Prisoners for Freedom

Jonah 3:1-5, 10

Psalm 62:5-12

1 Corinthians 7:29-31

Mark 1:14-20

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My kid sister was a broom ball goalie in high school. She was awesome at it. So awesome that the team kept giving her nicknames, like ‘Margo Nel-Awesome!’ and, because our last name is Nelson, they even called her ‘Nelson Mandela' for awhile, not knowing who that was, but only that nicknames are cool. So one day after a game, mom heard my sister’s new nickname and asked if Margo knew who Nelson Mandela was. They didn’t do a lot of African history education, even in multicultural public schools ten years ago, so Margaret had no idea. Mom started off her explanation by saying, “well, Nelson Mandela was thrown in prison…” And Margo asked, “so was he a bad guy?”

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was last Monday, and he spent a good deal of time in prison. Was he a bad guy? The local ecumenical theology on tap group is reading German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who even has his own collection of “Letters and Papers from Prison,” so was he a bad guy? 

I hope we know enough of our history to realize how often power gets misused, and people protesting unjust laws end up getting punished by those laws before they get amended. That Mandela, King, and Bonhoeffer, were in good company. After all, today’s Gospel reading starts with John the Baptist getting thrown into prison. It may seem like a side comment, thrown away simply for setting up the timeline for Jesus’ next action, but paper and ink were precious in the days these stories first were written down, and no words were wasted.

So John’s in prison, and here comes Jesus, continuing and advancing John’s message, even taking it further, and calling people to follow him. Take that in for a minute. The first guy to preach this way was hauled off to jail, and now the guy John was preaching about has arrived on the scene to proclaim the kingdom of God has come near, one would expect that Jesus will also land in jail, if not worse. I mean, we know he gets the full wrath of the corrupt system, but at the time of today’s story, on the other side of certain things happening, those disciples didn’t know he’d get himself crucified (even though it probably wasn’t terribly surprising, given who the occupying powers were). 

Knowing the previous preachers of this movement had been jailed, why would anyone in their right mind answer the call to follow the next guy in line for civil disobedience?

We live in a relatively calm, cool, and collected area. Violence is pretty rare, crime is sort of.. what. Do we even see or hear any crime around here in the village? It’s a pretty comfortable place to live. So maybe this question seems to come out of left field, but just to experiment, I’m going to ask it anyway: What would you go to prison for? In some cities, it’s against the law to feed the homeless in public places. In others, it’s illegal to offer a warm place to sleep without the right zoning and proper permits. If anyone has seen the film “Selma,” there’s a not-very-distant history of our country seeking to live up to the values it was founded on. What would you march for? What would you give up pay for to go on strike about? What would you sacrifice for a greater cause? Some of you already have made great sacrifices, but we know we haven’t made a world which is equally safe and secure for all people even to express their ideas without ridicule. And I mean the big ‘we,’ because it’s all connected somehow.

Jonah went into the middle of the great capital city of Nineveh, right into the deep center of that nation which had sent his own people into exile. Granted, Jonah preached to those people he loathed more than anything just to get God to leave him alone. Jonah wanted to see Nineveh burn, but God wanted to see Nineveh receive mercy. It would be like sending a veteran to ISIL just to say ‘hey, re-read your Qur’an! God is merciful!’ and suddenly the people we call terrorists would set down their guns and receive forgiveness. 

When it comes down to it, we’ve already given up a lot of our freedom. Unless I’m the only one here with credit card debt and a mortgage-size student loan to repay. But Jesus comes to say that the kingdom of God has come near, and even though John the Baptist is in prison, he is a freer man than most.

Let me illustrate here a moment: In our conference we have an ecumenical ministry to the local prison. I get to hear snippets of stories from the chaplains who serve there, who meet inmates serving long sentences and get to bring the Good News of love and forgiveness into a place which is organized around punishment. One of those stories is of a man serving time who grew up in an abusive household and didn’t know any better than to think it was normal. This often happens, when kids who don’t know any different think their growing-up situation is just the way life is supposed to be. This man continued the abuse on his own spouse and children until the day he saw his adult child abusing his grandchild and realized how wrong that behavior was. To break the cycle, he turned himself and his child in to the authorities, and although he will be in jail for a very long time, he says he is more free now than he has ever been in his life.

