God's not finished with us

Genesis 12:1-4a

Romans 4:1-5, 13-17

John 3:1-17

Has anyone yet seen the film “Twelve Years a Slave”? It won some well-deserved awards at the Oscars, and tells a true story of a free man from New York being kidnapped and sold into slavery in the south, where he had to hide his true free and educated identity to stay alive under the abuse of his slavers. The film follows him to the point where he is reunited with his family, and the endnotes tell us that he spent the rest of his life working in the abolitionist movement.

Why do I bring this up? Well, tomorrow is Saint Patrick’s day, and Patrick was also taken from his homeland and sold into slavery. Imagine then, what it meant for him to escape that slavery, return home to Britain, and then, once he became a public leader in the church, he returned to the country that had kept him as a slave. Patrick was a Bishop and saint to the very people who had taken away his freedom by force. Talk about love. Talk about mystery. This is the sort of hero whose power came from beyond himself. And now, centuries later, we celebrate a day with his name on it and make it a bit more glamorous than it probably was in reality. As we tend to do with saints.

Take Abram, for example. In the Genesis reading this morning we have a very unglamorous call story. He lived a good life, he and his wife had no children, they presumably were getting ready to retire, and God uprooted them to send them on the first bits of a road trip, without a clear map, without any clear plans or certain expectations, but with a very vague sort of promise: “I will bless you so that you will be a blessing.” Sort of like what Patrick must have felt when he went back to Ireland after escaping slavery. 

Sometimes God tells us what to do and our first response can only be either to laugh or to be very confused. Yet for some reason we keep asking God for advice and direction. 

We have wide open pasture in this wilderness of Lent. Plenty of space to explore, from worship spaces in our mid-week services, to spiritual practices for the season, to driver’s education for some of our young people, to navigating new relationships and new jobs, to figuring out the way this particular parish might meet the needs of this particular neighborhood in our own particular way. It would sure be nice to have a direct word from God, wouldn’t it? To know for certain that what we’re doing is what God wants us to do, that these plans and works of ours line up with God’s desire for us and for this area.

So we get that word from God and it’s just as clear to us as it was to Abram, or to Patrick: “I will bless you to be a blessing.” And we thank God for that good word and still wonder at what it means, how to live it out.

What it means is that God has not forgotten us in this wilderness. Abram and Sarai were childless and their only security was in staying connected to their ancestral home - so God took them from that home, uprooted them from that land, and God was their security. Far more fertile, that chasing after God’s voice, than it would have been had they dug in their heels and refused to budge.

What it means, that we are blessed to be a blessing, is that God is not done with us. Abram and Sarai were childless and wandering and living on a promise they did not see come to fruition for many many years. Their names had to be changed. Their wanderings took them through uncertain times and potentially dangerous neighborhoods. But God was not finished with them just because they appeared to be barren.

God blessed us to be a blessing, too. It’s the real trickle-down effect, the way the cycles of nature feed each other, and our faith has sprung forth from Abram and Sarai to feed generations before us just as this love of God will, through us, continue to feed generations to come.

It’s miraculous. It’s mysterious. It’s a little bit crazy, to think of a people born out of such wandering in their golden years. But it’s a promise made by a God who is faithful. A promise made and kept by a God who came in person to see to it. It’s a promise we still carry, and we carry it in faith that God is faithful. We do not wander in the wilderness chasing after our own plans and desires for success, for success as the world measures it changes more quickly than technology. We wander in the wilderness chasing after our God who goes before us, following wherever faith calls us, even when it seems pretty crazy, and we have known the blessings of these leaps of faith.

Patrick could well have escaped slavery in Ireland and been done with the place, never returned, and with good reason. But in Christ he was always living in freedom, just as each and all of us live in freedom through Christ. Secure in his freedom he was able to follow God’s call to be a blessing to Ireland and the generations who followed after him. 

Abram followed that ridiculous, unwise, wasteful call to leave behind his homeland, too. And his offspring outnumbered the stars of heaven. The whole of the cosmos, even. That great expansive cosmos that God loves enough to live in and to die in and to be resurrected in. Brothers and sisters, we are blessed to be a blessing, as Abram and Sarai were, as Patrick was. Which means God has not forgotten us. God is not finished with us. God is still loving us in and through the wilderness. In and through the cosmos. In and through the mundane bits of bread and wine offered at this and, yes, every, table. Nothing much special, it seems. Yet when God gets involved, speaks a word, makes a promise, it’s miraculous. It’s mysterious. It’s love poured out for the whole of the world.

Lent 1 - Jesus wouldn't 'Man Up'

Genesis 2:15-3:21

Romans 5:12-21

Matthew 4:1-11

A friend of mine posted on Facebook this week: “Okay, fine, be a man. Don’t want your friends to judge you.” It was one of those status updates that was just vague enough for folks to ask her questions about it, but what I suppose happened is that her boyfriend made a crude joke or acted somehow more macho than usual and hurt her feelings in the process. Because, you know, there’s only one way to ‘be a man,’ and it’s not cool to miss the mark on that. Not cool at all, because other guys might see you less than strong, less than powerful, and there will be no end to the teasing.

