Planted in Baptism Waters

Isaiah 55:1-9

Psalm 63:1-8

1 Corinthians 10:1-13

Luke 13:1-9

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We were created for good. All of us were. Men and women, young and old, rich and poor, black and white, liberal and conservative, gay and straight. This whole wide world, as we confess when we tell the first creation story, was created by God whose word declaimed it all ‘very good.’ 

I don’t know what exactly our problem is, but we call it sin. Call it ‘the Fall,’ call it discrimination, call it insecurity, oppression, social sickness, isolation, rugged individualism… somehow we have gotten so infected by it, so broken down, we don’t even know what ‘good’ really is any more. We fill our bodies with sugars and transport foods out of season across long distances, turning the earth inside out by shooting fossil fuel waste into the atmosphere, we center our appetites on getting more stuff over building relationships, we ignore and cover up our pain out of shame and misplaced pride. We destroy ourselves and one another either actively or by negligence and apathy. And the prophet Isaiah cries to us with God’s tears: Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?

Life on this side is hard. It can be terribly confusing. It’s often complicated, demanding, stressful, painful. It is also beautiful, heartbreakingly so. And deep, and rich, and wild, and amazing. I love reading stories of immigrant communities in New York City at the turn of the century, and how colorful they were, how they cobbled together new lives in a strange environment for the sake of providing safety for their children, how they passed on culture and tradition, even while they were so tightly packed from one neighborhood to the next in such poverty. I hate how our different cultures get erased out of shame and assimilation until we no longer feel safe celebrating our diverse heritages. Tomorrow is the last day of Black History Month, and there is still so much we need to learn, so many stories left untold, unheard, undervalued. 

There is a theme of repentance in today’s lessons that just begs to be addressed, and repentance is a huge part of our stories of redemption. The word used here for ‘repent,’ means something more like ‘convert,’ or a ’turning,’ like when you reach a turning point in your life and something has got to change. I often push my turning points to the back of my memory in favor of simply living the best I can in the moment, and forget how difficult some of those moments were. It’s more comfortable now to see them through rose colored glasses because of how far I’ve come in another direction than where I was headed. But these stories of our conversion experiences, these times when we knew we were spending our lives on junk and turned again toward the life that really is life, are so important. Even when we fall off the bandwagon these stories need to be told, for they speak to possibility, to hope, to small resurrections growing out of each death we experience. Because conversion requires a death, either of dreams or of habits or of expectations or of fears and anxieties, resurrection follows hard on the heels of conversion. And resurrection means new life. And new life is why we are here.

When that fig tree stopped living into its full nature as a fruit-bearing tree, the landowner saw it as a waste of the land itself, gathering into its branches the nutrients from the soil without offering anything to give in return. But that gardener worked on it, stirred it up, fed it some good decomposed plant and animal byproduct, probably talked to it, might have played music to it. People who work the soil tend to get to know it well, by texture, by smell, even by taste, if you’ve ever gotten to know a vineyard owner. In the world as we’ve created it, living up to how we are created to be is not an overnight change of direction. It takes love and attention and stirring and no small amount of *ahem* manure and time to bring us back to life again as we were created to be.

Fantastically, the image for us, the image of us, in this parable, as I read it, is a tree. Trees don’t often get much choice in the matter of producing fruit or not producing. Trees don’t throw tantrums, as far as I know. Then again, I’m not very skilled at tending to plants, and I wouldn’t be surprised if those who are would say their trees or flowers or garden plots have personality. We are part of creation, after all, meant to be in relationship with the whole of this fragile planet. But for a tree to turn from barren to fruitful depends a lot on the soil and the air and the water and the gardener.

It depends on the rest of the garden, too. Are there other plants growing too close and sucking the life out of the ground, other vines or parasites choking the life out of this fig tree? The ending verse of our Epistle reading today, that portion from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, drives me up a wall when we use it out of context and individually: “No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.” It sounds to me like a “save yourself” verse, or one of those trite “I can do all things!” Hallmark cards. As though being evicted is a test and you’ve got to get yourself back on your feet without any help. As though when your childhood cat gets run over by a car you’re not supposed to cry because you’ve gotta trust in a higher plan and forever be happy. As though life were a cosmic game and God is testing us to see if we are ‘good enough’ for Heaven. But what if the ‘way out’ is food stamps or section eight housing? Or the ‘way out’ is a friend who will let you cry and grieve and look at cat pictures with you all night long for the next two weeks? Do we still ‘pass the test’ if we need help getting through? Does repentance, or conversion, mean that we will reach that great ideal level of comfort where Joel Osteen says we should be?

