, she whispers in his ear,

            “See Daddy, sinners have souls too.”

            God is trying to tell you something. In the movie, The Color Purple, it was this music that brought Shug Avery – this rebellious woman, this preacher’s daughter who walked away from the life she was told she must live – back into her father’s arms. It was this music that brought her to herself. And it was hunger that brought the younger son back himself. It was hunger, and the recognition that his wanton and wasteful ways had brought him to the point of starvation, living with pigs, so hungry that he was tempted to eat the slop that the pigs ate. That was the moment when he came to himself. That was the moment when he realized that the hired hands on his father’s farm lived better than he was living. That was the moment when he made up his mind to go home; when he rehearsed what he would say to his father once he saw him. That was the moment when this son, the one we know as prodigal, decided to go home, to return to his father and his family, and ask for forgiveness.

            “There was a man who had two sons.” These words are so familiar and so famous that all I have to do is say them and them alone, and you would most likely know exactly which parable was about to come next. One commentator wrote that these opening words to the parable of the man with two sons brings to a mind a story he once heard about a man who went to the movies. The man saw the MGM lion roar and thought that he must have already seen that movie, so he got up and left the theater. This parable is so familiar to us that maybe you might be tempted to check out a little bit. I mean after all, you’ve heard it and heard it and heard it. What more can be said about it? What more do any of us need to know?

            Believe me; I struggled with this same idea from a preaching perspective. What else can I say about this parable? What else can I do with it? But for a moment, just a moment, let’s try to let go of what we think we know about this parable and hear it with new ears. 

            “There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living.”

What did it mean for a son to ask his father for his inheritance even before his father was dead? In essence the younger son told his father, “Hey Dad! Drop dead!” Or “You are already dead to me, old man, so give me what I will get when you actually are.” What a guy! The first surprise of this parable – because that’s what parables are meant to do, shock and surprise – is this, why did his father do it? Why did he give him the money? Just because the son asked for it doesn’t mean the father should have given it to him. We can speculate as to the back story about this family dynamic all we want, but there is nothing in the text to suggest what that story might be. What we have to wrestle with is what Jesus said. The younger son asked for his inheritance and the father gave it to him. With all that money in his possession, the son took off. He was ready to see the world. He was ready to do some living. I suspect if I had been given that much cash when I was younger, I might have done the same thing. I would have operated under the same delusion as the younger son; that the money would last forever, no matter how wasteful and wild I was with it.

            Well we do know what happens next. The money is gone, the son is starving. He hires himself out to work for a farmer and ends up living with pigs. Then he comes to himself, and makes up his mind to go home and ask for forgiveness.

            But as he approaches his father’s home, we readers get surprised a second time. The father, who I suspect many considered very foolish for giving the son his inheritance in the first place, does not react as he was supposed to. Shouldn’t he have been furious with his son? Shouldn’t he have been somewhat reluctant to welcome his son back home? Shouldn’t he have taken the son’s offer to be a hired hand seriously? That’s what the son deserved after all. He deserved nothing better than to live not as a member of the family, but as one of his father’s workers. He was due no blessing. He was due no benefits.

            But the father did not get that message. The father sees him from a long way off, and was filled with compassion. He runs to his son. He throws his arms around him. He kisses him. When his son begins his rehearsed speech, he cuts him off. He calls for his servants to bring the best robe and put it on him, to put a ring on his finger, to kill the fatted calf and get the party started. His son was dead, but he is alive. He was lost, but now he is found!

          But this was a man with two sons. The younger son was dead but alive, lost but found. But what about the older son? If we’re honest, really honest, we would admit that the older son is the only one in this story who acts as we expect. He is doing his duty. He is being responsible. He is working in the fields as he was supposed to, but he hears the music and the celebrating and the party, and he asked one of the slaves what was going on. When they tell him about his lost and found younger brother, he is furious! He refuses to come into the house. He refuses to join the party. He refuses to celebrate his younger brother’s return. His father pleads with him. Please son, please, come inside, celebrate with us.