Where do we get this idea, that there is one perfect man, one perfect woman? Adam and Eve are only two characters in the Bible, and there are so many ways to be human that aren’t covered. But somehow we figure it’s the man’s job to be stoic and provider, and woman’s place to be homemaker and always in need of rescuing. I mean, look at Eve’s first action in Scripture - she misquotes God, who never said not to even touch that fruit, and then decides she knows better and follows the snake’s suggestion to eat for her ethics.

This is a dangerous text in many ways. Most obviously because for centuries folks have been saying it’s Eve’s fault we’re not in the garden any more. One of our confirmation kids, though, blames God. He says God wants us to be dumb and that to stay in the garden we’d have to remain ignorant. So for him the science versus religion fight started early.

But Paul in his letter to the Romans says pretty clearly that through one man sin came into the world, you know, to set Adam up as a story type so that Jesus can be the hero whose opposite energy saves the day. The one man was disobedient, so there had to be one man to be completely obedient, in order to fix what got broken back in the garden.

What was it that got broken? We lived in a garden, to till it and keep it. Adam named all the animals and Eve was crafted from his rib to be an equal partner in garden stewardship. They were naked and not ashamed. Probably it wasn’t twenty degrees and snowing, so it didn’t hurt them to be naked, either. They weren’t dumb, they had to know how to work the land and care for the animals. And placing blame on them for the brokenness won’t help much of anything, because we’re all guilty and equally stuck because sin is now in our DNA. But the trust between us and God was broken when we decided we knew better than God. When being something we’re not was more important to us than being who we are, we broke faith, and so, to be like God, we ate the thing that was promised to kill us. And we have been fighting against God and against ourselves ever since.

It is the same lie that’s thrown at Jesus, the same temptation to be what somebody else thinks he should be. After forty days and nights out in the wild open wilderness, without food, his body ravenous for something to sustain it, Jesus is given this option: turn this stone into bread. Or, rather, the option he’s given is: prove you’re the Son of God. Meaning: we expect the Son of God to provide for his own needs first and foremost, to make himself comfortable, to use his power for his own benefit, so go ahead, man, and order yourself a supreme pizza out of this gravel. Don’t bother to be grateful or patient, you of all people are entitled to it. Get a side of hot wings out of this cactus while you’re at it.

But Jesus knows who he is, and what is his purpose, and so the accuser has to try another tactic.

Up to the pinnacle of the temple they go. The high place of all high places. The closest to God a living person could get. So prove yourself, Jesus. Prove your God is the best there is. Man up and jump already. It says in your very own Scriptures you’ll be just fine. God will grab you like a momma cat and you’ll not even scuff your sandals. C’mon, dude. You chicken or something? Where’s your faith?

And Jesus knows who he is, who God is, and what is his purpose, so the accuser has to try another tactic.

So this time it’s an appeal to his leadership. Why not make your work easy? Why not have all of the kingdoms of the world at your feet, bowing and scraping and living according to your law without argument? Wouldn’t it be better that way? To have world peace, everyone loving their neighbor, everyone turned to you as their head CEO? Clearly they’re a mess, since they all belong to Satan so he can offer them in the first place. Clearly they’d be better off if Jesus would just have them automated and turn their default mode to unwavering faith. That would totally be worth getting Satan’s endorsement on all his merchandise. Small price to pay to have every nation assimilated.

And Jesus knows who he is, who God is, who we are, and what is his purpose, so the accuser is out of ammunition for awhile.

But ever since God spoke at Jesus’ baptism, ever since it was said that this is God’s Son, folks have been assuming we know what that means. Power and prestige. Always on my side. Might makes right. Backing the current religious powers that be. We assume Jesus would use all that power the same way we would. But Jesus doesn’t ‘man up,’ and fall prey to our expectations. Jesus doesn’t use his power to force us into repentance. Jesus isn’t what we expect or deserve. He’s the kid who gets bullied on the school playground even though his Mom is the principal. He’s the little boy with pink fingernails, the girl who buys lunch for that kid who’s always hungry, that football player who sings in the show choir.

But he’s more than that. If Jesus were just a good example to follow, we’d be lost, done for, roadkill on that highway to heaven. 

So what Jesus does is to live our story before God. To step into our shoes and face our failures head-on, to walk the way that has been prepared, the way we have tried and failed to follow, the way that leads to his death and resurrection, through the wilderness and on to the promised land. He completes our story for us when we’re too distracted and tired and broken to try. We ate from a tree of misguided ethics in the garden, and were kicked out before we could get to the tree of life. Jesus IS the tree of life, come to restore us, come to feed us, come to be everything we need in this wilderness. He knows who he is, who God is, who we are, and in his blood, sweat, and tears, he gives us back to ourselves, back to God, back to life. Thanks be to God.

Ash Wednesday - Body of Christ: Dying and yet alive

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.... And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourself treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 

Sermon:

The Body of Christ has an eating disorder. Lately, every Lent we joke about giving up chocolate, but for some it’s another good excuse to explain why they aren’t eating. Can’t have chocolate, gave it up for Lent. Can’t have carbs, gave them up for Lent. Nope, no sugar, no dairy, no soy, no... Now, I’m not saying there aren’t legitimate allergies folks have to cope with and eat around, but if one part of the Body suffers, all suffer with it, and I know there are beloved children of God who have learned to hate their own bodies, to starve themselves to reach some false level of perfection, who take this season of historical fasting as permission and even blessing to disappear from the world. 