I have to name that, because I know it’s especially hard to be Christian in America when everything is self-help, and pull yourself up by the bootstraps, and contribute to society, and if you need help in this country it’s taken as an insult and a shameful thing. We have even infected our faith practices with this awful lie that we can get ourselves good enough for heaven if we just give enough or make enough or smile enough or save enough. God knows that sort of talk is nonsense. Jesus nails it when he asks about the Galileans who had been slaughtered by Pilate while they were offering sacrifices. Did they get what they deserved? Were they worse sinners than all the rest? Of course not! Then again, Jesus says, you are on the same path to destruction as they were on, and you’ve got advanced warning to turn around.

So here we are, trees in a garden, struggling to produce the fruit we were created to bear, and the crazy thing is, this gardener just keeps working on us. Three years so far, in this parable today, three entire years of fruitless labor! How many of us would give up after a single season, and this gardener has given three years for nothing, and is asking the landowner for another year, a fourth chance at coaxing the tree into acting according to its nature. Not only that, but when he gives the landowner the option of cutting the tree down if nothing works by next year, he uses this word that one would use for the work a surgeon does, ‘ekkoptO.’ Surgeons don’t make cuts in a body to kill it, they make cuts in a body to save it. So even then, the gardener is asking the landowner to work with him on saving this fig tree, cutting away the sickness that impedes fruitfulness. 

When we talk about conversion, about salvation, about atonement, we try and make sense of who Jesus is and why Jesus is important, and there are many conversations around this that make God the Creator the bad guy and Jesus the one who saves us from wrath… this image does not sit right with me, nor does it actually take the First Testament into full consideration. And yet, in this story of the gardener and the fig tree I imagine the end of that fourth year, the ‘failed’ second or third chance where the fruit still doesn't grow and the landowner returns to cut down the tree, and the Jesus character says “cut me down instead.” If God is to be seen as the landowner, it doesn’t sit well with me, because it doesn’t get at the character of God, but it does sit right with me if God is seen as the gardener. I don’t know who else the ‘landowner’ would be, then, if not simply a world that demands return on investment, but the world doesn’t own the land. We do not, in fact, belong only to ourselves. So we see again that parables and metaphors always fall a bit short, but that’s why we tell them, since they act as icons. Like icons, they invite us into using our imaginations, playing out a scene, taking part in the story of our relationship with God. It would be in the character of the world to destroy that which does not give what it demands, and in the character of God, who we see most clearly in Jesus, to say ‘cut me down instead.’

That is, in fact, what Jesus does. He presents us a life lived to its fullest, a life of love and service and freedom and right relationship with God and neighbor, and we cut him down instead. He shows us how the branches live connected to the vine, and we do all we can to uproot him. He brings us good soil, sun, water, tending, and we offer thorns in reply, to him and to each other… and he still tends to us. Jesus the good gardener goes to work pruning and husbanding, protecting and providing, and some of the branches that had been choked off come to life, while others grow sharper thorns, but we are all the same tree under the care of the same gardener, in the end. We break his heart, we are frustrated and frustrating, and yet his love for us will not let go until he waters our roots with his very own blood, down to the last drop, to bring us fully alive.

So come to the waters, come eat and drink without money, without price. Receive the free gift of God's love and grace and forgiveness, given and shed for you on that tree which gave us the fruit of eternal life. Know that what God wants for you, more than what God wants from you, is abundant life, deeply rooted, connected, thriving. Know that God will stop at nothing to make you flower as you were made to.

Cow says 'moo,' cat says 'meow,' Herod says...

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18

After these things the world of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.” He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” And he believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.

Then he said to him, “I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess.” But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” He brought him all these and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. 

As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him.

When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming worth passed between these pieces. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates.” 

Psalm 27

The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? When evildoers close in against me to devour my flesh, they, my foes and my enemies, will stumble and fall. Though an army camp against me, my heart will not fear. Though war rise up against me, my trust will not be shaken. One thing I ask of the LORD; one thing I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life; to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek God in the temple. For in the day of trouble God will give me shelter, hide me in the hidden places of the sanctuary, and raise me high upon a rock. Even now my head is lifted up above my enemies who surround me. Therefore I will offer sacrifice in the sanctuary, sacrifices of rejoicing; I will sing and make music to the LORD. Hear my voice, O LORD, when I call; have mercy on me and answer me. My heart speaks your message - “Seek my face.” Your face, O LORD, I will seek. Hide not your face from me, turn not away from your servant in anger. Cast me not away - you have been my helper; forsake me not, O God of my salvation. Though my father and my mother forsake me, the LORD will take me in. Teach me your way, O LORD; lead me on a level path, because of my oppressors. Subject me not to the will of my foes, for they rise up against me, false witnesses breathing violence. This I believe - that I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living! Wait for the LORD and be strong. Take heart and wait for the LORD!