            But the older brother would not be moved.

            “’Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!” Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’”

            Don’t you get it, the father said? Don’t you get it? Your brother was dead. But he is alive. He was lost, but now he is found! We have to celebrate this. We have to rejoice. But the older brother could not let go of his resentment. He could not see that the new life of his brother warranted celebration. In his mind the rejoicing over his brother was just another way that he, the older son, had been mistreated, taken for granted and ignored. And as I said, if we’re honest, we probably get that feeling don’t we? Maybe we’ve felt it as well. Maybe we’ve felt that same resentment, that same burning anger, that same seething rage. Maybe we’re feeling it right now. But what the father was trying to tell his older son, and what the older son would not see, was that the rejoicing for the younger son did not take away from the older one. There was room for both of them. There was joy and love and celebration for both of them. But one was dead, and was now alive. Couldn’t he see that? Couldn’t he understand it? Can’t we?

            Sometimes we hear this parable as a call to repentance. If we just repent of our sins and turn back toward God, look at the grace with which we will be greeted. But while there is certainly abundant repentance and forgiveness in this story, what I think this parable and the two before it really reveal is a glimpse into the heart of God.

            Remember these parables begin with the Pharisees and scribes grumbling because Jesus was eating with tax collectors and sinners. So Jesus told them three parables about lost and found, dead and alive, so that they could see the heart of God.

            And what is that we see in God’s heart when someone returns? Joy! Celebration! Grace! Mercy! Love! If anyone is a prodigal in these parables, it is the one who leaves the 99 sheep to find the one that is lost. It is the woman who sweeps her house to find the lost coin. It is the father who welcomes his son home with rejoicing. If there is a prodigal in these parables it is God. God who loves so recklessly, so, some might even say, wastefully. It is God who is the prodigal; God who refuses to give up on any one of God’s children. It is God who is over the top with mercy, with grace, with abundant and overflowing love. Does that mean that God loves the ones who are not lost less? No! But when the lost one is found, God is not going to skimp on joy. Neither should we. We see in these parables a glimpse of God’s heart. What would our families look like, our neighborhoods look like, our communities, our country and our world be like, if we could show to others even a fraction of the love and mercy we are shown? What would every aspect of our lives look like if we could replace resentment with joy, if we could celebrate instead of seethe? What would every aspect of our lives look like if we could be as prodigal with our love and mercy with others as God is with us? Maybe that is the question we must ask this Lent and always.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Amen.”

If -- Second Sunday in Lent

Luke 4:1-13

March 10, 2019

            I’m the first to admit that I have some definitive vices. For example, I love sweets and food in general way too much. While I have plenty of others, one of the vices that I don’t possess is gambling. That does not mean I haven’t gambled. The first time I ever went to a casino was in Minnesota. I went with my brother and sister and some other family members. My mom had saved several rolls of quarter, and she gave those to us to spend. This is not something that my immediate family does on a regular basis, so I’m not sure why we planned this field trip. But I think our motivation was mainly to see what it was like. After we were done, and after I spent the entire roll of quarters on a slot machine with no winnings to show for it, I thought I could have spent that money on so many other more satisfying things; like a book or make up or chocolate. It felt like I had just thrown money away, which essentially I had. So I don’t gamble. I don’t even buy lottery tickets, because to me buying a lottery ticket feels more complicated than buying a latte. I don’t know what to ask for, and I’m too embarrassed to ask anyone else to help me.

            I don’t gamble by going to casinos or buying lottery tickets, but I will enter sweepstakes. Maybe that is also a form of gambling. I have learned that there are a lot of sweepstakes to enter. You can enter sweepstakes through the Travel Channel, through the Home and Garden network. Planning a wedding? Oh look, enter this sweepstakes and you could win a dream honeymoon or enough money to plan the lavish ceremony you’ve always wanted. I hate to admit how much money I spent buying Yoplait yogurt a few years ago, because I was entering each purchase into their sweepstakes for $100,000. I’m not proud of it. But I did it.

