Sibling Revelry: Sermon on Luke 10:38-42

Another July lectionary sermon, preached this morning...

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There’s something about Mary—and Martha—that makes me want to break out in an old Rosemary Clooney song. You know the one:

Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters.
Never had to have a chaperone, no sir!
I’m here to keep my eye on her!

The fun thing about the song, and the reason it comes to mind, is this: it presents, on the surface, a picture of siblings who are as perfectly in sync as the harmonies they are singing. “Those who’ve seen us know that not a thing can come between us!” But anyone who’s ever heard it performed knows that there is a nod and a wink behind the song. “Two different faces! But in tight places, we think and we act as one!” they sing. And then they say, “Uh huh.” Which, roughly translated, is something along the lines of, “Yeah, right.” In other words, the sibling relationship is a complicated one. In our passage today we have stumbled upon a fairly intimate if tense family moment, in which that relationship is complicated by conflicting understandings of something rather straightforward. Let’s paraphrase the issue as this: Jesus comes to dinner. Then what?

It seems like Jesus is always coming to dinner in the gospel of Luke. While he certainly does eat in the other gospels, no gospel portrays Jesus at table so often as Luke’s gospel does—I counted Jesus partaking in at least nine different meals there, and talking about eating in parables and teachings besides. It seems that, in Luke’s gospel, there is something very important about the act of eating. There is something we are supposed to notice about the simple and common action of sitting down at table, in the company of whomever God has placed in our path, and sustaining our bodies with the bounties of God’s world.

Jesus comes to dinner, and—it stands to reason that someone has to provide the dinner, no? In our passage Jesus enters Martha’s home. There’s something remarkable about that statement. In Jesus’ day, it was rare to hear a home described as belonging to a woman. It was virtually unheard of. Yet, Luke mentions it almost casually—Jesus enters Martha’s home, Martha, head of the household. We learn quickly that Martha has a sister named Mary, and if this sounds at all familiar to us, we can remind ourselves that we’ve met this family before, in another gospel. Jesus is close to this family, their home is a place he feels at home. This is the home of Martha, and her sister Mary, and their brother Lazarus.

Lazarus makes no appearance in our story today. But we know enough about Jesus from our reading of the gospel to know that this is a rare moment indeed. Jesus does come to dinner a lot in Luke’s gospel, but it usually goes more like this: Jesus dines in the homes of disreputable people, like tax collectors and sinners; or, on the other hand, Jesus dines in the homes of the Pharisees and the religious elites, where he catches flak about the dinners with the disreputable people. In other words, most of Jesus’ dinners are working dinners—he could expense them, if God had seen fit to provide him with an expense account. Which, God did not.

So here is Jesus. And here is a rare moment when he is with, not the “in” crowd or the “out” crowd or the “up with Jesus” crowd or the “down with Jesus” crowd. Instead, he is, simply, with his friends, his peeps (as the young people like to say). Jesus can unwind. If his hair is up, he can let it down. If his shoulders are full of tension, he can let them unknot (or maybe even ask someone for a backrub). He is, purely and simply, at home, for a meal.

Jesus comes to dinner; then what? Tensions ensue. Martha welcomes Jesus into her home, while her sister Mary sits at Jesus’ feet and listens to what he has to say. Now, as rare as it is for a home to be described as a woman’s home, it is just as rare, in the New Testament era, for a woman to be seen sitting at a man’s feet and learning. To sit at someone’s feet is to take on the role of a disciple. To sit at someone’s feet is to be someone who has committed himself (it’s always a “himself” and never a “herself”) to taking on the yoke, that is, the teaching, of that person. So—let’s pause for a refreshing moment here. One stereotype—that is, the typical role of “woman” in the ancient Middle East—smashed, twice over. First, by having a woman as head of the household. Second, by having a woman as the disciple of a rabbi. Hallelujah!

And yet, and yet, tensions ensue. “But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me’” [Luke 10:40b]. That word “distracted” really calls to me. I know what that feels like. As I type this sentence I have just returned from a phone call which distracted me from another phone call which distracted me from Facebook which distracted me from writing the previous sentence. I know distracted. The word in Greek is perispaomai, which means, literally, “pulled in all directions.” [1] Can anyone relate to the experience of being pulled in all directions? My heart goes out to Martha.

Another interesting couple of words in our translation are “many tasks.” This translates the Greek word diakonia, which may sound familiar to you, something like “deacon.” It means, literally, “table service,” but it’s used in the New Testament, primarily, to mean the work of ministry—the caring, serving, loving, helping hands and hearts of the community of faith.[2]

So Martha, God bless her, is pulled in all directions by her service. And now, we need to pause for a moment of silence for any member of any faith community who has felt pulled in all directions by her service. Or his service. Because that is what is happening to Martha. You have heard of the 80/20 rule? In any organization, 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people? This is the bind Martha finds herself in. Head of household or no, she is overwhelmed by what it takes to do the things she knows she has to do. And the stress of it all is coming out sideways, at her sister, through Jesus.

I wonder how most women, especially women who are what have been called the “Martha’s” of the church, hear Jesus’ response? I believe there is a possibility that it can be heard in a way that really feels bad. “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her” [Luke 10:41b-42]. I can imagine being one of those who have spent a lifetime in service, especially “table service”—preparing the coffee hour, cooking the chili for chili night, baking the cookies for our night at Arnold Park, whipping up the Harvest Dinner or the Meal with the Master—I can imagine hearing this response and thinking, Well, Jesus. Thanks for that. I can imagine hearing this response and feeling, What I do has been devalued, trashed. And it feels really bad.

And worse, I can imagine hearing in Jesus’ words something that seems to pit women against one another, as in those trumped up debates of a couple of years ago about whether mothers who work outside the home are worse parents than those whose work is exclusively in the home. Some crazy notion that—hey, this is a zero sum game, some are winners and some are losers. And this time, Mary’s the winner and Martha’s the loser.

All I have to say about that is, if that’s our take-away from this passage we all lose. If we hear these words as devaluing any kind of service, we all lose. If we hear this sentence as being said to Martha with anything other than love, we all lose. If we hear Jesus scolding, or belittling Martha, or telling her that Mary is somehow a better person, more saved, more loved—we all lose. That is not what is going on here.

What is going on here is about wholeheartedness, about truly being where you are. Jesus comes to dinner, then what? Enjoy him. That’s all. Enjoy him. The first question of the Westminster Catechism: “What is the chief end of man [human beings]?” And the answer: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” To glorify God, and to enjoy God. That, according to the wise tradition of our church, is our purpose in life. You find yourself in the presence of God, of Jesus, the living body of Christ, the Holy Spirit? Enjoy. Revel in it. Drink it in.

Is this gospel passage telling us that service is not important? Absolutely not. If you will recall the passage we read just two weeks ago, the story of the Good Samaritan, service of those in need is pretty much a hallmark of anyone who is seeking to find a closer walk with God. It is not either/or. It is both/and. Our problem as a culture, and it appears it’s a pretty ancient problem, is that “doing” almost always wins out over “being.” We are called to both of these—serving God’s people and loving and enjoying God. And each of them reinforces and deepens and makes sweeter the other.

I’ve begun meeting with a small group of UPC friends who are reading a wonderful book about growing spiritually. One of the chapters talks about prayer, and we all own up to how hard it can feel to develop the discipline for a meaningful prayer life. But one of our group discovered, in this book, the simplest description of one kind of prayer, we were all so encouraged by it:

Let God’s presence fill your consciousness, and simply rest in the presence—just as you might with someone you love dearly and feel no need to speak to, just be with. [3]

This is the prayer of enjoyment—simply enjoying being in God’s presence. It requires no technique other than quiet. It requires no skill other than openness. It requires nothing except a desire to be with the beloved—much like you would be quiet in the presence of someone with whom you need no words—like a spouse. Or a brother. Or a sister.

Jesus comes into our lives—then what? We find ourselves gathered at tables in the presence of the body of Christ, God’s people all around us. People we love and trust and fight with and make up with. People we serve and who serve us. People we care for and who care for us. There is need of only one thing: to glorify and enjoy God forever. We do that when we serve and enjoy all God’s people, whether sisters or strangers, brothers or drifters, loved ones or outsiders. The call is the same. Only one thing is needed. Love and enjoy God. Love and enjoy one another. Not easy. But very, very simple. Thanks be to God. Amen.

~~~

[1] Brian Stoffregen, “Luke 10:38-42, Proper 11, Year C,” at Exegetical Notes at Crossmarks,http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/luke10x25.htm.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Marjorie Thompson, Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Life (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005), 50.

Acts of Mercy on the Road: Sermon on Luke 10:25-37

I came across this approach to teaching "The Good Samaritan" years ago, as a youth leader using the Presbyterian "Connections" curriculum. I still think it's a great way to breathe new life into a story we think we're too familiar with.

Preached this one before vacation. Went off lectionary because in July I was doing another thing.