Philippians 3:17-4:1

Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.

Luke 13:31-35

At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to Jesus, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’ Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

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A few years ago there was a song making the rounds on the internet, which I discovered on an episode of Ellen when she asked the singers to come on and talk about this little piece of nonsense they wrote. They wrote it just for kicks, to be entirely ridiculous, and it completely surprised them by becoming a huge hit, even being spoofed by medical students as a study aid on the mystery of the spleen.

I’m talking about that internet sensation: “What Does The Fox Say?” It’s been stuck in my head all week after a Facebook conversation with other young clergy about this morning’s Gospel reading. Because Jesus gets sassy with the Pharisees and calls Herod a fox. The Pharisees, who have been trying to save their seats of power and authority in the religious establishment, tell Jesus to head for the hills because Herod is out to get him, and Jesus compares their head of state to a weasel-y yapping dog of a predator, telling them he has work to do, and he knows he will die for it, so let’s get back to it already. Nothing will knock Jesus off track from his mission to set people free and restore them all to community, not even death threats from a guy who is so insecure in his position as to threaten a small-town local faith leader. Besides, when were the Pharisees ever looking out for Jesus’ best interest?

Because sometimes it feels like the people in power have absolutely no idea what life in the trenches is like, and the talking heads sounds more like that ridiculous fox song than like people who actually know what’s going on in our lives or care to do anything about it. Sometimes leaders get overwhelmed with keeping their positions and misplace their mission. We’ve seen this happen, we’ve known times when those in authority seem to overstep their roles or ignore our needs. Sometimes we even are these people in authority. Jesus is basically reminding the Pharisees to tell Herod that the work of casting out demons and performing cures is more important than paying attention to Herod’s opinion on such matters, which is what the Pharisees themselves ought to be about, anyway. Both the religious leaders and the political leaders have missed the point, and Jesus isn’t about to let that stop him from what’s most important.

It used to be the way we saw God, too, as a higher authority, the highest authority, who sure couldn’t be bothered with the day to day problems of simple people, farming and trading and going about their business. As though our pains and struggles weren’t worth the attention of an almighty higher power watching over the world from a high and lofty throne in the clouds. We made light of our problems and stopped asking God to care about us, because we stopped expecting God would bother with a cow who didn’t give milk or a child who was unruly at school, and we began shaming our neighbors for not taking care of their own problems. Many people turn away from an idea of God because the way God is painted is as too high and mighty to be bothered with little old us. After all, if God cares more about who we sleep with than with who is going hungry in our neighborhood, well, what is there to worship in that sort of character?

Back in the day, when Abram was learning to trust God’s promises, Abram learned about God’s character by way of a very strange sounding ritual involving animals cut in half and watching over them all night long. I remember my first Old Testament class professor telling us about this particular story, that it was a very intense rite, because by passing through those bisected animal carcasses, God was essentially invoking a curse on Himself if He failed to keep this promise to Abram for land and offspring. Kings would take promise of revenge in much the same way, saying things like “may God do twice as much to me if I don’t kill your entire village!” or something like that. But here is Abram crying to God about feeling abandoned and cut off at the end of his long and unfruitful life, and God essentially responds by telling Abram “may I end up like these sacrificed animals if I do not follow through with my promise to you!”

It’s like Noah and the great flood, when God places a bow in the clouds as a reminder never to destroy the earth by flood again, because that bow, you may notice, is pointed heavenward, toward the sky where God lives, so as to strike God if this promise is ever broken.

As we see in Jesus snubbing the threats of Herod today, God would rather die than see us cut off, killed, or destroyed. All of the threats we post against God are just like the yipping of a fox compared to the enormous love God has for the world. I imagine Herod as a great fox coming to the henhouse of Jerusalem and finding Jesus as the irate mother hen pecking out his eyes to protect her chicks. The hen will die in the process, but what mother wouldn’t lay down her life for her children? Ideally, anyway. We know the world is too broken for every mother to love so perfectly and selflessly, that some mothers are too self-absorbed or addicted or otherwise sick, to give much more than they’ve already given in the basic act of giving birth. But even though we’ve cleaned up birth in hospitals with those antiseptic gloves and gowns, we know that giving birth tears a woman’s body, and that, too, is part of our image of Jesus today as a mother hen. Of course, it’s not the same for birds as for mammals when it comes to all of that, but the cross has long been seen as an image of God’s heart and body being torn open to give birth to a new creation, to the church.

