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COME TO THE WATER

2/28/2016

Isaiah 55:1-3a

   Everyone who thirsts,
   come to the waters;
   and you that have no money,
   come, buy and eat!
   Come, buy wine and milk
   without money and without price.
   Why do you spend your money
   for that which is not bread,
   and your labor for that which
   does not satisfy?
   Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
   and delight yourselves in rich food.
   Incline your ear, and come to me;
   listen, so that you may live.

When we gather here as church we tend to talk a lot about “doing the work of Christ,” feeding the hungry, seeking justice for the powerless, holding the world in prayer. Some days, like today, we actually DO some of that work, right here, as with the bag lunches we just prepared. And this is good work, don’t get me wrong. But, once in awhile, I wonder if we are sometimes so focused on reaching out, on “doing for others” that we forget that we ourselves are included in Jesus’ injunction to “feed my sheep.”
How often do we remember that we, too, are hungry, and sometimes even lost and lonely? How often do we include ourselves when we read of God’s open-hearted forgiveness of sin and brokenness? When we read that we are to look at our brothers and sisters with the love of Jesus, do we ever remember to look at ourselves in the same way?

Most of us live in some level of comfort -- the world provides us with all we need. It may not be luxury by the standards of the culture we live in, but we are clean, we have roofs over our heads, we have plenty to eat, no one is dropping bombs on us. The world is – mostly – kind to us – so kind, that it is easy to accept this good life as good enough not only for our bodies but for our spirits, too. As if this comfort is the life that God, through Isaiah and later, through Jesus, promises us.

But are our souls truly satisfied? Do we focus on the things the world offers and manage to push back those occasions when our spirits reach for more? How many times have we settled for clean, well-fed bodies and just shoved to the rear the nagging feeling that our souls are starving for something the world doesn’t offer? How often do we accept what the world offers us because we don’t really believe we can have the spiritual food we truly long for?

Listen to Isaiah’s words again:

  Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;
   and you that have no money, come, buy and eat!
   Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
   Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
   and your labor for that which does not satisfy? .....
   Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live.

I’ve spoken here before about the three (at least) different Isaiahs, Pre-, During-, and Post-Exile. Today’s reading comes from the middle period – a promise of hope written to a people in exile. It’s a message that they will one day again be the people of God, secure in their own homes, worshiping as they please – living freely as God’s people.

It was written for those far away from home, but also for those who remained in an occupied Jerusalem that no longer bore any resemblance to the homeland they loved. It is surely possible to feel exiles while never leaving home. All of them, both near and far, longed for the day they could once again live as God created them to live. The day they would no longer have to settle for making do with what the world allowed them.

“Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters,” Isaiah tells us. Did you hear that “every one”? The every that includes even you? “Come to the water” – the living water – the water of Life, with a capital ‘L’.” And “come without price” because your ticket is already paid, the door is standing open wide and no gate-keeper bars the way. God’s promise continues to exist, even in our day, when the voice of the world seems so often to be drowning out the voice of God.

While we read these words, we live in a world where Christianity has been bent and twisted to meet and match the world rather than expecting the world to raise itself up to meet God’s plan. A world where God’s formerly limitless forgiveness is boxed up and then carefully parsed out and only given if we meet certain narrow criteria. Where the “prosperity gospel” preaches that we can all be rich because God wants us to be rich and drip with diamonds and buy huge houses - because we’re Christians and we deserve it. Where so-called “Christian” pastors actually stand in their pulpits and thunder that gays and Muslims should be killed – that God wants us to do that. Those who follow this false worship surely spend their money for that which is not bread, and their labor for that which does not satisfy.

This form of “Christianity” worships the world, and in this world it can seem that the creating, loving, forgiving God we meet through Jesus has been lost and defeated. And yet, God is not defeated. God IS. God is loving us and forgiving us and creating new joy and new wonder for us every day. God does not fail us, even when we occasionally fail God.