~~~

We are going to do something a little different this morning. Has anyone here ever heard of “M@d L!bs”? Well, we’re going to do one now. I will ask you for a bunch of words, with which I will fill in the blanks in a story. When we’re finished, we’ll hear how the story came out. Ready?

1. Name a place you consider dangerous—a really bad location, one you would be afraid to walk around alone.
2. Name a job that commands a lot of respect—you would assume it was being held by a person you would consider really trustworthy, beyond reproach.
3. Name another job, with the same ideas in mind.
4. Now name someone you would consider to be very shady—someone you would never trust, whom you would not expect anything good to come from.
5. Name two different things your mom would use to take care of you when you had a pretty injury.
6. Help me guesstimate two days wages for someone who worked on the assembly line at a manufacturing plant.

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.” But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied “A man was going down 1._____________, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a 2._____________ was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a 3.____________, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a 4.____________ while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured 5._______________ and 6._______________ on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out 7._____________, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

~Luke 10:25-37, retold by the congregation of St. Sociable

I’m pretty confident you know this story well. That’s the problem, really, with some of the stories and parables we find in scripture. We know them so well it’s hard to enter in with fresh eyes and ears, to find new insights. But we can have confidence in the endless beauty and art of scripture: it can be fresh each time we read it, because it’s the living Word of God.

And so, there are always ways we can enter into this living Word. How about through this door: Let’s pause with each character in the story. Let’s see if we can enter into their experience, come to the story from their perspective. First, there is the lawyer. In Jesus’ day, lawyers had a different role than they have in ours. They were the ones who studied the law of Moses, and advised people how to apply it. The lawyer asks a question that would surely be at the forefront of his own concerns: “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” If helping people to understand what God wanted from them was your job—and that was what the lawyer did—don’t you think maybe you’d be interested in Jesus’ answer? Especially if you were worried about the kind of teaching you had been hearing from Jesus—teaching that challenged the religious establishment.

We can’t really avoid the fact that the text tells us, right up front, that the lawyer is “testing” Jesus. Remember who else “tests” Jesus in Luke’s gospel? The devil. So. We know the lawyer’s motives are to challenge Jesus, to put him on trial. That becomes crystal clear once he’s asked his second question: “And who is my neighbor?” It seems as if the lawyer is hoping he can narrow the scope of those to whom he is to show love. He is hoping for a nice, manageable prescription. “My neighbors are A, B, and C, and those persons only.” The lawyer is looking for his escape hatch.

Next, let’s think about the traveler. We are in the midst of a big travel season—I will be doing it myself in just a few hours. We don’t know why the man is traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. But we do know something about that road that he was traveling on. It was notoriously dangerous. The road ran through a steep-walled valley created by a seasonal river torrent—a wadi—and there were (there still are) plenty of places for those who are up to no good to lay in wait for vulnerable travelers. Has anyone here ever hitchhiked? Have you hitchhiked, and then found yourselves in a situation that made you wish you hadn’t hitchhiked? Have any of you ever been walking alone down a street where you felt unsafe?

Lots of us have experiences that can connect us to the vulnerable traveler. Lots of us have known fear; sometimes, real terror. Army vets who know what it is to be in the thick of the battle, or engaged in jungle warfare. Women and children who have been the victims of domestic violence. Young men who don’t fit “the mold” and find themselves being menaced in the locker room. The traveler’s worst fears come to pass. He is beaten so badly Jesus calls him “half-dead.”

Then, a priest passes by—a priest, a male member of the tribe of Levi, whose job it is to serve in the Temple in Jerusalem. One thing the priests had to be very vigilant about was the need to maintain ritual purity. If a priest came into contact with anyone or anything considered “unclean,” it would mean he could not perform his duties. The prohibition against coming into contact with the dead is particularly strong: Leviticus states, “The priest … shall not go where there is a dead body; he shall not defile himself even for his father or mother” [Leviticus 21:10-11]. The traveler was left for dead. For the priest, his duty to the Temple trumps all other considerations—even that half-dead traveler.

The Levite would have had all the same motivations for staying away, for crossing to the other side—he also would have been prohibited from doing his work if he had come into contact with the half-dead man. And don’t forget, in the case of both priest and Levite—they’re on that same dangerous Jerusalem-Jericho road. They are also full of fear.

This leaves us with the Samaritan. One problem we have with this passage is the fact that the phrase “Good Samaritan” is so enshrined in our culture. We have “Good Samaritan” hospitals, we have the Samaritan Counseling Center next door. For many people, the noun “Samaritan” is always modified by the adjective “good.” But that most emphatically is not what the word “Samaritan” meant in a first century Jewish context. As one writer observes,

…most people today don't realize that "Good Samaritan" would have been an oxymoron to a first century Jew. Briefly stated, a Samaritan is someone from Samaria. During an ancient … war, most of the Jews living up north in Samaria were killed or taken into exile. However, a few Jews, who were so unimportant that nobody wanted them, were left in Samaria. Since that time, these Jews had intermarried with other races. They were considered half-breeds by the "true" Jews. They had [compromised] the race. They had also [compromised] the religion. They looked to Mt. Gerizim as the place to worship God, not Jerusalem. They interpreted the Torah differently than the southern Jews. The animosity between the Jews and Samaritans [was] so great that some Jews would go miles out of their way to avoid walking on Samaritan territory. [1]

We know how the story wraps up. The Samaritan proves to be good. Not just good, exemplary—better by far than the priest and Levite who cut a wide path around the injured traveler. And it turns out that for Jesus, neighbor means neighbor in the original sense of the word (whether you’re talking about Greek or English)—the neighbor is the one to whom you are nigh, the neighbor is the one you are near. The one you are near is your neighbor. Crossing the street and diverting your eyes doesn’t change that. “Love your neighbor” means “Love the person who’s standing near you,” whether you are in your home or at the edge of the Grand Canyon or scurrying across Times Square.

It’s hard to get into the mindset of the Samaritan. He seems almost too good to be true. Picking up the one who is bleeding—who among us today would be willing to handle a bloody stranger absent some nice thick rubber gloves? And this brings me back to Jesus’ impossible admonition, “Go and do likewise.” Do what, exactly? Put ourselves in harm’s way? Risk exposure to all kinds of diseases? Spend our hard-earned money on people we don’t even know? People who might even be our enemies?

The answer is yes to all of these. Spend our hard-earned money on the 20,000,000 homeless of Pakistan, that place of not-so-secret terror cells. Notice how the lawyer responds, at the end, when Jesus asks, Who, in fact, was neighborly? And the answer is, of course, the Samaritan—a word the lawyer can’t even get himself to say. Instead, he says, “The one who showed him mercy.” Maybe the first step towards our being able to act like the Samaritan is being able to say, “The Samaritan did it. The Samaritan loved his neighbor.” Who are our Samaritans? For lots of US citizens, it would be very challenging to say, “The Muslim was the one who loved his neighbor.” But it just might be the truth.

One of the lessons here is that we have to be very, very careful when we presume to know who is holy, and who is not. We have to be ready to be wrong. We have to be ready to learn from those who are not like us—the “Others.” If Jesus has a theme that recurs again and again in his teaching, it is that we just might not have cornered the market on “goodness.” That someone else might have something to teach us, and it’s going to be someone who makes us uncomfortable. The ones who are so not-us it makes us frightened. The ones we believe we have good reason to suspect—like those Samaritans. Jesus seems to think they have something to teach us. The question is, are we ready to learn?

It’s still the season of travel. We are all travelers, in one sense or another, all journeying on roads that are fraught with peril and, at the same time, random, unforeseen kind deeds. We are all subject to the road, and the appalling and beautiful things that can happen there. Sometimes we find ourselves in the ditch, bruised and bloodied, and sometimes we see that another poor soul has landed there as we are trying to do the things we have to do that day. Maybe that’s the key to this oh-so-familiar tale: the truth that each of us has the potential to be on the giving or receiving end of callous disregard or heart-driven acts of mercy. I don’t suppose we can ever know how we will respond until the moment presents itself. But we know how our God responds. God climbs down into the ditch with us. God pours oil and wine on our wounds and sees that we are provided for. God expends all the riches of the universe to see to our care. God sends unexpected angels to see us home. And God hopes—fervently, optimistically, with all the stars in the great glimmering universe—that we will go, and do likewise. Thanks be to God. Amen.

[1] Brian Stoffregen, “Luke 10:25-27, Proper 10, Year C,” at Exegetical Notes at Crossmarks, http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/luke10x25.htm.

Your Father's Good Pleasure: Sermon on Luke 12:32-40

We have entered into the portion of Luke’s gospel which some have titled, “Readiness for the Coming Judgment.” I need to confess to you right here and right now, that this particular gospel theme is one I have very hard time with. In fact, I hate this stuff—this “the-world-is-ending-make-sure-you’re-ready!” stuff. I think it is the source of some truly bad theology, based on fear, and I don’t believe a fear-based faith is a mature faith.