We are the gathered ones, today, in this place. We proclaim at the Eucharistic prayers “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” and we see Jesus, hold him, drink him in, at this Table where the Body and Blood of Jesus are given and shed for you and for the world. God, who is the ultimate power of life in the universe, has come to dwell with us, to feed us with himself, to remain with us always. God is so focused on this passion that no threats of death can deter God from this course. The fears of this world, the anxieties about failure and success, the struggles to save ourselves from worst case scenarios, are but idle chatter or the barking of a fox compared to the power of the presence of the love of God. We see that love most clearly on the cross of Jesus, which he knew was going to be the outcome of his ministry, but his love for us would not let him turn away from it, no matter what pain and heartache it would bring him. For the heartache of betrayal and crucifixion was not to be compared with the heart break of a people who turned away from his love again and again and would not let him gather them. To be near to us, then, he came among us to cast out demons and perform cures and proclaim liberty to the captives. Even Herod, one day, even the Pharisees, even the rest of us, gathered into the love of Christ around this Table, fed by the love of the cross. Now not even death can part us, not ever again, for the mother hen has defeated every fox.

Wild

Deuteronomy 26:1-11

Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16

Romans 10:8b-13

Luke 4:1-13

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We are embarking now on our first full week of Lent, having started the season this past Wednesday with the sign of death smeared across our faces, and straight away we follow Jesus into the wilderness, the wild lands, the uncharted territory beyond our known borders. This might well be THE best place to encounter God.

Wilderness is a place beyond words. It's uncivilized, unpredictable, dangerous, and it seems to me that anyone who has really been there either has a story to tell or has been moved beyond the point of describing it. Metaphors run short on wilderness experiences. Poetry tries to grasp at it. Even our favorite stories only barely touch on communicating wilderness fully. The Chronicles of Narnia portray a majestic lion, Aslan, as both gentle and strong with the two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve, but also remind us again and again that Aslan is ‘not a tame lion.’ Wilderness is not tame. Neither is God.

We may or may not have great plans for Lent this year. Some take it as a second shot at new year resolutions, giving up chocolate or trying to pray five additional minutes a day for these forty days, and there are good reasons and not so good reasons to make an honest attempt at self-discipline. But Lent isn’t so much about what we can do as it is about what God can do. What God does, actively and outside of our control.

I mentioned we may not have the best reasons for our Lenten disciplines. I don't just mean we might give up chocolate for the hope of fitting into those jeans again or swearing off meat on Fridays to lower our cholesterol. I also mean when we treat God as though She is another sort of Santa Claus who will repay us for good behavior, and if we pray an extra five minutes a day, or give more to charity this season, we will suddenly deserve a special favor from God that we can call in whenever we’d like a winning lottery ticket or something.

We fast, and pray, and give with special intention this season, or we don’t, and it is entirely for our own benefit. God doesn’t need our money or our hunger or our charity. God’s people do, but God doesn’t. And God isn’t waiting for us to get faith ‘right’ before curing that illness or bringing back to us a repentant lover. The Accuser, also called Satan, works on Jesus in today's Gospel very much the way we do. After all, if God really is all-powerful, why not turn stones into bread and feed the multitudes? Except, we can already feed the world with what we have, it’s stony hearts that get in the way. But if God really is all-knowing, why not stop the crime before it happens? Except, we know what injustice looks like, and choose to remain ignorant of our neighbors. And if God really is all good, why let bad things happen to good people? Except, we are all of us mortal, we all will die, and we only each have so much time to work with.

We want a God whose will matches our own, don’t we? Whatever miracle we demand, we want God to fix us according to our own vision of what ‘fixed’ and ‘broken’ seem to be. Don’t get me wrong, our prayer must involve a measure of telling God what we want, or it just isn’t honest, and God gave us the gift of prayer so we can build that relationship which requires absolute honesty. But we shout our prayers into the whirlwind of Job from time to time, and miss the bigger picture.

God’s wild places are where creation was born, is being born, will continue to be born. The uncharted seas stir up unexpected storms, try our strength and skill, require us to hold on tight or even tie ourselves to the mast of the ship while the boat seems to be breaking apart. This is precisely where God meets us, while the wind howls and the salt water stings and the stars may not even be visible. When our ancestors in the faith were slaves in Egypt, they cried to God for deliverance, and the waters turned to blood, and the locusts devoured the crops, and boils broke out on the bodies of their slavers, and every firstborn of the Egyptians, human or beast of burden, died in the night, so that hearts of stone might turn to flesh just long enough that they might escape into the wilderness, across the sea, and through forty years of wandering into a new land where they could worship God freely. Not only is our faith built on the foundation of a wandering and alien people, but these people are the people of a wild God of wilderness unpredictability.

