Do You Know? Maundy Thursday Service

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

March 29, 2018

            “Do you know what I have done to you?”

            What a strange question for Jesus to ask. Why did he not ask?

            “Do you know what I have done for you?”

            Or

            “Do you understand what I did just now? Do you get it? Do you see how I treated you?”

            But no, Jesus asked,

            “Do you know what I have done to you?”

            What is it that he did? On this night, a night that is named Commandment Thursday, we remember what Jesus commanded. We remember the greatest commandment that he could make: to love one another.

            But he did not ask,

“Do you see the way that I have shown love for you?”

He asked,

“Do you know what I have done to you?”

You see, this was not just a clever illustration or a tidy object lesson on Jesus’ part. He was not merely demonstrating one possible way to show love. He was doing love to them. He was loving them. From the moment he tied a towel around his waist, from the second he knelt before each of them, and washed their feet as a servant would, he was loving them.

“Do you know what I have done to you?”

Jesus loved them. He loved them from the beginning and he loved them to the end. If they wanted to love as he loved, then this was how they must do it. This was his commandment. They must willingly humble themselves. They must serve others. They must perform even the most menial tasks in service to another. They must put others first and themselves last. They must do to others, not as they would want done to themselves, but as Jesus did to them. They must do love. Jesus, their Rabbi, their Teacher, knelt before each one of them and washed their feet. Jesus loved them. He loved them beyond words, beyond grand declarations. He not only bestowed love and kindness on them. He wrapped them in love with the touch of his hand, with the water he poured on their feet. He did love to them. He did love to them. He loved them.

“Do you know what I have done to you?’

Who was it that Jesus loved that night? It was the disciples, yes; those followers who had been with him from the beginning. But among them was the one who would betray him. Jesus did love to him. And there was the one who would deny him. Jesus did love to him as well. He did not withhold his love even for those who would hurt him most. Jesus washed the feet of each one.

“Do you know what I have done to you?”

I have loved you, and I give you a new commandment, to do as I have done. You too must do love to others.

It is a commandment that the disciples surely failed, at least sometimes. It is a commandment that we fail as well. To wash someone’s feet is humbling. It is hard. But I can readily do it for those that I love. But could I wash the feet of my betrayer? Could I wash the feet of my enemy? Could I do love even to someone I do not like? It seems like an impossible task, an impossible love. But Jesus was not setting up the disciples to fail. Jesus does not set us up to fail either. Jesus knows that we will not always get it right, but still we are commanded, still we are called to do love to others. Still we are commanded to do love to those we love and those we do not. Still we are called to do love to God’s children.

“Do you know what I have done to you?”

A writer once told a story about her mother. Her mother and the minister’s wife were not the best of friends. The minister’s wife was difficult and aloof. She was demanding, and she made it hard for others to like her, much less love her. But her husband, the minister, admitted that he had had a relationship with another parishioner; several relationships. The minister’s wife was home, humiliated and alone.

This writer’s mother took her to see the minister’s wife. They did not bring casseroles or candy. Instead they came into the house, and her mother took a bowl of water and a towel and she washed the wife’s feet. She washed and the other woman wept. She washed and the warm water was both comfort and grace, blessing and benevolence. She did love to that woman, that broken woman. She did love to her.

“Do you know what I have done to you?”

From this moment on, it will seem as though the darkness will win. It will seem as though the powers and principalities will have the final word and the last laugh. But Jesus did not stop doing love when he was finished washing their feet. Jesus did love all the way to the cross. Jesus did love, even to those who betrayed and denied him. Jesus did love, even to those who crucified him. Jesus did love all the way to the cross.

Jesus does love to us, though we fail him, though we betray him, though we deny him. Jesus does love to us, in spite of ourselves. Jesus does love to us because that is what he came to do. For God so loved the world. For God so loved the world.

“Do you know what I have done to you?”

Amen and amen.

Just Like Them

Mark 11:1-11

March 25, 2018/Palm Sunday

            The pomp was the circumstance on that triumphant day. The scene so carefully set; disciples dispatched to retrieve a colt who had never known a rider. Words given to them in case they were questioned,

“The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.”

The Lord needs it.