Still. For all my misgivings on the theme of “Apocalypse Soon,” I find great hope in the very first line of the passage: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” [Luke 12:32]. So I propose this: we will work our way through this passage together, and while we do, we will commit to keeping that promise at the forefront of all our reflections. Do not be afraid. It is our Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom.

Let’s start with a bit of a refresher as to the context. Where is Jesus, anyway? To whom is he speaking? What is their life like? Jesus is on the road to Jerusalem. This marks a great turning point in the gospel; once Jesus is heading to Jerusalem, the shadow of the cross looms over absolutely everything that takes place. So the first important piece of context for what’s happening is this: Jesus is looking death squarely in the eye. Most of us have a scenario we can play out for ourselves that goes something like this: “If I found I had only two months to live, here’s what I would do.” Insert “bucket list” here. Jesus is living that scenario. He knows the end of his life, the end of his ministry is approaching. He knows it will be violent, and he knows he will be at the mercy of a brutal empire that makes quick work of anyone who does the kind of thing Jesus does: inviting the people to an alternative allegiance, anything or anyone that might challenge their loyalty to Rome. Teaching people to love God, preparing people for God’s reign of justice and peace falls squarely in this category of “crime.”

Do not be afraid little flock, it is our Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom.

On his journey Jesus speaks to many people—to Jews and Gentiles, to students of the law and Pharisees, to his disciples and friends, women and men. Here he is speaking to a crowd that Luke estimates to be in the thousands—Jesus has developed such a following that the people are trampling on one another to get close to him and to hear the things he has to say. He’s a rock star. And we need to be clear: though the crowd may well contain a wealthy landowner here and a scribe there, the “crowd” generally consists of the peasants, the landless, those living at or below subsistence level. Jesus is speaking to the people at the margins. Jesus is speaking to the poor.

Jesus has been stirring things up with his criticism of religious leaders and his urging people not to fear the empire—“Do not fear those who kill the body,” he says, in the face of this own death. He is preaching a radical reliance on the Holy Spirit—so radical, he even has harsh words for someone who does what most of us would think of as a pretty sensible idea. Remember the parable we read two weeks ago? About the rich man who wanted to build larger barns to store his grain? Jesus roundly condemns him as missing the mark entirely, trying to be rich according to the standards of the world rather than having a rich and deep and living relationship with God. Today’s passage covers some of that same territory:

Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. ~Luke 12:33-34

Jesus is saying, ‘Keep nothing. Nothing I tell you! In the end, “things” don’t matter.’ Life does not consist of an abundance of things. This is Jesus in the last weeks of his life. This is Jesus, responding to the urgency of his impending death with urgent words for anyone who has ears to listen. And they are words that hit us right where we live, we who have health insurance premiums and rent and mortgages and credit card bills and car loans. I have this image of Jesus urging us to simply lighten up. Let go of the loads that weigh us down, whether those loads are our possessions or our worries. This prospect of lightness causes us unease. Who are we without these things that root and ground us, that identify us to ourselves? It unnerves us.

Do not be afraid, friends, it is our Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom.

Abruptly, the tone of the passage shifts. “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit,” Jesus tells us. Or, as the bumper sticker says, “Jesus is coming: Look Busy!” Jesus tells a parable:

…[B]e like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. ~Luke 12:35-37

Jesus is talking about a scenario that could easily reflect the reality of his listeners: he is talking to servants. In Jesus’ day, the distribution of wealth was even more skewed than it is today—the rich were even richer (if you can imagine), the poor were even poorer. And the belief was that the truly poor and marginalized could not have access to even the most basic needs unless they were somehow attached to a person of wealth—as servants, tenant farmers, etc. The poor depended on this “patron” to ensure they received enough goods to survive.

Jesus is speaking about loyalty to the patron that goes beyond normal servitude—alertness, anticipating the patron’s needs, the willingness to stay up all night until the patron shows up, tipsy from the wedding feast. And then—the most wonderful reversal takes place, because, of course, this is no ordinary “master.” We are talking about the kingdom of heaven here. The master rewards this alert attentiveness by putting on an apron and serving the servants. And we have to wonder, what kind of “master” serves the servants? The kind who would die for them? Would this ever really happen to a servant, someone listening in the crowd? Is the kingdom of heaven really beginning to break through?

Do not be afraid, friends, it is our Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom.

And Jesus throws yet one more parable—just a single line—into the mix: “But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into” [Luke 12:39]. And here is the genius—and the humor—of Jesus, the Teacher. Just when the crowd is starting to get more relaxed, following a story of the dizzying prospect of the servants being served by their master—Jesus turns the tables again. Notice, he never tells stories allegorically—there are no fixed identities, no dependable interpretations. We may have thought the master was God in the last parable. Now it appears the Son of Man is… a thief? The one who comes in the middle of the night? The one who breaks into the house?

Do not be afraid, it is our Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom.

The “Son of Man” is one of those multi-layered terms whose meaning can be elusive. It can be found in the Hebrew Scriptures, where its earliest meaning seems to be “the mortal one,” or “the human one.” In the book of Daniel, the Son of Man “seems to refer to… the holy ones of Israel” exalted, in God’s presence.(1) In Luke, Jesus calls himself the “Son of Man” more than in any other gospel—25 times—and he seems to use the term in different ways. Sometimes, he seems to be emphasizing his humanity—as if to say, I’m a human being, just like you. At other times, it seems to anticipate his death, and his conviction that God will vindicate him and he will return, triumphant. This is one of those times.

Jesus wants us—he warns us—to be ready. There is a whole industry out there concerning the return of Jesus—the great Left Behind phenomenon. The theology behind that particular set of beliefs is not terribly Presbyterian, and was just conjured up about 150 years ago. Still, there’s the baby, and there’s the bathwater, and the Left Behind theology is the bathwater. And we shouldn’t be dismissive of Jesus’ urging us to be ready. As our General Assembly has instructed us, “God has not revealed to human beings the time when all things will be fulfilled; this preserves in us a sense of urgent watchfulness.”(2)

Jesus wants us to be alert, awake, ready for the Son of Man when he returns. And his disciples were ready—the women went to the tomb on Easter morning and encountered angels and the Son of Man himself, vindicated, triumphant, the grave unable to hold him. Other friends and followers of Jesus were ready, open, expectant, to meet him on the road to Emmaus, and to hear him break open the scriptures, and to share with him as he broke open both the bread and their unseeing eyes.

We are called to be similarly ready. No one knows when Jesus may return. But if we are the body of Christ here on this earth—we have to assume Jesus returns every single day. We have to assume we meet Jesus repeatedly, on the road to Apalachin or in the aisles of Sam’s Club. We have to assume the Son of Man is coming like the person ringing the church doorbell, in hopes of being given a few dollars for gas or food. We have to assume we will meet him in the junkie living in the motel across the street and in the twinkling eyes of the homebound members of our congregation.

