Thirsty No More

John 4:5-42

March 23, 2014/Third Sunday in Lent

            Yia Yia is my sister’s mother-in-law.  That’s not her given name.  Her actual name is Polyxthene.  The name Yia Yia means Gramma in Greek.  When we visited Greece in 2005, we didn’t get to meet Yia Yia.  There wasn’t an opportunity for us to travel to Karditsa, the village where my brother-in-law, Niko, is from.  But I feel as though I know Yia Yia.  I’ve heard about her for as long as my sister has been married to Niko and living in Greece.  That’s been a long time now. 

            From Jill’s description, Yia Yia is a small woman.  But she’s strong.  Yia Yia has survived wars and oppression and occupation.  She’s worked hard all her life.  One chore that she did for many, many years, the chore that probably made her the strongest, was carry buckets of water from the well. 

            I can imagine that she would have carried water much like this woman from John’s gospel carried water.  She probably had a wooden yoke that went across her neck and her shoulders.  The buckets of water hung on either side.  You would have to be strong to carry water like that.  You would have to be tough.  I don’t think I’m that strong or that tough.  Maybe if I had to do it every day, I would toughen up like Yia Yia.  Yia Yia was strong because she had to be.  She carried that water because she had to.

            So does this woman, this unnamed woman of Samaria.  She, like other strong women, comes everyday to the well to gather water for herself and others who depend on her.  But she doesn’t come to the well when the other women come.  She doesn’t carry her buckets to the well for water in the early morning or in the cool of the evening.  No this woman, this Samaritan woman, comes to the well at midday; at noon when the sun is the hottest.  She endures the brutal heat, which could only have added to the burden of carrying the water.  Why?  Most scholars believe it is because she wanted to come to the well when no one else was there.  This woman, although she isn’t criticized at all in the text, is most likely an outcast among the outcasts.  As a Samaritan, she would have been an outcast to the Jews.  And even among her own people, she was probably an outcast because she’s had more than one husband, and as we learn from Jesus, she’s currently living with a man who isn’t her husband.  It’s easy to think that means she’s some sort of fallen woman, a lady of the evening to use a less than subtle euphemism.  But there’s no indication of that in the text.  Jesus never refers to her in that way.  It’s quite possible she has been widowed repeatedly.  The man she is now living with could be a brother-in-law, who takes her into his home as the culture dictated.  She would have taken care of his home as a wife would, but would not have been his wife.  But whatever the reason for her many marriages and her present circumstances, being a woman was challenge enough, much less one without the protection of a husband. 

            This unnamed woman was an outcast.  So she comes to the well in the heat of the day. But on this particular day she meets a stranger at the well.  She meets a Jewish man who dares to strike up a conversation with her even though they are alone; even though it goes against all social customs and boundaries.  She comes to the well and she meets Jesus.

            One of the things we have to understand about the Jesus of John’s gospel is that any parable he tells or lesson he gives comes to us with many layers.  John’s gospel tells the stories of Jesus from a spiritual, rather than an historical, perspective.  John’s gospel has the clear agenda that Jesus is the Messiah and God is clearly at work in the world.    

            In the verses just before our passage begins, Jesus has left Judea and is on his way to Galilee, but he has to go through Samaria.  Logically, this doesn’t make a lot of sense.  If you were following a literal map of the region, making a side trip through Samaria was of course for a trek to Galilee.  But Jesus has to go to Samaria.  He has to go.  It seems to me that we can infer that this trip to Samaria is not one Jesus takes for the heck of it.  Whether we call it a spiritual quest or divinely inspired, Jesus goes to Samaria purposefully.  It was not on the way. 

            Our passage begins with Jesus coming to the Samaritan city of Sychar.  This is near the ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph; the place of Jacob’s well.  Jesus is tired from his walking.  The day is hot.  He is sitting by the well.  The disciples have gone into the city to buy food, so it is just Jesus, alone. 

            Our unnamed woman approaches, buckets in hand to draw her water.  When Jesus sees her, he says “give me a drink.” 

            As I said earlier, Jesus asking the woman for a drink, speaking to her at all when there was no one else around, crossed every well-established social boundary and broke every social taboo.  Furthermore Jesus is a Jew.  The enmity between Jews and Samaritans was and old, old wound. 