            Permission granted, they returned with the animal. Cloaks spread across its back, he sat on it and they made their way. People saw them coming. Some spread their own wraps and coats, mantles and shawls on the road before him. Others took branches, leafy fronds, freshly cut from the fields and laid those down where the pony’s feet would trod.

            Pomp was the circumstance that day. As he rode into the city, the people shouted and waved, crying out,

“Hosanna!

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!

Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!

Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

They hurled their hosannas, their cries of “save us,” at him, hoping that he would catch them and do what they asked; hoping he was the one they had waited for, longed for. They shouted their “hosannas,” hoping and praying that he was the one to finally, completely, utterly save them.

Pomp was the circumstance that day, and surely he staged it. Surely he set that particular scene, but not for manipulation or managements’ sake. That scene, that moment, that majesty was full of imagery from their prophets; a reminder of where they had come from and where God promised they would go. His pomp was the recollection of their circumstance, and the promises of their God that the present reality was not the full story. God promised a savior, a messiah and that messiah had come. He was there, the first rider of a colt, sitting on coats and walking on branches, ears ringing with pleading hosannas:

“Save us. Save us. Save us.”

But how quickly those lovely “hosannas” would twist into ugly shouts of “crucify him.” How quickly would the day’s pomp be ground under the circumstance of their oppression at the hands of a cruel Empire. It would not take long for disappointment to overwhelm delight. They believed the pomp would transform their circumstance, but they did not understand. They could not see. After all that time, they still could not see.

So the triumphant entry was forgotten. Jesus and the disciples would leave the city on the same day they came. The tides would turn on the next day when they returned. But that second entry was not hailed with hosannas or softened with cloaks and branches. How soon the people forgot and moved on. How fast did their hosannas, their pleas for salvation turn to accusation.

Jesus was not what they expected, and in the end he was not what they wanted. His coming laid bare their hearts and their desires. They wanted their circumstances to be fixed and corrected, but they did not want to change. They did not want to see the truth about themselves that he made clear. They wanted their circumstances to be made whole, but their hearts could be left broken.

Aren’t we just like them? We celebrate this day as though we were merely remembering a parade, a joyful celebration, a majestic march. But Jesus knew how dark the coming days would be. Jesus knew that this was not just pomp and circumstance. Jesus knew what waited after the pomp was gone, after the branches were cleared away and the cloaks were retrieved. Jesus knew what lay ahead.

And we do too, but aren’t we still just like those crowds, just like those people who shouted, “Hosanna?” Don’t we want our circumstances fixed, but leave our hearts and minds alone? Don’t we desire change without transformation?

But Jesus did not come to merely alter circumstance. Jesus’ coming into the world revealed the hearts of the people around him. Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, his unrelenting march toward the cross laid bare the hearts of the world. It exposed how far the world had moved from its Maker.

I don’t think that it is excitement we feel this day. I think it is nervous anxiety, knots in our stomachs, because we know that the world was changed and is changed and will be changed again. The events of this coming week, the darkness, the death, were and are cataclysmic. We cannot avoid the darkness ahead. The very universe will grieve before finally the heavens will once more tell of the glory of God.

That glory is what we both celebrate and anticipate, and even fear. Glory is not just a happy glow. Glory is a God who loved those crowds enough to become like them. Glory is a power we cannot begin to fully comprehend or understand. Glory is a sacrifice that is more than we can bear. Glory is a love that transcends our mortal understanding. The glory of God is awesome and awful. It is both comfort and crisis. It is indictment and it is forgiveness. God’s glory took on human frame and became just like them, just like us.

If we remember anything on this day it is that we are just like them, just like those crowds, those fickle throngs. We are just like them, so quick to cry for salvation, and so easily disappointed when it does not look as we expect.

We are just like them. We claim to want change, until we realize that we must be changed in the process. We make God in our own image, and are confounded when God refuses to stay in the categories we assign.

We are just like them, surrounded by darkness but believing that it is light. We are just like them, even knowing the rest of the story, but still unable to grasp its full consequences. We are just like them. But God’s good news is that God became just like us. God became like us in Jesus, and Jesus walked into the darkness willingly, obediently, determinedly. Jesus was just like us, so that we could learn to become more and more like him.

Amen and amen.