So maybe the question isn’t ‘what struggle would you give up your freedom for,’ but ‘what would you give up for freedom itself?’ 

Solitude? Lots of folks see independence as the American Dream, but we weren’t created to live isolated from each other. Maybe giving up an ideal of being self-made for the sake of living with others in community is what is needed for true freedom.

Success? I’ve brought this one up before, because it’s so hard to measure and yet we race after it as though it will be the ultimate satisfaction. But without the freedom to fail, are we stuck in chasing after success in a way that leaves no room for learning and forgiving?

Anybody know the song “seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and its righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you, alleluia”? It comes from scripture and might lend a hint to these questions. Jesus came proclaiming that the kingdom of God has come near, and we spend the rest of the Gospel finding out what the kingdom of God is like, where the hungry are fed, the rejects are welcomed, and the sinners are forgiven. Where there is a freedom bigger and stronger than any prison walls, a freedom which cannot ever be taken from us.

This freedom, I think, is what the disciples followed. They caught glimpses along the way, and, like us, they spent their lives finding it in the strangest unexpected places, when they weren’t prepared or weren’t even looking.

I feel like I’ve asked a lot of questions this morning, but this last bunch is my goal: where have you caught glimpses of that freedom? Where has the kingdom of God come near in your life? How have you been reassured that you are enough, that God is enough, that you are loved and accepted and really truly deeply free? Because you are. You are loved. You are free. The kingdom of God is near in this news: God loves you, for Christ’s sake, and will never let you go. There is nothing that will keep God from loving you, nothing that will prevent God from walking beside you, nothing that will make God break God’s promise of faithful compassion and mercy. The kingdom of God has come near. Whether you find yourself in prison or all tied up at work or playing broom ball or stuck in traffic or waiting in line at the grocery store or arguing with a friend or waiting for a doctor or shoveling out from another snowstorm or… you get the point? 

After John was arrested, freedom came, announcing that the kingdom of God had come near. And it has. And it does. And it always will, until our final days.

God sees in the dark*

1 Samuel 3:1-20

Psalm 139:1-6,13-18

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

John 1: 43-51

Who has ever heard of ‘Jacob’s ladder’? Isaac, Abraham’s son, took Rebekah to be his wife, and Rebekah conceived and carried twins who fought each other inside her. Esau, the firstborn, was ginger and hairy all over, and he grew up to be a hunter. Jacob, the second born, came out of the womb grasping his brother’s heel, and Jacob was quieter, staying in the tents, his mother’s favorite of the two men.

Jacob and Easu did not get along very well, and Jacob cheated his brother, not once, but twice, out of his birthright and the inheritance of their father’s blessing. His mother helped him get away with it, but regardless, once the deed was done he fled for his life from the wrath of his bereaved and vengeful older brother. As the story goes (Genesis 27:41) “Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him, and Esau said to himself, ‘The days of mourning for my father are approaching; then I will kill my brother Jacob.’” Rebekah overheard Esau comforting himself with thoughts of revenge, and she told Jacob to get up and run away, and Isaac from his deathbed also encouraged his son to get away. The story (Genesis 28:11ff) continues: Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran. And he came to a certain place and stead there that night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring [who will be like the dust of the earth, and will be a blessing]… I am with you and will keep you wherever you go… I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

Did you catch the reference Jesus made to Nathanael? That ladder, with the angels ‘ascending and descending’ brought Jacob some amazing news while he was on the run from the wrath he had earned. Jacob was as far from home and safety as could be, alone and sleeping on a rock, and this vision reaches him in his sleep with a promise of new life and faithfulness.

Samuel received a vision in the dark, too. Before he even knew what the voice of the Lord was supposed to sound like, when visions were not widespread and there were plenty of other people older, wiser, more deserving of such a responsibility, Samuel heard the voice of the Lord in the dark, by the sacred ark of the covenant where he slept. He confused that voice with the voice of the priest Eli, and it took Eli a few interruptions of his own sleep to finally grasp that it was the Lord calling the boy in the first place. When Eli’s own vision had begun to get cloudy, he still had the imagination to allow for the possibility that God was still speaking. Even in the dark.