            She knows this.  She knows that this Jewish man should not be talking to her.  So she questions him.  “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” 

I guess Jesus could have replied, “I’m the Messiah, and I’m here to offer you salvation.”  But instead He says, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

            Again, she questions him.  “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep.  Where do you get that living water?  Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 

            “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water I will give them will never be thirsty.  The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” 

            The Samaritan woman doesn’t understand what Jesus means when he offers her living water.  It sounds like some sort of mystical, unending, unceasing spring.  Surely that idea must have sounded wonderful.  Perhaps if she had access to it, she wouldn’t have to carry these heavy buckets day after day to fetch water.  It would be there for her, whenever she wanted it. 

            But Jesus was not talking about some sort of magical source.  He was speaking of water for the soul and spirit – water that would give new life through him.  She asks him to give her some of that water, and Jesus responds by telling her to go and get her husband.  Bring him back. 

            Jesus told her the truth about herself that day.  But remember that he didn’t condemn her or encourage her to change.  He just saw who she was and spoke that truth out loud.  As preacher and teacher Fred Craddock wrote, “All we know is that Jesus, as is his custom in John, reveals special knowledge of the individuals he encounters and alerts them that in meeting him they may encounter the transcendent.” 

            Their conversation goes on.  In fact of all the conversations that Jesus has with anyone, in any of the gospels, his conversation with this woman at the well is the longest recorded.  The woman may not have understood exactly what Jesus was telling her; she may not have completely grasped what he meant by living water, but she knew he had something that she needed.  She couldn’t have known when she lugged buckets and yoke to the well that day that she needed or wanted anything more than her daily supply of water.   She didn’t know that she needed living water, but here it was, offered to her from the source of life himself.

            She took it.  I don’t know that she fully understood what Jesus was telling her.  When she goes back into the city, she tells people to come and see this man, this man who told her everything she’s ever done.  Then she asks the question, “He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”  Again, to quote Fred Craddock, this isn’t exactly a statement of faith.  She doesn’t go to others and share with them her version of the Apostle’s Creed.

            But the woman knows that she needs something more than just water to quench her physical thirst.  She knows that she needs a Messiah, someone to quench the thirst of a heart that has long been parched.  She came to the well for water.  She left the well believing in the Word that became flesh and dwelt among us.

            Maybe we’re more like that woman than we realize.  Maybe we don’t really know what we need until Jesus tells us our truth and offers us a drink of living water.  Maybe many of us have felt at some point in our lives that we’re looking for something, we just don’t know what that something is.  Something about our lives rings false, feels empty.  We know we need something more, but we don’t know what.  So we look for it in our jobs, in our relationships, in our children.  Some people take more destructive routes, and look to fill their emptiness in drugs or alcohol.  I’m beginning to think that we humans, if left to our own devices, would just keep looking and looking and looking, wandering from one false hope to the next. 

            We may think we know what we want or need most in life.  But then we are confronted with Jesus, with living water, with the source of all that is true or real.  We may think we know what we’re looking for, but that can too often be self-deception.  Lent strips that all away.  It prunes away the wants and desires that cloud our vision and confuse our hearts.  What do we have left?  We have our deepest need – our need to cling to God and drink deeply of the living water that we can only receive through the gift of his Son.  With that living water, we will be thirsty no more.  Let all God’s children say, “Amen.”

Like It Or Not

John 3:1-17

March 16, 2014

One of my favorite books growing up was A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle.  The heroine of the story is 14-year-old Meg Murray.  She is awkward and feels out-of-place and somewhat of a misfit in her family; all exceptionally gifted and talented.  Meg feels, at the best, ordinary.  She, along with everyone else in her family worries constantly about her father.  Mr. Murray, an exceptional and gifted scientist, has been missing for a year.

One night Meg meets a strange woman named Mrs. Whatsit -- a traveler from another planet -- and this is where her adventure begins.  Meg, her younger, sensitive and brilliant brother, Charles Wallace, and Meg's friend Calvin O'Keefe, take a strange journey through time and space to rescue Meg's father from an unknown, terrifying force.  As they travel they see this force.  It is like an ominous dark cloud.  As it moves across the universe it swallows planets and stars, completely overshadowing them in darkness.

The planet where Mr. Murray is being held is called Camazotz.  It is controlled by IT; which seems to be something like a large, disembodied brain.  It controls everything and everyone with a rhythmic pulse.  That pulse forces everything to move in synchronized rhythm.  As Meg, Charles Wallace and Calvin walk down the street, they see children outside of their houses, bouncing balls.  But each child bounces the ball at exactly the same time, in the same way, in perfect rhythm.  Like robots.  When one child accidentally drops his ball, breaking rhythm with the rest of the children, his frightened mother appears in the doorway and frantically calls him inside.  

