How Does that Song Go, Again?

All Saints' Sunday
Isaiah 25:6-9
Revelation 21:16
Mark 12:28-34


We could hear her voice floating all the way down the Sunday School wing of the church.

§“Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong, they are weak, but he is strong.”§

It was the first day of Sunday School, “Promotion Sunday” as we called it, and I was there early, as my father had somehow been roped into being the Sunday School Superintendent. §Yes, Jesus loves me.§ I stood there, trying to figure out where it coming from. §Yes, Jesus loves me.§ I had the sinking feeling that it was coming from my new classroom. §Yes, Jesus loves me, for the Bible tells me so.”§ I followed the voice down the hall until there was no doubt who the mystical singer was: Ms. Ginger, my new teacher. “Oh no,” I thought, “I’m being stuck with a singing teacher! This is going to be a long year!”


My father, who was walking by about this time and saw me standing at the doorway trying to figure out a way to escape before I was seen, dutifully shoved me into the classroom. I stood there, §Yes, Jesus loves me.§ We made eye contact. §Yes, Jesus loves me.§ I looked for an escape route. She just smiled, and kept singing. §Yes, Jesus loves me, for the Bible tells me so.§ She wouldn’t stop singing, she just kept setting up the chairs, and putting out the Bibles. She sang and set up, smiled and gestured for me to help out. I looked around to make sure that no one would see me hanging out with this sort of person, and begrudgingly began to start helping. She kept singing, §Yes, Jesus loves me.§ , or huming §hmmmmmm§. This went on for about ten minutes until, well, all I can say is that it infected me. I found myself humming along with her.

You never would have guessed that her husband had just left her, or that her son had run away from home. I didn’t know that until much later. The rest of the students came in, Ms. Ginger kept singing and smiling and gesturing until everyone had arrived and we were all singing or humming along, §Yes, Jesus loves me, for the Bible tells me so.§

That year, Courtney’s father died, Marshall’s parents divorced and my best friend moved away. That year, Ms. Ginger, our in-house saint, sang to us God’s love song through it all.

Today is All Saints’ Sunday, the day that we turn our ear to the lives of the Saints’ and allow God’s love song to infect us. As far as I can tell, that’s what a Saint is. A Saint is not someone who is perfect, or sinless, someone who shows us how bad we are by virtue of how good they are. We’ve got no use for a Saint like that. Saints are those people who through their brokenness allow God’s love song to reverberate through them. In the midst of their sinfulness, in the face of the world’s pain, a Saint is someone who has gotten God’s love song caught in their head and can’t get it out. They just sing it everywhere they go, until all the world is singing along.

Like Saint Isaiah in our Old Testament lesson this morning. Isaiah is singing God’s love song to Israel even in the face of hell on earth. They are in exile, slaves in someone else’s kingdom, and God’s promises to them at this point seem like useless religious jargon. The promised land is a distant memory and the Messiah is nowhere to be found. All seems lost.
Then, against the constant discord of hopelessness that has been droning on in the background of Israel’s life for so long now, Isaiah begins humming a new song.

“On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. 7And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. 8Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.”

It seems as though God has put a love song to Israel on Isaiah’s heart, stuck the melody of hope and love within Isaiah’s head, and he can’t help but sing it. God’s love song rings so beautifully, so mellifluously, that is reaches into the darkest times of pain and shatters the discord of hopelessness.

§Yes, Jesus loves me.§

Saint John’s Revelation is set to the same tune. Saint John is in exile, Christians are being persecuted for following Christ, the leaders of the church are being martyred and the faith seems all but doomed. Then, from a jail cell on a desert Island, God sings to the church again through Saint John.
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; 4he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more”

These words of hope and comfort sung by Saint John to the familiar beat of God’s love song to the world overcome the cacophony of hopelessness and allows those around to dance anew.

§Yes, Jesus loves me.§

Listening to our Gospel lesson this morning we hear the familiar beat continue. The scribe comes up to Jesus, questions what is the most important commandment? Jesus replies with an ancient love song called the Shema. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul and all your strength. And love your neighbor as yourself.” The Scribe listens to God Incarnate sing this familiar ditty, until the scribe, himself, begins to hum along. “you are right, loving God and the world are the most important” says the scribe. “Now you’re catching on.” Sings Jesus.

§Yes, Jesus loves me.§

Listen to the song of the Saints. Their very lives sing God’s love song to the world. Like Saint John Wesley, who against the backdrop of a stagnant Anglican church sang of a God that refused to leave us in brokenness, but who loved us into perfection. Now there are 12 million Methodists singing along. Or Saint Martin Luther King, Jr., who sang of God’s dream to the world for equality until segregation was brought down and we began our long uphill trek to peace, now there are 300 million Americans who live in a different world. Listen to the song of Saint Greg Jenkes, who is leading us as a conference in singing a song of life to the Orphans in Zimbabwe, who’s only song this far have been set to the tune of people’s dying breath due to AIDS, children’s cries for parent’s lost and the constant clatter of gunfire. Greg started three years ago singing a new song in that land, and now there are 10,000 orphans being fed, 2,000 children being offered medical care, and 1,500 more who are in school, all singing a new song of hope and love.

Listen to the song of the Saints, for they are singing a song of life that is able to bring hope to the hopeless, life to the dying, and love to the unloveable. Listen to the song of the Saints, for through them, God is singing a love song to the world that is so beautiful, that upon hearing it the blind see, the lame walk, and the dead dance. Listen to the song of the saints, until you find yourself walking along with them, humming that tune that the world is dying to hear,

§"Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me, for the Saints have told me so."§

On Cultivating An Immature Faith

Mark 10:13-16
Isaiah 11: 1-9


Are there any artists here today? How about musicians? Any athletes, maybe some really fast runners? You should see the response when I ask my mother’s first graders those questions. There is nothing that a first grader cannot do. My mother is a first grade teacher, and so I have spent most of my life watching group after group pass through her tutelage, each class as full of unabashedly self-named talent as the previous. Don’t get me wrong, it was not that each student could actually do everything well, it was just that nobody had told them that yet. When it came time for art, each student was an artist. If you asked one of them if she could draw, she would undoubtedly reply, “Sure I can draw. Wanna see?” And sure enough, she would sit down and start drawing as if she were the next Picasso. When it came time for music, each child was a classically trained singer; or so you would think if you asked them. If you heard them sing, well, it was a different story. The group would waddle down the hall to the music room and Miss. Blanton, the music teacher, would hold their attention for about 30 seconds, while she tried to get them to sing something together. Each child would sing in his or her own way, some loud, some softly, some just swaying to the music, all out of tune. But if you asked them if they could sing, they would each reply, “Of course I can sing. Wanna hear?” It’s the same with running, each child the next Marion Jones. “I can run real fast. Wanna see?” There is nothing that a first grader cannot do.
Of course, we know better. We have cultivated fine taste in art, we know a Rembrandt when we see it, and we know that we are no Rembrandt. And we have the NC Symphony to tune our ear to fine music; and we know that we are not symphony quality musicians. No need to mention the running, I suppose. It’s cute that kids think that they can do everything, but we know better. And someday, they will too. Someday, someone, somewhere will hold their work up and say, “you know, you really aren’t that good at this.”
That day, according to Jesus, our children will grow up a little bit, and they will grow a little further away from the Kingdom of God. In our Gospel lesson this morning, children are doing what they do best: breaking all the rules. By the time we get to the 10th chapter of Mark, Jesus is a celebrity. Crowds have been pushing on him for quite some time now, and he cannot go anywhere without being recognized. The disciples, seeing Jesus’ rise to fame and finding themselves often lost in the overwhelming crowds, have taken it upon themselves to protect Jesus from all of the people continuously trying to push in on him. Here, in the 10th chapter of Mark, they find themselves in the thick of it again. The crowds have gathered, people are pushing in just to be touched by Jesus, and, well, frankly, it’s a little overwhelming. What makes it worse is all these kids running around. Don’t these kids know that Jesus is important?! He does not have time to waste on children. Besides, where are their parents? Shouldn’t they be keeping their kids at bay, teaching them how to act when someone really important comes around? So the disciples, knowing that they are very important, and that Jesus is even more important, rebuke the kids and their parents, putting everyone in their proper place.
But it’s too late. The kids have already made their way to Jesus. Or did Jesus make his way to them? Jesus, looking down at the children says, “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”
Which, you know, really makes sense. The kingdom of God is so foolish, that only a child would think that it is possible. I mean, have you ever really tried to love your enemies? Everybody knows that we really can’t do that, what with national security and all that. Or have you ever sold your possessions and given them away to the poor? I mean, come on, St. Francis we are not! Do we have anyone here that thinks that their work can help God save the world? Of course, we know better than that. But I wonder what would happen if we asked some first graders. According to Jesus, the kingdom of God is only available to those who, like a child, actually think that they can do the absurd.
Which, I think, reveals as much about who God is as it does about us. We sort of have this image of God as a great grandfatherly figure with a great white beard and a Charlton Heston voice. This God, the grandfather-god, sits on a throne somewhere and makes sure that everyone obeys the rules…“no running in the house…no fibbing…play nice with one another”, we hear him say. But what if a better picture of God is a child. Lord Chesterton said, "I think that God is the only child left in the universe and all the rest of us have grown old and cynical because of sin.”
The first glimpse we get of God in scripture is one of God playfully creating, almost like a child sitting down with a ball of clay with no inhibitions, ready to make the first thing that comes to mind. Anything is possible. God shows up, and out of nowhere starts dreaming up the most absurd things like sky, sea, snails and aardvarks. With childlike creativity and imagination, God playfully makes all of creation, and it’s good: very good, if God does say so Godself. The creation thing goes awry, but God doesn’t give up. Apparently, nobody has told God that God’s not too good at this creation business. God starts again, creating Israel, then the law, then the prophets, continually creating, tinkering with this experiment. Eventually, God decides to go all the way. And in a dusty stable in the middle of nowhere, the God-child is born and creation is made new all over again. For the rest of his life, this God-child goes around trying to find playmates, people who will join him in this creative work. People who will dream with him about the most amazing things, like the hungry being fed, the enemy being loved, peace on earth. Sure, all these things are absurd. So absurd that only a child could possibly believe they are attainable. Such, says Jesus, is the kingdom of God.
Like Aubyn Burnside from Hickory, North Carolina. When she was 11 years old, she saw a foster child carrying his stuff in a trashbag to his new home. She said that it broke her heart, “He must have felt like garbage, himself.” So, she made posters and put them up around her community, and then make speeches trying to raise interest. She got no interest, so she took her own savings, $15.00, to the salvation army and bought 31 suitcases. She gave them away, the local news caught wind of it, and her charity caught on. Now she has given away over 25,000 suitcases to foster children, has chapters set up in every state and in 10 countries.
Or Brandon Keefe, a 3rd grader who overheard his parents talking in a meeting about how difficult it was to get books for a new library going into a children’s home. He went home, collected all of his old books, called his friends and had them do the same, telling each one of them to call someone and tell them to bring books for this new library. In his words, "Everybody had books on their shelves that they'd outgrown, why not give the ones we've already read to kids who need them?" This effort grew and grew until he founded “BookEnds” which has given away 76,000 books to children in need, has completed 23 libraries and has 19 other libraries in development. This will result in books and improved literacy opportunities for more than 33,000 underprivileged kids and their families.
Crazy kids. Don’t they know they can’t do that?!