So, if you are weary, come to the life-giving water of God’s grace. It is for everyone - not just for those who 'deserve' it by the world’s standards. And it cannot be purchased, because there is no price. It can only be gratefully received. It has been awhile since I last ended my message with a Frederick Buechner quote (and you know how I love them) but this one seems appropriate for today:

“One life on this earth is all that we get, whether it is enough or not enough, and the obvious conclusion would seem to be that at the very least we are fools if we do not live it as fully and bravely and beautifully as we can.”

Come. Come all who are hungry or weary -- even you.

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WINGS AND THINGS

2/21/2016

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Luke 13:31-34 (The Message)

   Just then some Pharisees came up and said, “Run for your life! Herod’s on the hunt. He’s out to kill you!”
Jesus said, “Tell that fox that I’ve no time for him right now. Today and tomorrow I’m busy clearing out the demons and healing the sick; the third day I’m wrapping things up. Besides, it’s not proper for a prophet to come to a bad end outside Jerusalem.
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killer of prophets,
   abuser of the messengers of God!
   How often I’ve longed to gather your children,
   gather your children like a hen,
   Her brood safe under her wings--
   but you refused and turned away!

Years ago I saw a photograph of a bird. I wish I hadn’t seen the photo because it was so sad and it has stuck with me all these years. I think it was just a common chicken, a hen – hunched on the ground – and she was dead – but peeking out from beneath her body were her chicks – her babies – and they were alive. Apparently a flash fire had gone through their area and she had nowhere to hide and nothing with which to shelter her babies except her own body. On her own, she might have been able to escape the flames but she would not abandon her chicks, and so she died for them.
I’ve long thought this is the perfect Lenten illustration – the perfect example of God as mother; the perfect explanation of what the ministry of Jesus was all about and every time I read this bit of scripture I remember this photo what it shows me of the love of Jesus.

A couple of historical context notes before we get into the meat of this reading: The first is the fact that it is a couple of Pharisees who come to warn Jesus away. We are so trained by our Gospel reading to see Pharisees as the enemy. We respond with a knee-jerk “Boo” and “Hiss” like the audience at a Victorian melodrama when we run into any mention of Pharisees, and yet that clearly isn’t how it was all the time. Just as with any group of people, there were some Pharisees who were deeply antagonistic against Jesus, to the point of hatred - some who were simply curious about him - and some who listened to him and believed what he taught. This story has, as sort of a secondary point, a clear reminder that we are to judge people by their own actions, not by their titles and classifications.

The second tidbit is just a bit of historical positioning. The Herod referred to here is Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great of the Nativity story. This current Herod is the one who beheaded John the Baptist at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. The Herodians claimed a familial link with the ancient royal line of Israel and Judah which had long since fallen away as Israel was invaded by first the Greeks and then the Romans. The first Herod worked his way through a rapidly changing Roman leadership crisis and eventually happened to be the last man standing in Judea at just the right moment and was appointed as its king. It was thought by the Romans that the people might accept him without resistance since he was himself a Jew and, as he claimed, descended from the royal line.

What he was, was a political opportunist, ready to use his Jewish heritage when it benefitted him, but having no loyalty to anyone but himself. He was a Roman lackey, as was his son after him. Both men would do whatever it took to maintain their privilege and power. It is easy to believe that Jesus might have threatened them both, even though we have no historical record of Jesus outside the scriptures.

One characteristic of Luke’s gospel is that he spends a good deal of time reminding the Jews that, yes, the messiah was promised to them, but they have not welcomed any of the prophets with open arms. He reminds them that if they think they can claim God’s care and protection for themselves on no other basis than that they are “sons of Abraham,” they are going to find themselves out of luck. Clear back in chapter three Luke quotes John the Baptist reminding them that “God is able from these very stones to raise up children to Abraham,” so simply relying on the old Law is no longer going to be enough. There are new rules now and they had better stop clinging to the past and get with the program.