The three children find Mr. Murray and manage to free him from IT.  But Charles Wallace tries to engage and defeat IT with his intelligence and is overwhelmed by IT.  Mr. Murray is able to pull Meg and Calvin away and the three of them tesseract, which is how this time travel is accomplished, to a peaceful planet where they are cared for and healed.  But Charles Wallace is left behind.  

Meg, with her special connection to Charles Wallace, is the only one who can save him.  She returns to Camazotz alone and finds Charles Wallace.  The Charles Wallace who loved and comforted and understood Meg better than anyone else in their family is gone.  In his place is a boy who looks like Charles Wallace but seems to only be the mouthpiece for IT.  IT speaks through him.

Meg tries to fight IT.  At first she uses her hate for IT.  But the more she hates IT, the stronger and more powerful IT becomes.  Finally, she realizes that the one thing IT cannot understand is love.  It is her love for Charles Wallace, her family, her friends, the creatures that she's met on this bizarre journey that make her different from IT.  It is her love that sets her apart.  It is love that has kept Earth from being overtaken completely by the dark shadow threatening the universe.  Love.

Meg concentrates on her love for Charles Wallace.  She screams the words, "I love you Charles Wallace" over and over again.  IT becomes confused.  The more Meg focuses on love, the less control IT has, and Charles Wallace is pulled free.  Meg saves her brother from the darkness of IT through love.

Nicodemus comes to Jesus in the night, in darkness, and Jesus responds to him with love.  Certainly it seems that the easiest way to approach this passage would be to focus only on verse 16.  It is probably the best known verse of the Bible.  "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life."  The King James Version, the version I learned this verse in as a child.

For God so loved the world.  The problem is that skipping to verse 16, taking it out of context from the rest of the story, doesn't do verse 16 or the story justice.  Because it begins with Nicodemus, a Pharisee, who comes to Jesus in the night, in the darkness.

Nicodemus tells Jesus that he knows him.  He addresses Jesus as "Rabbi," and he knows that Jesus is a teacher sent from God.  He knows this because of the many signs Jesus performs; they could only be performed by One sent from God.

And Jesus responds with probably the most confusing, and I suspect, the most misunderstood sentence in all of the gospels.

"Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above."

Another way that "from above is translated is "born again."  No one can see the kingdom of God without being born again.  Being "born again" has become the central issue of faith for many of our more evangelical brothers and sisters.  Being saved means being born again.  It is the moment when you accept Jesus into your heart, accept him as your Lord and Savior, and therefore you are saved.  You are born again.

With all due respect to the other members of our Christian family, I struggle with the concept of being born again.  I always have.  Jesus' response confuses Nicodemus as well.  You have to be born again, born from above?  Nicodemus takes Jesus literally.  How can you go back into your mother's womb and be reborn?

But Jesus isn't referring to a literal birth.  It seems that Jesus is speaking of being created and formed by God through the Holy Spirit.  If we are to see the kingdom of God, experience it, than that happens as we are born anew.  Here's the thing.  Looking back over the course of my life, I can identify many times when I have been born anew, reborn through the movement and power of the Holy Spirit.  It hasn't been just one moment, but many moments.  I suspect those moments will continue, at least I hope they will.  Because for me it's not about being born again, one time, that's it.  It is about growing, growing up, in faith.  Yes, I am being born from above.  We all are.  We are continuously being formed and created and shaped in our faith.  That formation comes in dramatic moments, true, but it also happens in the same daily, ordinary moments of living and maturing in our faith.

I think it happens every time we recognize that we are loved by God.  That's really the answer Jesus gives to Nicodemus.  Salvation and the kingdom of God come to the world through the Son because of love.  God loves the world so much, so unconditionally, so completely that God will do whatever it takes to show the world that love.  God loves the world, the whole world, like it or not.

But why wouldn't we like it?  Why wouldn't we choose the light that comes to us through God's love rather than stay in the darkness?  I think it is because being born and being born again is scary and messy, both literally and figuratively.  Growing up in our faith can be painful.  Growing up in faith, being formed in faith challenges us to be mindful, to think about the ways we show God's love -- or don't.  Being formed in faith, from above, calls us to trust God.  We have to trust God, not ourselves, not our own wisdom, God.  That's hard to do.  Being born again from above is challenging, but through it all we are loved.  

That's what God wants us to know, I think.  God loves us, like it or not.  We can't bargain or negotiate with this kind of love.  It isn't conditional on what we do or don't do.  God loves us, like it or not.  God loves this world so much that God is willing to become one of us if that' what it takes for us to finally get it, to finally understand the depth and height and breadth of God's love.