Family Recipes

Mark 9: 38-50

If you are from the south, food matters. I happen to be from Charleston, South Carolina, (the heart of the south, and possibly the entire universe, if you ask us Charlestonians) and, to put it mildly, we pride ourselves in our food and enjoy it as often as possible. We will use any excuse imaginable to get together and eat: weddings, funerals, church services, Mondays; really anything is a potential feast. As children being drug from one potluck to another, my friends and I quickly became connoisseurs in our own rights. We learned that if Mrs. Martha’s Sweet Potato soufflé was out, we’d better get it quick before it was always gone. She always had this way of putting just the right amount of cinnamon, nutmeg and whatever else she put in there to make it perfect. Mr. Jones’ green bean casserole was always too runny. We tried to avoid that like the plague. But the line was always around Mr. Herb’s bar-b-q. He would predictably have two piles: “spicy” and “not-so-spicy” and each pile was devoured almost as soon as it was put out. To this day, Mr. Herb’s bar-b-q is a favorite in the low country. One bite of his bar-b-q, or one taste of his sauce, and there is no doubt where it came from. It has this unmistakable, distinct taste, and nobody knows what he puts in the sauce to make it so good. He guards his secret recipe like Fort Knox and won’t tell anyone what makes it so special. Unless, like me, you happen to be his son.
I’ll never forget the time that he finally pulled my brother and me aside, and in a quiet, calm tone, Dad told us the secret to his sauce. ¼ cup Molasses. ¼ cup Brown Sugar. ½ cup vinegar. And the most important ingredient…. and then he whispered it. There, in those close quarters, the family secret was handed down. (You didn’t think I was going to tell you, did you?)
In our Gospel lesson this morning, Jesus has pulled the disciples aside to share the secret to a family recipe. They have been alone with him for a while now, getting to spend some rare, uninterrupted time with their master. They have watched him teach the crowds and heal the sick. They have seen him become a local legend, and have been swallowed up by the crowds that followed him. It has been a while since they were able to be alone with him. Finally, the crowds subside, and hustling stops, and in the 9th chapter of Mark, the disciples find themselves alone with Jesus in Galilee, the same place that he called many of them for the first time some three years earlier. There, in the same place that it all began, Jesus whispers to his family the secrets to the Kingdom of God.
“Do not hinder the little children. Do not seek to be first, but seek to be a servant to all. Do not keep others from doing good in my name. Do not place stumbling blocks in the ways of others. Be at peace with one another.” Almost like he is listing off items in a recipe, Jesus is passing down the ingredients that make up the kingdom of God. And then, finally, when he has listed all of the items that go into the feast of God, he lists that final, secret ingredient; that one item that gives God’s kingdom that distinctive taste, that recognizable goodness that is God’s signature. The disciples lean in, and Jesus whispers, “you”. “Have salt within yourselves and be at peace with one another.” You are the secret ingredient in the kingdom of God according to Jesus. Like salt added to a batch of cornbread, the kingdom of God just doesn’t taste right without you. The church, the people of God, those people who welcome children, who offer life to those in need, who meet at least once a week to praise God’s name, who above all seek to live in peace and love with one another, the Church, you, are the secret ingredient to the kingdom of God. Wherever the Church is doing these things, you will find that distinctive, life-giving taste of God’s goodness that is unmistakably the flavor of the Kingdom of God.
Like Greg Jenkes in Zimbabwe. Three years ago, Greg was serving a church in our conference when, in his words, “God began to give him a heart for the orphans in Africa.” The fact that there are 12 million orphans in Zimbabwe today left a bitter taste in God’s mouth, and so did the fact that most of those orphans would die of AIDS, or in a war as they were handed weapons and forced to fight in gorilla armies. God began to dream of a different taste in Zimbabwe, so he began making another meal for those people there. His special ingredient? Greg Jenkes and the North Carolina Annual Conference. Greg left the local church, became a missionary commissioned from our conference and began ZOE, Zimbabwe Orphan Endeavor. To this day, we as a conference are feeding 10,000 orphans, offering medical care to over 2,000 children, and helping school and clothe over 1,500 orphans. Our work there in that place has a distinct taste, a recognizable flavor known the world over. It tastes like life. It tastes like the kingdom of God.
Now I know that it is almost cliché for a preacher to tell about a missionary to Africa, and that seems to have very little to do with us. But today is World Communion Sunday. Today, every Christian, of every denomination, in every nation is gathered around this feast of the Kingdom to be reminded of that distinctive taste of God’s handiwork. Today, in Zimbabwe, those orphans are gathered around a life giving meal with us to be let in on the family secret.
Today, all around the world, Jesus calls his entire family aside to the table to remind us of what our lives are to be, to whisper to us yet again the secret recipe of the Kingdom of God. Today, as the world continues to feast at the tables of violence and war, Jesus mixes into his meal peacemakers. As many around the world are forced to eat from trashcans and garbage heaps, Jesus adds relief workers and people who feed the hungry with a feast of love. As our world of affluence beckons us to come and eat once again at their empty tables of opulence, Jesus stirs in a helping of people called to be broken open, poured out for others. Here, at this feast, the whole church around the world gathers around this table with our Lord, the Author of Peace, as he whispers his secret recipe to us once more.
God is cooking up a feast for all the world to eat, a feast of peace and of love, and of hope. The world is starving for this food, this bread of life, that distinctive food that can only come from one place, from one person, the Lord, the giver of life. God is cooking up a feast for all the world to eat, and God’s secret ingredient? It’s you.

Keep The Feast

John 6: 48-58
(I preached this sermon on my last Sunday at the United Methodist Church that I have served over the past 6 years. It is a wonderful communion of saints and is a shining example of what can happen with Methodism goes right. It has been my honor and distinct privilege to serve them as their pastor.)

I should have known that Jesus would be causing trouble on our last Sunday together. I went to the lectionary this week hoping to find some nicely appointed verses, maybe Jesus telling us to do something noble with our lives, like go and make disciples… “and lo, I am with you always.” No such luck. I would have settled for Jesus telling us one of his softer stories, like the one about a father who waits for his wayward son to return to him, or the shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep to find the lost one… “such is the kingdom of God.” Not today. Instead of Jesus calling all people to him for our last Sunday together, we get Jesus being difficult to the point of running people off. That’s the thing about life with Jesus, you never know what you’re going to get.
Like the 6th chapter of John. Within this chapter alone, we find Jesus meeting people’s needs, by feeding the 5000 with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish (after which they want to make him King) and then practically in the next verse he says things like, “if you want to live, you have to eat my flesh and drink my blood.” Which, inevitably, and understandably, sends people scattering, scratching their heads and saying to themselves “maybe he isn’t the son of God, after all.” One moment he is there, feeding the people exactly what they want, the next he seems to be intentionally off-putting, difficult, cantankerous. One moment life with Jesus is wonderful and grace-filled, everything is just how we like it, there is no doubt that the kingdom of God is at hand, and the next it is all we can do to hang in there, muttering to ourselves, “well, maybe this isn’t it, after all.” That’s life with Jesus, you just never know what you’re going to get.