Lifted Up

John 3:14-21

March 11, 2018

            My age means that I fall into the original generation for several cultural phenomenons. I am the original generation of “Sesame Street kids.” I mean forget “who shot J.R?” I still remember when it was revealed that Mr. Snuffleupagus was real and not just a figment of Big Bird’s imagination. I was a high school student when MTV aired, and that was a major influence in my life and in the life of my friends. And I was the first generation of Mr. Rogers’ kids. While my mother made dinner, and my older sister and brother did their homework, I would curl up in my dad’s lap and we would watch Mr. Rogers together.

            It has been 50 years since “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood,” first aired on public television. It was the simplest of programs. There was almost no budget, and the host, Fred Rogers, was unlike other hosts of other popular kids programs. He didn’t act like a clown, although I know he wasn’t afraid to try different things or even look silly. He never talked down to kids, he just talked to them. He was gentle and humble, and if I remember my facts correctly, the sweaters he wore were ones that his mother knitted for him. He was always kind, and he always made you feel welcome. In a time when “inclusive” was not yet a buzz word, Fred Rogers went out of his way to be inclusive. People of every race and creed were welcomed into his neighborhood, and he also made sure to include people of differing abilities.

            I will never forget watching a tribute to him, when a young man in a wheelchair told him that when he could not navigate other places in the world because of his limitations, he could watch “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood,” and always feel welcome.

            Fred Rogers testified before the Senate about the importance of keeping children’s public television available to everyone, and managed to sway the most cynical of senators. One thing about him that I did not know until after I went to seminary was that he was an ordained Presbyterian minister; ordained, as I understand it, to his ministry with working with children through the medium of television. I like to believe that this man, one of my earliest role models, encouraged my own ministry, although that’s not a connection I made for a long, long time.

            Other than the fact that his show is still remembered and honored 50 years later, why talk about Fred Rogers today? Is it just nostalgia on my part? Maybe, but I also think that Fred Rogers, in his own human, humble, flawed way, did his best to love the world as he believed God loved the world.

            “For God so loved the world…” That’s the beginning of perhaps the most well-known verse in all of our scripture; John 3:16.

            “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

            Or, if you learned the King James Version…

            “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

            This verse is everywhere. It’s at football games and on license plates. I’ve seen it on billboards and bumper stickers. “For God so loved the world…”

            But the problem with a verse that is as iconic as this one is that it is easy to forget it was not written in a vacuum. It has a context. There are other verses around it. It’s part of a larger story. We don’t read the whole story today, but it’s important to know that Jesus spoke these words to Nicodemus, a Pharisee. Nicodemus came to Jesus by night and confessed that he knew Jesus was of God. No one could do what Jesus was doing if he was not of God. In response, Jesus confused Nicodemus by telling him that no one could see God’s kingdom if they were not born from above. From that part of the story, we get into the debate over what it means to be born again, and I don’t want to jump into those difficult waters today.

            Yet it is all part of what Jesus was trying to teach Nicodemus, of what he was trying to make him understand about who he, Jesus, was. Yes, he was of God, but what did that mean? Yes, he was God’s Son, but what did that look like? He ushered in God’s kingdom, but what did the kingdom actually require?

            The first verse in our part of the passage this morning is about the Son of Man being lifted up. Moses lifted up the bronze snake in the wilderness to cure the people of their snake bites – that’s the story we have from the book of Numbers this morning. Just like Moses lifted up that metal serpent, so the Son of Man will be lifted up.

            The Son of Man will be literally lifted up on the cross, and don’t we look to the cross as the “cure” for sin and death. But the Greek for lifted up also means “exalted.” The Son of Man will be exalted, lifted up not just on a cross, but lifted up as living proof of God’s love for the world.

            For God so loved the world … It would seem that since this verse is so ubiquitous in our culture that it must be because we love its meaning so deeply. But I’m not so sure. We may say it, proclaim it, display it, but do we really love it? Do we live it?

            I realize that some people are attracted to this verse because of the promise of judgment that is implied for those who don’t believe. Yet, go one verse further and we read that God didn’t send the Son into the world to condemn the world but to save it. Yes, those who do not believe are condemned already by their own inability or refusal to believe. Yet, the judgment we read about is from the same Greek that we get the word, “crisis.” There is a crisis for those who remain in the darkness. There is a crisis for those who are afraid to come into the light, afraid of what the light might reveal; what it might reveal about them, about their own hearts and minds.