            And I do daydream what I would do with money, should I win it. My musings generally start with “If I were to win that money, I’d be very practical about it. The first thing I would do is pay off my debt. I would set aside a huge chunk of it for the kids. I’d help my mom and dad with anything they need. And, and, I would give a large part of it to the church.”

            I feel good about myself for my imaginary generosity should I win a big sweepstakes. And it is fun to think about what possibilities would be open to me if I just had the cash. Think about how much good I could do for others! Isn’t that wonderful?! Isn’t that great?! Except for the fact that it rests on the word if.

            If is a small but mighty word. Add what to the front of it, and it holds so much possibility and hope. What if we tried this new thing? What if we did that? What if we looked at the problem this way? What if I did win a sweepstakes, think about how much good I could do for my family and others.

However, add only to the end of it, and that hope is replaced with regret. If only I hadn’t done that dumb thing. If only I had made better choices. If only I had worked harder and daydreamed a little less.

            If. If. If. In the context of our passage from Luke, if holds other meanings. The devil uses this little conjunction in his tempting offers to Jesus.

            “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.”

            “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please If you, then will worship me, it will all be yours.”

            “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash a foot against a stone.’”

            In the first and the last temptation, the devil uses “if” not so much as a question of Jesus being the Son of God, but as a certainty. If in these cases also means “since.” If you are the Son of God and you are, then prove it by doing this.         And in the second temptation, “if” has a conditional meaning. If you just worship me, I’ll give you all this power.

            It seems to me that “if” is the word of temptation. Clearly, it is in the way the devil used it when he tried to lure Jesus to fall in the wilderness. And it is in the other ways I described. Instead of dealing with the reality of my finances as they are, I give into the temptation to dwell in daydreams about money that will most likely never be mine. “What if I had a million dollars …” And the “if” of regret is another temptation, another trap. While we should have remorse for bad decisions and hurtful choices, to dwell on them obsessively seems to me to be a denial of grace, a denial of forgiveness, and a refusal to live in the present.

            Yes, I think “if” is a word of temptation. It certainly seems to be in the way Jesus is tempted in the wilderness. This story, found with variations in Matthew, Mark and Luke, is where we get our understanding of the human Jesus being tempted as we are, but without sin. Jesus heard the great tempting “if” of the devil, but did not give into his luring offers. But what does this story mean for us?

Is it just a story of encouragement? See Jesus had willpower and self-control, we should too. That’s great, until our willpower fails and our self-control seems to fly out the window. When we see this story as one of encouragement only, then when we fail, we fail not only ourselves, we fail Jesus. We fail God. Doesn’t that open us to the temptation of “if only”?

While this story can encourage us and can give us hope, maybe it also instructs us on what temptation and what power really are. Jesus is tempted by the devil to do things that could be used for the greater good. Turn stones into bread. Feed yourself and feed all of the other hungry people out there. Take control of all the kingdoms in the world and rule them justly and wisely and with great compassion. Throw yourself off a cliff and when God saves you, you will prove to the world just who and what you truly are.

It would be hard not to be tempted by the “if’ the devil offers. But Jesus said “no,” to all of it. Jesus didn’t say “no” because of some superhuman ability. Jesus said “no” because the power that the devil offered, the temptation of the devil’s “if” was worldly power. It was human power. It was the kind of power we think is real and right and true. It was power of ability and power of strength and power of proof. It was the tempting power of “if.” But I don’t think that’s power as God understands it. I have a feeling that power is very different to God. I think power as God understands it rests more in taking on weakness than in showing strength. I think power to God is more about sacrifice than it is conquest. I think power to God is more about faith than it is about proof.

The devil used that tempting “if” to lure Jesus into the trap of worldly power. But the devil was right in one thing; since you are the Son of God. Jesus was the Son of God. Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus knew who he was, and all the power in the world could not convince him to betray that identity.