Which is partly what makes Jesus so frustratingly divine. Jesus seems to insist on continuing God’s longstanding tradition of keeping his followers on their feet. God has this way of never letting God’s people fully settle down or get fully comfortable. God seems to delight in keeping God’s people guessing. Throughout the Old Testament, we get a picture of a God who seems determined to make for himself almost a nomadic people; people who are comfortable moving, changing, following. Whether it is God telling Noah to build an Ark, calling Abram to leave his people and his land and go to a place where God will show him, or using Moses to call Israel out of Egypt and to wander in the desert for 40 years, God has a pattern of calling God’s people to leave everything behind, until all they have is God.
Which is really the point. The God of Israel refuses to be second in their lives to anything. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is a jealous God,” says the prophet Joshua. Through exile, or through famine, or perhaps worst of all, through a time of spiritual drought God keeps Israel moving, traveling, following. Just when they get comfortable and everything seems to be going the way they want it, everything changes and God is calling Israel to follow all over again.
You can’t really blame God. God knows that we people have a tendency to get comfortable. And when we get comfortable, we can’t help but build idols, shrines to familiarity. God has seen it a hundred times, in the Garden, in Egypt, even in the Temple itself, God watched Israel slip into comfortable living and start finding life in familiar surroundings rather than in their familiarity with God. God knows that we are apt to make the familiar our god rather than work to become familiar with God. The difference is subtle, but it’s a matter of life and death.
Like the difference between manna and living bread, Jesus says. The crowds were clamoring after him to give them more bread, to feed them another meal like the one they had the day before. “Give us some more of that familiar bread that sustained us yesterday,” they call to him. “Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness and they died.” he answered. That’s the problem with manna; it goes bad. Don’t get me wrong, manna is good for a time, but eventually, it just doesn’t sustain, it doesn’t last. Remember the story of the Israelites and the manna, they gathered it fresh every day, but what was left over quickly rotted, molded, became maggot infested. It is enticing, because it is predictable, stable, static. Manna is the same day in and day out, but it just doesn’t last.
“I am here to offer you living bread,” says Jesus. “This living bread, well, it’s me. It is my flesh, my blood.” It’s not really what the people wanted to hear. They wanted what they knew, what was familiar. They wanted more bread like they had had before. Christ, participating in the divine activity of refusing to be second to anything, even to his own works, offers them nothing but himself. The only thing that gives life, that is able to sustain and nourish, the only thing that is continually good, never old or moldy, never moth-ridden or maggot eaten, like all other bread can be, the only living bread is abiding with ever moving, life-giving Christ. All those other things that have fed you in the past, like a particular style of worship, or a particular Bible Study, or even a particular pastor, they are just manna; means of God providing for the day at hand. Living bread, however, is abiding with God, so intimately that he becomes for us our sustenance. So intimately that it is difficult to tell where God’s life stops and ours begins. Abiding with God so intimately that we are of one substance, essence with God, like the bread we eat, or the wine we drink. Life with Jesus Christ the living bread is anything but static, anything but predictable, anything but monotonous because Christ is continually calling us to leave all manna that we have fed on in the past behind and feast anew with him. That’s life with Jesus, you never can settle in for the same old familiar meal because Jesus is Living Bread. With Living Bread, you just never know what you’re going to get.
Of course, I don’t have to tell you people that. The life of this church has been anything but predictable. We have had many meals together, some joyous and wonderful, some we have had to choke down with tears. From the donation of the land, to the gifts that have been given to build the building and build the ministries, to the overwhelming growth, to all of the transitions of the last year and a half, nothing has been predictable.
Well, that’s not quite true. One thing has been constant, almost, even dare I say, predictable. No matter what we have been going through, no matter the season in which we have found ourselves gathered around the table, Christ the living bread has been present, feeing us with his very self in whatever way we needed. It hasn’t always been the same feast, but then again, Living Bread never is. Living Bread has this way of changing, moving, breathing so that it is able to meet us where we are. No manna, be that manna a certain style preference, or a certain building, or even a certain pastor, can do that. Chirst, the Living Bread is here at Christ Church, continually offering his very self so that we might have life. Christ the Living Bread is here, all who eat of his flesh and drink of his blood will have eternal life. Let us keep the feast.

Open Doors

Revelation 3: 7-13

“Let anyone who has ears to hear, listen.” Without a doubt, these are the most terrifying words in John’s Revelation. Sure, there are plenty of other scary pictures of all sorts of beasts, of swords and battles and of blood dripping drama in Revelation. There are tons of images that seem custom made for children’s nightmares, but the older I get the less scared I am of the beasts and the more scared I am of these words. “Let anyone who has ears to hear, listen.” Petrifying. This phrase is so because the fact that John had to pen those words presupposes the possibility of the converse. If there are some of us with ears to hear, it seems, there are some of us who simply won’t hear what God has to say. The Kingdom of God, the most beautiful and life-giving thing in the world, is also utterly miss-able. It is possible for us to meet Jesus and never know him. It is possible to walk around the Kingdom and never go inside. It is possible to know of salvation, and never know salvation. This, says John, is the delicate, petrifying nature of the Kingdom of God. Some of us will hear the message, but miss it altogether. Some of us will see the in-breaking, and still be blind to its presence. Some will pass right by doors standing wide open to heaven on earth and remain totally unaware that the doors are even there.
I’d like to be able to tell you that since you are good church folk, or if you become good church folk, that the scary possibility of missing the kingdom goes away. Sadly, that’s not true. Part of the reason that this is so scary is that those of us on the inside of the church are just as liable to miss the Kingdom of God as those on the outside. John, after all, is writing to the church in Philadelphia. Simply being a member of the church, or simply having heard the message once does not seem to be enough. If we take John’s Revelation seriously, we are always going to have to be listening, always looking for the Kingdom of God that is always at hand.
It is always at hand for those who are paying attention, that is. This is what John tells the church at Philadelphia. This is the sixth of seven weeks dealing with the letters to the churches as contained in Revelation, so you guys are old pros at this, by now. You know, by now, that John, in writing to the seven churches in Asia. You know that they are all in pretty similar situations, similar cultural surroundings where it is hard to be a Christian. (John, after all, is writing tot hem from prison!) Knowing that they are in this situation, John writes to the church at Philadelphia, “The are the words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens: I know your works. ‘Look, I have set before you an open door, which on one is able to shut.”
Then, after those words of hope, John begins to enumerate all of the difficulties the church is Philadelphia is facing. They were in a town that loved spirituality, but did not appreciate the particular claim of Christ. The population were pretty well educated, but also fully enraptured by the power of the empire. Philadelphians were pretty familiar with spirituality and pretty critical of those who claimed to follow Christ. It was easy to be Spiritual, to be not easy to be a Christian in Philadelphia. They were even having to deal with people that John was willing to call followers of Satan. In the midst of those difficulties, John encourages the church to refocus their vision.
“Look,” John says to the church. Look around you. Those difficulties that you see, those things that seem like they are the very things that are keeping the kingdom from being fully present are actually doors, opportunities for the kingdom to break in. God is opening doors, all around you, opportunities to live into the Kingdom of God even now. There are doors standing wide open all around you that lead to the Kingdom of God. Doors, standing ajar that if you will look and notice, will lead you to life abundant. Let all you who have eyes to see, look. The Kingdom of God is at hand, and it cracks open when you least expect it.
Like in a television commercial. At least, if you asked my friend Dan, he would say so. Dan is a baptized Christian, because of the commercials for the United Methodist Church. Have you seen these things? They come on at odd times, and there seems to be no real rhyme or reason to their approach, except they, like John, point to the open doors entering into the Kingdom of God.
Dan, it seems he was just going about life, minding his own business when he started to notice these commercials. He couldn’t get them out of his head. He would be watching TV and suddenly, out of nowhere, his home would be invaded by these commercials, and, as he puts it, a crack into the Kingdom seemed to open up. The first commercial he saw was this. [Play Love Letter]
When he saw that commercial, it stuck in his mind and drove him nuts. He says, “I was just trying to have a relaxing evening at home, or trying to think of anything but church on a Saturday afternoon when suddenly, the Methodists had somehow weaseled their way into my world. The commercial came on, and my safe little world was invaded, the door to my heart is opened and my world is bigger than myself. The thing about it is that I know that they are playing on my emotions. I know that they are using the resources at their disposal to invite me, or manipulate me if you’re a bit more cynical, into doing something or being something. I know that the sappy music and the soothing voice are geared to lure me, to play on my heartstrings. That’s not what gets me! What gets me is that it worked! Every time I see these commercials, I hear the music, I heard the slogan, ‘Open hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors,’ I was intrigued and compelled and drawn out of myself, all at the same time. I tried not to like it, I tried to be cynical, I tried to make fun of it, but there is something about the invitation that cut through my sarcasm and gripped me. I started praying. Suddenly, a whole new world opened up to me and everything became an opportunity to see God. The next commercial that spoke to him was this one. [Play More than Sunday]. “Before long,” Dan says, “I was stopping to help the homeless that I walked by every day. I formed relationships with them and was finding them to be ways into the presence of God. I joined the church and am still discovering that doors the kingdom are everywhere, if we’re just looking.”
The doors to the kingdom are everywhere. Conversations with friends and loved ones, the homeless and the hungry that we pass on the street, serving on committees, even our enemies are all doors to the kingdom of God. The good news is that God never tires of holding the doors open, of standing at the cracks into heaven and calling us to step through. The thing is, these doors are everywhere and in the most ordinary of places, like in our neighbors, in our homes, in bread and wine. They’re so ordinary, in fact, that we might just miss them. But they’re there, waiting for anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear to notice that the doors to the Kingdom of God are standing wide open. If anyone has ears to hear…listen.