            Remember that Nicodemus came to Jesus in darkness? It seems to me that he was in crisis; crisis about what it would mean to believe this man in front of him was the Son of God, crisis about what that would mean for him as a Pharisee. Nicodemus was facing a judgment, but it wasn’t of the hellfire, brimstone sort. It was a crisis, a crisis of faith. Can you step into the Light, knowing what it may reveal? Or will you choose to stay in the darkness because the darkness is easier, because it seems safer, because it is more familiar, because you are afraid?

            It seems to me that our beloved John 3:16 is not so much a verse of comfort, but of crisis. Because if we believe that God so loved the world, if we believe that God did not send God’s Son to condemn the world, then what is our response? What is our response to the world God loves? What is our response to the people God loves? We may proclaim on banners and billboards that God so loved the world, but when it comes right down to it, do we?

            I know I don’t. I know I fail. I know that I refuse to pray for my enemies, that I constantly look for the speck in others’ eyes while ignoring the log in my own. I know how I struggle to remember that every person I meet is a child of God. Not only that, I completely and utterly forget that every person I meet could be Christ himself; as I said last week, God right in front of me, only I’m too busy or distracted or too blind to see. I walk in darkness and I don’t even realize it.

            Yet, isn’t that what this season of Lent is about – a time of intention and preparation, a time of examination and reflection, a season to recognize the darkness and once more choose the Light.

            I stick with my earlier statement that John 3:16 is a verse of crisis. But that does not lessen its good news. It is good news. It is incredible and wonderful news. For God so loved the world is not only in the past tense. For God so loves the world, for God so loves us, that God’s Son was lifted up, exalted, so that we might have see the Light, have new life, and learn to love as we are deeply and truly and completely loved.

            For God so loves the world.

            Amen and amen.

The Temple of His Body

John 2:13-22

March 4, 2018

            I read a story recently about an event that took place in a Washington, D.C. metro station. A young man with a violin was playing for the commuters passing by. His case was open and on the floor in front of him, and occasionally people would walk by and throw change into it. The only people who really paid any attention to the violinist were children. They would stop and watch until their parents shooed them along.

            I used to live outside of D.C. and while it was not completely uncommon for a street performer to be found in a metro station, it was not an everyday sight either. You would notice someone playing the violin. But the passengers who walked by him that day were either too busy or too distracted to care. So the young man played on, and by the time he quit there was about $32 in his case.

            Here’s the thing; the musician was world renowned violinist Joshua Bell. A few weeks before this train station concert, he had played to a sold out crowd in Boston, where the cheap seats were more expensive than what he collected in the metro station. I couldn’t find out the name of the piece of music he was playing, although apparently it was one of the most intricate and complicated pieces every written for the violin. And Mr. Bell was playing it on a Stradivarius violin worth over 3.5 million dollars.

            The people in that metro station had the opportunity to enjoy a free concert from a renowned violinist on a magnificent instrument, and they didn’t stop. They didn’t look. They didn’t take notice. They didn’t know what they had right in front of them.

            Unless we read all four gospel stories of Jesus cleansing the temple side by side, we might not know what is right in front of our eyes either.

            This story of Jesus cleansing the temple is found in all four gospels. On the surface it may seem that John is telling the same – or at least a similar – story as the other gospels. But there are some significant differences. In Matthew, Mark and Luke, this event is placed after Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. It comes after the people have gathered to wave and welcome Jesus into the city like a king. The synoptic gospels place it as part of the culmination of events that lead to Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion. In fact, Jesus cleansing the temple is the straw that breaks the camel’s back for the religious leaders and authorities.

            But in John’s gospel, Jesus turning over the tables in the temple follows the story of his turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana. We are just at the beginning of John’s gospel and at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. He was barely getting started. Which begs the question, why was Jesus so angry? It makes sense that he was angry in the other gospels. He had been preaching, teaching and proclaiming to anyone who would listen, that the kingdom of God was in their midst. He had been on the move for three years, speaking truth to the powers that be, calling out the leaders for corruption and abuse. So it is understandable that when he went into the temple and saw further evidence that the poor were being exploited and taken advantage of, he was furious.