If. Yes, it is a word of temptation. But the good news is that it is also a word of hope. For as often as we may be tempted by “if,” we also find promise in it. If we trust God, we will not be left alone. If we believe in God, we will have abundant life. If we follow in the footsteps of the Son, then even if we lose our lives, we will gain them. If we follow in the footsteps of the Son, then we will know love, real love, God’s love. And as we are loved, we are able to love others, to give love away. That’s the real power. That is the hope of “if.’

Thanks be to God. Amen.

If You Say So

Luke 5:1-11

February 10, 2019

            The only time I ever think to watch the game show, Jeopardy, is with my parents. That’s one of the things we do when I visit. We sit in the afternoon and watch Jeopardy together. This is not a forced activity; I like to watch it with them. I suspect that I probably annoy them some, because I have a tendency to call out the answer to a clue if I know it. But I always forget to put it in the form of a question. What fascinates me about the game is when they get to Final Jeopardy, which if you have ever watched the game show, it comes at the very end; obviously. There is a final clue given, and the show goes to a commercial break. When they return from break, each contestant has made a wager and written down their answer. The wagers can be anything from 0 dollars to the total amount of their winnings. If a contestant thinks he or she has the right answer, maybe they’ll wager everything they’ve earned. But if a player isn’t so sure, maybe they wager a smaller amount, hedging their bets, literally, so they don’t potentially lose everything.

            As silly as it sounds, Final Jeopardy always puts me on the edge of my seat. Will the current champion know the right answer and bet enough to win? Or will another player make a surprise comeback by risking everything and then winning everything? Sometimes there are spectacular wins, but there are also even more spectacular losses.

            If we were to put this story from Luke’s gospel into a Jeopardy game, what would it look like?

            Perhaps Jesus would offer this clue: Eternal life with God and the greatest glory in heaven and earth comes from doing this?

            Simon: What is following you on the path of discipleship!

            Ding! Ding! Ding! You have won it all Simon Peter! And the crowds on the shore go wild!

Except for that’s not what happens, is it? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to trivialize this story in any way. But the decision of the disciples to leave everything and follow Jesus would make more sense in worldly terms if Jesus had made a grand, extravagant promise of glory and eternal life. He does promise them good things with God at other times, but not in this initial call, not at this particular time. No, what Jesus said to these fishermen is this:

            “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.”

            And how do they respond?

            “When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.”

            If this were a game of Jeopardy, these fishermen would have wagered everything they had on following a man with no immediate promise of reward. So why do they do it? Isn’t that the ongoing question of this story? Why do these fishermen leave their catch, leave their business, leave their families, leave everything they knew and understood and follow Jesus – a preacher and teacher who came from as humble of circumstances as they did?

            In some ways it might be easier to answer this question based on Luke’s account than on the other gospels. In the other gospel accounts, I’m thinking of Mark specifically, we are unaware of the fishermen having any knowledge of Jesus before he walked by them and issued his call. But in Luke, we do know that they’ve encountered him before. At least Simon Peter has. In verses that we don’t read in chapter 4, Jesus healed Simon’s mother-in-law of a fever. Plus, this whole story begins with Jesus preaching to crowds so great that they were pressing in on him. Perhaps he felt that he might even be pushed into the sea. So, Jesus climbs into their boats, which were moored there at the shore and asks Simon to row him out away. There, from that boat, he continues to preach.

            What Luke tells us is that Simon and his partners had been out all night fishing, but with no luck, no catch. No catch meant no profits for that day. No catch most likely meant their stomachs would stay empty.

            The fishermen must have been tired and discouraged. They were cleaning up their boats and their nets, and probably making ready to head home until it was time to fish again. One commentator wrote that Jesus was probably a bit of a nuisance, climbing into their boat uninvited and asking them to row him out into the water. But Simon was gracious. He did what Jesus asked.