Talitha Cum

2 Samuel 1:1-27
Mark 5:21-43

If Marcion wasn't right, he was at least onto something. Don't get me wrong, I am in agreement with patristic thought that the seeming dichotomy between Old and New Testaments does not denote two different Gods, but let's at least tip our hats to old Marcion. If we are honest, we must confess that we can't read the appointed texts this week and not wonder if we are talking about the same God, here.

2 Samuel has a heartbreaking start; one that calls to mind the great tragedies of old. Our characters are just as royal, just as majestic as those of the ancient plays: Kings, warriors and princes. David has been trying for years now to settle the dispute between him and his son, Absalom. David's best friend, Jonathan has somehow wound up in the middle of this ongoing, horrific family feud. David has already, for all intents and purposes, lost his son and his best friend, both of whom have tried to kill David along the way. But David refuses to give up, he refuses to allow his son and his best friend to be anything less than that, so he continues to try and keep peace in Israel while also regaining his son and his best friend. Hope for those reunion is lost in this first chapter, as David finds out that his best friend has died. Blood seems to run off of the pages in these opening verses of 2 Samuel. David, God's anointed one, listens to the story of his best friends death and then, in true Old Testament fashion, kills the messenger, who happens to double as the one who eventually finished off mortally wounded Jonathan. More blood spilled, more love lost, all in the name of God.

The chapter closes with David and his army eating a solemn dinner, singing a blood filled, mournful song while the messenger is slain in the background. "Oh how the mighty have fallen and the weapons of war perished."

The word of God for the people of God.
Thanks be to God?

Without as much as a breath, we then turn our attention this week to the Gospel lesson. Mark 5. Blood and death yet again fill the stage. But the players this time are much different. Instead of war heroes, kings and princes dominating the drama, we get a hemorrhaging woman and a dead girl. We don't even get their names; just bleeding woman and "Talitha", "girl". Much less majestic, much less classically appealing. The closest thing we get to power is Jairus, the father of the dead girl, who is the leader of the synagogue. But let's be honest, he's not really that powerful, he's just a leader of a bunch of Jews in the backwoods of the Roman empire. No real power there. So on the stage set with a crowd by the sea, blood and death rear their heads again.

But this time, there seems to be a different God at work. This time, Jesus walks through the crowd, and just by being touched by the bleeding woman, the blood stops, and healing takes place. When he finally makes his way to side of the dead girl, and those around her are weeping and sobbing, just like David in 2 Samuel, Jesus speaks to the girl, "Talitha Cum" and she is raised.

In the Old Testament we see a God who is seemingly absent, or maybe even implicated in the bloody violence and in the death ridden plot. Yet when Jesus comes around, the bleeding stops, death is broken. Maybe Marcion had a point.

Or maybe Jesus was the point all along. More pointedly, maybe Jesus was God's counterpoint to our violence. After all, 2 Samuel follows 1 Samuel, where God begged Israel not to get a king. They wanted a king to find security, to find peace on their terms, to stop the terrorism from the Assyrians. Violence had risen exponentially, they were up to a code red, so they sought a king. God asked them not to, tried to get them to trust in him for safety, for peace, but God's people decided instead to trust in military might. They continue to ask God for a king until, finally, God does one of the most frightening things recorded in scripture. God hands Israel over to their hearts desires. They get a king, Saul, Jonathan's father, and the bloodiest period in Israel's history as recorded in the Old Testament ensures. The heartbreaking opening to 2 Samuel is the result of the

Blood and death pretty much continue

Imagine That

Revelation 2:8-11
Isaiah 40:26-28
Luke 15: 4-10

It could easily be argued that the most valuable characteristic to have as a Christian is an active imagination. I know that it didn’t make it onto Paul’s top three list, faith, hope and love, but that’s okay, I suppose this is just one more thing for me to put on my list of things to talk to Paul about. To be sure, I don’t think that it is possible to live into faith, hope or love without a working imagination. Not, at least, as they are described in scripture. Not in the ways that we are to have faith, hope and love as Christians. God is always trying to get his followers to do the impossible, or at least the improbable, by having faith in the face of destruction (like in the midst of persecution), or hoping when there is no hope (like by a graveside), or loving the unlovable, (like your enemy). I’m just not sure that those things are possible if our imaginations are not employed. I don’t know how to have faith if I can’t imagine something other than what I see. I don’t know how to hope if I don’t know how to imagine in a world other than the one that ends in the grave. I don’t know how to love my enemies if I can’t imagine them being somebody else, somebody who is not just hated by me but loved by God. I simply don’t know how to live into this faith without an overactive imagination.
The church has known this since the beginning. Which is where all of these churchy type things come from. The church quickly figured out that if we were going to survive in this world as followers of Christ, we were going to have to sharpen our imaginations. Thus, these churchy things that seem archaic, irrelevant, non-evolving and inaccessible were born. They are actually tools the church uses to help our imations. We build buildings that draw you out of yourself, to help you imagine actually being somewhere God might be. We hang paraments to point to another world, one decorated by the Holy. We wear vestments to help imagine something more than MTV or Target. We have a different calendar to imagine living into someone else’s time, God’s time. The trick, of coarse, to all of these things is that they are useless, they are utterly irrelevant, they are perfectly archaic and inaccessible and nonsense…unless you use your imagination.
St. John’s Revelation is the same way. Talk about archaic, irrelevant and inaccessible. The entire book is filled with imagery and claims that are wild, caked with heavy-laden symbols that come across as nonsense. When you open the pages on which John’s Revelation is recorded, you stand on the cusp of a whole new world, like Lucy in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. As you come to this odd book, standing on the brink of this new world, you are given an option: You can either stand outside of the world and gawk at the silliness of it all, or you can employ your imagination and participate in a whole new world be created all around you.
It is impossible to read this book with any sort of integrity without using your imagination. Which is really the point. John is teaching the church how to survive, how to imagine another world, another reality. As Shay told us last week, John is sitting in prison on the Island of Patmos for being a Christian when he writes this letter to seven churches on the mainland. Both John and the churches are under persecution from the world around them, if they preach, they can get thrown in prison, and if their friends and families find out that they are Christians, they cut them off, from their homes, from their business, from even being able to buy and sell goods. So the church is sitting in the middle of a world that is unbearable to live in as a Christian and impossible to be a good citizen and a good disciple. Into that context, when the church is at it’s wits ends and seems to be stuck in a no way out situation, St. John writes this text and with it whispers to the Church, “imagine.”
“To the church at Smyrna, God says imagine a new world is coming. Everything you see is hopeless, is lifeless, is frightening, but imagine that God has actually seen your affliction and your poverty and intends to make it right. Imagine that God says, ‘I know that you are poor in things, but imagine the rich blessings that you have in your fellowship with God and one another. I know that you are suffering, that some of you are going to prison because of your faith, some of you are being tested, some of you are even about to be martyred, but imagine the crown of life that is yours in Christ Jesus.” The letter to the church as Smyna is nothing more than a call for the believers there to employ their imaginations in order to live faithfully to the end. In light of John’s Revelation and the call of God to the churches, it is entirely possible that our ability to live faithfully in this world depends our our ability to faithfully imagine God’s kingdom in the world to come.
Which sounds a lot like Jesus, now that I think about it. Jesus, after all, was always trying to get his disciples to imagine something bigger than what they already knew, to imagine living into a world other than the one that they were already living in. Like when Jesus said that In his, Message, Eugene Peterson always has Jesus begin his parables with the word, “imagine.” There Jesus stands, telling his disciples, “look, I know the world you see around you functions out of hate and anger and retribution, but imagine for a second that there is another world, one that functions out of faith, hope and love. Imagine, for instance, that instead of God writing you off because you strayed away, that God is actually searching, turning every corner of creation upside down looking for you. And imagine that when one lost soul is found, that all of heaven explodes with celebration. Angels start singing; cherubs start playing their harps. God weeps. Imagine that, and your world changes. Imagine a God like that, and you can’t help but enter into a whole new reality; a reality known in Revelation as the New Jerusalem, the new promised-land.
Can you imagine? When your life has taken a turn for the worse, when loved ones get sick or die, when war and famine seem all to imminent, when your job overlooks you or working is less than heaven on earth, when life is just too much and it seems like being faithful and being alive in this world is all too much, imagine that God actually knows your sufferings and intends on making them right. Can you imagine what that is going to be like?
Because, rumor has it, that in the end, Christ is coming again to wipe the tears away from every eye, to have a feast where all are fed and to bring peace to all the earth. What’s more, that reality is already in motion, it’s already in place. And God is right now standing in this new world of faith, hope and love and beckoning even us to come and participate. God is planning on using you and me to be the ambassadors of this new world, to embody this new reality where faith, hope and love are the guiding laws of the land, where the hungry are fed, where the naked are clothed, where the captives are set free. With the help of God, we are able to start righting wrongs and creating a whole new world right here, right now.
God wants to use us to make this new world a reality. You and me! Imagine that!