Like it or not, God loves us.  But that forces a decision.  Will we turn to God, to light to love?  Will we follow his Son?  Or will we turn to darkness?  God's love for the world has been made flesh and blood in Jesus?  But will we follow?

I read a wonderful short story called The Geese and the Snowstorm.  It tells the story of a man who didn't believe in God; he wanted nothing to do with God.   He thought the idea of God becoming human was a ridiculous notion.  No true God would ever become a human.  It just didn't make sense.  Yet his wife believed, and she raised her children in faith.  One Sunday, when the rest of his family were at church, it began to snow.  The man settled in by the warm fire, when he heard a thump and a thud against the house.  He went outside and saw a flock of geese that had gotten caught in the snowstorm.  They seemed confused and unsure about what to do or where to go.  The man realized without help they wouldn't survive.  He didn't want them to suffer, so he opened his barn doors and tried to shoo them inside to its safety.  But every move he made toward them sent them scattering in fear.  He was desperate; he kept trying to think of some way that he could entice them to follow him.  Finally he cried out, "Oh, if only I could become like them.  Then they wouldn't be scared of me.  Then they would follow me into the barn where they would be safe."

If only I could become like them, then they would follow me.  The man realized what he's said.  Suddenly God becoming like us didn't sound ridiculous at all.  The story ends with him dropping to his knees in the snow and praying.

I realize that's a pretty dramatic moment, and I'm sure some would consider the man born again.  I guess in some ways he was, because it was a moment of acceptance.  But maybe being born again isn't so much one moment of acceptance, but many moments -- both dramatic and ordinary -- when we see and feel and comprehend God's love. We have those moments when we understand, we get it, that we are loved by God unconditionally, like it or not.  And in those moments we choose and re-choose to follow.  We are born again and again and again because God loves us, loves the world, like it or not.  And in God's unconditional, sacrificial love, we find our hope, we make our way, we are born again.  Let all God's children say, "Amen." 

A Pillar of Salt -- Celebrating the Gifts of Women

Genesis 19:12-26

March 9, 2014/Celebrating the Gifts Of Women Sunday

When I was in college, a good friend of mine lost her family home to a fire.  We were at school when it happened, so it was a few days before she could go and see the reality of the fire for herself.  I drove her home.  I'd never seen anything like it.  It was hard to recognize that it had ever been a house.  The only pieces of the house were some charred timber from what I guessed was the framework.  When we pulled up, my friends' mother and father were trying to sort through the ashes to see if anything was left or salvageable.  There was nothing.  

It was the first time I'd ever seen my friend cry.  She put her head on her mom's shoulder and sobbed.  Her mom repeated over and over that everything would be all right.  They'd only lost possessions; they hadn't lost each other.  My friend knew that.  She knew that had anyone in her family been trapped and killed, the devastation would be so much greater.  She understood that things could be replaced.  But there were memories tied to her things.  Pictures.  Yearbooks.  Letters.  Old toys and album and books.  Yes, all of them were inanimate objects, things, possessions that could be replaced.  But they were hers, and each one told a part of the story of her life.  

The time came for us to leave.  We had a couple of hours drive ahead of us.  Her family was staying in a motel until they could find more permanent housing, and there was nothing more that could be done at the site.  As we were walking back to my car, she turned and looked back one more time.  At that moment I couldn't begin to comprehend what she must have been feeling and thinking.  But looking back at that moment, I imagine she was seeing her life in that house.  I believe she was reliving different moments.  I suspect she was seeing every room; everything that once was.  She had to look back because she had to find a way to say goodbye.  She had to look back.  

I think it's fair to say that all of us, at some time or another, have had to look back.  We have had to stare, whether physically or mentally, at what was in order to turn our gaze to what lay ahead.  I know that there have been many times in my own life when the only way I could find my path forward was to spend some time looking back.  Just like Lot's wife.  

I realize that hearing a sermon on this particular story is not that common.  Lot's wife isn't one of those characters that we see proclaimed very often, or portrayed with any depth.  But Lot's wife is one of the many women in the Bible that I think gets a bad rap.  It’s always seemed bitterly unfair to me that this woman, whose name we never know, should be punished so harshly merely because she wanted to look back.