            Once the sermon was over, he asked Simon to row him out into deeper water and put out his nets. In Simon’s mind, he knew he had reached his limit and was ready to give up. He said as much to Jesus.

            “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”

            If you say so…Simon had witnessed Jesus’ power to heal. He and his partners heard the words Jesus spoke to the crowds, and they saw the size of the crowds he was speaking to.

            Simon must have understood, even just a little bit, that Jesus was someone special, someone to be listened to. So although he was reluctant, he said, “if you say so,” then he did what Jesus asked.

            Whatever doubts Simon had about this last attempt at catching some fish soon vanished. There were so many fish in the nets that they started to break. There were so many fish in the nets that the partners in the other boat had to be called to help. There were so many fish in the nets that the boats were weighed down almost to sinking.

            Simon knew that Jesus was someone special, but when that extraordinary, miraculous catch of fish happened, Simon saw Jesus not just as a preacher or a teacher or a healer, but as divine. He may not have understood what that meant yet, but I do believe that he saw the divine in Jesus.

            I think that is what his confession is all about.

            “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”

            It seems to me that this was not so much a confession of sin, but as a recognition by someone who has seen the sacred and the holy and realizes how unsacred and unholy he is by contrast.

            There are many times when Jesus would pardon someone of their sins. But that is not what Jesus did in response to Simon’s confession. Jesus did not say, “Go, your sins are forgiven.”

            Jesus said, “Do not be afraid.”

            Jesus said to these fishermen-soon-to-be-disciples the same thing that the angels said to the shepherds; the same thing Gabriel said to Mary.

            “Do not be afraid”

            And with those words, Simon Peter and the others left their catch of fish on the shore and followed. They wagered everything they had and they followed, not knowing if their bet would be fulfilled, but they followed anyway.

            Do not be afraid is our promise as well. It is our assurance. Because we are called to follow just as those fishermen were. We are called to go to the unknown, to cast our nets into the deep waters, waters where we cannot see the bottom. We are called to go on faith and trust, knowing nothing for certain, but believing with our whole hearts. We are called to follow, and although some may not think that the words, “do not be afraid,” are much to go on, we believe and we trust that these four words represent a greater promise, a larger life and the truest love.

            Do not be afraid. If you say so, Lord. If you say so.

            Thanks be to God. Amen.

Gracious Words?

Luke 4:21-30

February 3, 2019

            At only 11, Akeelah is carrying the weight of the world on her young shoulders. At least that is how it feels. Perhaps it’s not the weight of the world per se, but it is the weight, the burden even, of other’s expectations, desires, hopes and dreams.

            Akeelah is the lead character in the movie Akeelah and the Bee. It is one of those moves that makes you think and makes you feel and makes you glad to be alive. Akeelah is a spelling phenom from what would seem to be a stereotypical urban, predominantly black neighborhood in Los Angeles.

            Her middle school has never held a spelling bee before, but to do so would put them in the running for regionals, state and eventually the national spelling bee. It would bring much needed attention to her school district, where even the stalls of the girls’ bathrooms did not have doors. Just as sports brings money into schools, a spelling has the same potential.

            As I said, you know from the outset that Akeelah is a spelling phenom. She loves the game Scrabble, and she loves words and language. It is a love that her late father instilled in her. But she is an underachiever at school. She is bullied. She tries to hide her intelligence because it makes her stand out too much. It makes her a target for others’ anger and jealousy. But as Akeelah begins to advance in the spelling bees, and as she is preparing to go to the nationals, her classmates, her neighborhood, her family and friends all rally around her. They want her to win. People from all over help her study and memorize words. They are interviewed on human interest stories saying that they want her to win because it would be good for all of them. It would be good for their neighborhood to have a hometown girl go to the bee and win.

           Akeelah feels their love and support, but she also feels the pressure. She feels the intense weight of their expectations. And for a moment she falters. She is terrified to let anyone down. She even considers dropping out because she is so afraid of failing. She realizes that she would not just fail herself; she would fail everyone rooting for her.