On Not Understanding God

Trinity Sunday
John 16

I feel like I have to come clean with you. We tried our best to cover it up and make it seem like nothing big was happening this morning. We got greeters to stand at the doors and smile at you as you came in, act like it was just another Sunday. We got ushers to greet you as you came to the sanctuary, hand you a bulletin and help you find a seat. We made sure the building was clean, the candles were lit, the paraments were clean and crisp. We did our best to get you in here today as if nothing big was happening, but now that you’re here, and they tell me that I have to stand up here and preach, I’m going to come clean with you.
Today is Trinity Sunday. Now that may not sound like a big deal to you, given that it was so easy to come in and find a place. But don’t be fooled by the accessibility of the building, the comfort of the pew, or the lack of a picket line outside keeping you from coming in. This is the most controversial Sunday of the year. Today is seen as an intentional slap in the face to the other faiths of the world, especially within the monotheistic world. Trinity Sunday is controversial because today we claim what we believe about God, knowing that it will enrage every other religion that is close to us. The doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine that you are now in the middle of celebrating, is the most appalling doctrine of the Christian faith—especially according to our Jewish and Muslim neighbors. Of the big three monotheistic religions in the world, Judaism, Islam and Christianity, the two others don’t recognize us as being truly monotheistic. Three in one? That’s absurd! According to others, we don’t even have a legitimate understanding of God. That’s why Osama Bin Laden, in many of his rants against Christians, calls us godless pagans. All because of the Trinity. Jewish scholars say that if we are going to split God up, why stop at three?! Why not worship God, the distant cousin, God the overbearing mother, God the stranger, as all are valid experiences of God. And the Qur’an, written centuries after Christ and the birth of the doctrine of the Trinity, bids its people, “Do not say ‘Three.’ Desist, it will be better for you. God is only one God.” The doctrine of the Trinity is no inconsequential thing.
Furthermore, our Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters remind us that semitic wisdom teaches that ultimate reality must be ultimately simple. If it’s real, it is simple. If it’s not simple, it’s not real. And, in the face of that, we profess the Trinity, which is anything but simple. Ever heard anybody try to explain the Trinity? The most profound theologians and preachers stumble, balk and fumble their words in attempting to explain it. St. Augustine took 15 volumes to work it out, and even that work still lacks in its explanation. As the world around us stands with mouths hung open at our audacity at claiming a Triune God, we are here, celebrating the Trinity as though it’s no big deal, as if all of this controversy and confusion is just another Sunday.
That is probably because for us, it is just another Sunday. It is just another Sunday spent with the controversial and confusing Jesus. We’re Christians, after all, and we are Trinitarian because we are Christian. The confusing doctrine of the Trinity isn’t such a problem for us because we follow Jesus. We are used to being confused by God. While other religions hope to simplify God, to understand God, to sum God up, Christians are busy scratching our heads and following this controversial Jew who claims to be God, who claims that he and God are one. If you have ever tried to follow this guy, you know the confusion that immediately sets in. Love your enemies? Give away in order to have? Die in order to live? Life with this God is anything but simple.
Take, for example, our Gospel lesson today. The first followers of Christ are following Jesus when he starts muttering some more complicated clues pointing into the heart of God. “You will see me just a little longer, and then you will not see me, and then, in a little while, you will see me again, because I am going to the Father” Jesus says. Rightly so, the Disciples scratch their heads and ask each other, “did anybody get that?” Indeed, no one did. So Jesus explains it again, “Look, women who give birth are in pain, but then, when they have the child they forget how much of a pain it was. That’s how it will be with you.” Gee, thanks for the clarification, Jesus. Then, for the rest of the chapter, Jesus says things like, “I am going to the Father, so that the Holy Spirit may come.” The disciples never really did get what he was talking about.
In fact, it took the Church about 300 of living with these teaching before we were able to even begin trying to make sense out of it. At the council of Nicea in 325, the church was gathered around a table and someone brought this reading up and said, “Hey, did anybody get that?” And the best thing we could come up with was Trinity. That while God is one, God is also three. God has come to us in three distinct, yet homocentric ways…as Father, as Son, and as Holy Spirit. One, the council taught, yet three. Three, yet one. Looking at the person of Jesus, Christians know God as divinely complicated. In fact, perhaps that was what Jesus was really teaching us. When you are dealing with Jesus, you are dealing with God, and God is complicated. God is deep, God is obscure. That’s how we know God is real, because we claim that anything real is never really that simple. Reality, well, it’s complicated. Anyone who has had to study microbiology knows that. And anyone who seeks to know the One who created this complicated world must be ready to engage a complicated God.
Which makes me wary of the well marketed Christianity today. For some reason the loudest and most boisterous group of Christians are infatuated with making God simple…easy…accessible. Seeker sensitive services and Ten Simple Step Spirituality books are everywhere. They sell like hotcakes, which is understandable because they are so neat and easy to package. The problem is that I’m just not sure they have much to do with God. “Just read this book, you’ll find your purpose.” “Just show up and you’ll get it.” “Come be a part of this and your whole world will make sense.” Well, not with Trinity. It’s never that easy, it’s much more complicated, and never that accessible. The Triune God is always as close as the breath of life, and yet as inaccessible as God enthroned on high; as close as the Incarnation and as hard to catch as the wind that blows. Wrapping our minds around a God like that takes a lifetime, even an eternity. As CS Lewis said, “Any God who is completely understandable is no God at all.”
Take, for example, the indescribable glimpse the prophet Isaiah got in our Old Testament lesson for today. Isaiah is raptured into a glorious glimpse of God and in trying to describe it, it comes out fantastic, almost non-sensical. “There were chariots, and fire, and some creatures with wings. They covered themselves with wings, but they also flew, so they must have had lots of wings. At any rate, whatever I saw, they were singing to God in the highest. I don’t get it,” says the prophet “but it got me! All I could says was, here I am, send me.”
That sounds a lot like God. That sounds a lot like the same God who created the world, who sent his Son and redeemed us, who sends his Spirit and sustains us. That sounds a lot like the same God who is One and Three. Majestic, powerful, complicated. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Thee persons, one God. One God, three persons.
Get it? No? Good.