I have a friend from college who for a long time would wonder about how many calories were in the Body of Christ, even when we used wafers at communion, because she was diligent about counting those monsters, and sometimes after communion she would instantly feel fat and out of control and run to the bathroom to purge. But even though she was seriously ill, people around her kept telling her how beautiful she looked, how slim, how amazed they were, and jealous, at how much weight she had lost. She was making herself disappear, and she’s just one I know of who is healing and talking about her slow resurrection process.

But this season of Lent is not about hating ourselves. It is not about beating ourselves up for not being perfect. It is not a diet plan or forty days of the second coming of our new years resolutions. We enter the days ahead with ash on our foreheads as a mark of grace, not condemnation. We receive the burned palms of last year mixed with the oil of blessing, not to say we are all terrible sinners who deserve to die, but that we are mortals whose lives are wrapped up in the cycle of life and death, and we receive those ashes in the shape of a cross because even death is not the final word for us.

It is an outward sign of our shared humanity, our common need for air, water, food, and forgiveness. A sign also of shelter, welcome, and purpose. There are ways we have learned to hide behind our religion, but they are not hidden from God. We can complain that life is so hard and make jokes about it while struggling inside in ways we do not feel we can share. We can mouth the words of confession and make a big deal about carrying our cross in a way that glosses over the reality of our questions, and journeys, and vulnerabilities. But those things that we hide? That no one sees? That we think will stay forever in the dark? Those pains and sorrows, the reality of mortality, is not hidden from or invisible to God. In fact, God voluntarily joins us in them, taking on the same carbon-based body common to all that lives and dies.

When my friend who was starving herself finally got help, and I don’t remember how she did, she talked often of this hyper-awareness of herself, anxiety about how much space she took up, a strictness about measuring every last scrap of food even as she was getting healthy again. But she could not hide her sickness forever, no matter how much she fought it and tried to make it normal. 

The Body of Christ has an eating disorder. We try to save ourselves and fail. We try to be perfect and kill ourselves in the process. This is not the fast that God chooses. If we fast, it is to make ourselves aware of our place in the world, our need for food and our connection with others who have no choice about their hunger. If we fast, it is to joyfully center our prayer on the God who always provides, always forgives, always brings life.

The point of Lent is not to make ourselves suffer. The point of Lent is to prepare for Easter. To consider who Jesus is and what he has endured out of love for us and for the whole of the cosmos. The point is to revel in our Baptism, or for some, to prepare for Baptism. To look into our mortality and take it seriously and find Jesus, and the whole of the Body of Christ, there beside us all the way through the end and out the other side.

We do not wear these crosses of ash on our faces to prove ourselves good Christians. You can wash it off before you leave if you like. But you are marked with it, and can’t get away from it. We all die. We all belong to God. Some of us seem to suffer more than others, but we are in this together, not solitary. We cannot escape the love of God any more than we can escape death. In fact, death’s hold on us is far more slippery than it would like it to be. Because God’s purpose for us is life, no matter what else may kill us. Paul said it well, and it bears repeating: “We are treated as impostors and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as perishing, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.”

Mountains Breaking Open

Exodus 24:12-18

Matthew 17:1-9

When I first traveled through the Pacific Northwest in college, I was stunned by the mountains. Growing up, the Poconos in PA were all the mountains I knew, beautiful sloping things covered in forest, where I spent my summers in the shade at my grandparents’ retirement home, watching the deer and birds from their back porch in the woods. But the west coast mountains? Totally, strikingly, different. On rainy days they could have just been distant clouds, but when the mountains were out, they were bold, sharp, giants, visible for miles, used to navigate the points of the compass when we got lost. As the Alleghennys of Pennsylvania had become comfortable old sleepy friends, the west coast mountains were stern, imposing, living and sometimes active things, still in formation, still with all of their rough edges. To build a house on a Pennsylvania mountain meant a beautiful, rustic view. To build a house on Mount St Helens... the whole landscape of the valley was reshaped when that mountain exploded northward in an eruption no one could have predicted, and gardens across the state and beyond still have inches of ash just below their surface, remnants of a history no one can recreate or return to. The landscape is still rebuilding itself, renewing and resurrecting in a beautiful new way.

So when we have these two stories this morning about mountain-top experiences, even though I have also seen in person the mountain Moses climbed, I can not help but think of how I want those childhood summers of Pennsylvania to return, but how an experience of God can also transform us as completely and totally as an eruption like that of St Helens.

Have you ever had a mountaintop experience that changed the way you walk through life? A bit of clarity - or terror - that completely altered your experience of the day-to-day? Not everybody gets one of those moments. Not everybody who has had one has wanted one. And unless you count the final passage into life eternal as a mountaintop, nobody gets to stay there.