Paul might have been most unsettled by this wild nature of God when he was called to minister to Gentiles, to us, who were never part of that cult of Adonai, but who were grafted into the open wounds of Christ while he died upon that tree, on the hill called “the place of the skull.” To graft a branch onto a tree, there must be deep cuts made, so the well-rooted tree can bleed into the new plant, and so God’s heart was shown torn open to the world, and Paul was a tool in bringing that Good News to us who are that new planting. We were outside, far off, not even on the radar to begin with, and yet Jesus, wild at heart, the enfleshed God of unpredictability, brought us near, gathered us in, and Paul fought upstream against the expectations of everyone to declare that ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Everyone. That’s wild. That’s outside the boundaries of the God we expect, far too radical for the God we want. But that’s God’s nature, we are learning: to embrace all that lives, to go especially to the outsider, to meet us in the wild places, to tie us to the mast of the ship and save us in the storm, and to be the mast of that ship to which we are tied.

Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, is led by that same Spirit into the wilderness, where the world’s sense of order and rightness meets him and he disavows it all. He refuses to allow the world to claim him in that controlling way, that ‘if you really love me’ way. We aspire to follow this example in our rites of Baptism and Affirmation of Baptism, when we renounce the devil and all the forces that defy God. We renounce the powers of this world that rebel against God. We renounce the ways of sin that draw us from God. …But so much of that is wrapped up in the boxes we try to create for God, the expectations we have for who deserves how much of what kind of God. And God is not tame, not box-shaped, not what we expect or deserve or understand. That’s what makes God worthy of our worship.

In the wilderness, there is no place where God is not. This is true, of course, everywhere. In the wilderness, however, we may find ourselves crying out more for God, seeking a bit more, wrestling, doubting, even outright telling God to back off because we are done with believing in Him. That is what this wilderness is for, and that is precisely where God meets us, disturbs us, moves us and claims us. We already are not the same as when we began this journey, and we will not be the same on the last day as we are today. Because to be loved by the wild, uncaged Love that created the cosmos, that is the work before us, ongoing and unpredictable. It shatters the expectations we build, unsettles our systems of organization, grants us both a larger community and a greater future than we could have ever thought possible.

God is wild, brothers and sisters. God is in the wilderness, God is in the darkness, God is in the storm and the quiet and the trials, and God is in the welcome home. But we’re not there just yet. No need to worry, though, because God is always greater than our fears and anxieties, always greater than even our greatest expectations of what God can be. After all, who would expect such a wild God to take on the limits of human flesh and life willingly, and joyfully, for our sake? That kind of love is worth the wilderness, and more.

Ash Wednesday - why ashes?

(sermon follows after the liturgical readings)

From the 58th chapter of the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah

Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God. “Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?” Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers. Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?

Is not this the fast that I choose; to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.

If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.

Psalm 51

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; in your great compassion blot out my offenses. Wash me through and through from my wickedness, and cleanse me from my win. For I know my offenses, and my sin is ever before me. Against you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are justified when you speak and right in your judgment. Indeed, I was born steeped in wickedness, a sinner from my mother’s womb. Indeed, you delight in truth deep within me, and would have me know wisdom deep within. Remove my sins with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be purer than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; that the body you have broken may rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my wickedness. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain me with your bountiful Spirit. Let me teach your ways to offenders, and sinners shall be restored to you. Rescue me from bloodshed, O God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall proclaim your praise. For you take no delight in sacrifice, or I would give it. You are not pleased with burnt offering. The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit; a troubled and broken heart, O God, you will not despise.

from Paul's 2nd letter to the Corinthians

We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. For he says, “At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.” See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in eery way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as imposters, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see — we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

from Matthew 6

Jesus said to the disciples: “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither most nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

********

When I was in college, I took a year off in the middle to volunteer with a team of youth ministry musicians called “Captive Free.” We were the team that toured the Pacific Northwest, six strangers, all Lutheran, from all across the continent. We lived in a van together, ate our meals together, performed family concerts at churches, slept in strangers’ homes, relied completely on the hospitality of people we had never met before, and saw a lot of different ways people do church. Because I was the one of us in school studying theology, I got to be the one to answer the worship questions, like where in the sanctuary is it alright to set up the screen if we might block the cross or the altar, or can we sing for the offering at the second Sunday morning service and then leave for the next concert or should we stay through until after communion? And then came Ash Wednesday. In a strange church. I was surprised to find out that we hadn't all grown up with this tradition, when, just as we were invited forward to receive the ashes, during worship, my teammates turned to me and asked, “what does this mean? Why are we doing this?” In the moment, I mumbled something about repentance or humility or something, what do you say to a kid in line for communion when she’s two people away from the Table and asks that question? It was a rite familiar to me, but I hadn’t yet really put it into words, and under pressure I don’t remember what I said, but we all went ahead and got ash and oil smudged on our faces. It was the year Mel Gibson’s movie “The Passion” was in theaters, and after worship we all went to see it, then took the next day in silent prayer, which is essential when you live in a van with five other people all year long.