What The Crusades Got Right

6th Sunday of Easter
1 John 5: 1-6

Do we have any Elon University Alumni here today? Now, the next question is what was Elon’s mascot when you were studying there? (This may expose your age). Today, Elon are the Fighting Pheonix, but until 1999, they were the Fightin’ Christians. The Fightin’ Christians! Honestly! This could be on the top ten stupidest mascot names of all times (right next to the Stormy Petrels of Ogethorpe University or the Banana Slugs of UC Santa Cruz)! I mean really. The Fightin’ Christians! Could there be a more obvious oxy-moron? Christians are not fighters. By our very name, we are people who follow Christ, the One who did not choose to fight, but would rather die than resort to violence. Christians are people who choose rather than fight, to believe in the One who chose to give up his life, to love his enemies, to turn the other cheek. We seek to do likewise.
At least that’s the way I see it. Which makes me right at home in the Methodist Church. I mean if there were ever a group of people who are comfortable not fighting it’s us Methodists. We don’t want to rock the boat, we don’t want to cause a fuss, we don’t want to upset anyone or, God forbid, get in a fight!
Which may explain what I ran across this week while I was thumbing through my copy of The Christian Century. “Methodists Ranks Drop for 36th Straight year.” 36 straight years of decline?! 36 straight years of having people decide that there are other things that they would rather be doing with their time, other places they would rather spend their energies. 36 years of people being won over by everything else that is fighting for their attention and loyalty. It seems we are losing the fight.
I’m sorry if you came here this morning thinking that you were coming for a palatable, relaxing way to end the weekend. But this is church. The home of the Meek, who just get dumped on and have to fight with everything else that the world just easily slumps off. Home of the peacemakers, who are constantly fighting for peace. This is church, and being so this is a fight. Simply by virtue of being Church, we are initiated into an ancient fight that God’s people have been a part of since this whole creation experiment started going wrong and God started making it right.
Talking about a Christian fight is dangerous, I know, especially in today’s Jihad and Pre-Emptive strike world. After all, we tried that in the Crusades, and that didn’t really work out all that well. But you know, for all the Crusaders did wrong, at least the Crusaders understood that they were in a fight. Sure, their methods were anything but Christian. As they blazoned the cross on their shield and killed infidels in the name of the Peaceful Lamb, they betrayed everything that the Gospel calls us to be, but at least they realized that they were in the middle of a fight. And they realized that it mattered. I will be the first to admit that the crusades were some of the darkest times in our collective history, but I can’t help but envy their vigor. Now, instead of the term Fightin’ Christians being a dangerous oxy-moron, it is more wishful thinking.
Which almost makes me think that John wrote his Epistle lesson today for us. This morning, John seems to be trying to stir up in his church a fighting spirit. He wants to provoke us to action, to get us out there slugging it out with the world. Now this kind of a surprise coming from John. John is the Evangelist of love, after all. We could expect this sort of call to fight from Mark, but John is the “God so loved the world” guy. He has spent his entire pastoral career telling us that it is all about love and mercy and grace, and then, almost out of nowhere, in the fifth chapter of his first letter and we find him calling us to fight, to conquer, to overcome.
Don’t mistake John’s call to love as a call to passivity. The pacifistic love of God as described by John is nothing short of a fight. It is not idle lethargy, not sideline holiness, but active, fighting, conquering love. It’s not the absence of fighting that makes us Christian, but how we fight that makes us followers of God.
Christians have this outrageous claim that love actually wins, that good actually does triumph over evil, all without having to resort to the evil ways of the world. You remember John’s prologue, Light overcoming Darkness, Love overcoming Hate. That’s what he’s getting at. God’s people are not people who don’t fight, but those who engage in the Godly struggle of overcoming the evil of the world with good. Actually trusting that in the end, love wins. John puts it this way. “For whatever is born of God, conquers the world.”
I know it is hard to believe in a world where we are told that our only hopes are the War on Terror, the War on Drugs, the War on Illegal Immigrants. But according to John, those things don’t stand a chance. The world is not conquered with pre-emptive strikes or a stronger economy or a better healthcare system but with the undying love of God embodied by God’s people. After all, every empire will fall, healthcare reform will never be complete, drugs will always find a way and terrorism is too vague a term to define, much less prevent. But love, the love of God that is so strong that even death could not hold it back, now that is a force to be reckoned with.
For example take this place called the Bakery of Love that is dominating the world around it. In the middle of a slum (a Fevela) in Londrina Brazil, there is a fight going on. The people who live in this area literally have to fight everyday to stay alive. HIV/AIDS runs rampant through the population there, food is scarce and housing is, too. Needless to say, the educational system is abysmal, if not non-existent. Crime is high, spirits are down and life is a fight. And yet, smack dab in the middle of this violent existence are a group of Christians. They go into the Favelas every day to teach the children there and to give them a safe place to learn, to eat, to rest. They also have a bakery that is opened twice daily, once in the morning and once in the evening, where people from the Favela come to be fed. If you ask Angelica, one of the workers in the slum why she is there (I mean, she’s not getting paid, she’s not getting tax breaks, she’s not getting anything) she is the first one to tell you because she loves them. She loves those children and those hungry people because God loves them. Through that love, children who would otherwise be on the streets, or taking drugs, or worse, are safe, filled, learning. Because of their love, twice a day all fighting stops, all hunger ceases as an orderly line forms outside the bakery of love and the homeless, the hungry, come to be fed the bread of life. We have partnered with them in buying an oven and I have seen it. I have seen this place and let me tell you, we are conquering that favela with love. An otherwise hopeless, dying favela is being conquered with the love of God. You know, “For whatever is born of God, conquers the world.”
Which shouldn’t really surprise us. After all, that’s how we got into this fight in the first place. While we were hopeless, hurting, yearning for life, God sent his Son into the world to fight for our lives. When we were far off, God reached down, grabbed us, won us back. We tried to kill him, hung him on a cross, God came back. Don’t mistake the cross as a whimpy wishy-washy, feeble answer to violence. On the cross, and in the grave, there’s a fight going on, A fight between life and death, violence and peace, hope and hopelessness. Don’t mistake this resurrection story that we are a part of as being a fuzzy story about bunnies and chicks and pretty dresses. This is Easter. This is a fight. And let me tell you, love wins; God wins, and so do we.

Now What?

John 20:19-31
1John 1:1-2:2

Well, how was it? How was your Easter? Whether you celebrated the Lord’s resurrection here at Christ Church, or somewhere else with family or friends, I pray that your Easter Sunday was filled with joy and newness of life and an overwhelming sense of the power of God. My Easter weekend was one of the most memorable, yet. My parents came up to spend some time with us, so I got to see them for the first time since Christmas. I gathered with some of you at sunrise on Sunday morning to hear a spectacular sermon from Daniel Felts. Then I got to feast on Pat’s words during the later three services, somehow getting something different out of her message every time I heard it. I had communion 4 times, each time uniquely holy and distinct from the one before. I listened to the praise band lead us in singing at 8:30, and then saw Loren in a tie playing brass in the later two services. It was a high and holy day. Christ is risen! Christ is risen, indeed! Alleluia.
But the next thing I knew, I was waking up Monday morning with a holy hangover. The buzz and excitement from Easter was over and I was left with a resounding question ringing in my ears. So what? The best I could tell, I was still the same person as I was the day before. I didn’t float out of bed, but had to drag myself out. I skipped my morning prayers, didn’t feel like reading the Bible. Easter was great and all, and that’s great news that Christ is risen, but really, so what? Better yet, now what?
Well, if you are like me and have found yourself struggling with the so what, or perhaps more faithfully, the now what, of Easter, know that we are in good company today. St. John the Evangelist had a whole church of people asking now what? In fact, after reading our Epistle lesson for today, I would say that St. John himself struggled putting the “now what” of Easter into words.
We should know St. John pretty well by now, seeing that we have depended on him for most of our Gospel readings of late. We have given him center stage in our worship and listened to his account of the good news this year. But now, after Easter is over, our eloquent Gospel writer, who was never lacking for words in describing the life, death and resurrection of Christ, finds himself stammering through an attempt to coach his new Christian community through the “now what” in light of the resurrection of Christ. Our Epistle lesson for today comes from the book known as 1 John. 1 John is a letter written to the community that was formed as a result of St. John’s account of the Gospel. A whole church full of people have heard his message, and as a result, they have founded a community to live into the good news of Jesus Christ. These parishioners have listened to his words about Christ, have celebrated with as much vigor as possible the good news of the resurrection. But now, they find themselves with their own version of a holy hangover, wondering what to do now.
Since we have given St. John our ears thus far during the year, and have, in a way, become another community shaped by his message, we as the staff thought that it would be good to sit alongside his church during the Easter season. For the next 50 days, the Great 50 days of Easter, the lectionary appoints for the church to read the epistle of 1 John. So make a little room in the pew next to you for your new friends, our newest (and oldest) sister church, The Church of St. John’s Parishioners. Get to know your new friends, and feel free to ask the questions they are asking and to say the things they are saying. Okay, good news. Christ is risen. Christ is risen, indeed. Now what?
To answer that question, John takes us back to the beginning. We should know by now that John is infatuated with beginnings. He starts his Gospel by taking us back to the beginning of creation. “In the beginning was the Word,” John says. And for the rest of his Gospel, John tells us about being born again, starting over, and God’s new beginning for the world. He even ends his Gospel with a beginning, Jesus standing with his disciples, risen, started fresh, and calling them to follow him all over again. For John, it’s all about beginnings.
So it should come as no surprise that 1 John starts at the beginning. “We declare to you what was from the beginning,” the writer says. And then, for the rest of the first chapter, he tells us about sin and death, light and darkness, confession and forgiveness. Frankly, I’m a little bit bored with this stuff. I mean, we just left Lent to get to Easter, and I’m ready to find out what’s next, not what we just went through! But now, thanks to John and his relentless infatuation with beginnings, we are thrust right back to the basics, to the beginnings of the faith.
But maybe I’m not as ready as I think I am. After all, I woke up on Easter Monday and had the same struggles as I did on Holy Saturday. Christ is risen, but I’m not all that sure that I have been fully risen, yet. Maybe I need to begin again. Maybe we all do.
The good news of Easter, according to John, is that it teaches us how to begin again. The “now what” for John is inextricably tied into the beginning. We never fully move on from Easter, from the resurrection. Instead, we are called to live into that cycle daily of starting over. The prayers of the church reflect this. The church begins its morning prayers with the words, “New every morning is your love, Great God of light.” Each day, a new beginning. And every evening the church bids us pray, “forgive all my offenses and grant that I might again be raised to newness of life.” Each evening, a chance to die to self in the hope of resurrection. The “now what” of Easter, for John, is for us to begin again, every day for the rest of our lives. We don’t go through Lent, Holy Week and Easter to check them off the list and then move on. We go through them to learn how to live, to learn how to start over. That is what is in our Gospel account, Jesus relentlessly coming back to Thomas, offering him a chance to start again. God is relentlessly graceful, offering us a chance to begin again every day for the rest of our lives. Truth is, it will take us that long to get it right.
One of my professors in seminary tells the story of a student he met. He writes, “I met him his sophomore year, when he arrived at Duke as a transfer student. He was in the Chapel on most Sundays. One day in the fall, I took him home with me for a sandwich. As we sat there eating, he said, “I want to tell you something about me so you can know me a little better.”
OK.
“Well, first I was a teenager from hell. I made my folks’ lives miserable,” he said.
I said that was a not too original story around here.
He continued, “They had me committed to a mental institution when I was sixteen. But I escaped from there, made my way to Chicago, worked as a prostitute on the streets. Got into lots of stuff. One night I rolled this guy, took his wallet and used his American Express card to buy some stuff.”
“Wow,” I said. “I thought you meant that you got a speeding ticket in high school.”
“I told you I was bad,” he said. “Anyway, cops got me. I was sent to Joliet prison. That was like entering the depths of hell. This older prisoner took me under his wing to protect me. Every night, before lock down, he would read a chapter out of the Bible to me, out of the gospel of Luke. He wasn’t too good a reader, so it would take him forever, stumbling over the words and stuff. Well, one night he was reading Luke, about the middle, the stories about the lost sheep, and the prodigal son, and all, and it was like this hand just reached in that cell, grabbed me by the throat, shook me up and down and said, ‘I’ve got plans for you!’ Well, I got saved. I got out of that prison in a few months, finished my high school degree, and I’m here on a full scholarship. Sure, I often want to go back to my old ways of life, but the way I see it, when I converted in that jail cell, it was the first time of many. So, I’m still converting everyday.”
“Wow,” I said. “We don’t hear stories like that around here too often.”
“Well,” he continued, “the reason I’m telling you this is that you’re a preacher, right? And I know you guys are always grubbing around for stories, illustrations and stuff. And you got Easter coming up in a few weeks. Well, I am your proof of Easter.”