Why shouldn’t she?  Why shouldn't she want to take just a moment and look back at the home she was leaving?  The movies make this a scene of chaos and destruction, and I'm sure it must have been.  Sodom and Gomorrah, the cities that are being destroyed in this story, are on fire.  That fire is raining down on them from the heavens.  Everyone in Lot's family is running; fleeing the devastation and destruction behind them.  Everyone is panicked.  In the movie versions, Lot's wife stops in the midst of this chaos and does the opposite of the angel's commands.  Lot's wife -- this disobedient, willful woman, turns on an impulse to see what's happening behind her.  In an instant she is turned into a statue of salt, then crumbles and blows away in the wind.  That is her punishment for disobedience.  The idea that this is a punishment implies that the only reason she turned around was out of ghoulish curiosity; like people driving by the scene of an accident and staring, unable to look away.  

In Hollywood’s version, Lot’s wife looks back just so she can see Sodom and Gomorrah burn.    But maybe she looked back for the same reasons my friend did.  Perhaps she looked back just as I have or you have.  A million memories could have been running through her mind as she watched her home burn to the ground.  She might have been thinking about neighbors and friends, all the people she knew who were no more.  She could have been picturing the home she'd shared with her husband and children.  Maybe she was remembering a woven rug she'd learned to make under her mother's tutelage, or pottery that she'd shaped herself.   

Perhaps she looked back, not to be disobedient but because she wanted to say goodbye.  She needed to say goodbye to everyone and everything she had left behind.  She looked back to grieve.  

I find other problems with the traditional interpretation of this text.  I'm unconvinced that Lot's wife was actually being disobedient; not only because of the case I've already made, but because of the specifics of the story.  Lot pleads with the angels to let them flee to the small city of Zoar.  The angels grant permission, and it's true that Lot was instructed not to look back while they were fleeing for fear of being consumed.  But nothing was said about not looking back once they made it to safety.  The angels tell Lot that they, the angels, can do nothing until Lot and his family reach the city of Zoar safe and sound.  When Lot's wife turns for her final look, Sodom and Gomorrah were on fire.  There was nothing to see but death and destruction.  So what does this tell us?  What I hear is that they had reached the city.  They must have.  The angels told Lot they could nothing until the family reached Zoar safely.  If Sodom and Gomorrah were going down, then Lot and his family were safe.  

The final word that we have on Lot’s wife is that when she turned and looked back she became a pillar of salt.  There’s no other explanation.  Her story ends with that sentence.  She became a pillar of salt.  But what does that mean?  Did she literally turn into a statue of salt like the movie version portrays?  Or does it mean something else?  

What is a pillar?  We talk about people being pillars of strength.  Individuals are often referred to as being the pillar of a church or a community.  When I toured the Middle East and its many Roman ruins, pillars were often all that was left of entire buildings, even towns.  So a pillar is a strong and sturdy construction.  A pillar stands its ground, seemingly immoveable.

And then there’s salt.  Salt is a seasoning.  Salt adds flavor.  In the Sermon on the Mount, which we've been working through these past weeks, Jesus tells his listeners that they are the salt of the earth.  Salt can sting in a wound.  Too much salt takes its toll on our bodies, yet our bodies are comprised of a certain amount of salt.  Some salt is necessary in order for our bodies to function.  Salt is in our perspiration.  Salt is in our tears.

Lot’s wife looked back and became a pillar of salt.  Is it possible that when Lot’s wife looked back at all that she had lost, at all that she left behind she became a pillar of strength, awash in the salt of her tears?  

I know that this is a radically different way of looking at Lot’s wife.  It seems to me that what happened to her might not have been the punishment most of us have always assumed it was.  But if we can see Lot's wife in this way, maybe it makes more sense to you why I chose her as the subject of a sermon -- especially on the Sunday when we celebrate the gifts of women.   Seeing Lot's wife as a pillar of strength as well as a pillar of salt makes me think of the strong women I have known in every church I've served.  Lot's wife is among the women who not only sit in the pews on Sundays, but who sit on committees.  Lot's wife is among the women who show up at sick beds and organize meals when a new baby arrives.  Lot's wife is among the women who run the fundraisers and plan the potlucks and sing in the choir and visit the visitors.  Lot's wife is the woman who stands by the grave of a loved one, and she is the woman who is wheeled into the nursing home.  Lot's wife is the pillar of strength that keeps every church I've ever been a part of alive.  Lot's wife is the pillar of salt who looks back at what has been lost, yet finds the courage to move forward.

As we move fully into this season of Lent, retracing the steps of Jesus in the wilderness, may we have the courage of Lot's wife; the courage to look back at where we have been, at what we have lost, at how we have failed and faltered.  In this season of Lent, may we also have the courage to look forward with hope at the abundant new life we have in Christ.  May each of us, like Lot's wife, find within us our pillars of strength, our pillars of salt.  Let all of God's children say, "Amen."