Deep in the dark, God formed us in our mothers’ wombs, knitting together those precious and delicate proteins of DNA, molding fingers and toes, shaping hearts and minds, loving every last little piece and the whole process of creation, too. It might be a hard thing to fathom, loving the process of making art every step along the way, regardless of how it turns out in the end. We tend to shy away from crafts we don’t feel competent in because we don’t want to have our finished product laughed at, but you only have to look at a kid with fingerprints to remember how much fun it is just to create. We are all creative people, from Hank’s skills at fixing cars, to Larry’s ability to see detail and get things done, to Linda’s work with the Tag Sale and all of our Sunday School teachers’ work with the kids telling stories and making macaroni and cheese. Being creative is part of how we reflect our creator. And our creator is a master crafter, knowing the ins and outs of the craft - like Betty, who knits dozens of lap blankets even with a broken wrist, or my friend Aaron who can fix store-bought knits without a pattern. That’s the sort of skill that can almost serve as a metaphor for the intimate detail of God’s knowledge of, and love for, each of us.

Which brings us back to the Gospel reading. When Nathanael first hears about Jesus, to say he is skeptical is a nice way of putting it. He’s outright racist about Nazarenes, it seems. “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” he asks Philip. But when Jesus acknowledges him at the more personal level, commenting on the content of his character rather than the color of his skin, Nathanael is taken aback. “How do you know me?” he asks. Jesus replies with a word we can’t really grasp in the English language. Jesus says that he has ‘seen’ Nathanael under the fig tree. Jesus says it in the way that in the movie “Avatar” the Na’vi greet each other with honor and reverence by saying “I see you.”  The way we are not truly free to be known until the roles we play and the labels we carry are stripped away and we are seen beyond those things placed upon us. Jesus sees Nathanael, and sees us, in the way only the one who has made us in the secret depths of our mothers’ wombs can see us. 

The Gospel reading almost makes it look like Jesus was checking up on Nathanael before Philip called him. But of course there is nowhere we can hide from God’s presence, from God’s love, even from God’s calling. In the years after Jesus’ resurrection, we have been struggling with what this means. The Corinthians, for an example from today’s reading, tried to live double, secret lives, with their religious life separate from their sexual lives. Paul reminds us, and them, that our entire selves belong to God. That body, soul, sexuality, spirit, intellect, joy, sorrow, doubts, wonder, light and darkness, all belong to the God who knit us together, who calls us by name, who sees us. Once that love has seen and called us, Jesus invites us to ‘come and see’ what God is up to in our daily lives, in the lives of our community, in the world around us. God sees you and has always loved you, from the very first. God calls you and has always walked with you, from the very first. God invites you to ‘come and see.’

*disclaimer: I've been reading Barbara Brown Taylor's book "Learning to Walk in the Dark" this week, and it is marvelous. I highly recommend it. It's where my mind has been in preparing this sermon.

I dropped my drop!

Genesis 1:1-5
Psalm 29
Acts 19:1-7
Mark 1:4-11

My friend Aaron has this children’s message he gives from time to time that I am going to outright steal and use this morning. Or, I suppose since I’ve already let you know it’s not something I came up with, I guess it’s alright to go ahead and use it. Just so we remember we all depend on each other more often than we are probably aware of… which is sort of my point, but I haven’t gotten to it yet, so let’s start with that children’s message.

See, what happens is Aaron stands over the Baptism font with the kids and looks a little lost. “I’ve dropped it!” he says. “I’ve dropped it and I can’t find it!” Of course the kids ask what he’s dropped. They want to help, as they so often do. But this is truly an impossible task, for what Aaron has dropped is a drop of water. Into the font. How in the world is anyone going to be able to extract that one individual drop of water out of even a small bowl of water? Can’t evaporate it until there’s only the tiniest bit left. Can’t freeze it and shatter it into tiny bits. Can’t soak it up with a cloth and squeeze out only that one particular drop. Once a drop of water joins other drops of water, once the river joins the sea, or the rain falls into the lake, there is no going back. Sure we have water cycles to circulate moisture throughout the air and the land across the world, but as the sages remind us, you never step in the same river twice.