Do not be afraid, friends, it is our Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom. And this is the kingdom he wants to give us: the kingdom where everyone, everywhere is received and welcomed and honored and loved as Jesus himself. Thanks be to God. Amen.

~~~~~

(1) R. Alan Culpepper, “The Gospel of Luke: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995), 18.
(2) Office of Theology and Worship, “Between Millennia: What Presbyterians Believe About the Coming of Christ” (Louisville, KY: Presbyterian Church (USA), 2001), 5.

Your Mother's Touch: Sermon on Hosea 11:1-11

During the winter of my fifth grade year, I came down with the flu. My memory is fuzzy, but I know that it started in the middle of the night, and instantly upon hearing the noises coming from my room, my mother was at my side. I remember the light being switched on, and my mom bringing a basin of water and a washcloth to freshen me up and cool me down. I remember her gentle touch on my feverish forehead. I was out of school for a long time, one of the perqs of which was the fact that I got to see the debut week of “All My Children” on TV. I was still sick on Ash Wednesday, and, a religious nerd even then, I was so distressed at not being able to leave the house that my mom managed to persuade the priest into giving her a little envelope of ashes, which she applied to my forehead with that same cool, comforting touch.

I have another memory, which is an exact counterpoint to my memory of being sick in the fifth grade. In the spring of her fourth year, Petra came down with the stomach flu. It got out of hand, and she became very dehydrated. I remember staying up with her one long, scary night, setting a timer to give her a tablespoon of water every fifteen minutes, as instructed by our pediatrician, which her body rejected each and every time. She was on the couch, and I was in a chair or on the floor beside her, reading a novel while I waited for the alarm to go off. In the morning, I realized I couldn’t wake her up, and carried her to the car, for the high-speed trip to the doctor’s office, and then to the hospital. As you have probably guessed, she was fine—she is fine. An overnight stay and an IV drip made her right as rain. But my memory of what it feels like to be the mother of a sick child—even briefly sick, with a minor easily-remedied illness—is a strong one. I know I will never forget what it felt like to worry over her, to try to make it better, to be afraid for her.

One of the ways we understand our relationship with God is through the lens of our human relationships. It makes sense, of course. According to psychologists, one of the predictors (though, of course, not the only one) of our ability to grow into mature, well-adjusted adults is whether or not we had what they call a “good-enough mother.” From the ordinary loving parent we learn about care and dependability and protectiveness. We learn what it is to be held. We learn what it is to have someone ready to catch us when we fall, literally, when we are learning to walk or ride a bike, or metaphorically, when we face disappointment or heartbreak. We learn what it is to be loved.

And all these things—whether by their presence or by their absence—are hints for us about the nature of God. If the ordinary exhausted, scared mother keeps vigil by her sick child, how much more does the eternal, inexhaustible love of God keep vigil by us, wounded, wandering and willful children that we are? If the touch of my mother’s hand on my forehead can be so soothing that I remember it these forty years later, how much more does the touch of the source of the universe have the power to heal our woes and hurts?

Our passage from Hosea speaks in a remarkable, extended metaphor of the motherly love of God for Israel, God’s child. “When Israel was a child, I loved him,” God says, “and out of Egypt I called my son.” God speaks of calling to the child, begging the child to come home, but the child resisting, going away. “Yet,” God says,

… it was I who taught [my child] to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them… ~ Hosea 11:3-4

In this day and age, when a father is just as easily likely to be the primary caregiver for a young child, these words don't have the same impact on us. But for Hosea's original hearers, make no mistake: these were the actions of a mother. Verse after verse, line after line, the motherly love of God is related. Finally, in response to what sounds like a suggestion that this loving mother simply give up on her recalcitrant child, God replies, “How can I give you up…? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender…” [Hosea 11:8].

A word about those words, “heart” and “compassion.” In English we have turned the word “heart” into a sort of a Valentine—we have made it sentimental, soft, something that indicates the part of us that is a pushover. In Hebrew the word translated “heart” contains layer and layers of meaning, including the “inner person,” the “mind,” the “will.” This word indicates something fundamental about personality… the truth of who one is, the heart of the matter. The truth of who God is does not will punishment or suffering on God’s children. Let me say that again. God does not will punishment or suffering on God’s children. “I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath,” says the Lord. In English the word “compassion” stems from the idea of “suffering with”—that one is able to imaginatively suffer with the one who is suffering. In Hebrew, though, compassion translates a word whose root means “womb.” The Hebrew idea of compassion means something like “womb-love.” The compassion of God springs from God’s very life-giving center. Taken together, these words tell us the core of who God is, God’s personality. And that core is forgiveness, tender care, and the desire to restore, not to destroy or punish.

One of the ways we understand our relationship with God is through the lens of our human relationships. It makes sense. One of the ways we can understand our relationship with God is in looking at the relationship of mother and child. Every metaphor has its limits, and this one is no exception. There are wonderful mothers who cannot save their children from unendurable pain, and there are dreadful mothers whose children overcome and thrive. But to embrace the metaphor as far as we can today: It is God who brings us to birth, who knits us together in our mother’s womb. It is God who holds us, who nurtures and nourishes us. It is God who leads us with cords of human kindness, teaching us the basics of what we need to know. It is God who heals us, holding us in the divine embrace.

We come to the table, perhaps, with many memories of dinners prepared by our mother—or maybe our father. And God is the host at this table, God is the provider of this meal, God is the founder of the feast. God has prepared this refreshment for us, this life-giving bread and saving cup, because God loves us. There is nothing we can do to earn that love. And there is nothing we can do that will cause us to lose that love. We are loved, completely, perfectly, passionately, by God, who is no mere “good-enough” parent, but the source and definition of love. And so we come to the table for the meal given to bring us life and strength, and we can trust that this motherly love of God will continue to touch us and heal us and make us whole. Thanks be to God. Amen.

"Greed," A Sermon on Luke 12:13-21

Here are some temptations I was faced with as I sat down to write this sermon.

Temptation #1: Statistics. You know, about how the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and there’s no end in sight to these trends, especially if our government decides to continue with the program of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Statistics about what percentage of our children live in poverty today versus fifty years ago—just before President Lyndon Johnson embarked on the famous “War on Poverty.” Statistics about how the tiniest portion of the population owns and controls the vast majority of the wealth, and how the vast majority of the population owns and controls the tiniest portion of the wealth. Statistics about the breakdown of poverty by ethnicity, race. Statistics like that.

The problem with statistics is, they usually make our eyes glaze over. Perhaps I should just speak for myself. Statistics make my eyes glaze over. And when I hear statistics about things I already know or already believe, and about which I’m already feeling somewhat pessimistic—well, I often have the experience of feeling just a little bit beaten down by them. So, no statistics.

Temptation #2: Quotations from The Divine Comedy, Inferno section, on the eternal punishments meted out to the greedy. What sermon couldn’t be improved by the judicious insertion of some Dante? I spent a good deal of time pursuing this plan, until I remembered two things. The first thing I remembered was my sermon of two weeks ago, titled “Hell.” And I thought, well, I may have said all I’d like to say about that for a while, and why run the risk of contradicting myself? And the second thing I remembered was the fact that encouraging behavior driven by the fear of punishment is setting the bar pretty low. In fact, it can’t get any lower. Perhaps you remember your Kohlberg from psychology class in high school or college? Lawrence Kohlberg speaks of our moral development as occurring in stages. The earliest, most primitive stage is that in which we behave in such a way as to avoid punishments and to gain rewards. This is, essentially, where toddlers are. The highest stage of moral development is that in which we behave entirely according to universal principles of “right” and “wrong.” Most of us fall somewhere in the middle. At any rate, encouraging us to not fall prey to greed simply to avoid punishment or gain some other reward seems ironic at best, and self-defeating at worst.

Temptation #3: Examples of greed “ripped from the headlines.” Oh, and the headlines provide us with more than enough material. From Bernie Madoff, whose Ponzi scheme cost investors more than $18 billion collectively (which is still missing, by the way), to British Petroleum, whose corner-cutting is resulting in costs measured in marine life, an entire coastal economy, suicides among fishermen… well, we can see in vivid terms that greed is still alive and well and wreaking havoc.

Temptation #4: When in doubt, there are always movie quotes! Gordon Gekko, the fictional character from “Wall Street,” the 1987 film about corporate raiders and inside stock trading. The quote cited in the 100 most memorable movie quotes. OK, I’m going to succumb to this temptation. Here’s what he said:

The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, for knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save [this company], but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. [1]

And you know, that argument was pretty compelling to a lot of people. In fact, more than twenty years after the film, the actors report that people still approach them to tell them that they were inspired by their characters to become stockbrokers, which is ironic, because a lot of those characters end up in jail. The argument made in that speech can be summarized by the economic slogan, “A rising tide lifts all boats,” classic Reaganomics. And it does! The problem is, when the tide goes out, the wealthy, while they have less, are still wealthy. And the vast majority of the populace are swept out to sea by a terrible undertow which they did not create, and which they may not survive.

So. How do we talk about greed? How do I talk about greed, I who had a meltdown on Thursday of this week because my phone died and I was without Internet access? Both of which, by any rational measure, can only accurately be described as luxuries? How do we talk, in a country that is still struggling to recover from a recession—let’s face it—brought on by the greed of a small number of people who still haven’t had to pay for the mess they created, while people we know and people we will never know—millions of God’s children, all around the world—are still struggling to find work, or to keep their families together…? How do we talk about this?

Do I sound angry? It’s hard to talk about this without getting angry.

The first thing I’d like to say about “greed,” and, perhaps, about most sin, most things that cut us off from recognizing the presence of God (which is how I define sin), is this: Greed takes what is a basic human impulse or instinct and distorts it, twists it, renders it unrecognizable. In the case of “greed,” the basic instinct is for security, and not one person can or should be faulted for wanting security. To know that you will be clothed, that you will eat a meal, that you will have a safe place to lay your head at night, to know that you will have all these things even beyond your so-called “productive years,”—this is part of what it means to be human, to have these needs and try to meet them. Greed, on the other hand, takes this instinct and pumps it up, inflates it, so that we think we “need” all sorts of things that turn out to be unnecessary, or even potentially harmful, to us or to others. And the way we know something is sin, is because it results in cut-off—we are cut-off from recognizing the presence of God, we are cut-off from others, we are cut-off from recognizing that our human calling is to be in community. Greed, as does all sin, cuts us off.

Jesus tells a parable about greed in today’s gospel lesson. You all know this parable, I feel sure. A man decides to save up for the future. He plans to spend a lot of time and energy building storage facilities for grain, so that he can be ready for any inevitability, any disaster. And the minute he hatches this plan—note, he hasn’t actually torn down the old barns, or built the new, larger ones, he has simply decided this is the thing to do, and he has begun to congratulate himself on how very wise he is—the minute he commences self-congratulation, he dies. And God speaks to him, and says, Wow. That was not too swift, friend.

The most compelling words in the story, though, are the words Jesus uses to introduce the parable. He says, “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions” [Luke 12:15].

A life does not consist in the abundance of possessions. Collections of things do not a life make, whether those things are our cherished cell phones or our beloved cars or our beautiful homes and all their contents. These things do not a life make. “We know there is a vacuum inside of us that will suck up an infinite supply of thrills, goods and successes without satisfying the human heart.” [2]

All of which leads us to the question, well, what does make a life? What will satisfy the human heart? What do we do? Where do we go? I suspect that the answer to this question, the antidote for greed, has to come from our own work—spiritual work—at the deepest level. We need to work at it. I believe we can work at it, we can change and grow, and the answer lies in a single, simple word: gratitude. In the words of the prophet Cheryl Crow, “It’s not getting what you want; it’s wanting what you’ve got.”

I heard a story this week by a woman who spoke of a truly challenging time in her life. She had cared for two small children at home while her husband had carried a full course load towards a graduate degree and held down a fulltime job. They barely saw each other for about three years. But they were working towards something. After he’d graduated they were hoping his new degree might land him a better job. Instead, the recession hit with full force and he was laid off from the job he did have, while opportunities in his field simply dried right up. Instead of paying off old debt, the family had to struggle to avoid taking on new debt, and the woman ended up finding employment and switching roles with her husband: he was the stay-at-home parent, and she was the primary breadwinner.

Through it all, fear and doubt and insecurity threatened her sense of peace and well-being. But she did not succumb, because she engaged in a very simple practice: the recital of a kind of mantra of gratitude. She would do this while walking to work. And she always started the same way, with the same basics: “Thank you God, that I can breathe. Thank you God, that I can walk. Thank you God, that I have [the use of my hands].” As she walked her normal route, and watched the people going by in their cars or on bikes or walking, more and more things for which to be grateful would occur to her. “Thank you God, that I was able to pay the rent last week. Thank you God, for the phone conversation with my mother last night. Thank you God, for the smiles I will see on the faces of my children when I arrive home tonight.” This ritual, which began with thanksgiving for the simplest and most basic things, ended up opening her eyes and her heart to the real, tangible blessings that were there all along—but which otherwise might have gone unnoticed. It was as if a veil had lifted, and now she could see.

What I love about this story is how it illustrates one of the most powerful truths about any of the spiritual disciplines, whether we are talking about prayer, or reading scripture, or any other of the ways we strive to open ourselves to God’s presence. The truth is this: we start where we are. If we can’t think of anything to be “truly” grateful for, we start with the things we take for granted entirely—our feet, our eyeglasses, the hair that’s left (or, the fact that baldness is “in” now!). I’ve heard people practice this kind of gratitude under astonishing circumstances—“Thank you God, the chemo didn’t make me nauseated today. Thank you God, for that memory of my loved one.” I make no claim that this is easy. I do claim that a grateful heart is a heart that is open to the peace of God. And God is always there. God is always here. We strive to open ourselves to the presence of the One who created us, and we learn to our astonishment that we are steeped in that very presence, we are awash in it.

“Greed is good”? No. Greed is a perversion of a God-given instinct for security. Greed separates my welfare from that of others, and presupposes it is every man for himself. Greed is the opposite of the way God created us to be, which is to live in community. Greed isn’t good. God is good. Evidence of God’s goodness, and God’s good intentions towards us, are all around us. And it takes work to see. It takes the intentional work of practicing gratitude. Life does not consist in the abundance of possessions. It’s not getting what you want, it’s wanting what you’ve got. It takes work. It’s not always easy. But it is a way to live that opens us to more abundance than we can imagine, blessing upon blessing upon blessing. Thanks be to God. Amen.