Jesus did a lot of teaching from mountains. Great armies built their fortresses on top of mountains. High places are good for communication, for security, for cell phone towers... When people are asked where heaven is, most point to the sky, and what’s closer to the sky than a mountain? Or an airplane, but in the days before airplanes and spaceships, the closest thing to heaven was a mountain, so mountains were where people made special trips to meet with God. Sometimes those trips ended well, with prayers answered and plentiful harvest, and sometimes those trips ended badly, with gods getting jealous and competing for followers. It seemed everybody’s gods could be accessed from the mountains. 

But none of the other gods came down the mountains like Jesus did. Sure, there were messages sent with servants down the mountain. Moses came down the mountain with ten commandments straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were. And he did so after a pretty scary thunderstorm that the people thought might have killed him. But forty days of one-on-one time with God, and when the man himself who was there comes down with direct communication, with verbatim here’s-what-God-expects of us, which is what we keep asking for, we still don’t get it right. After generations of prophets, yelling at us to get our act together already, to take care of the poor and feed the hungry and welcome the stranger, when God finally does come down the mountain, we might expect an angry parental figure, the sort who hollers down the stairs “don’t make me come down there!”

But when God comes down the mountain, it is unlike anything expected of the gods. When God comes down the mountain, it is messy for sure, but it is just as messy for God as it is for us. Because at the bottom of the mountain are some pretty rocky roads, some serious wilderness territory, and who in their right mind would voluntarily go through the struggle if they could take easy street and ride above it?  Who would walk with us through the mess when God could certainly get away with throttling us all and just starting over? 

Who is this God we are following through the next 40 days of Lent? Who it is we’re giving up chocolate for, or coming to extra mid-week worship for, or having fish on Fridays for? Who is it we’ve been worshiping all Epiphany, story by story, week by week? Who is it we’ll return to this Lent to learn from and experience life and struggle with? The disciples heard the voice of God from a blindingly-white cloud on a mountain, in the sort of holy place where heaven comes dangerously close to earth, and even they didn’t seem to grasp who their Rabbi was, what it meant that the voice of God thundered out of the cloud and told them to listen to Jesus. How could they have understood if they scattered when Jesus was arrested, saving their own skin while their Rabbi was flogged.

And all of that reflection on this bright and shining day when the church celebrates the holy divinity of Jesus. We are about to climb back down the mountain into the shadow and mess of daily life, and we are given here a picture of Jesus which is so holy and bright and beyond our expectations of humankind that it must be a revelation of God. And this revelation of God, thunderous and terrifying, reshapes the wilderness like the St Helens explosion over thirty years ago. Valleys are raised and mountains are brought low, the earth turns inside out and it is devastating at first. But not only does the earth turn inside out, heaven also has turned itself inside out, spilling over on that mountaintop where Moses and Elijah appear to talk with Jesus. Heaven has turned inside out like St Helens, with a rupture too big to leave us and this world unscathed, even if it looks on the ground like nothing has changed.

With Jesus Christ on the earth, up on the mountain with the bright shining clouds, we get a picture of majesty that would terrify anyone. But God does not stay up on the mountain in the bright shining clouds. When we are terrified, when the disciples find their faces on the ground in fear, Jesus touches them, touches us, and calls us to rise. When the power and glory of God, the potential for judgment, the uncontrollable nature of life, scare us senseless and leave us speechless, Jesus in the flesh does just what Riley does every time we share the peace here. Jesus touches us. Simple. Basic. Comfort and connection and, in that, also some piece of new creation which wasn’t there before.

Jesus touches the disciples and says ‘do not be afraid.’ God steps down out of the clouds and walks with us down off the mountain, into our shadows, into our day-to-day, because God is not above living with us, God is about living with us. In the mess, with the sick kids and the snow days and the propane shortages and the job insecurities. Yes, God is holy, yes, Jesus is all glorious and powerful, yes the Spirit blows in ways we cannot begin to comprehend, but God does not kick us down the mountain to see what we can do on our own while God sits in heaven and knits another scarf. God raises us up from our fear and walks down the mountain with us, into all of the less-than-glamorous bits of life that we would rather not talk about. 

We are entering Lent this week, entering the shadow of ash left by a St Helens-esque eruption. And on Wednesday we will smear our foreheads with ash, the basic carbon element that unites all matter, from the center of the earth to the farthest star. We will remember how earth breaks open underneath us in death, and how heaven breaks open upon us in resurrection life. Most of all, we will name God in our midst, in that ash, in our lives and in our deaths and in each and every resurrection. Because the God of the mountains is also God in the valleys, God of lush forests is also God in the wilderness, God of majesty and terrifying glory is also God among us, saying to us, ‘do not be afraid. Get up, let us walk together.’

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Sermon for February 23rd

Leviticus 19: 1-2, 9-18

The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy. When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of the field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the LORD your God. You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; and you shall not lie to one another. And you shall not swear falsely by my name, profaning the name of your God: I am the LORD> You shall not defraud your neighbor; you shall not steal; and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a laborer until morning. You shall not revile the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind; you shall fear your God: I am the LORD. You shall not render an unjust judgmental you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor. You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not profit by the blood of your neighbor: I am the LORD. You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.