Take and Eat

Exodus 12: 1-14
John 13: 1-17; 31b-35
Maundy Thursday

It has been said that if you want to change someone’s culture you start by changing their food. Food, it seems, shapes the culture that eats it as much as the other way around. I’m sure that it is as debatable as the chicken and the egg debate, which comes first, the food or the culture, but no matter how you look at it, food is a remarkably reliable commentary on the people who eat it.
I have had the privilege of traveling around the world over the past few years, and the things that stand out most in my mind about each place is the food, how it seems to perfectly match the people that it sustains. In Israel and Palestine, the food was warm and inviting, but relatively complicated in it’s diversity and arrangement so that you never fully knew what to expect—just like the people. In Brazil, the food was a bit more robust, a bit bolder, and yet somehow more simple, more predictable in its passion—as if were an edible commentary on Brazilian society. The English like their food to be functional and filling, no time to mess around with frills and the like, eat your meal and get on with it! In Mexico, the food is as simple and as beautiful as the locals—spicy, warm, invigorating. The French—complicated and captivating. The Germans—solid and stable. America—diversely homogenous. What we eat reveals, or perhaps shapes, us more than anything else. If you really want to get to know someone, invite yourself over for dinner at their house. Eat with them.
This, of course, is only news to us American Protestants. The Jews have known this forever. That’s why what they eat matters so much to them. One Jewish guy that I know is particularly difficult to go out to eat with. He always has to ask if they have a kosher menu, and if they don’t (we are in North Carolina after all—even the chicken is pork-based) we have to go somewhere else.
When I asked him what difference it really makes what he eats he said, “For us Jews, every detail of our lives is God’s business. Our God is deeply concerned with who we are, and nothing constitutes our being more than what we eat. Any God that doesn’t tell you what to do with your pots and your pans isn’t worth worshipping.”
Sounds like someone who has digested Exodus 12. In our Old Testament reading this evening, Israel has been in bondage for nearly 400 years. Being swallowed up by the Egyptian culture for that long, they have begun to lose their identity. They speak Egyptian, now. They know how to build Egyptian architecture. They know how to shop in Egyptian stores. They know how to eat Egyptian food. The people of God have lost their culture.
If God is going to deliver Israel from being slaves of Pharaoh to being children of God, God is going to have to change who fundamentally they are. God is going to have to change their entire way of thinking, of being, of living. God is going to have to change how they relate to each other, how they live in the world, how they raise their children. In order to deliver Israel, God is going to have to change Israel’s culture. God decides to start with their food.
While they were still in Egypt, on the eve of being freed and yet still in bondage, God gives them a cooking lesson. It seems to me that there may be other things that they should be doing, like packing, for example. But God, determined to change God’s people as much as their location, tells them to have a meal. “Get a lamb for every household and roast it, for God’s sake don’t boil it! Everyone in the house of Israel is to come to this table,” says God. “As they come, they should gird up their loins, eat hurriedly,” like they are actually expecting God to do something soon. Perhaps most importantly, “mark this meal with the blood of the slain lamb,” says God. “This shall become for you a reminder of the night which I saved you from bondage.” Even if Israel didn’t understand what was going on at that moment, God was changing their culture. Eating, for Israel, becomes a participation in and a sign of their salvation.
By the time we get to our New Testament reading tonight, Jews are well aware of the implications of eating. Don’t miss the significance of the setting. Jesus and his disciples, on the eve of our deliverance, had gathered to eat. This is about culture—who they are. Cultures are based around food. As they were gathered around the table to re-enact the story from Exodus 14, loins girded, lamb roasted, bitter herbs seasoned, another cultural shift takes place. The other evangelists recount the words of the supper. “Jesus takes the bread, he blesses it, and he breaks it and he says take, eat, this is my body broken for you. Then after supper, he takes the cup, he gives thanks over the cup and then he gives it to his disciples and says drink from this, all of you. This is my blood of the new covenant poured out for you and for many. Do this as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” It seems that a new culture for God’s people is taking shape. This culture will be based on the body and blood of Christ.
While the other Gospel writers give us the words, John gives us the action of this meal. “Jesus gets up, takes off his outer garments, wraps his waist like a servant, and washes his disciples’ feet. After he had finished this, he offered them a new commandment. Love one another, as I have loved you.” Love, love like that of our savior, giving up his own life that we might live, is now our culture. Love, like that blood that was poured out to quench the thirst of the world, is now what marks who we are. We eat and we drink as a sign of and a participation in our salvation. We eat this meal of love, hoping that we are become a people who’s culture is love.
Not that we really have a choice in the matter. We call tonight Maundy Thursday, from the Latin Maundatum Novum, “New Commandment.” Jesus didn’t request our presence at this meal. He didn’t request that we love each other. Just like in Exodus chapter 12, Jesus joins in the divine act of commanding. Take, Eat, I’m making something out of you that you could never imagine. Take, Drink, from this time on you are going to be marked by the blood of the lamb. Love one another, this is how I am making myself known in the world. We get together tonight to re-hear this command from God, to anticipate the sacrificial love that has claimed our lives, and then to eat together to have our culture of love made manifest in us. See this bread and this wine, these signs of your deliverance, these elements of your salvation? See this table, this meal of love laid out for you? Take and eat.

When Proclamation Proceeds Comprehension

I didn't get to post on Palm/Passion Sunday last week. But, for your amusement, here's one that I preached on said Sunday in England.