~~~

[1] Wall Street, dir. Oliver Stone, perf. Michael Douglas, DVD, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, 1987.
[2] Marjorie J. Thompson, Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005), 1.

"Dance": A Sermon

It may seem to us an unlikely moment to break into dance. After their God had unleashed ten plagues on the Egyptians, culminating with the deaths of the first born, the Israelites had escaped into the wilderness. All their worldly possessions on their backs and in their arms, they had just shed the shackles of slavery and fled from the avenging army of the Pharaoh. They had been pursued to the shores of the Sea of Reeds. Horrified to be caught between the Egyptian chariots and the sea, seeing only death before them, they’d turned on Moses, their leader, with vicious accusations. “They said to [him], ‘Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness?’” ~ Exodus 14:11

And then, Moses had demonstrated God’s power with what was very possibly the most visually spectacular supernatural event to be described in scripture: the parting of the sea. The Israelites walked through, as it says in one hymn, “with unmoistened foot,” while the pursuing Egyptian army looked up in horror to see the walls of water closing in, utterly obliterating them.

It may seem to us an unlikely moment to break into dance. You might think the Israelites would simply collapse in relieved tears on the far shore. Instead, Miriam, the prophet, Moses’ elder sister—the one who’d watched over him all those years before, as he cried until his face got red in a basket down by the banks of the Nile—Miriam picked up a tambourine, and led the women of Israel in a triumphant, no-holds-barred dance of pure joy. It was a dance of praise to God, whose power is so utterly amazing. It was a dance of sheer gratitude for their lives.

Dance. It’s an odd thing, in some ways, for a Presbyterian Church to be considering dance as we worship together on a Sunday Morning. But contained in our hymnal is the wonderful, “I Danced in the Morning, ” whose essential theme can be found in its refrain:

Dance, then, wherever you may be;
I am the Lord of the Dance, said He,
And I’ll lead you all, wherever you may be
I will lead you all in the dance, said he!

“He” is Jesus Christ: the hymn is a first person account, from his point of view. It is Jesus who is the Lord of the Dance. And as we sing through the verses, it becomes very clear: Jesus, as he is imagined in the hymn, sees all of existence—from God’s creation in the beginning through the events of his life to his resurrection from the dead and his promise to us for our lives—he sees it all in terms of a marvelous dance. And it is a dance to which we are invited.

I have to say it again: it might seem an odd thing for Presbyterians, of all people, to sing of a “Lord of the Dance.” After all, we are the church that owes its existence to John Calvin, the great reformer who approached the bible from the point of view that, if it isn’t expressly permitted, it’s forbidden. (Luther took the opposite view, by the way: to him, if it wasn’t expressly forbidden, it was permitted!). This reading of scripture resulted in Calvin claiming that dance was entirely too frivolous an activity for Godly people. Never mind that King David did it before the ark, that Miriam and all the women of Israel did it, that the psalmist invited us all to do it—for Calvin, no dancing.

In some critical ways, Calvin’s position is inconsistent with a truly Reformed worldview. Here’s how one writer expresses the inconsistency:

Reformed folks praise, value, honor, and make central the sovereignty of God [that is, God’s supreme and independent power]. The theological giants of the Reformed tradition—[including Calvin]—have put God's sovereignty at the center and heart of a Reformed "world- and life-view." God is the Lord of the cosmos; God is free from having to meet our expectations…

This writer goes on to claim that a truly Reformed world-view would “take the sovereignty of God so seriously [as to expect that you] might actually be surprised by God every once in a while. You [would be] open and expectant that the Spirit of God is sometimes going to surprise you, because God is free to act in ways that might differ from your set of expectations.”

It’s all about how God, in God’s supreme and independent power, created us. And therefore, it’s all about embodiment—the fact that we are flesh and blood creations of God’s. And embodiment is something that Christians have struggled with from the beginning. In fact, some of the defining heresies of the early Church had to do with exactly how embodied we are, and Jesus is. Though the Church affirmed wholeheartedly—Jesus is fully human, as well as being fully God—remnants of another idea remained, and those remnants are with us still: the idea that we are spirits trapped in bodies. And that somehow the spirit is the part of us that is good, the body is the part of us that is bad, and all of life is a struggle to see which will gain the upper hand.

The life and teachings of Jesus do not fall into the trap of this mindset. Jesus’ feet got dusty as he walked the roads of Galilee and Jerusalem. Jesus sat at table and ate with gusto and enjoyed wine. Jesus fed the hungry multitudes. Jesus laid his hands upon people to heal their hurting bodies—restoring sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, the ability to walk to the lame. Jesus cast demons out of people whose bodies were tormented by possession. Jesus raised children and adults from the dead—never once did he say to someone, “Oh, don’t fret. Your little girl is with God now.” No. Jesus valued life, bodily life, a life of both pain and pleasure, and one he sought to make better by taking people’s hurting, hungry bodies seriously.

As we should. And taking our bodies seriously includes the serious engagement with those things that God created to give us pleasure. For instance, dance. What does it mean that life is a dance—that the life of faith is a dance? Well, what does it mean when we dance in the first place?

Think of those times you’ve either danced, or you’ve been present when others danced. A wedding, for instance, when the bride and groom and all their families dance the night away. Or, in the end zone at a football game—when the running back does a little dance after making the touchdown. Or, those moments when children hold hands and swing themselves in a circle, letting the centrifugal force spin them faster and faster. We dance because we feel good—because we’re happy, we’re celebrating, we’re feeling so full of life and joy we can do no other. Or maybe we dance all alone in the kitchen, because we know it will help us feel better, in the face of some setback or disappointment or heartbreak. Dancing comprises celebration of or breakthrough to joy.