What is it about these ashes, though? People are even passing them out on the sidewalks, on trains as folks commute to work, and somehow there’s a demand out there to be marked like this. To be ritually dirty in public. To stand out and be identified with other people who have also been so marked. Maybe it’s just a sign we’ve done our good Christian duty by going to church at the start of Lent, but ritual this old is hardly that shallow. Ashes and death are far more ancient than any single community or way of doing things. Repentance is something people have been practicing for centuries, turning away from bad behavior, turning away from the things that break down community, turning toward our better hopes for ourselves, turning toward repairing systems and seeking justice. Turning toward our death, inevitable and common to all that lives, as a way to reconsider our values and priorities. Every time someone public dies tragically, word gets around to hug your loved ones a little bit closer, right?

But it’s more than that. More than just deciding to ‘do better next time.’ If we do not look honestly at death, how can we look honestly at life? Public or private, death is a tragedy. It is not what we were made for. We were created for life, for abundant life, for freedom and interdependence and right relationship with the earth as stewards of a good creation. We just keep getting it wrong, though. Keep trying too hard to prove ourselves, or forgetting our place and making ourselves judge over others, or gathering more than we need until others go hungry or naked or neglected.

It’s the story of humanity, over and over again, which the prophet tells tonight. And it’s the story of our God, too, returning to us, calling us to turn away from selfishness and toward the life that is truly life-giving for all. It’s a reflection of God’s heart that we find in the prophets, the call to justice and mercy, kindness and peace, rebuilding the ruins. When our lives are broken by grief or illness or mishandled conflict or accident, we use that sort of language of ‘my world was shattered’ or ‘I’ll never be the same again’ or even ‘I can’t even begin to imagine going on without him.’ And yet life does continue, sometimes in fits and starts, sometimes surprisingly smoothly until it hits a road bump or two and needs to be rearranged again.

Ash Wednesday prepares us for those fits and starts. It’s the beginning of a season of learning how to die well so that we may also live well. It is marking the beginning of our intentional journey with Jesus, through the wilderness and to the cross. It certainly doesn’t stop there, but we can’t move past death as quickly as we would like to. In order to understand the depth of love which has shattered the ultimate power of death, we need to look death squarely in the face and acknowledge the power it does have. These ashes are made from the palms of Palm Sunday last year, waved over the crowd in celebration for the coming King who would dethrone the powers of Rome, but every party comes to an end, every celebration dissolves eventually into getting back to the daily grind, cleaning up the mess, moving on. That particular party came to an abrupt end when Jesus didn’t turn out to be the sort of King the people wanted.

He’s not exactly the King we want, either. If Jesus doesn’t make you uncomfortable, you’re not digging deeply enough into his story, not spending enough time with him in prayer. He upsets the world as we know it to bring us the world as it was meant to be, which is a tough adjustment to make, and we keep defaulting to the practices of death which trap us, again and again, in cycles of sin and fear and trying to save ourselves. We don’t want to die. God didn’t intend for us to die. But we chose to be our own gods, and death is inevitable for all that lives. Death breaks us all down. It returns us to the earth from which we were made, back into the cycle of things, and it does that to everyone, rich or poor, black or white, Christian and Muslim and Buddhist and Atheist and Agnostic, old and young. 

Ash Wednesday is the day we look death in the face, see it in ourselves and in one another, and mark our faces with the sign of the cross. The cross was a tool of Rome used to publicly humiliate and slowly kill anyone who threatened their political power. The cross in today’s culture would look more like a lynching tree. The cross was Rome’s answer to keeping its power, and God, in Jesus, let it strike him down as it had been used on so many hundreds of others. Why do we wear it, this weapon of death and abuse? Why adorn it in gold? Why hold it up?

We point to the cross, wear it on chains and on our foreheads, as a sign of how far God’s love will go to be with us. We hold it up to see what violence we are capable of, and what lengths God will go to in order to rescue us from our fear. We proclaim Christ crucified, not to glorify violence, but to announce to all the world that death, however it comes, is not the final word.