            But as Karoline Lewis pointed out in the WorkingPreacher podcast, it was too soon in John’s gospel for Jesus to be angry. It was too soon in Jesus’ ministry for Jesus to be angry, and she made the point that in John’s version of this story, Jesus wasn’t angry. He was zealous. He was filled with zeal and a righteous fervor, but he was not angry.

            In the other gospels, Jesus accused the moneychangers for turning his father’s house into a den of robbers, but in John’s version, he just told them to stop making his Father’s house a marketplace. Yet, this is also confusing. The marketplace was a necessity. The people could not use Roman coins to buy their sacrifices. So the Roman coins had to be exchanged for Hebrew coins. To bring a foreign coin into the temple was sacrilege, a glaring violation of the Law. There is no indication in John’s telling that the moneychangers were doing anything but their job. There is no sense of violation or exploitation.

            But this scene in the temple inflamed Jesus’ zeal. Why? What are we not seeing? I think what we are not seeing is that the people in the temple were not seeing. They did not see Jesus for who he was. They did not see that God inhabited more than just a physical space that they visited on religious holidays. They did not see that the temple of God was in Jesus’ very body.

            If the gospel of John were written as a stage play, John would be the narrator and his remark about the temple of Jesus’ body would have been an aside to us, the audience. When Jesus was questioned about what he was doing, he told them,

            “Destroy this temple, and in three days time I will raise it up.”

            Sure you will. This temple has been under construction for almost half a century, and you’re going to rebuild it in just three days? Right.

            “But he was speaking of the temple of his body.”

            The temple of his body; God within Jesus and Jesus right in front of them. They did not know what they were seeing. They didn’t know who they were seeing. They didn’t know who was right in front of them.

            It seems to me that Jesus wanted them to understand – or at least begin to understand – that God was not limited to the temple. God was not limited to the walls and enclosures of a human made building, even one that was sacred and divinely appointed. God was not limited or restricted only to where they thought God would be or should be. God was in Jesus. Jesus was God’s Son, and God was in the temple of his body.

            This makes me wonder how many times I have encountered God and not seen. How many times have I talked with God, laughed with God, ignored God, and not realized it? How many times have I overlooked the hands of Christ or the feet of Christ because they were not hands or feet that I expected?

            But isn’t that why we make this trek through Lent? To prepare ourselves for the unexpected? Isn’t that what Paul was referring to when he wrote of the cross as foolishness? It is foolish. It is! It is nuts. God dying on a cross?! God dying?! That’s absurd! Yet that’s what we believe, and that is what we are moving toward. Every day brings us closer and closer to God’s great foolishness; God’s absurd and ludicrous cross.

            So if God does what is unexpected and foolish, why do we only expect to see God in certain places and in certain people? The people in that metro station did not expect to see a world renowned violinist, but there he was, right in front of them. The people in the temple that day were there to see God in those four walls, but Jesus said, no. Jesus said that he was the temple. He was the temple that would be destroyed but raised again.

A commentator wrote about the church using centripetal and centrifugal force. Centripetal force is the force that pulls you in. Centrifugal force pushes you out. If you have ever been on a whirling, spinning amusement park ride it is centrifugal force that keeps you plastered to the wall of the ride. His point was that instead of thinking of church as centripetal, drawing people in, we need to see church as centrifugal – sending people out.

It seems to me that we need both. We need to draw people in, not because this is the only place where someone can find God. It isn’t. But because this is where we learn and this is where we remember. We remember what God has done. We remember who God is. We remember through the stories and we remember through the table, and we find strength and hope and courage once more.

And then we need to be pushed out, pushed out to the world expecting to see God, expecting to see God alive and at work. We need to be pushed out to see God in the heavens that tell of God’s glory and in the people God created. We need to be pushed out, sent out so that we can be the body of Christ and so that we can be Christ’s hands and feet and heart. We need to be pushed out and sent out so that just as we can see Christ in others, others can see Christ in us. Look around and know that God is here. Go out and know that God is there. God is right in front of us; may our eyes, our minds and our hearts be opened to see.

Amen and amen.

Into the Woods

Mark 1:9-13

February 18, 2018

            The first time I ever heard about the musical, “Into the Woods,” was not when Shawnee High School chose it for the spring musical a couple of years ago. It was not when the movie came out with Meryl Streep and Johnnie Depp. No, the first time I ever heard anything about this Stephen Sondheim production was when I was about to graduate from seminary. The graduating class officers sponsored a retreat for those of us about to enter into the real world of ministry. A local minister was asked to come and lead the retreat. “Into the Woods,” provided the template and the outline for the weekend’s discussions and reflection.