Matthew 5:38-48

You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right check, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Sermon:

I wish when folks got up in arms about the book of Leviticus they’d get up in arms about this part of Leviticus. There is so much energy wasted quoting the Law of God simply to shame people, or to prove we’re better than others, or to kick people out of the church. But this part of the Law? This part is gorgeous. This is the kind of Law that fanned the flames of the prophets, that inspired great leaders in the religious freedom movements, that revived and renewed communities of faith across centuries to actually be a light to the nations instead of warmongers and thieves.

It’s the kind of Law that seems commonsense. Which means its a Law that grew out of people not living by commonsense but by something else. If the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, how can we claim to own anything, how can we decide to hoard and store more than we need while others in the community go hungry and cold? Common sense that if it all belongs to God we can’t keep it. Common sense that, as ecosystems are interconnected to support each part of the whole, we as part of that whole are most alive when connected to the whole. Common sense, but we don’t trust it. Common sense, but it’s too good to be true, too easy, too opposite to the way we have come to compete for space and stuff in this life.

So when we mess up the common sense stuff, we get laws like Leviticus, to pay our workers on time, to live honestly, to leave the edges of our fields for the rest of the ecosystem including travelers. To love our neighbors and hate our enemies...

Wait, no. Loving our neighbors is part of the law. Loving our neighbors is part of the great top ten commandments. Loving our neighbors is that golden rule which is such common sense it shows up in every major world religion, not just Christianity.

But hating our enemies? That’s not in there. Jesus in our Matthew reading this morning, has just misquoted Scripture.

And I think he did that on purpose. Because if it was Law to hate our enemies, it would be the one Law we’d be really good at. It’s easy. It’s like second nature to us to hold a grudge when we’re cut off in traffic or interrupted at dinner or insulted. Hating our enemies makes us feel important and powerful, hating our enemies seems pretty common sense.

So when Jesus misquotes Leviticus, any of the religious leaders nearby would know that he just added that line. Anybody who’s ever been raised to memorize Scripture, or the Catechism, would know from years of practice and recitation what’s there and what isn’t. But when Jesus misquotes the Law, if we call him on it, if we speak up and say, ‘hey, that’s not what it says,’ how do we explain ourselves? How do we confess that even though it’s not Law to hate our enemies it’s still the way we live?

And hating our enemies, remember, is as easy as calling them fools. Hating our enemies is as easy as dismissing their opinions and concerns because we disagree. Hating our enemies isn’t always actively working against them, but spending our energy avoiding them, or turning them into the bad guy, or stewing in that grudge from that thing seven years ago which we just keep holding onto.

But that’s our law, not God’s Law. 

Not that God’s Law is any easier. But it’s the basic stuff we teach our kids in Sunday School. Be nice. Share. Don’t make fun of the kids who are different. Somewhere around Confirmation age it seems those basic lessons sort of disappear when kids become grownups and see all the fighting going on around them. How divided the church has become over everything! Like siblings who just can’t get along, no matter how many time-outs they have.

And from both Leviticus and Matthew we get the same word: Be holy! Be perfect. Well, thanks, Jesus, if we didn’t feel badly enough this is just icing on the cake.

Except. Martin Luther understood the Law of God in three ways. The first is to kill, to let us know what stinkers we are. The second is to draw us into God’s mercy so we fall on God’s grace alone to save us. The third is to give us a way to live now that we know we have been set free from sin, death, and the devil.

Can you hear Leviticus and Jesus in this way, in these second and third ways? Can you hear Jesus saying ‘be ye perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect,’ not as a challenge but as a promise? I mean, if the word of God can say 'let there be light' and it is so, why not 'be perfect,' and it is so?

The first time in Scripture we hear that we are like God is in the very beginning, when we are in the garden, when we are first created in the Image of God. And we are in right relation there, with God and with the whole of creation. Good stewardship does not have to be taught, because we are connected to the world around us, aware of interdependency, eating from the trees and resting in their shade. But the great lie that sneaks in and spoils everything is that sneaking suspicion that God might be hiding something from us, that God might not trust us, the God for some reason has something better than we do, and we have to steal from God in order to be like God. Knowing good from evil, right? 

But, brothers and sisters, we were created in the Image of God. We were made to reflect God. To be whole. And when we live carrying grudges or hoarding what was given freely, we are not living in the wholeness God meant for us. That’s the other meaning of this word ‘perfect.’ ‘Wholeness,’ is what God has for us. Wholeness is God’s ideal for us. Wholeness is perfection. And in the Laws of Leviticus we are reminded that wholeness is not solitary individuals being self-sufficient, but wholeness is known when we embrace our interconnectedness, when we leave gleanings for travelers and pay workers the wages they’ve earned. Wholeness is recognizing the impact we have in the world and the way the world reflects God’s wholeness back to us.

Wholeness, perfection, does sound like a challenge. But it is also a promise. Because we are created in the Image of God, wholeness is where we come from, and wholeness is where we are headed. While we are between life and life, perfection and perfection, we are granted this promise in the midst of the struggles: You will be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. As the Lord your God is perfect. I love the way Martin Luther said it:

“This life, therefore, is not righteousness but growth in righteousness, not health but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it, the process is not yet finished, but it is going on, this is not the end, but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified.”