Ash Wednesday ashes are mixed with oil. Oil is a sign of gladness, or abundance, and of blessing. Oil is used to anoint kings, prophets, and priests. Oil is used to anoint the baptized, and will be used at the end of the Lenten season to mark us once again with the cross when we receive individually words of forgiveness on Maundy Thursday. God is always and forever mixed into our experiences of death, always and forever present in every loss and pain and fear, always and forever walking with us and carrying us through those valleys of dark shadow. The Gospel reading tonight finishes with the well-known phrase, “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” And you, brothers and sisters, and all of the weary and violent and broken world, are God’s treasure — so God’s heart, Jesus, the crucified and risen one, is with you. 

We are marked with these ashes, reminded that we are dust, in worship of the One who created the cosmos out of dust. The One who has repaired the breach between us, between life and death, between each of us and each other, is the One who we follow through this Lenten season, on to Holy Week, to the upper room, to the garden of Gethsemane, to the trials, to the cross, the tomb, and beyond. 

You are God's Flute

Prayer of the Day

Holy God, mighty and immortal, you are beyond our knowing, yet we see your glory in the face of Jesus Christ. Transform us into the likeness of your Son, who renewed our humanity so that we may share in his divinity, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Exodus 34:29-35

Moses came down from Mount Sinai. As he came down from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant in his hand, Moses did not know that the skin of his face was shining, and they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them; and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation turned to him, and Moses spoke with them. Afterward all the Israelites came near, and he gave them in commandment all that the LORD had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face; but when he came out, and he told the Israelites what he had been commanded, the Israelites would see the face of Moses, that the skin of his face was shining; and Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with him.

Psalm 99

The LORD is king; let the people tremble. The LORD is enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth shake. The LORD, great in Zion, is high above all peoples. Let them confess God’s name, which is great and awesome; God is the Holy One. O mighty king, lover of justice, you have established equity; you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob. Proclaim the greatness of the LORD and fall down before God’s footstool; God is the Holy One. Moses and Aaron among your priests, and Samuel among those who call upon your name, O LORD, they called upon you, and you answered them, you spoke to them out of the pillar of cloud; they kept your testimonies and the decree that you gave them. O LORD our God, you answered them indeed; you were a God who forgave them, yet punished them for their evil deeds. Proclaim the greatness of the LORD and worship upon God’s holy hill; for the LORD our God is the Holy One.

2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2

Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with boldness, not like Moses, who put a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that was being set aside. But their minds were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, that same veil is there, since only in Christ is it set aside. Indeed, to this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds; but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.

Luke 9:28-43a

Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes because dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” - not knowing what he said. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen. 

On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him. Just then a man from the crowd shouted, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child. Suddenly a spirit seizes him, and all at once he shrieks. It convulses him until he foams at the mouth; it mauls him and will scarcely leave him. I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.” Jesus answered, “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you? Bring you son here.” While he was coming, the demon dashed him to the ground in convulsions. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. And all were astounded at the greatness of God.

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As of today, we are at the end of the Epiphany season. Epiphany is the time after Christmas where we spend Sunday after Sunday diving into who this newborn king really is, what will become of this baby in the manger, why the twelve year old in the temple bewildered the Rabbis, where his ministry might take us, how his kingdom will come, when we might expect him to show up. Our prayer of the day points us to the culmination of the Epiphany season, the fruits of our labors to understand all there is to know about this Jesus of Nazareth:

“Holy God, mighty and immortal, you are beyond our knowing…”

…

Huh.

Do you ever feel like God is a complete mystery, though? I mean, the Bible is full of weird and strange and violent and contradictory stories, people have used these stories for ages to argue for and against women’s rights and slavery and all kinds of social justice legislation… it seems we can make God agree with just about any argument that we want to win. Either that, or God is just too far away, too important, too involved in natural disasters to be concerned with what’s going on in our boring little lives, our simple day to day experience, our anxieties and personal fears.

This morning’s Gospel reading sure sounds like the God we are taught to fear, heavenly and bright and all powerful on the mountaintop in the terrifying cloud. This is the God I want to come and fight my battles, stand on my side, win my wars. Unless, of course, God is calling me to join in somebody else’s fight, then maybe I’m no so eager to have an all-powerful Lord. Like the white preachers who lost their jobs because they marched for civil rights and preached a Gospel of integration, or the German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer who put his life on the line to work against Hitler’s regime and remain faithful to the Gospel even while the rest of his church fell in line with the Nazi message without much of a fuss. Paul’s letter this morning states that “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom,” but we who have military history know that freedom is not free. And we who have lived through the civil rights era know that none of us is free until all of us are free. So, if God sets us free, God sets all of us free, and binds up our freedom all together.