            I won’t tell you the rest of the story. But if you have not seen this movie, I highly recommend that you do so. But it is a study in contrasts that while Akeelah fears failing the people of her neighborhood, in effect her hometown, Jesus had no such fear. He was not afraid of disappointing or displeasing or angering the people he grew up with. That seems apparent in our passage from Luke’s gospel today.

            I have always read this last part of the story, which began last week, through the lens that the people of Nazareth, the people who thought they knew Jesus best, just could not accept that he was who he said he was. I think that may be true in the other gospel accounts, but as I really studied what is happening here, I’m not so sure that’s the case in Luke’s telling. It seems to me that the people were initially just fine with Jesus. They were pleased and accepting, and even proud of Jesus.

            Verse 22 states it outright.

            “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?”

            I think in the past I have heard a sneering tone in their exclamation about him being Joseph’s son.

            “Isn’t that Joseph’s kid, you know the carpenter from down the block? He’s gotten a little bit big for his britches, hasn’t he?”

            But I think I’ve been wrong. I don’t think that was their tone. I do believe they were amazed and pleased and proud of him. It would seem that the trouble was not so much in what the people were thinking, but what in what Jesus was saying.

            “Doubtless, you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things you did at Capernaum.’ And he said, ‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel at the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”

            Is it just me or was Jesus being the aggressor? The people were amazed at his gracious words. But once Jesus pushed back at them, they were ready to throw him off a cliff. Literally. They took him to the edge of the cliff, and wanted to throw him off. But he passed through their midst and went on his way.

            So what changed? What changed between his sermon and his remarks at coffee hour? Part of me wishes that he would have done what other preachers have done; thanked everyone, then left to go get lunch. That would have saved him a whole lot of trouble. But Jesus did not avoid trouble, and it would seem that in this instance, he was determined to create trouble.

            But was that what he was doing? Was he creating trouble for trouble’s sake? Or was he pushing these folks – maybe some who had indeed known him since he was a small boy, had tousled his hair or told him to stop running or picked him up and brought him to his mother when he fell and scraped his knee – maybe Jesus was pushing them not to cause trouble, but to make them aware of their own hypocrisy. Maybe Jesus wanted them to understand that he had come not for the people who thought they were God’s own, but for the people who did not.

            Think about the two stories he quoted. There were plenty of widows in Israel who needed Elijah, but Elijah went to a widow who was an outsider. There were plenty of lepers in Israel who needed healing, but Elisha was sent to heal Naaman, a Syrian, an outsider.

            Jesus was proclaiming in the verses he quoted from Isaiah; that the good news was about good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind and letting the oppressed go free. That was good news indeed, but it was good news that was not only for the people who thought it should be for them. It was for the voiceless and the friendless and the powerless and the marginalized. And it wasn’t just for the outsiders, the others also; it was for them first. It was for the outsider and the stranger. And I think that is what set off the people of Jesus’ hometown. They would get no favors from their hometown boy. They would receive no special status because of him. He was not there for them first and only. He was there for the others.

            And he was not afraid to tell them this either.

            It was an uncomfortable truth. It was gracious words with a question mark instead of an exclamation point. It was something that perhaps they knew, but did not want to acknowledge. It was good news that seemed more like bad news.

            But here’s the thing; the gospel is good news that may also seem like bad news to us as well. The gospel calls our assumptions about who we are and where we stand with God into question. It calls our presumptions into sharp relief. The gospel may seem very much like gracious words with a question mark. The gospel makes us uncomfortable because it pushes us to see beyond ourselves, to see beyond what we think we know or understand about God, about Jesus, and about the people Jesus came to stand with and eat with and be with.

            These are gracious words, but they have a bite to them and a sting. They call us to look at ourselves and our motivations and take stock of our lives. But whether it seems like it or not, that is good news. Those are gracious words. And thanks be to God for them. Amen.