Jesus, by calling himself the Lord of the Dance in this hymn, invites us to a life of faith that is filled with joy. Interestingly, the English songwriter Sydney Carter chose to set these lyrics to an old Shaker dance song, “Simple Gifts.” The Shakers were famous for a spirituality that took the body so seriously that their worship centered around ecstatic dance—sometimes, spontaneous, sometimes, choreographed. In choosing this tune Carter emphasizes his point: the life of faith is a joyous dance.

I read this week that Reformed worship “often treats human beings as if they are brains-on-a-stick.” We who spend our weeks living in our bodies—digging in gardens, or caring for our aging parents, or feeding our children, or riding bikes, or kissing, arrive in worship on Sunday morning and expect to do no more movement than standing and sitting and, occasionally, singing. Don’t panic. I am not proposing we adopt the Shaker order of worship. I am suggesting that we have something to be joyful about in our faith, in the love of the God who created us, for we are fearfully and wonderfully made. And our worship should in some sense be a dance of pure joy. It should be a dance of praise to God, whose power is so utterly amazing. It should be a dance of sheer gratitude for our lives.

I know one place that kind of joy will be on full display this week: South Bend, Indiana, the home of Purdue University, which is hosting this year’s Presbyterian Youth Triennium. Between 3000 and 5000 young people from all over the country will gather there for worship, study, service and mission projects that will move them—literally as well as figuratively—that will invite them to join in the great dance of faithful lives. If the past is any indicator, it will change their lives. So join me as we first pray for and commission our youth participants, and then as we sing “I Danced in the Morning.” And join me, as together we seek to live a faith that is on fire with the joyful love of the one who calls us to the dance. Thanks be to God. Amen.

~~~~~

James K. A. Smith, “Teaching a Calvinist to Dance,” Christianity Today, May 2008 [http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/may/25.42.html?start=1]

"Hell": a Sermon

In early June I began to encourage you to share with me those topics you most wanted to hear discussed from the pulpit. I was overwhelmed by your response. I received suggestions for topics as diverse as “God: Referee or Judge?” and “Ghosts and Spirits and the life of faith.” One of you wants to hear about “American Greed,” and another, the crimes and punishments of the ancient Israelite kings and the apostle Paul. One is interested in the topics of true love and divorce, and what it means to be a success; another wonders, what exactly are “Biblical Family Values?” But the card that stopped me in my tracks, and made me wonder exactly what I had gotten myself into, said the following: “Is there a hell? And if so, how can you get out?”

I read a blog—that is, an internet journal—written by David Hayward, a pastor, artist and musician who calls himself “nakedpastor” (don’t worry, he’s talking about spiritual nakedness).[1] By sheer coincidence, about a week after I’d decided I’d be tackling this sermon topic today, David posted an original cartoon to his blog. You have a copy of it in your bulletin. The title of the cartoon is “Hell.” In it, you see the words “Tough Love,” and then, as if ablaze, the word “FOREVER.” And that, in a nutshell, is the conundrum we Christians are faced with when considering the possibility of hell. Do we believe in a God says, essentially, “Love me—or else!” Or is there some other way to understand both the scriptural roots and traditional Christian teachings on hell?

A quick read through the comments at David’s blog takes us through many of the positions people hold with regard to this topic. One person affirmed the cartoon, saying,

Funny when you have kids of your own how the craziness of literal hellfire becomes even more apparent. I can't fathom at all sending any of my kids to unbearable, eternal torture no matter how bad they were.

On the other hand, another reader said,

[The] God of the Bible is straightforward: He makes it clear that He is a God of wrath------a God of love------and smack in the middle of it all----a God of justice… What do you do with words like wrath, anger, jealous, when you read them in the Bible--just ignore it because it doesn't fit your image of God?

And, of course, we had to have the jokester, who wrote:

We had a phrase [in my church] that comes to mind, "Turn or burn" which, to be positive, was, at least, a VERY CLEAR message. It was also a helpful tip for the barbeque.

Today, I am going to do my best to share with you, first, some scriptural background for ways to think about hell, including a very brief history of the development of the idea of hell, and finally, some thoughts from a contemporary theologian on what constitutes a truly biblical understanding of hell.

I did a search for the word “hell” in the Hebrew Scriptures. It’s not there. The word that is there, instead, is “Sheol.” The most ancient meaning of this term is “the abode of the dead.” Like the ancient Greeks, the ancient Hebrews conceived of a place where the dead went to rest, an underworld. The Hebrew Scriptures are of two minds in describing Sheol. In some passages, such as Hannah’s canticle, Sheol is simply the place where the dead go: “The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up” (1 Sam. 2:6). This passage is not referring to punishment at all. The righteous and the unrighteous alike go to Sheol—it is the final resting place of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Samuel, all beloved of God. In many parts of the bible, “Sheol” functions as the equivalent of “the grave.”

On the other hand, there are passages in the Hebrew Scriptures where Sheol takes on a decidedly punishing tone. Psalm 9 says, “The wicked shall depart to Sheol, all the nations that forget God.” It sounds as if Sheol is a place of punishment there. Still, in another psalm we read the words, “If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there (Psalm 139:8). Sheol is a place for the dead, but even if it is a punishment, it is a place where God’s presence still abides.

In the New Testament, we do find the word “hell,” which is often used as a translation for the Greek place name, “Gehenna.” You can visit Gehenna if you go to the Holy Land; the word refers to Hinnom, a valley that runs south-southwest from Jerusalem. In ancient days, the valley was the place of worship of the Canaanite gods Molech and Baal. This worship consisted of sacrificing children by passing them through a fire; even some ancient Israelite kings took part in this horrific practice. Later, the Babylonians used the valley as a dumping ground for the bodies of the Israelites they killed during the occupation. By the time Jesus said, “If you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to Gehenna” (Matthew 5:22), it was being used by the occupying Romans as a garbage dump. The fires burned there day and night.

Between the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, a development had occurred. Instead of conceiving of death as a time of rest, darkness, a great leveler of the good and the bad alike, death was seen as a time in which scores were settled, a time when the evil were punished once and for all, even if they had managed to escape punishment in life.

Why did this take place? Why did a religion and a culture which had not had a clearly defined notion of punishment after death suddenly develop one? I don’t know the answer to this question, but I have some ideas. Could it have been the result of centuries of occupation and displacement, of war and persecution? Could it have been a development based on an innate sense that justice must take place some time, even if we don’t get to witness it ourselves? Could it have developed as a result of a fervent hope that God would not allow those who had killed and carried off God’s people go unpunished?

Whatever the reason, by Jesus’ day, there is clearly an idea of an afterlife in which the righteous are rewarded and the evil are punished. Jesus, in his typical take-no-prisoners fashion, threatens this punishment to those who not only murder, but to those who are angry. He raises the prospect of Gehenna for those who not only kill a brother or sister, but those who insult a brother or sister. In fact, if we look closely at this particular passage, Jesus takes the threat of hell to an almost bizarre extreme. Why? What is he getting at?

In his chilling memoir, Night, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel describes his first night in the concentration camp following a nightmarish death march.

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in the camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.

Never shall I forget that smoke.

Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.

Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever… [2]

Now, there is a description of hell: hell as utter separation both from God and from hope. Understood in that way, is it possible that Jesus is using Gehenna as a description of what utter separation from God is like—the kind of separation that is born in despair? The kind of separation Jesus himself experiences when he cries from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). Or, perhaps the kind of separation that is born in self-centeredness, and not other-centeredness? The kind of separation that results when we choose to cut ourselves off from God and God’s people?

Presbyterian theologian Shirley Guthrie offers the following:

And what is hell? Not a fiery or dark place of eternal torment located somewhere underground between the United States and China. It is living apart from or in hostility toward God and other people, and therefore denying one’s own true humanity—forever. It is living forever in the loneliness that results from the inability or unwillingness to love and be loved. It is never coming to rest but living forever in the frantic, self-destroying attempt to be what one is not and never can be. Hell, in other words, is not a kind of eternal life at all; it is a kind of eternal death. [3]

In other words, “hell” is not a physical place God sends us. It is a state of being—mental? Spiritual? Existential? Eschatological?—where we choose to reside, apart from God. And it begins here and now, not at some later date. Some of us are already in hell. Some of live our whole lives in hell.

Karl Barth, the great 20th century theologian, in the end, had great difficulty reconciling Hell with a gracious God. He called it “the impossible possibility”.[4] Each time we say the Apostle’s Creed, we proclaim that, after suffering crucifixion and death, Jesus descended—to the dead, in some translations, to hell, in the translation we know best if we are above a certain age. When we remember Jesus’ cry of agony and abandonment from the cross, that descent makes sense.

But what a hopeful doctrine that is for us to acclaim. Just as the psalm says, if we make our bed in Sheol, even there God is with us. If we take on the wings of the morning and ascend to the farthest limits of the sea, even there God leads us and holds us fast. If Jesus descended into hell, or the realm of the dead, there is no place—whether physical or mental or spiritual—where we can go where God has not already gone before. There is no place we can go where God is not. There is no place where God is not. That includes hell.