Okay, that feels like I made a big jump there. So let me back up a minute.

Jesus goes up the mountainside with his three friends, Peter, James, and John. Suddenly he’s brighter than light, blindingly so, and those sleepy friends of his are now wide awake and stunned to the point of not being able to talk about this experience until long after the resurrection. They have just seen Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah, the law and the prophets embodied, the heart of their faith in the flesh, and then comes the cloud, the terrifying cloud that in all of their stories signifies the glory of God descending. This is the God so holy that no one could look on God’s face and live. This is the God who led them out of slavery and through the wilderness by a series of massive plagues on Egypt and parting the Red Sea and providing a pillar of cloud and fire to guide them. The God who struck down mighty armies. The God who by David killed the giant Goliath. The God by whose word the earth opened and swallowed up those in the camp who had made a golden calf while Moses was up on the mountain. This is absolutely terrifying. We can talk more later about how Peter’s mouth gets away from him when he’s anxious, because he just shouldn’t have said anything. So we have this experience, the three friends of Jesus on the mountain with the terrifying light and cloud and then the voice! The voice of God telling them to listen to Jesus, the chosen one, after which they… just… can’t… I mean, what can you say about that sort of experience? Who would believe it? How crazy would it sound? How would you even describe it?

So it’s this big moment of power and awe, the God they have been hoping for, the epic mountaintop experience… .and then it’s over. Just like that. Turn off the lights, it’s time to go back down the mountain, time to get on with the work.

Which brings us to the next part of our prayer of the day:  “…yet we see your glory in the face of Jesus Christ….”

When we wonder about God, when we try to grasp who God is, and what God wants, and how God loves, we look to Jesus. Specifically, we turn to the cross of Jesus, that ‘departure’ he was talking with Moses and Elijah about on the mountain. As Lutheran Christians, this is where our understanding, our wrestling, our focus, always returns. Not for a place to get good advice, but when God seems too much to handle, or life, for that matter, bears down on us, we have this story, this moment, where we are reminded that it is Jesus who really reveals what God is all about.

And what happens next here is part of this same story. We could stop after the vision on the mountain and call it a great day for Transfiguration and leave it at that. But we don’t. We could only really stay there for a day, anyhow, because we are about to embark on the 40 day journey of Lent. But the story today continues on down the mountain, with Peter and James and John silent about the sudden flash of glory they have just seen, and we come to a story of tremendous humanity. A desperate father and his suffering son, begging for help, for understanding, for anything that might alleviate the son’s suffering, might save his life from the torture of these seizures. Can you feel the depth of despair in the father’s voice when he cries out in pain at his son’s pain, in powerlessness when he finds the disciples are no help at all, even though they have cast other demons out only recently? We have come down the high mountain and landed in the depths of pain as the demon throws the boy to the ground in convulsions. The son, so powerless over even his own body, the father, powerless over his own grief, we have reached from one extreme to another, high to low, exultation to heartbreak.

And it is here, in the dirt, that God’s glory is made known.

God is not far away from us, brothers and sisters. God is in the dirt with us. Marching to Selma with us. Standing for the value of Jewish lives with us. And Muslim lives. And Black lives. And every life that has ever been thrown away like so much dirt. 

God Incarnate, Emmanuel, with us, means that 

God is Black, 

God has AIDS, 

God is epileptic, autistic, old, crazy, 

and willfully, willingly, God is broken. Broken wide open with love for us, broken wide open by everything in us that is not love, so that we, all of our broken, crazy, autistic, old, epileptic, dying selves, we in all of our dirtiness reveal the glory of God. In the broken and poured out life of Jesus, we who are broken are filled by love to overflowing, leaking love through all of the cracks and crevices and weak spots.

This is what I mean when I reiterate Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, that the Spirit of the Lord brings freedom. Our culture tells us to fear weakness, to cover up our broken places, to be ashamed of our vulnerability, our need to be known and loved. Not just our culture, history is full of wars and disasters brought about by people taking advantage of each other before they could lose what little ground they have gained, never realizing all the ground belongs to the God of us all. Freedom isn’t only glory on the mountain of light, it is also love in the valley of shadows. The Spirit blows through the cracks, and wouldn’t you know, that’s how a flute makes music.

So we come to that final portion of this morning’s prayer of the day: “Transform us into the likeness of your Son, who renewed our humanity so that we may share in his divinity, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.”

Amen.