The Shaping of Our Hearts

     It is Ash Wednesday.  Actually, it is close to the end of Ash Wednesday.  The service at my church is over.  The remnants of ashes can still be seen on my forehead, but in a few minutes I will wash them off for the night.  I'll add my homily that I preached this evening at the end of this post, but what I can't stop thinking about was the moment in our service when I gave the imposition of ashes.  As I commented in my sermon, ashes are a symbol of our mortality.  They serve to remind us of the dust we came from and the dust we return to.  As my congregation came forward, and I traced a cross of ash on each forehead I was viscerally moved. I knew as I imposed those ashes that for some I will also stand at their graveside and say those words again, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust."  As my own children came forward, I choked back tears and prayed that I would not witness their mortality.  But Ash Wednesday's message is clear:  we are mortal.  So while I'm working on abstaining from what I've chosen to give up this Lent, I hope that what I will add is a deeper understanding of how precious our time is.  Right now, with the ash still clear on my skin, it is easy to remember that life and death walk hand to hand.  But tomorrow and the next day and the day after that, my memory may dim.  It is easy to forget; to believe that I have nothing but time.  I can only hope that even as I wash the ashes from my face, I won't wash their meaning from my mind or my heart.

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Ash Wednesday/March 5, 2014

It seems a great irony that the first words out of Jesus' mouth in this passage from Matthew's gospel is, "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven."  It is ironic because when we leave this service we will bear a visible mark of being in church tonight.  The ashes that are imposed tonight will remain on us during the meal we'll share after worship is over.  We will wear them when we get into our cars to drive home.  Some of us may stop for gas or go to the grocery store afterward, and every person we meet will see them.  Isn't this somehow an example of practicing our piety before others?  

Yet the practice of wearing ashes isn't so much about piety as it is about repentance.  How many times do we read in scripture, particularly the Old Testament, about people repenting by wearing sackcloth and pouring ashes on their heads?  Shouldn't Lent be a season when we reflect and repent on the ways we don't live up to our calling as God's people?  

Wearing ashes is also about mortality.  It is a reminder that death, that great equalizer, comes for us all.  Rich or poor, powerful or weak, arrogant or humble, all of us are subject to death.  These dusty marks upon our foreheads are a tangible reminder that from ashes we came and to ashes we will return.  

Wearing these ashes, then, is not so much about piety as it is about remembrance and reflection and repentance.  That's fine and true, but let's make sure we hear what Jesus is really saying.  He isn't condemning acts of piety.  The three religious and spiritual practices that he refers to in this part of the Sermon on the Mount -- prayer, fasting and almsgiving -- were expected of every good Jew.  Jesus doesn't say, "If you give alms," or "If you pray,"  or "If you fast," he says, "When you give alms, pray and fast."  It's not the act that Jesus is questioning as much as it is the motivation and intention behind them.  If you pray because you want others to give you attention and respect, then you're probably not praying for the right reasons.  If you fast and you make sure that you look miserable and hungry, then you're not fasting for the right reasons.  If your generosity in giving alms is about making yourself feel good or earning the admiration of the community, then you're definitely not giving for the right reasons.  

Jesus tells those listening to him that doing any of these practices in the sight of and for the sake of others is doing them with the wrong intention.  The only one who should see and the only one for whom we should offer these practices is God.  When we give to someone else, we should do so quietly.  We shouldn't make a big show about it.  And when we pray, we should pray privately so that only God can see and hear us.  When we fast, we shouldn't let anyone know what we're doing.  Only God should know. 

Jesus is trying to impress upon them that while what we do is important, why we do it is more so.  This isn't a new message, is it?  We read and hear over and over again that God wants our hearts, not empty sacrifices.  There is nothing wrong with spiritual practices or religious rituals.  As I said, they were expected and Jesus wasn't questioning that expectation.  He was questioning the motivation.  Do you do these things to look good and feel good and seem good to others, or do you do them for God?  What is in your heart?  Where is your heart?

I think that's the crux of this passage.  Where is your heart?  Where are our hearts?  In verses 19-21, Jesus turns to treasure.  Don't build up earthly treasure, treasure that can be stolen or destroyed; treasure that can rust or decay.  Build up treasures in heaven.  "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."  