“If there is a hell, how can we get out?” What a great question. Traditional Protestant theology has held that once a person is in hell, they are there eternally. Our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters see it slightly differently. They still understand there to be a hell, whose punishments are eternal. But they also see another place of separation from God—purgatory—in which our sins can be purged from us. The Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia was built by Quakers with just this idea in mind—place criminals in a quiet environment where even the architecture reminds us of God’s watchful eye, and even the most hardened criminal will repent and come to a new way of life. One of the ways in which people may gain release from purgatory, in Catholic thinking, is by means of prayer—this is why there are entire religious orders who are devoted to prayer for the whole world, both living and dead.

A great thinker said, “It is unwise for Christians to claim any knowledge of either the furniture of heaven or the temperature of hell…” [5] The truest and most genuine sermon on this topic might just have been the words, “I don’t know.” I can’t claim to “know” the truth about hell. I can share what I believe: that God is love—as scripture tells us, again and again, through story, song, history, parable and poem. God is love, as we see in the reality of a God who came to be with us in Jesus Christ. God is love, as we recognize in the ongoing presence of the Spirit in and with the church. When we understand that God is love, the idea of hell—of eternal separation from that love—is surely something that makes God weep, and surely something God would use all the power in heaven and earth to overcome.

If we make our bed in Sheol, even there God is with us. If we walk headlong into hell, Jesus is there waiting for us. There is no place we can go where God is not. That is our faith and our hope. Thanks be to God. Amen.

[1] http://www.nakedpastor.com
[2] Elie Wiesel, Night (New York: Hill and Wang, 1958 and 2006), xix.
[3] Shirley C. Guthrie, Jr., Christian Doctrine, Revised Edition (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), 396.
[4] As quoted by David Hayward at nakedpastor.
[5] Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man, vol. 2 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1949), 294.

Freedom: A Sermon for Independence Day

On July 2, 1776, John Witherspoon was elected to the second Continental Congress. The Battle of Lexington and Concord had already been fought, as had the battle of Bunker Hill. The Olive Branch Petition, an attempt at brokering peace with the British, had failed, and the way forward for the Congress seemed clear: to declare independence from British rule.

Witherspoon was a part of the New Jersey delegation; at the time he was elected he was the president of a small and struggling college in New Jersey called Princeton. He was also a Presbyterian minister. In fact, he was a passionately evangelical preacher, one who had called for a renewal of his church through a return to the essentials of the faith: salvation through Jesus Christ. In a sermon preached on January 2, 1758, he said the following:

“I shall now conclude my discourse by preaching this Savior to all who hear me, and entreating you in the most earnest manner to believe in Jesus Christ, for “there is no salvation in any other...” [1]

One could hardly find a stronger, more absolute statement of traditional Christian teaching than this. Salvation through Christ, period. And yet, the author of this statement, as a signer of the Declaration of Independence just two days after his election, entered wholeheartedly into a union which specifically prohibited the establishment of religion, any religion, including the Christianity he so zealously professed. The Rev. John Witherspoon, fiery preacher of the gospel as he understood it, was also a fiery proponent of freedom of religion.

“For freedom Christ has set us free,” says Paul in his letter to the Galatians. “Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” [Galatians 5:1]. Much has been made of the Christian faith of the Founders of our nation. In most cases, this is at best a distortion. Many of the great philosopher-statesmen of the Revolution, including John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine and others were not, in fact, Christians, but Deists. Deists affirm that there is a Supreme Being, whom they might even call a Divine Architect. They also affirm that the Supreme Being created the universe and all that is in it, and endowed human beings with both reason and the wherewithal to behave morally. Deists reject, however, anything that claims to reveal the mind or will of God—and that includes scripture or prophecy of any kind. To them, Jesus was a wonderful moral philosopher whose followers got a little carried away.

One might wonder: would Witherspoon find himself on the other side of a divide from his Deist colleagues on the role of religion in public life? Would he advocate that our nation be founded on Christian principles and doctrine? Would he find the US form of government to be lacking because it wasn’t based on the eternal truths as he understood them? No, to all these questions. He said,

“Shall we establish nothing good because we know it cannot be eternal? Shall we live without government because every constitution has its old age and its period? Because we know that we shall die, shall we take no pains to preserve or lengthen our life? Far from it, Sir: it only requires the more watchful attention to settle government upon the best principles and in the wisest manner that it may last as long as the nature of things will admit.” [2]

For Witherspoon, the “best principles and wisest manner” included the guarantee that he should be able to exercise his faith with complete freedom and without the fear of government interference, whether that religion was the religion of the vast majority or of a tiny minority. Freedom is not freedom, if it is freedom for some and not for others. Freedom is not freedom, if our freedom comes at another’s expense. Witherspoon knew this, and that is why he was among the founders who also could not abide the institution of slavery. “It is certainly unlawful to make inroads upon others,” he said, “and take away their liberty by no better right than superior force.” [3] Freedom is not freedom, if it is freedom for me but not for you.

“For freedom Christ has set us free,” Paul reminds us. In the context in which he was writing, Paul was declaring the good news that in Christ, there is no longer Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, but we all are one. The freedoms which both Paul and John Witherspoon spoke and stood for (and lived and died for) are freedoms it is all too easy for us to take for granted. Most of us don’t know what it is like to be persecuted for our faith, though there are those who do. Christians and Jews, Muslims and Buddhists, Native Americans and countless others—each of these groups knows what it is like to be the victim of sectarian violence and killing, depending upon accidents of birth and geography and timing. We are blessed—perhaps we are lucky—to be free from such threats.

But it is not enough to be free from something. Paul reminds us that we are called to use our freedom, that we have to be free for something as well.

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” [Galatians 5:13-14].

Witherspoon knew this. After the battles and the war had ended, after the guns had been laid down, and the smoke from the cannons had cleared, and both sides had buried their honored dead, Witherspoon spoke at a service of Thanksgiving After Peace:

“To promote true religion is the best and most effectual way of making a virtuous and regular people. Love to God and love to man is the substance of religion; when these prevail, civil laws will have little to do…” [4]

Love God. Love one another. As we gather around this table today—and later, as we enjoy our barbecued ribs and S’Mores—it might be good for us to give thanks for our freedom. As we recall the faith into which we have been baptized—and later, as we enjoy a run through the sprinklers or a dip in a pool or a lake—it might be good for us to remember, not just that we are free, but those things for which we have been made free. As we lift our hearts heavenward—whether to ponder the Light of the World or to gaze at the sparkling fireworks with the eyes of a child—it might be good for us to rejoice in our freedom to love God and to love one another. For these things we have been made free. Thanks be to God. Amen.

1. John Witherspoon, “The Absolute Necessity of Salvation Through Christ” (January 2, 1758) in The Works of John Witherspoon, Vol. V (Edinburgh: J. Ogle, 1815) p. 276, 278.
2. Ibid., Vol. IX, "Speech in Congress upon the Confederation," 129.
3. Ibid., “Lectures on Moral Philospophy,” 81.
4. Ibid., Vol. IV, “Sermon Delivered at Public Thanksgiving After Peace,” 265.

From the Beginning: Confirmation Sermon on Galatians 1:11-24

There must be some kind of universal appeal to the particular brand of reality show that shows someone or something undergoing a major transformation. Take the “The Biggest Loser,” for example. Every season a number of contestants begin at a very high weight—this year’s winner started out weighing more than 500 lbs. Over the course of 20 or so weeks, prodded by the brutal coaching of fitness gurus and prompted on by the enticement of winning $250,000, the contestants work, sweat, and totally relearn both how to eat and how to take care of their bodies. This year that man who started out over 500 lbs lost the highest percentage of body weight, and got to take home, not only the money, not only a brand new, fit physique, but a new lease on life. Transformation.

Or take the show “Clean Sweep.” There, people with cluttered houses are given their shot at a makeover. A crew comes in and throws out and organizes and cajoles a family into letting go of those things to which they are sentimentally attached, but which are just junking up their houses. Then they have a yard sale and raise money for a redecorating project, and—presto! What was a cluttered nightmare is a sleek new living room or bedroom. Transformation.

Or, take this letter of Paul to the Galatians. You can tell Paul’s on the defensive here. He’s trying to persuade his readers that the message he preaches comes from God and not from human beings. He reminds them of his former life—a life in which he had reached the pinnacle of religious understanding, but which, for him, translated into a life of violently persecuting followers of Jesus. That is, until Jesus revealed himself to Paul, and the violent persecutor of Christians was transformed into the most passionate of Jesus’ followers. Transformation.

In speaking of his astonishing transformation, Paul says that God set him apart before he was born, and called him through divine grace. It’s a little strange to hear someone speak of his experience of God in this way. It sounds so grandiose, conceited, really… especially when Paul wraps it all up with a flourish: “And they glorified God because of me.” But it’s vital that we hear Paul’s words with the right inflection. This is not the voice of ego speaking. This is the voice of gratitude. Paul knows himself to have been chosen before he was born, because that is the only way he can understand God—our God who searches us and knows us. Even before we are born, from before the beginning of each of our lives, God knows our story. And so God knew before Paul was born what a stunning transformation the gospel would cause in his life. Paul is grateful beyond measure, to have been called, to have been set apart.