February 16th Scriptures and Sermon

Deuteronomy 30:15-20 (NRSV)
¹⁵See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. ¹⁶If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. ¹⁷But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, ¹⁸I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. ¹⁹I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, ²⁰loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

Matthew 5:21-37 (NRSV)

²¹“You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ ²²But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire. ²³So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, ²⁴leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. ²⁵Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. ²⁶Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

²⁷“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ ²⁸But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. ²⁹If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. ³⁰And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell. ³¹“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ ³²But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

³³“Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.’ ³⁴But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, ³⁵or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. ³⁶And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. ³⁷Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one.

Sermon:
When I was in elementary school, I clearly remember riding the bus home one day and yelling at the kids behind me “let your yes be your yes and your no be your no!” because they were trying to get somebody to do something and promising it would be fine, saying “I swear!” Well, my folks had always taught me not to swear, and I figured that’s what they meant. Just say yes or no. Don’t make your promises more serious by saying ‘I swear,’ as if it wasn’t good enough just to give your word. Of course, my folks were talking about using foul language, but I had heard this last line of today’s Gospel sometime in church and connected swearing with the way the kids on the bus used the word. But ‘let your yes be your yes, and your no be your no,’ and anything more comes from the evil one.

Which, watching my Dad head off to work in the morning and mom teaching us kids in Sunday school how to follow along in worship, was a lesson I took to be about integrity. Be a man, or woman, of your word. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Keep your promises and commitments, clean up after yourself, leave things better than you find them, and so on.

Integrity is a word I’d like to spend a lifetime delving into. Consider the power of our words, the effects of our choices, as well as how we live into the life we have been given and Baptized into. When folks talk about finding balance in their lives, it usually boils down to integrity. Presenting ourselves honestly. Finding wholeness and grace in celebrating the parts of ourselves that we admire and still loving even those parts we’d rather not acknowledge. Are we who we say we are, and can we be that even when we fall short? Those sorts of questions.

Integrity seems so easy for some people, but we’re talking entire lifetimes here, not just who we are now, but who we have been, who we might be. Are we, in the best of times as much as in the worst of times, still ourselves, or do we strive to be someone else, some other ideal, some false presentation of something that will get us what we want, be that money or peace and quiet or whatever. 

All over Scripture, God’s people are being called to lives of Integrity. We are the people of God, the people of a God whose history with us is well-recorded in our scriptures. Are we living like people who have been set free from slavery, who have been rescued from hell? Or are we running scared and calling ourselves Christian just to check off a box in our brains so we can be glad we’re not as bad off as “the heathens”?

In the Deuteronomy reading this morning, God is calling the people to lives of Integrity: “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Choose life that you may live!” We are people of life, of new life, of resurrection life, and God time after time offers life to us... and time after time we choose death. We choose death when we are dishonest and build more lies around ourselves. We choose death when we are poor stewards of our resources, either being mindlessly wasteful or fearfully hoarding. We choose death when we hold grudges, spread rumors, sell ourselves short. We have gotten so good at choosing death over life that when life stares us in the face we wait to see “what’s the catch.” When freedom is handed to us freely we avert our eyes and claim we’re not yet worthy. When we are given opportunity to step out in faith and give what we have to strangers who cannot repay, we doubt God will take care of us in our taking care of others.

Even as a people of God, we struggle with Integrity. Even with a God who is ultimately faithful, we are suspicious of Integrity. Even as we desire Integrity, and balance, and joy, we find ways to hide, like we did in the Garden of Eden, and the wounds which are part of us, the resurrection stories we have lived, which make us whole, are hidden for shame. And we hide our bodies and our histories, the witnesses to God’s life and grace in us, lest in our Integrity we are mocked, scandalized, or shunned. There is a fine line between being a man, or woman, of your word, and being taken advantage of and thought gullible.

It goes deeper, of course, than just keeping our promises. You keep enough painful promises, you learn to make fewer promises, and to take them more seriously. But it is more than saying what we will do and following through on it. If it were only that easy, we wouldn’t need God to intervene. It’s not just black and white, yes and no. It’s motivations, thinking, it’s the heart of the matter. 

Jesus makes this pretty clear in the Gospel today. You think monogamy is easy? Ask anybody past the age of puberty if they’ve ever looked at a magazine and wanted what they saw there. Might as well sleep with all those models, even if they are photoshopped. You think it’s easy not to kill somebody? Ask anybody who’s ever driven in New York City traffic at rush hour what they think of the driver who cut them off. Ask any student who’s ever had a teacher they dislike. Ask any political commentator what they think of the public shouting matches happening on television these days. 

Ask yourself what body part you’d need to cut off if we took Jesus literally today. Does your eye cause you to sin? You could just stop looking at anyone you’re not married to, but it would be easier to gouge it out. Does your hand cause you to sin? You could lock yourself up in solitary, but it would be easier and more straightforward to head over to the woodpile. 

But we know it’s not eyes or hands that cause sin. It’s not eyes or hands that cause us to make solemn vows we later break. It’s not eyes or hands that direct themselves toward hitting or lusting. It’s not eyes or hands that need to be thrown out and start over. It’s hearts. 