            Once upon a time, in a far off kingdom …

            “Into the Woods,” puts the characters that many of us know from fairy tales all together: Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Rapunzel and the Witch who kept her in a tower, a Baker and his Wife, Prince Charming and a couple of other princes who were charming as well.

            Every character had a happily-ever-after they were seeking, and the only way to capture that joyful ending was to go into the woods. Into the woods was where their destinies lay; going into the woods was necessary for them to find what they were seeking, to reach their goals, to make their fairy tale ending.

            But going into the woods changed them. It both disoriented and reoriented them. It made them see their lives a little differently. And it turned out that their happily-ever -afters were not quite so happy after all. Just like life, the character’s stories didn’t end just because they’d finally reached their goal, found what they were looking for or lived a longed for adventure. It was in the woods that they met their true selves, and understood that life was not about happily-ever-afters, but in facing fears and finding others to travel the woods with them.

            Can you guess why our retreat leader used this musical as a talking point? Here we all were, about to graduate, finally reaching the culmination of our seminary careers. We were about to cross the divide between learning to be ministers and actually being ministers. We were all about to go into our own woods. We were all about to be remade and reformed – whether we realized it or not. We were all in search of a happily-ever-after that may or may not exist. We were going into the woods.

            Jesus may not have gone into a literal woods or forest – the wilderness he wandered in would have been more barren and harsh, devoid of the lushness that might be found in the woods. But his wandering in the wilderness was no less a time of being remade and reformed.

            Jesus went into the wilderness and was tested. He was tempted. He relived in 40 days and nights what the Israelites endured for forty years. 

            As we should expect at this point in our year with Mark’s gospel, Mark’s version of the temptation story is much sparser, much sparer than the other gospel accounts. I’ve said before that Mark’s gospel is an urgent one. He doesn’t have time to waste on a lot of detail. But even with as few details as Mark provides, there is still much to learn, much to ponder about Jesus’ wilderness experience. According to the Greek, what is translated as “driven by the Spirit” is better read as “picked up and thrown.”  Jesus was tossed into the wilderness. Immediately. Immediately upon his baptism, and hearing God’s confirmation from the heavens, Jesus was thrown into the wilderness for 40 days. He was tempted by Satan. He wandered there, along with the wild beasts who also made the wilderness their home, and angels waited on him. 

            That is the extent of our details. But even in this brief description, we can come up with one picture of the wilderness that is terrifying. Just the thought of Satan sounds scary. But wild beasts?! I don’t do so well with wild beasts.

             One of the theological conclusions that we draw from the wilderness stories is that Jesus was tempted just like us, but he doesn’t sin in response to temptation. This helps us establish him as both human and divine. He faced temptations. They were real.  In his humanness he may have wanted to give in, but his divine nature resisted. He overcame. 

If Jesus did in forty days and forty nights what took the Israelites forty years, then his experience in the wilderness provides a stark contrast to the experience of the God’s chosen ones. Jesus was tested and tempted, but temptation did not win. God tested the Israelites as well, but they failed repeatedly. They endured the wilderness, and somehow got through it.

            When we speak of our wilderness times we express them as the times we’ve had to endure – hardships, sacrifice, temptation, struggles. Endure is the key word. We have to endure the wilderness. We have to go into those wilderness places because Jesus went there. We are so like the Israelites, complaining, never fully grateful for what we have, for what God has done for us, so we are sent into the wilderness, whether it’s spiritual, physical, emotional or all three and more. We endure the wilderness until finally we can work our way out breathing a sigh of relief that we survived. 

Yet as we make our way into this new Lenten season, I wonder if this is just one aspect of the wilderness. Maybe this is too one dimensional of an understanding of what the wilderness is and what happens to us while we’re in it. 

            The Israelites became the Israelites in the wilderness. That time shaped their identity as a nation, as the people of God. Perhaps Jesus was hurled into the wild for the same reason. It was there, in the wilderness, in the midst of the wild beasts, the temptations, the struggle that he came fully into himself as God’s Son, the Beloved.  Perhaps going into the wild was the true confirmation of his baptism. Jesus came into himself in the wild. When he emerged on the other side, the course of his ministry was set, and he did not veer from that path. 