Biblical scholar, Rolf Jacobsen, said about this verse, verse 21, that he has often heard it preached wrongly by others, and he has also preached it wrongly.  He has tended to interpret it in reverse.  Our heart should be with God, so we should give to God our treasure; whether that treasure is our wealth or our time or talents.  But really, Jacobsen says, it is the other way around.  What we treasure, who we treasure, shapes our hearts.  Our hearts are shaped, they are defined by what we treasure.  He tells the story of a friend of his who likes to start the day by overtipping for breakfast.  If you know something about food service and the restaurant business, you know that breakfast is one of the cheaper meals.  For a waitress or waiter, the breakfast shift usually doesn't mean a lot of big tips.  Therefore getting a big tip at breakfast is a big deal.  Jacobsen was inspired by his friend and began to do the same.  He said that when he began doing this, offering this one act of generosity to specific people, he became more aware of all people who depend on tips for a living.  This decision of how he would spend his treasure shaped his heart in a much larger way than he expected.  Where he put his treasure shaped his heart.

Aren't the ashes that we wear tonight, indeed this whole season of Lent, about the shaping of our hearts?  

Frederich Buechner, in his book, Wishful Thinking, powerfully described the shaping of our hearts that can happen in this season.  Hear his words.

       "In many cultures there is an ancient custom of giving a tenth of each year's income to some holy use. For Christians, to observe the forty days of Lent is to do the same thing with roughly a tenth of each year's days. After being baptized by John in the river Jordan, Jesus went off alone into the wilderness where he spent forty days asking himself the question what it meant to be Jesus. During Lent, Christians are supposed to ask one way or another what it means to be themselves.

If you had to bet everything you have on whether there is a God or whether there isn't, which side would get your money and why?

When you look at your face in the mirror, what do you see in it that you most like and what do you see in it that you most deplore?

If you had only one last message to leave to the handful of people who are most important to you, what would it be in twenty-five words or less?

Of all the things you have done in your life, which is the one you would most like to undo? Which is the one that makes you happiest to remember?

Is there any person in the world, or any cause, that, if circumstances called for it,you would be willing to die for?

If this were the last day of your life, what would you do with it?

        To hear yourself try to answer questions like these is to begin to hear something not only of who you are but of both what you are becoming and what you are failing to become. It can be a pretty depressing business all in all, but if sack-cloth and ashes are at the start of it, something like Easter may be at the end."

Where will we put our treasure in the days to come?  How will our hearts be shaped, individually and communally?  May these ashes be the first visible step in that shaping.  Amen.

Reassurance

Matthew 17:1-9

March 2, 2014

            “While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!’  When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear.  But Jesus came and touched them, saying, ‘Get up and do not be afraid.’  And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.” 

            This is how it ends.  This is the end of this extraordinary, supernatural, incredible and for us, children of the Enlightenment, a somewhat unbelievable story of Jesus taking three of his disciples up a mountain and becoming transfigured before them.  All three of the synoptic gospels record this event taking place.  All three try to describe what happens to Jesus on that mountain.  But all we can really know is that Jesus changed.  It was a physical change.  It affected his countenance, his clothing.  Matthew writes that Jesus’ face “shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.”  He looked different.  We also know that while Jesus was in this changed state, Moses and Elijah appeared there with him, and the three spoke with one another. 

            Peter, perhaps trying to make this indescribable moment last, offered to build three booths, three dwelling places; one for Jesus, one for Moses, one for Elijah.  But before he’s even finished proposing his idea, all of them are overshadowed by a bright cloud.  From the cloud comes the voice of God, confirming Jesus’ identity as his Beloved Son.  God’s words echo those he spoke at Jesus’ baptism with one additional phrase, “listen to him.” 

            While the strange transfiguration of Jesus did not send the disciples into a state of terror, God’s voice from the heavens did.  They fell to the ground in fear.  But when Jesus touched them and told them, “Get up and do not be afraid,” they were able to look up, rise once more and saw that the moment had passed.  Jesus was the Jesus they knew once again; it was only the four of them standing on that mountain. 

            As I said, this is the end of the transfiguration scene.  But where does it begin?  The obvious answer to that question is in the first verse.  Jesus took Peter, James and John up a high mountain.  But verse one begins with three words that are easy to overlook, “Six days later.”  Six days later?  What happened six days earlier?  It seems to me that’s where the story of the transfiguration really began. 

            Six days earlier, Jesus asked the disciples who people, the crowds, thought him to be.  The answers varied.  Some say Elijah.  Some say John the Baptist or Jeremiah or one of the prophets.  Then Jesus turned to the disciples and asked them the most important question, “Who do you say that I am?”  Simon Peter responded with his great confession.  “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”  Jesus blessed Peter for his bold response.  Not only was he blessed, Jesus proclaimed that on Peter, this rock, Jesus’ church would be built. 