It’s hearts that get us into all sorts of trouble. It’s hearts that harbor hate, and greed, and fear. Hearts that need to be cut out and remade. Heart, soul, mind, and strength are required to love God as God intended us to be whole. Heart, soul, mind, and strength, are what Jesus is talking about. Heart, soul, mind, and strength are given by God for the purpose of loving God and loving our neighbor. And that’s where we’re a bunch of scoundrels, in our hearts. As time after time we choose death over life, hardening our hearts, denying the hearts of the other people around us, we might as well be killing, and stealing other people’s spouses, and manipulating the world around us to suit our needs regardless of our community’s needs.

Oh, Jesus, are we ever a mess. We can’t even be taken at our word.

But God can be. God can be taken at his word. God’s word can be trusted. God’s word is the word that called forth creation out of nothingness. God’s word is the word that anointed prophets and kings to lead God’s people in Integrity, and even when those prophets and kings made a mess of things, God’s word kept speaking new life, resurrection promise, resurrection reality, in the middle of the mess. God’s word in Jesus is simply ‘yes.’ Not ‘yes, but,’ not ‘yes, if only,’ just ‘yes.’ 

We’re talking about the Holy Trinity with the Confirmation students this year. Down in Valatie Pastor Slater and I get to hang out with Junior High students and their High School mentors, and they know about Integrity. They know when they’re welcome and when they’re just there because somebody expects them to jump through hoops. They know they’re allowed to ask questions and not have all the answers. They know they’re in a safe place when we come together for class. At least, I hope they know that.

But they’re just beginning the conversation about the Trinity, and what a confusing concept it is, and the Trinity is one of those ways we try to explain God’s Integrity. God’s Three-Persons-One-God-being. Creation, Redemption, Sustaining and growth in holiness, all traits of this one God, expressed in the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Trinity. For every area of our lives that is broken apart, dis-integrated, God speaks new life in a creative, redeeming, sustaining way. For every bit of falling apart we experience, God somehow brings new life together out of it. Because that’s who God is, that’s how we have come to understand God and try to express God in this Trinity concept.

Integrity is the work of God. Making one whole body out of many parts. Not making us all the same, assimilation is not the same thing as community. Got to have the eye and the hand and the foot and all those different parts to have a whole, Integrated, body. But what God does is restore us into community, put us back together where we are broken, and maybe in ways we didn’t expect or even know were possible. 

Not that we’ve seen anything like that work here in the past five or six years with the new community out of two communities. Oh, wait, yes we have. And it has been the work of God to make that happen. The work of our Faithful God to bring us together here, to connect us with our ecumenical partners for the Lenten soup suppers, to bring us from miles away to come together for worship and education and support in this community. 

Christ Our Emmanuel is a fantastic example of how God is always making things new, always bringing resurrection. We have seen and know and live as God’s people, no matter how broken and scattered, no matter where we have come from, because that is who God is. God is the one who is faithful, who brings us together, who gives us himself in this meal at this table and at every Table where the Eucharist is celebrated. God is the One who makes us whole, heart, and mind, and soul, and strength. Brokenness is not God’s ideal, but it happens in so many ways, and God jumps right into it with us, letting us break his body on the cross, break his heart with our sin. And in joining us, God breaks the walls we build around our hearts and between ourselves. In joining us, God re-makes us. In Jesus, God is giving us new hearts, whole hearts.

Thanks be to God. 

February 9 - Three Lessons and Sermon

Isaiah 58:1-12
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.

1 Corinthians 2:1-16

When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words of wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God. Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him” - these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual. Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are themselves subject to no one else’s scrutiny. “For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

Matthew 5:13-20

“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? Is it no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under a bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

When I was on Internship, and you might get a few more of these stories later on, I was the first female Intern they had in quite a while, and I was bright and shiny and bubbly, and even though I was the vicar I was treated by many as the granddaughter. Which irritated me to no end, because I was supposed to have this authority about me, by virtue of my role. I was supposed to be taken seriously. And I think I was, it just didn’t feel like it a lot of the time. I didn’t fit into my image of what it should be to be a vicar. I wasn’t a man, for one. I wasn’t incredibly well read and couldn’t just quote Hebrew and Greek and the church fathers and the latest theologians. So I struggled that year to make myself fit into the role that I had grown up seeing in one particular way. I fought against being bright and shiny and bubbly when I thought it would help me follow this call God had set in front of me. And it turned out to be disaster. 

This probably isn’t the best story to introduce myself with, now that you’ve elected me to be your pastor, but it’s an important one, and I think it reflects a lot of what Paul was saying to the Corinthians, especially in today’s lesson. 

Because I was trying to present myself as a person of authority, who could handle tough issues, and I had mostly experienced folks like that early on who were older men of serious conversations, I made it a point to choose to preach on a difficult text, and to make it serious. I didn’t know what that meant, exactly, but I missed the Gospel entirely when I preached it, and felt absolutely lousy afterward. Turns out, when you make ministry all about your own reputation, it just doesn’t work. 