Today three young people, J, H and A, will stand before us and confirm for themselves, in their own voices the promises others made for them at baptism. Like Paul, they too have been called and set apart by God. Like Paul, they have been chosen for the gospel, and all the amazing kinds of transformation it makes possible.

The experience of being a parent, in many respects, has to do with watching tiny transformations take place, one after another. A child who balks at bedtime learns to love a soothing nighttime routine. Another child who never wants to let a green vegetable pass her lips falls in love with spinach. Still another child who struggled in school finds the subject, or the teacher, that ignites their absolute love and thirst for learning.

And then there are the major transformations. The little children who once gathered for the children’s message are suddenly old enough listen to a sermon. The elementary school student reaches the age where he can participate in the youth group. The high school senior takes into herself the years of learning in our Sunday School classrooms, and she preaches a sermon.

What will the transforming power of the gospel do in these three lives? Will J spend his days as an environmental engineer while spending his weekends engineering wheelchair ramps as a youth leader at his church? Will H teach math to middle schoolers by day only to lead thoughtful and exciting bible studies at her church by night? Will A study the sea and the environment as a marine biologist, while spending her free time tutoring students in the sciences as a part of her church’s outreach to the local high school? How will the gospel of Jesus Christ transform, not only the lives of Allison and Hope and Jay, but also all the lives they touch?

The thing that is striking about how Paul tells his story is how immediately his transformation leads him to take action. He experiences a revelation of Jesus, and does not pass “Go,” does not collect $200, but instead heads out with it, hits the road, goes to tell the Gentile world about this Jesus who has changed his life.

Sometimes that’s how it works. Sometimes it’s more like “The Biggest Loser.” We take three steps forward and one step back, we hit a wall, we get frustrated, we wonder why we’re doing what we’re doing. But the transformative power of the gospel is still there. It is still ours for the taking, or rather, the receiving. It’s a gift. It has been a gift since before we were born, from the beginning of God’s plan for each of us.

I want to leave you with a poem by Mary Oliver. In her poetry she combines a wonder at the harsh beauty of nature with the conviction that there is a great and holy Wisdom behind it all. The poem is called “The Summer Day.”

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

J, H and A: God set you apart before you were born, and has called you to join with a great community of people filled with the transforming power of the gospel. What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? Thanks be to God. Amen.

Creating God: Sermon on Proverbs 8

There were so many things on my mind and in my heart as I sat down to write this sermon… I was thinking about the passage from Proverbs, of course, the mysterious and marvelous work of our creating God; and I was thinking about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, about how God’s creation is being affected there; and I was thinking about Trinity Sunday, because, after all, this is a unique day in the Christian year, a day when we take on theology and mystery head-on. I was also thinking about the Natural Church Development program, upon which we have embarked as a congregation, and how that process will soon begin to unfold and affect us all. I was thinking about change.

And it occurred to me: all these things are related, they are all connected.

We believe that God created all that is—the universe, the stars, the earth and all its bounties and beauties, including the bounty and beauty that is humanity. I believe God might have done this any number of ways, but it seems to me scripture gives us insight into the mind, the intention of the Creator, whatever the creative process. In the mind of the creator was the creation of something good, something marvelous. In the mind of the creator was creation for the sheer joy of it, pure delight.

As the consciousness of humans dawned—and I believe there’s good evidence it dawned gradually—they, we, tried to account for the marvels of things like light and dark, the waxing and waning of the moon, the inward surge and outward flow of the tides. Fire. Thunder. Life. Death. The first attempts at understanding these things and how they came to be was the creation of gods—many gods, a god for the sun and a god for the thunder. This made sense to the developing human mind.

Along came Father Abraham and Mother Sarah, bless them, and the Creator—who knew the secret all along, of course, that God is One, unique and holy—the Creator struck up a conversation with the aging couple and sent them off on a late-life trip to a land of promise, a land said to be flowing with milk and honey. And in their conversations along the way, the Creator invited Sarah and Abraham into a relationship, with just one God: YHWH, the LORD.

In time the people of the promise came to understand that YHWH the LORD was not merely the biggest and best God, the greatest and most powerful God. They came to understand that God is, can only be, one. That the origin of all things is, and can only be, singular.

And then, along came Jesus. And… a people who know that God is one had to struggle to understand a God who seemed to express the divine nature in ways that burst open categories of “one” and “many.” In Christ Jesus, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell [Col. 1:19], and after Jesus’ sojourn on earth was ended, the Holy Spirit of God was poured out so that the presence of God remained in, with and among us, forever. And this multiplicity of experiences of God has kept theologians lying awake at night and staring at their ceilings for 2000 years.

I’m not going to try to exhaust the mystery that is the Trinity for us today. In 2000 years of thoughtful Christian lifetimes, no one has been able to do it. Instead, I’m going to direct our attention towards one description of God-in-action, and ask that we let it play with us, let it resonate and rattle around in our brains and in our hearts, and maybe show us something about the inner life of God that might, in turn, show us something about our lives together as God’s people.

The book of Proverbs falls into the category called biblical wisdom literature—writings intended to teach about the purpose of life and the nature of God. Throughout Proverbs, Wisdom—who is personified as a woman—is contrasted with the Fool, the one who has no interest in learning about God or morality. In our passage, Wisdom is speaking to us—making her case, giving us her pedigree. Wisdon is telling us of her deep, intimate and ancient connection to the LORD.

Ages ago I was set up (established),
at the first, before the beginning of the earth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no springs abounding with water.

Before the mountains had been shaped,
before the hills, I was brought forth… ~Proverbs 8:23-25

I was there, Wisdom is telling us. She is saying, I have been around just about as long as God has been around. In fact, Wisdom is reminiscing about a pretty spectacular front-row seat for the work of God in creation. And all the images she uses have to do with birth—she talks of the depths and the waters, she reminds us of the waters of the womb; she is brought forth, as a mother brings forth a child. She is born.

Later, Wisdom says,

when [God] assigned to the sea its limit,

so that the waters might not transgress his command,

when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
then I was beside him, like a master worker;

and I was daily his delight,

rejoicing before him always,
rejoicing in his inhabited world

and delighting in the human race. ~Proverbs 8:29-30

Again, the watery images continue the theme of childbirth. And that phrase, “master builder”—which seems to give Wisdom an even greater role in the act of creation—can also be translated “little child” or even “nursling” or “nursing baby.” God is creating—planning and mapping out the intricacies of the world, while at the same time giving birth to and nurturing Wisdom.

In the early days of the church, when the architects of Christian theology were meeting in councils to try to understand the identity of Jesus Christ and the precise nature of his relationship to God, they turned to this passage. Here they found echoes of another passage in which God is creating. This is from the gospel of John:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. ~ John 1:1-4

The early church councils read these passages and said, these things are related; they are connected. The figure of Wisdom in Proverbs, and Christ the Word of God in John’s gospel, are one and the same.

God is One, unique and holy. But God’s oneness is not stony and remote and set apart. God’s oneness contains eternal fountains of relationship: God, in God’s self, is relationship, the relationship we traditionally refer to as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I think it is this very relationality of the inner life of God that gives rise to the desire to create, specifically, to create us. A relationship of love—pure love—always wants to share that love. A relationship of love always wants to create, to give, to give back.

In our passage from the gospel of John, Jesus says, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” (This week, it occurred to me: maybe he was referring to the doctrine of the Trinity.) He continues, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come” [John 16:12-13]. The loving relationship between Jesus and God is amplified and continued in the loving relationship of both with the Spirit—the one who comes to help us to sort it all out, thanks be to God.

All these things are related. They are all connected. From the late-life journey of Father Abraham and Mother Sarah to our journey as a congregation, listening hard as God strikes up a conversation with us. From Christ the Word’s joyous participation in creation to our own participation in caring for God’s good earth, listening carefully for Wisdom to show us the way. From the promised sending of the Spirit to our own confidence that the Spirit is with us still, in us, among us, prompting, prodding and guiding us.

Someone once described human attempts to explain the Trinity as being like an oyster trying to describe ballet; we just don’t have the vocabulary. You notice, that has never stopped us from trying. And I believe that, as much as our ponderings no doubt evoke utter mirth and merriment in the Holy, Holy, Holy Lord beyond our comprehension, they also please God greatly. Because God is relationship, and don’t we always hope to better understand the one we love?

All these things are related. They are all connected. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen. Amen.

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Illustration: Adam Howle at Artists for Christ.