All throughout his three years of public ministry, other people have been trying to tell Jesus what to do. “Sit down and be quiet; preach only what we like; don’t rock the boat; follow the accepted canon word for word; stop treating non-Jews like people” and most especially, “stop demanding that we change anything about us.” Even Peter, his Rock, tried at times to direct his movement and his teaching. But Jesus’ reply in this reading is typical: “I’ve got a plan, I’m on a schedule, I’m doing what I am here to do and I’ll do it when and where I’m supposed to do it.”

It’s the part that follows that is heart-breaking: “O Jerusalem, I love you so much and I want to you hear what I’m here to say and you’re not listening and you are breaking my heart. I offer and offer ... and you refuse..... and I’m running out of time in which to reach you.”

And so, we face the question here today, and everyday, just as they did back then: How many times has God called out to us, nudged us, urged us and we have closed our ears and turned our heads away?

And why? Oh, all kinds of reasons, I suspect. Maybe we are just having too good a time just as things are and aren’t interested in doing anything different. Maybe we are sure we already know it all and are already healed and good and don’t need any more saving. Maybe we are too angry to hear any word other than words of hurt and rage. Maybe it's a kind of phony humility: "O God, you know there are so many better people to do this." Maybe we are so caught up in our small private dramas that there’s no space in our little hamster brains to grow into anything more. Why was Jerusalem refusing to listen? Probably for the same reasons we use today.

If we do get ourselves together to ask God to speak to us, do we hand onto a sly little addendum that whispers “as long as you don’t say anything scary or disturbing”?
Is it possible that we just bring ourselves to listen to Mother God calling us to the warmth and safety of her wings? Can we do that?

I love the prayer that ended yesterday’s daily meditation reading:

"Mothering God, grant us grace to break our stride, to draw deeper breath, to set aside the whirlwinds of passion -- even for a moment. In that still moment we shall praise you for your sheltering wing, stretching out to us today." **

May it ever be so.

** John A. Nelson, in Heart, Soul, Mind, Strength, 2016 Lenten Devotional, by The Still-Speaking Writers Group.

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INTO THE WILDERNESS

2/14/2016

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Luke 4:1
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness...

Epiphany, our season of Light and Manifestation has ended for this year and with Ash Wednesday this past week we have moved into Lent - which has an entirely different feel for us. In Epiphany, we were reminded to look outward and see the revelation of God all around us. During Lent, we will be called to look inward and see ourselves.

Just a few weeks ago we sat here and read the story of Jesus being baptized by the wild preacher, John. And next after that we heard of Jesus beginning his public ministry by traveling from synagogue to synagogue, village to village, expounding on the scriptures and teaching and beginning to draw crowds when he did so.

I mentioned at the time that we had skipped over one very important story in the middle of this story line – that of Jesus’ time spent out “in the wilderness,” praying and fasting and being tempted. Well, this is that story today. Last week we had an extra-lengthy scripture reading. This week I have considerably shortened the original text.

The longer version is primarily about Satan tempting Jesus – and Jesus’ response. I think we all know that story: the Tempter telling the hungry Jesus to turn stones into bread – and being rebuffed; telling him to throw himself off the cliffs because, after all, angels will swoop in to protect him from harm – and being rebuffed again; and so on. But I’m not really interested in temptation today and so I chopped our reading down to one verse:

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness...

Why? Why did Spirit lead him into the wilderness? That’s our question for today. We know we can meet God anywhere. We can pray and fast anywhere. We can even be tempted anywhere, if that was the whole point of the exercise.

The one person we often have a difficult time reaching in the middle of anywhere – surrounded by family and friends and daily demands – is our self. Jesus was led – by the Spirit, out into the wilderness in order to find himself. Luke doesn’t give us a physical description of this wilderness but from what we know today of this region and from other descriptions of the terrain to be found in scripture it would have been a harsh, dry, rocky desert wilderness, but the harshness of the story’s setting isn’t really what it’s about.