If Paul had gone about preaching how good a Christian he had become since his conversion, his ministry would have fallen flat on its face. Because of his experience with the living Christ, Paul could speak plainly about what a Pharisee he was before meeting Jesus, how much death he carried in his wake before he was blinded by the light that made him see. Because of his experience with the living Christ, Paul knew he was not the center of the universe and didn’t have to stake any sort of claim on power or authority, because the creator of the cosmos had staked a claim on him.

Pharisees in Jesus’ day were just as stuck on their own reputation as any of us. The laws and rules they kept were given for good and for life, but they held on so tightly that they forgot the one who had given them those laws had done so in order to set them free from the worry they wrapped themselves in. They had to look a certain way, eat a certain way, bathe a certain way, pray a certain way, in order to be acceptable to God, in order to be considered in right relationship with God, to be ‘righteous.’ But they missed the Kingdom of God. Rob Bell, a Christian teacher and author, compares it to buying flowers for his wife. He could buy her flowers because he loves her and they made him think of her. Or he could buy her flowers because it was expected that the husband buys the wife flowers and he didn’t want to be shamed at work for being ‘that guy’ who doesn’t get his wife flowers. Which sort of relationship do you think he and his wife would prefer? And with Valentine’s Day fast approaching, think carefully about your answer.

When we are loved, truly known and loved and safely so, we don’t have to worry that if we don’t get everything right we suddenly won’t be loved any more. When we are loved, truly and deeply and forever, by someone who knows us inside and out and even before we were born, that love doesn’t shrink just because we forgot a holiday or weren’t able to afford the ‘right’ church shoes for Sunday morning. With human relationships, which are complicated and sometimes confusing and quite possibly the most frustratingly beautiful thing on earth, there is give and take, growth and drifting. But with God, no amount of love is lost on God’s side of the relationship.

Which is what the prophet Isaiah has to remind the people of his day when they returned from exile. Don’t just follow the law and forget your neighbors! Don’t use the rituals and practices of your day to put up a wall between you and the world around you. Don’t forget how much God loves you, or that when God loves you God loves all of you, no matter who you consider inside or outside. The people of Isaiah’s day, when this third portion of Isaiah was written, had just come home from years of exile. In the first books of Isaiah, it looks about the same, with the threat of exile on the horizon, in the second part of Isaiah the people are scattered and exiled, and in this last section they have returned home after being away for so long some of them only know who they are by the rituals they keep. They have tried to remain pure when they were taken to a foreign land with other gods. They have done all they can to remember and celebrate their God while their captors mock them. And now they have been reunited, after all of that struggle, after all of that pain, and I imagine it might feel a bit like the current state of Israel, with some afraid of their new neighbors, and others trying their best to reimagine their home as it was in the old days before the war. But the neighborhood has changed, as neighborhoods tend to do, and the prophet Isaiah calls them back to remember who they are - a light to the nations. Salt for the earth...

Or, wait, that’s Jesus. Same basic message, more inclusive crowd. The poor and the hungry are there. Those who mourn, the meek, the merciful... Great crowds from Galilee and Decapolis (that’s a cluster of ten cities) and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan.  It’s not the insiders only that he’s talking to. Jesus isn’t talking about the outsiders to the insiders. Jesus is talking to everybody. Or, grammatically, he could be talking only to his disciples, sure, but they’re also a pretty motley crew of mixed-up folk. And Jesus launches into this speech, this sermon on the mount, about how they’re all blessed, and how they’re all salt and light, and how he’s the fulfillment of the law. Jesus doesn’t tell them to straighten up and fly right or else, not really. He tells them they are the salt of the earth and the light of the world and a city on a hill. They just are. It’s not an ‘if this, then that’ sort of statement, it’s more of a ‘here it is.’ You. Salt. You. Light. Ok? Even if salt is trod underfoot, it still paves a road for safe travel. And if you put an open flame under a wicker basket, just wait and see what sort of blaze you’ll start when that basket catches fire.

Because God doesn’t wait for us to be ‘good enough,’ to love us and to love the world through us. God doesn’t expect us to be what we expect us to be. God has given us the Spirit of life, which is the same Spirit by which the world was created. God hasn’t waited for us to get our lives in order and prove ourselves worthy to bring the kingdom of heaven into our midst, God just shows up and does it. Even when we mess up royally, God has ways of bringing new life in the midst of death - it’s kind of the way God works. In Jesus Christ all of the law and the prophets are fulfilled, all of the righteousness is poured out upon us and the Kingdom of heaven is right here among us.

So what do we do with this final word that our righteousness needs to exceed that of the Pharisees? We fall into the righteousness of God in Christ. We depend on the one who gave us the law and the prophets, who gives us himself in Jesus the Christ. Because that is right relationship with God, to let God be God and to know we are humans who sometimes do stupid things for any number of reasons. Whether it makes us laugh or cry, it does not change how deeply, how madly, God loves us. Whatever we think of ourselves, God is the one who alone is judge, and God is the one who pours out grace upon grace and loves us despite of it all.

Brothers and sisters, none of us has anything to prove. Not here, not anywhere. Your place in God’s heart is secure. Thanks be to God.