            I promise you that I wanted to end this sermon on a happy and encouraging note about how this time of Lent is our time to be remade and reformed, to reorient ourselves back to God, to reprioritize, etc. It is all of those things, true, but I think we have found ourselves in a different kind of woods – as individuals, congregations and as a country.

            We all know about the school shooting in Parkland, Florida this past week. We all know that 17 people – students and faculty – were killed, along with many others who were wounded. This is the second most fatal mass shooting in a school since Sandy Hook; which means I am standing in this pulpit once again trying to make sense out of something that makes no sense, and I am angry. I am damn angry! It is all horrible, but what is even more horrible is that on the 18^th of February, 2018, we have already had 18 mass shootings since the year began. 18.

            I am not trying to veer into politics. I’m not going to preach that every one who owns a gun should get rid of it, or that every gun owner is bad. That’s nonsense. That’s like assuming that people who are not gun owners are all good. Again, nonsense.

            But we are in the woods in our culture. We are in the woods and we are failing our children. I was nervous taking Zach to school the day after the shooting in Florida, and I’m sure I was not the only parent or the only student or teacher who felt that way. Zach told me that they spent a lot of time talking about it at school that day, and at least one of his teachers cried.

            We are in the woods, and we can either use this time to be remade or we can go deeper and deeper into a wilderness that I fear we will not emerge from.

            One story I read from a student who survived was that as she was escaping the school, she heard a boy who had been shot calling for his mother.

            Think about that. Just think about it. Let that pierce your soul.

We are failing our children. If Lent is a time of repentance, of preparation, of being remade and reformed, of becoming more fully who we are created and called to be, then how are we preparing? How are we repenting? How will we stop failing our children? What is our next step? Because, my friends, we are failing our children. We are failing our children. We are in the woods. We are in the wilderness. Can we turn around, repent and find our way out?

            Amen and amen.

Midweek Lenten Service

February 15, 2018

            Water.

Basis of life.

Fundamental need.

Water covers most of our planet.

We are made up of it, in our hearts, our brains, even our bones contain this true elixir of life.

A person can go for a few weeks without food, but only a few days without water.

Water.

Jesus came out of the waters of the Jordan River and heard the voice of God.

From the waters of baptism, Jesus rose to his call.

From the waters of baptism, Jesus went to the wilderness and made ready for his ministry, for his work, his life, his death.

Water is precious in the arid land of Jesus’ birth. The Jordan was a source of life. The people gathered at its bank could not have understood that when Jesus rose up out of the Jordan’s waters, he would teach them what life could actually be.

He would declare to them that the kingdom of God was already there, in their midst.

It was the ground they walked on.

It was the air that they breathed.

It was in the water they drank. It was in the water that filled them. It was in the water, their source of life.

Jesus went to the Jordan to be baptized by John.

From the waters of baptism, he rose to his full calling, his purpose, his ministry, his life, his death and new life in the resurrection.

From the waters of baptism, we rise.

Some of us may have been baptized in a pool, whole bodies lowered and raised, dying and rising with Christ.

Some of us may have been baptized at a font, head and hair wet from the water falling on them.

However we were baptized, pool or font, we were baptized into … something.

We were baptized into our salvation.

We were baptized into a community of faith.

We were baptized into the Church Universal, adopted into the family of God, grafted onto the true vine.

We were baptized into grace.

We were baptized into hope.

However we were baptized, rising from the waters or feeling them on our foreheads, we were baptized into … something.

Our baptisms were not the end. They were the beginning.

The beginning of a life of faith.

The beginning of a call to ministry, a call that is issued to each of u.

The beginning of a life’s work.

The beginning of God’s purpose for us.

From the River Jordan, from the waters of baptism, Jesus rose to his calling from God.

Jesus rose to his true identity as the Son.

Jesus rose to give the blind their sight,

the lame, healed limbs,

the lepers, cleansing

the deaf their hearing

the dead, new life

the poor good news.

From the waters of baptism we are raised to see God in others,

to follow as disciples,

bathed in grace and forgiveness

to hear God’s call

to trust in the new life promised

to serve the poor, the hungry, the sick, the forgotten.