Can you guess where this is going? Today is the celebration of the Baptism of our Lord. We began worship with a thanksgiving for Baptism, calling to mind some of the wonders God has done for the world through water. Creation, the Flood, the Exodus across the Red Sea, and of course the Baptism of Jesus - and ours. Our Baptism wraps us all up together in much the same way that one single drop of water becomes part of the whole font. This might be cause for rejoicing. This might be cause for rebellion. Or confusion, seeing as there are so many people who claim the labels we claim - be they Lutheran specifically or Christian more generally - and yet they do and think and say things we would never consider to be part of our faith heritage. For example, the attack in Paris was carried out by people who called themselves Muslim, and yet Islam is a religion of peace and justice. Or the Westboro Baptist Church calls itself Christian while spouting all sorts of hate. We would really like to distance ourselves from these practices and the people who perpetrate them in the name of our faith. Even in smaller cases, if one Christian finds her doctor at Planned Parenthood and another in the same community frequently protests outside of that office, it can certainly stir up some contention.

But being caught up in Christ does not mean that we all are suddenly exactly the same. Being Baptized does not mean that we all believe and think and practice like Stepford wives or automatons. What it does mean is that we are tied up in each other, for better or for worse, living with our disagreements and differences, teaching and learning from each other while still thinking for ourselves, just like I could have easily decided not to use that lost drop of water illustration Aaron shared with his kids at his church. We are tied up in one another, dependent and interdependent, because the same God has loved us all and claimed us all in these waters of Baptism.

And even with that good news, it is not quite the Good News of today’s reading. There have been arguments through the ages about why Jesus had to be baptized. He was without sin, he is God incarnate, when we Baptize, we Baptize in his name, for crying out loud. But he stepped into John’s baptism, which was a baptism of repentance, of turning around, changing course, and it led him out into the wilderness and on to the cross, for our sake, and I’m getting ahead of myself again because the reading doesn’t take us that far. Where the reading takes us is to that intimate moment between Father and Son, where the heavens are torn apart and the Spirit descends looking like a pigeon or a dove, and Jesus is told in no uncertain terms that God loves him and delights in him. Here is Good News for us, because even if we do not have pigeons flying around at our baptisms, it is still God’s word to us in these waters that we are loved and chosen and children of God.

One of those drops of water now lost in the great bath of the world is God, who once brooded over the waters at creation, bringing forth light and life out of the chaos of that primordial soup. One of those drops of water now mixed in with the rest of us is the very One who created each of us. One of those drops of water is Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, and today, and forever, who is as near to us as these drops of water are to each other. In the coffee we drink and the water we wash our faces with. In the frozen snow and the summer rain. In the River Jordan and the waters of the Kinderhook. Jesus who has bound us all up in each other is bound up with us in this crazy sort of freedom which means we will never be separate from the love of God, no matter where we go or what we do. Yes, God loves the shooters in Paris and the Westboro Baptist Church, and the victims of all of their violence, too, because that is just who God is, and God's love for us does not depend on us. And maybe if those who act in violence knew that love of God truly and deeply there wouldn’t be so much violence. But the love of God has caught us all up, and come to join us to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in our Baptism. We have been united with him in a death like his, and so will also be united with him in a resurrection like his.

There are promises we make at Baptism, to be part of the community, to study the Word and come to the Eucharist, but even they are not as important as the promise God makes to be always in covenant relationship with us, where there is forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Jesus is here in the waters with us, was there at the waters of creation when all was dark and chaos, and will be with us wherever the Spirit leads, wherever we choose to go or feel we are thrown by the waters. That's just who God is.

Light shines and the darkness goes "wha...?"

Jeremiah 31:7-14
Psalm 147:12-20
Ephesians 1:3-14
John 1:1-18

They say that to win a fight you have to know your enemy. God entered fully into the darkness with us, got to know it intimately, but the darkness just couldn’t win. The light shone in the darkness and the darkness did not, could not, overcome it. Could not understand it. Could not grasp it or make sense of it. God made the world and brought light into every darkened corner of shame and fear and hiding. God gave strength to the light that was already there. And the darkness cowered, and fought back, and bit and scratched and yelled and even threw its worst at God by betrayal and mocking and murder on a cross, but that light just kept shining. And the darkness just didn’t get it.

I mean, who offers forgiveness while they are being beaten bloody? Who shares a meal with someone when they know that someone will soon betray them? Who gives and gives, while we take and take, and continues to give even when the gifts are smashed and used as weapons between those to whom they are given? Who cleans up and shows up time after time no matter how messy it gets and how often we run the other way? Who gives up their comfort to sit with us in our pain, or gives up the fruit of the vine and wheat of the field to be hungry with those who are hungry? Who willingly enters into darkness to embrace those who hide there?