            But Peter and the other disciples weren’t able to bask in the pleasure of that moment.  Jesus didn’t let the conversation end there.  The Son of the Living God, the Messiah would not be immune to suffering.  He would suffer greatly; he would suffer at the hands of the religious authorities.  He would be killed.  He would die, but on the third day he would rise again.  Jesus spoke of all this plainly.  He would not shield them from this truth; even if that’s what they wanted.

Think about the worse news you’ve ever received.  Was it about yourself or someone you love?  Did you hear it in a hospital or in a doctor’s office or at work?  How did you feel?  How did you respond?  Did it make you scared or angry or both?  What is the worst news you’ve ever received?  I imagine this may have been the worst news the disciples had ever received.  They had been waiting for the Messiah all their lives.  Now the one they had longed for was there in front of them.  But instead of telling them that their oppression was over, he told them he would suffer at the hands of his own people.  He would be killed.  I think they must have reacted as we would react.  They would have been scared, terrified, confused, disbelieving.  Peter didn’t just respond with fear, he was angry.  He rebuked Jesus.  Rebuked is not a mild word to use.  Peter was angry.  He chastised Jesus, told him off for saying such terrible things. Peter told Jesus to stop talking about suffering and death.  Peter’s rebuke must have been his way of denying this terrible news. 

            But Jesus’ face was set toward Jerusalem.  That was the only direction he would or could go.  That was the narrow path he must take.  And no one, not even Peter, would stop him or stand in the way of his ultimate purpose.

            Jesus rebuked Peter.  His rebuke of Peter is perhaps one of the harshest statements from Jesus throughout the gospels.  “Get behind me, Satan.”  Jesus proceeded to tell them that following him would bring suffering upon them too.  It wouldn’t just be him carrying the cross. They would carry their own crosses.  That was the reality, and perhaps, in their minds, the terrible news of being his disciple. 

            This is the beginning of the story.  This is what brings us to the transfiguration.  It’s been six days and Jesus takes Peter, James and John up a high mountain.  He is transfigured – his face, his clothes are dramatically changed before their eyes.  They heard the voice of God, telling them to listen to Jesus.  Jesus reassured them with his touch and his words, “’Get up and do not be afraid.”    

            Do not be afraid.  I can’t help but believe that this is the heart of this story.  The disciples must have been profoundly afraid, not only for their beloved rabbi, but for themselves.  They had been told in the plainest of terms that Jesus would suffer and die.  Following him meant their suffering.  The only way to get around that suffering was not to follow.  The only way Jesus could avoid that suffering would be to deny the truth of his identity.  He was, he is, the Son of the Living God, the Messiah.  He would suffer and die. 

            Yes, I’m convinced the disciples were very afraid.  But what they saw happen on that mountain, what they heard, what they experienced was the reassurance that Jesus was indeed the One.  They received reassurance that God was with them.  A friend and clergy colleague made the very true statement that the transfiguration is all about reassurance.  It is the reassurance that the living presence of God was with them, on the mountain, and in the valley below.  Maybe for a moment they were able to comprehend what Jesus had been trying to tell them.  Although he would suffer pain and degradation and die in an abhorrent style of execution, he was not bound by death.  His humanity was real, but so was his divinity.  He was the Messiah. He is the Messiah, and they were reassured that God was with them.

            Perhaps this is what we take from the transfiguration as well; reassurance of God’s presence with us.  This is the last Sunday of Epiphany.  We will observe Ash Wednesday this week and descend into that Lenten wilderness with Jesus.  Don’t we also need reminding that the Jesus we follow is the Son of the Living God?  Don’t we also need reassurance that God is with us, even as we carry our own crosses on our shoulders? 

            It’s true that even with this reassurance the disciples couldn’t understand what Jesus being the Messiah meant for them or for the world.  They betrayed him.  They fell asleep and fell away.  They denied him, and in the face of his crucifixion retreated in fear, wondering what would happen next.  They followed him imperfectly.  So do we.  But God didn’t abandon them because of their flawed discipleship.  God doesn’t abandon us because of ours. 

            When the disciples learned that Jesus would suffer and die, they must have seen it as the worst news they could ever get.  But on that mountain, the good and glorious news of Jesus the Son of the Living God was revealed.  That was the greatest news they could receive.  And so it is for us.  From the beginning to the end of the story the great and glorious news is that God is with us.  God is with us.  Let us be reassured and give thanks.  Let all God’s children say, “Alleluia!”  Amen.