From the waters of baptism, we are called.

From the waters of baptism, we are sent.

Children of God, remember your baptisms.

Amen and amen.

           

Ash Wednesday Service

February 14, 2018

            There’s a desire by some folks out there to make this service, this Ash Wednesday service, a little less Ash Wednesdayish. What I mean by that is that some consider this service to be depressing. It does, after all, remind us that no matter who we are, no matter how much money we have or don’t, how healthy we are right now or not, whether we have power and influence, regardless of any character trait we may bear, one day we all are going to die. One day we all are going to go back to that from which we came – dust.

            I’ve heard different suggestions for making this service a little less somber, therefore a little less depressing. Instead of saying, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” when I impose the ashes on your forehead, I could say, “Remember that you are stardust, and to stardust you shall return.”

            I have read that scientifically there is a theory that we are carrying bits of stardust within us. With the Big Bang, life was created through a series of processes – none of which I claim to understand – and out of creation’s beginning, the elements that formed the universe also form us. Hence, we have some stardust in us.

            Another trend is glitter ashes. That’s what I said, glitter ashes. Glitter is mixed into the ash. This is actually being done as a way to support the cause of the LGBTQ community, so using glitter ashes are not just for fun or for silliness.

            While I support that cause, I’m not convinced that glitter ash is the way to go. Also, while I can totally get behind having stardust at our core, when it comes time to impose ashes, I’m not going to remind you that you are made of it.

            No, I’m going to say, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Yes, it will probably make you consider death. Yes, it is somber and this is a somber service. Tonight is not the night for lively entertainment, or even raucous rejoicing. Tonight we put on ashes and we remember that one day, hopefully not soon for any of us, we will die. It is the reality of life. It is the one thing in life that is certain. As the old expression goes, the other thing in life that is certain is taxes, but I read a preacher who offered a third certainty. We mess up. We live, we pay taxes, we die and we make a mess of things in the middle of it all.

            Wearing these ashes is not just a reminder that we will one day die. Wearing these ashes is a sign of our penitence. While Ash Wednesday may not be biblical in and of itself, the practice of wearing ashes, of putting on sackcloth as a sign of remorse is.

            So we remind ourselves tonight of our deaths, and we accept these ashes as a sign of our penitence.

            But what does it do to remind ourselves of our own mortality? Perhaps it is true that reflecting on our death will help to actually live while we are still alive. Lent is not just a journey with a destination of the cross of Good Friday and the new life of Easter at its end. Lent is a time of preparation and it is a time for renewal. Yes, we are preparing for the death of our Lord and Savior, and we are preparing for his glorious resurrection. But we are also actively remembering that Jesus did not come so we could have half lives. Jesus came so we could live fully, so we could live abundant lives. Jesus did not die for us to forget the beauty of life here and now. Jesus was not raised to new life so that we might abandon the life we are called to live in the present. In Lent we prepare for death and new life, and we live this life more fully, more completely.

            And these ashes are a sign of our penitence, of our recognition that we sin, that we mess up, that we are complicit in larger sins and sinfulness. But they are also a mark that declares we are claimed by God. We wear these ashes because we know that we are God’s. We know that God wants more than an outward sign of remorse. God wants our hearts. God wants our minds. God wants our all. But these ashes are a start. They are a start and they are statement that we remember the One to whom we belong.

            But we cannot wear these ashes everyday. Sometime in the next few hours, the ashes will be washed off. We may go out after this service and people will see our ashes, but tomorrow they will not. But while the outward sign may wash off, we are still claimed. God still calls us to repent and turn around once more toward him. But I am not asking us to walk around in a constant state of guilt. That’s not what tonight is about. That’s not ultimately what these ashes are about. I don’t think God wants us to live guilty, shame filled lives. I think God wants us to live with all that we have and with all that we are for God and for our neighbor.

            Tonight is also Valentine’s Day; a day when romance and love is celebrated. It seems odd and disconnected that Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday should fall on the same day. But I think it works. I think it works, because ultimately Valentine’s Day is about love and so is Ash Wednesday. We are claimed in love. We are called to love. We are made because of love. We are loved. Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return, but it is love that marks every moment of every day from dust to dust.

Amen and amen.