Wilderness comes in all shapes and sizes. In the Bible, wilderness is most always desert, but the early inhabitants of what is now the United States met a green and lushly forested wilderness – so desert terrain is not necessary. Many times the wilderness does not have a geological setting of any kind.

We have each of us, whether we think of it that way or not, at sometime inhabited our own wildernesses – those dark nights of the soul when God seemed impossibly distant from us, or worse yet, totally non-existent. Sitting by the bedside of someone dearly loved whom we know is leaving us and there’s nothing we can do about it; experiencing a marriage fall to pieces around us when we had built our life within it; having a long-held dream come just within our reach then watching it being snatched away at the very last moment.

Lately, I’ve watched the pictures on the news of the refugees pouring out of Syria and seen the total devastation of what was once their homes – reduced to nothing but rubble for miles in every direction. These people cannot go home again because there is no there there – not even anything with which to rebuild. I’ve seen them walking out with nothing but the packs on the backs and no place in the world where they can go - no place that really wants them. Those poor souls are truly living in the wilderness right now.

This is the wilderness Jesus entered – no food, no warmth, no companionship, no comfort – just himself – and the Spirit who led him -- into a wilderness where there was nothing to find...but himself.

And he found himself. When he left that wilderness after his forty days (which in Hebrew parlance simply meant a long, long time) – he came out and he went straight to the work he had found that he was called by God to do. Remember, Jesus was thirty years old at this time and up until now he had been totally anonymous as far as history is concerned. As far as his ministry is concerned Jesus went from nowhere to all-in in one magnificent leap.

But he had heard that voice calling him “beloved Son.” And he had spent time alone in the wilderness seeking the one who gave him that name, and in his seeking he had found himself and, it appears, he never doubted again.

Whether our wildernesses are of our own seeking or are forced upon us, we too must spend time finding ourselves – finding out who it is that God is calling us to be, what it is that God is calling us to do. We won’t find the answer in a book. We won’t even find it in the pastor’s Sunday sermon (believe it or not). We will only find it if we are willing to venture into the scariest wilderness of all – the one inside ourselves, in our darkest, most secret places.

Edward Abbey is a name you probably won’t find among most people’s lists of the great theologians. He was an environmentalist and author and “pot-stirrer” extraordinaire. He was also wild and profane and not above breaking the law for his own purposes. He said something once that I believe encapsulates my message today very nicely. “Wilderness,” he said, “is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread.”

Abbey, as an environmentalist, may have been talking about geographic wilderness, but I believe that periodic journeys into the spiritual wilderness inside our own souls where we spend time alone with just God and ourselves are also no luxury but an absolute necessity for our spirits. This is what the “looking inward” of Lent is all about.

May we all have the Spirit of God as our guide.

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VISIBLE GLORY

2/7/2016

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2 Corinthians 3:6-4:2 (The Message)

God’s plan wasn’t written out with ink on paper, with pages and pages of legal footnotes, killing your spirit. It’s written with Spirit on spirit, his life on our lives!

The Government of Death, its constitution chiseled on stone tablets, had a dazzling inaugural. Moses’ face as he delivered the tablets was so bright that day (even though it would fade soon enough) that the people of Israel could no more look right at him than stare into the sun. How much more dazzling, then, the Government of Living Spirit?

If the Government of Condemnation was impressive, how about this Government of Affirmation? Bright as that old government was, it would look downright dull alongside this new one. If that makeshift arrangement impressed us, how much more this brightly shining government installed for eternity?

With that kind of hope to excite us, nothing holds us back. Unlike Moses, we have nothing to hide. Everything is out in the open with us. He wore a veil so the children of Israel wouldn’t notice that the glory was fading away—and they didn’t notice. They didn’t notice it then and they don’t notice it now, don’t notice that there’s nothing left behind that veil. Even today when the proclamations of that old, bankrupt government are read out, they can’t see through it. Only Christ can get rid of the veil so they can see for themselves that there’s nothing there.

Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there they are—face-to-face! They suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We’re free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.

Since God has so generously let us in on what he is doing, we’re not about to throw up our hands and walk off the job just because we run into occasional hard times. We refuse to wear masks and play games. We don’t maneuver and manipulate behind the scenes. And we don’t twist God’s Word to suit ourselves. Rather, we keep everything we do and say out in the open, the whole truth on display, so that those who want to can see and judge for themselves in the presence of God.

This is a fairly lengthy reading today. The original citation was pretty average but I kept going back in the writings, adding on, until I had, what seems to me to be sufficient backstory to make sense of what was originally listed as the reading. The gospel reading for today is the story of the Transfiguration, with Jesus, Moses and Elijah on a hilltop, but we went into that pretty extensively last year, so this year I decided to do the epistle reading instead. It continues the same theme as the gospel reading, which is visible glory.

This is from the 2nd of Paul’s long pastoral letters to the Christian community in Corinth. Corinth was always a problem-child church for Paul. It had been, originally, a Greek city, which had become rundown and worn out over time. When the Romans took control of the region they rebuilt Corinth as the seat of their regional government and so by Paul’s time it was, once again, a thriving metropolis. It was one of the churches founded on Paul initial missionary journey, but it was always a problem and Paul spent a lot of time there as well as a lot of time writing to them when he wasn’t there.

1st Corinthians dealt mostly with the church’s relationship with the world immediately around them, while 2nd Corinthians deals primarily with relationships within the church community and Paul spends a good amount of effort in chastising them for this, that and the other thing.

Paul begins this particular section of his letter by referring to the story of Moses when he came down from talking directly with God up on Sinai. When he came down carrying the tablets of the commandments and further trips he had to wear a veil over his face to avoid blinding the Hebrews when he walked among them – the light of God still reflecting from him was so dazzling.

Paul, as a good Jew, lived most of his life believing in the Law, and that the Law gave life. As a Christian, however, Paul now sees that the Law is far out-shone by the light of Christ which is the true life-giver. When the Law became something to be worshiped in and of itself it became the Government of Death rather than life. This is, unfortunately, all too common an occurrence. Much of Christianity has also become a Government of Death where Christians have become more concerned with maintaining their own ideas and judgments rather than with living the life Jesus laid out for us. Such churches wear veils to hide that fact that their glory has faded.

“Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did, [Paul reminds us all] God removes the veil and there they are—face-to-face!” Face-to-face with the visible glory of God and, in turn, our faces reflecting that glory and we shine before the world.
Paul goes on to explain: we no longer wear masks to hide ourselves; we refuse to manipulate the world around us to gain power for ourselves. And we do not – according to Paul – twist God’s Word to suit ourselves.

Remember - this is Paul’s 2nd Corinthian letter – the one where he is addressing issues within the church. When the church remembers its mission and has its act together we no longer wear masks to hide ourselves – from each other. I see this as possibly the most important line in this whole long pericope. We are God’s people and we come together as we are, because what we are is chosen and loved and forgiven. How many of us can see ourselves as visibly shining out God's love to the world? And yet, if we cannot accept this for ourselves, how can we ever see it in anyone else? When we no longer hide our real selves from each other, then the world can look at us and see the visible glory of God – shining back from our faces.

“God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We’re free of it! All of us!” the scripture says. We are free to shine with the light of Christ, no longer laboring to produce some feeble glow all on our own, but instead we reflect back Christ’s light.

Paul continues assuring us that there is “nothing between us and God, and our faces shine with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.”

And seeing us, radiant in the love of Christ, the world may see and want to find out more of our joy. Can we allow ourselves to be part of this sharing?

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COME TO THE WATER

WINGS AND THINGS

INTO THE WILDERNESS

VISIBLE GLORY

Rev. Cherie Marckx

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