Darkness doesn’t do that. Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that. Fear cannot overcome fear. Perfect love casts out fear. Light shines in the darkness, and those things which had sought to hide can hide no more. Truth sets us free even when we would rather hide in comfort. We could just keep our heads down and hand over the lunch money when that schoolyard bully shows up, or we could stand up, talk with the teachers, say no to the bully, find out what fear the bully is hiding in, and heal together.

Back in seminary, when I was open and honest with my home synod about my bisexuality, they were afraid for me, afraid I would not find a parish call, afraid I would be bullied and that my presence would cause more harm than good. They were afraid because, after our denomination openly affirmed ordaining those who identify as Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender, they had experienced great loss of many parishes they honestly and deeply loved. But if I were to keep my head down, to stay in the dark, to remain in secret about who God has made me to be, I would be fighting fear with more fear. I could not lead honestly and from a place of freedom if I felt silenced. We know far too well that darkness abuses power by making us ashamed, by cutting us off from each other and making us afraid of what might happen if we are honest about our dreams and our doubts.

Another story from recent news: Leelah Alcorn, a transgender teen in Ohio, killed herself this past week because her family was ashamed of her, cut her off from her friends who had offered support, and did so in the name of their Christian faith. She and her entire family were struggling in a darkness of secrecy and shame, leading up to her stepping in front of a semi truck. But the light of hope that sprang from her suicide note, from the many trans* adults who reached out and spoke up about their lives, the Christians who stood up to say that their faith supports and celebrates human diversity, the light of hope which came from the tragedy is still spilling over in words and actions of welcome and acceptance for the many, many teens and adults who have been frightened into hiding and slowly dying under their secrets.

There is a Rabbinic parable I heard ages ago, wherein a teacher asks some students how to tell when night is over and day has come. One student guesses that it is when the last star of the evening has gone out. Another supposes it must be when the sunrise first brings rosy light to the sky. The Rabbi tells them that night is over and day begun when one person can look at a stranger and see that one as their own family. When the light reaches our hearts and changes our vision, both of the other person and of ourselves.

An addict’s first step toward healing is to come into the light and admit there is a problem over which he or she is powerless. Whether it’s our sexuality, poverty, feelings of failure, hiding from the realities of our own lived experiences just increases the darkness. Anybody have that one uncle or estranged second cousin that nobody talks about at the holidays? How awkward does that make family dinners?

To bring our secrets into the light takes away their power. And in those times and places when we do not have the strength to name our illnesses, the light still comes to our darkness. The light still opens prison doors, the light always unlocks the chains which hold us back from living in freedom and love. And when we have grown too comfortable with our chains, too familiar with our prisons, when we do not want to leave them, the light stays there with us, never abandoning us even in our death.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not understand it, and the light keeps shining. When God baptizes someone among us, we give a candle, lit from the Paschal candle, to the newly baptized, with the words, “May your light so shine, that all may see your good works and give glory to God in heaven.” We do this for many reasons, but we do this because that light which shines in our Baptism is a light we carry with us into the rest of the world. The light which is Jesus in our lives shines forth into the lives of those around us, shines hope and healing into the dark places of fear and uncertainty. The light does not give us all the answers, does not mean that we will never be afraid of anything again, but Jesus does remain with us, to feed and to carry and to guide us through every darkness of this life. He is light we can neither control or hide, but only reflect. He is the light of the love of our God, who has made this world, who walks with us in this world, who is always bringing life out of death, always doing a new thing, always loving and forgiving and restoring creation, including us.

This Second Sunday of Christmas, we continue to celebrate the Light coming to us wherever we are. We continue to marvel at God living in our skin, walking among us, pointing out and shattering the lies, of every size, which have held us captive for far too long. And in this infant, who grows up through childhood and adolescence into adulthood, God does the work of saving us from those lies. And we have seen his glory, full of grace and truth. Grace which loves us without end. Truth which sets us free to live in that love. And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The grace just keeps coming. The light just keeps shining, surprising, renewing. Jesus keeps showing up among us, making us into children of the light. God in Jesus entered fully into the darkness with us, but the darkness just couldn’t win. Can’t win. Won’t win. Because even when it doesn't look like it, Jesus wins. Light wins. Love wins.