Nothing strikes fear into the hearts of first year seminary students like Greek. And if you go to Duke Divinity school, like I did, Greek is synonymous with one man, Dr. Micky Efird. And so, by association, nothing strikes fear into the hearts of first year students at Duke like Dr. Mickey Efird. He has been teaching Greek at Duke since about the time that the Bible was written, and it is sort of a rite of passage for students to go through his class. He is, without a doubt, the most difficult professor at Duke, teaching what is, without a doubt, the most difficult subject at Duke. You only know two things when you sign up for his class. The first is that if you make it out of his class alive, you will know Greek. The second is that you probably won’t make it out alive. Everyone has a story about Dr. Efird., and I am no exception. The first day of class, Dr. Efird came in, looked the class over and waisted no time. There were no pleasantries, no introductions or handing out a sylubus. Instead, Dr. Efird simply started writing the Greek alphabet on the board. He went through each letter with us, teaching us what an Alpha looked like, and how to tell the differnece between a zeta and a Xsi. After what he thought was a sufficient amount of review, he told us to open our copies of the Greek New Testament. To our horror, he went around the room, asking students to read out loud from the Greek New Testament. After a few nervous laughs and the joke that he has heard every semester, “It’s all greek to me,” we were fumbling through a foreign text. He tried to teach us where to put the glottal stops, what a rough breathing mark was and how to determine where to put the emphasis in the words. After what seemed like an eternity of torture, a woman in the back of class protested. “Dr. Efird,” she said, “how can you expect us to read these words when we haven’t had any vocabulary yet? Shouldn’t we first learn the words, and then try to read them?” Dr. Efird slowly lowered his book, pulled his glasses down to the tip of his nose, looked the class over and said matter of factly, “Sometimes in life you have to speak before you understand.”
In preparation for the sermon this week, I have come to a conclusion. I’m pretty sure that Luke took Greek from Dr. Efird. After all, that is what Luke is telling us this morning. Sometimes in life you have to speak before you understand. The disciples, in our text this morning, are a perfect case of speaking before understanding. They have been waiting for this moment since they started following Christ. They are, after all, the ones who beleive that Jesus is the Messiah. And finally, after three years of traveling around with him, he is heading to Jerusalem to claim his rightful place. So, when Christ tells two of them to go and fetch him a colt to ride into Jerusalem on, they waste no time, knowing that such an act would fulfill the prophesy from Zechariah. They hasten back to Christ with the colt, and to signify that he is royalty, they lay their cloaks on the back of the colt and on the ground that Jesus rides upon. This is it! They are actually witnessing the Messiah riding into Jerusalem. Sure, they all had their different ideas of what that meant. Some thought that Jesus was going to take over the city with force, stirring up a political uprising and militarily throw Rome out of the promised land, freeing the Jews from ceasar’s reign. Some thought that miraculously the city would succumb to his reign and hail him as King, thus ushering in the peacful kingdom without any conflict or bloodshed. They all had their ideas, but they were all wrong. The faact is that no one knew for sure what it meant for Christ to be the Messiah. All they knew was that the Messiah had come, so they proclaimed it. The disciples shouted out, “Hosannah! Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord!” Of course, they had no idea what lay ahead of them. None of them knew that this one that they were claiming to be the Messiah would be dead before the end of the week. None could picture the beatings that he was going to undergo, the deception that he would be betrayed by, the lonliness that he would feel after being deserted by all those now proclaiming him to be Messiah. None of those in the crowd of disciples that day understood what it meant to claim that Jesus was the Messiah, but they proclaimed it just the same. I have to say that I’m on the side of the Pharisees here. They tell Christ to get his disciples to hush up. After all, they don’t know what they area talking about. The look pretty silly, making big claims that they can’t explain. But Christ is quite happy with the disciple’s praises. He seems to think that they are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing, whether they understand it or not. Such is the life of discipleship. We’re not always called to understand it fully, we’re just called to proclaim it. In that way, proclamation proceeds comprehension.
As I wrestled with this text this week, I found myself getting back to the basics of the faith. Questions like, how exactly did Christ’s death on the cross save us? What does it mean to say that Christ is Lord? So I went to Sarum college and pulled out the books that I read in seminary. After all, I thought, if I am going to stand up there and talk about this stuff, I’d better understand what I’m talking about. I re-read all of the theories of atonement, the penal-substitutionary theory that states that there was a penalty to be paid for our sins according to the rules of creation, and Christ’s death on the cross paid the penalty for us, almost as if he pleaded guilty to the judge when we were on trial, and the judge sent him to jail instead of us. I read the ransom theory, which said that becuase of our sin, the devil had a right to our souls. God had lost us when we left the garden of eden, and if he was going to get us back, he was going to have to pay the devil a ransom, and a hefty one at that. The terms for the deal, if we were to go free, God would have to give his only son. Which, as you know, he did, paying the ransom. I read about the moral inflouence theory, that said that the cross did nothing but teach us how to live, dying to ourselves in order to find eternal life. I read about the govenmental theory and the satisfaction theory. The more I read, the more confused I got. If I have to wait to understand this before I say anthing about it, I thought, I’m not going to have a sermon on Sunday. And then, the wisdom of Dr. Efird floated back into my mind. Sometimes you have to speak it before you understand it. Sometimes you have to speak it in order to understand it. Sometimes, proclamation proceeds comprehension.
Of course, this is nothing new to you people. You have understood this since at least the 11th century. You were blessed enough to have St. Anselm as the archbishop of Canterbury under William the conquerer. St. Anslem’s most famous quote stated that Christian discipleship was faith seeking understanding. That is, there is something about this faith that you have to live in order to understand it. You have to hail Christ as Messiah before you can understand what that means. Proclamation proceeds comprehension. You’ll have to speak it before you will understand it. I dosen’t matter what catchy phrase you use, the fact is still the same. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not calling us to a lazy faith, where we simply throw our hands up and say that we’ll never understand it. Rather, I’m saying that being a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ means proclaiming him to be the messiah whether we understand it or not. And as we do the most amazing thing happens, we somehow begin to understand what that means.
We are going to see some pretty unexplicable events this week. We are going to watch in awe as Christ shares a meal with his disciples, after which he washes their feet, even the feet of the one who will betray him. We will look on in horror as Christ is handed over to the Roman government to be crucified, hung on a cross until he is dead. We will sit, scared to speak on Holy Saturday, wondering if the end has really come. And on Easter Sunday, we will walk into the tomb, gazing at the splendor of the resurection. Now let me ask you this, who here can explain any of the events that we will see this week? I’m sure we all have our theories, how exactly Christ’s death saves us, how God raised him from the dead. We all have theories, but none of us has a full understanding. But that’s okay. We were never called to understand it, we were called to proclaim it.

The Hidden Secret of Life

John 12: 20-36

Did you catch the last part of the Gospel reading? It is easily missable, tucked away as an after thought, almost as if John the evangelist is trying to plant a subliminal seed in our minds. I didn’t discover it until my umpteenth reading, buried there beneath the pile of confusing thoughts and apocalyptic overtones that Jesus is spouting out. But sure enough, right there at the end of Jesus’ speech about his death and his followers being honored by the Father, John confirms what we have all suspected at one time or another. Just when things are most confusing in life and we need God the most, God goes into hiding.
Take a look; it’s right there. Look back at our Gospel reading for today. How does it end? “After Jesus had said this, he departed and hid from them.” This is not the best time for Jesus to be hiding from his disciples. They have all just made their way back up to Jerusalem for their annual trek to participate in the Passover feast. But this year is different than the years before. He keeps dropping hints, like this was going to be their last year doing this. He kept talking about having to “give himself up,” and “do his Father’s will.” They tried to forget about it, but those seeds had taken root in their minds, and they were nervous about what was going to happen. When they entered Jerusalem this time, crowds were waiting for them, for him, waiving palm branches like he was a king, but he rode in on a donkey. Something just wasn’t right about this trip to Jerusalem and they knew it. Finally, the frightening plan starts to bud into fruition, and by the time we get to our reading for today, Jesus says flat out that he is going to die. “The time has come,” he says. And then, just when he drops this bombshell on his disciples, just when he scares them perhaps more than they have ever been scared in their lives, he leaves and he hides from them.
Why is it that God seems to go into hiding as we enter the most confusing and painful times in life? I have a friend who is trying to make a pretty big life decision. He has found himself at one of those crossroads that can affect the rest of his life. He figured that since it was Lent, and since it was a proper thing to do when seeking God’s will, he would fast while he prayed. Once a week, he decided, he would fast in order to try and discern what God’s will is for his life. I asked him last week what he was getting out of his weekly fasting. He said, “hungry.”
I know the feeling. Often my questions for guidance when I am confused, or my answers to thoughts of where is God in the midst of pain are left with an empty void. The question has been asked by much smarter people than me, “where is God when it hurts?” When life is going along pretty well and things are all looking okay, following God’s will isn’t all that difficult. But when it all takes a turn for the worse, and believe me, as some point it will, God seems to go into hiding. Just like Jesus did in John 12.
But what if he wasn’t so much hiding from them as he was hiding in them? Remember we are in John. Maybe that’s what John meant when he recalls Jesus saying “if you are my disciple, you are in me and I in you.” John states very plainly that Jesus, the Word, created everything that is. What’s more, when the Word created everything, he put a piece of himself in all. For John, Jesus, and God, are everywhere. There is no hiding when you are everywhere. So what if this Word who is the creator of everything, who made everything and is in everything, can’t really hide because he is everywhere? Is it possible that we miss God in those most painful or confusing times because God is too big to be seen, too present to be noticed? What if God’s hiding, rather than pointing to God’s absence, points to God’s ubiquity?
Maybe that’s what Jesus was talking about with this grain of wheat business. Molly and I spent all morning yesterday working in our yard. It was our first real yard day since we moved into our house, and the neighbors were practically standing on the curb applauding as we came out of the house, yard tools in hand to tackle the much neglected jungle. We cut back bushes that needed to be cut back long before we moved in. We raked leaves that had been neglected since the fall (yes, I am aware that it is now officially spring). We bagged debris and hauled truckloads to the dump. But you know what the most amazing thing about our time in the yard yesterday? Scattered all around our yard were dozens of bushes and flowers that were springing up, beautifully blooming in spite of our neglect. It was almost as if God was hidden in all of that mess, like the seeds of the tulips hiding beneath the soil, springing forth life.
God is hidden all over the world, all throughout our lives, like a grain of wheat, hidden beneath the messy soil, waiting to spring forth life. Now before you feel too warm and fuzzy about that, remember that Jesus asked for followers. God is looking for some people who are willing to be hidden in the world, barely noticeable at first glance. People who hide themselves in the mess, who dig deep down into the pains of the world and plant themselves there, working to spring forth life. Jesus calls them disciples. Jesus’ disciples give their lives away so that others might live. This, this giving away our lives in the name of Christ, this is the hidden secret of life. Or in Jesus’ words, “Those who love their lives will lose it, but those who lose their lives, for my sake, will find eternal life.”
In a moment we are going to move toward the table. Here, God will plant Godself deep within us. We will ingest the very presence of God and having feasted as such, God will be hidden within us.
Follow suit. Having God hidden within you, go and hide yourself in the world. Plant yourself deep within the mess of others, and give your life away so that others may have life.
You know….bear fruit.

We've All Been There

So I usually only blog my sermons and thoughts on the text (maybe that explains why no-one visits or comments on my blog) but this was just too good to pass up. This story goes out to Aho, Arthur, and all the youth ministers out there. Do read, and enjoy, and then pray.

check it

The Good Serpent

Numbers 21: 4-9
John 3

Have you ever heard that Old Testament reading in church before? I have been going to church almost every Sunday for my entire life and I’m not sure that I have ever heard that story from Numbers recounted in church. I’m almost positive that I have not heard a sermon from this text. It almost feels like I had to smuggle it in here this morning. It’s not that the church intentionally avoids this text, I don’t think. It is actually listed as a regular reading for the 4th Sunday in Lent in Year B. Today, in other words. But the problem is that John 3:16 is also appointed for the church to read today. That is almost like getting slotted on another network against the NCAA final, not many people are going to be tuning in.
But maybe the 21st chapter of Numbers is paired up with the most well known chapter in the New Testament for a reason. Maybe the church is trying to tell us something. Maybe in order to be able to rightly hear “For God so loved the world” we first must hear Numbers 21.
Numbers 21 contains what is easily in the running for the strangest story in the Bible. That is saying a lot, seeing that we are talking about a book that recounts tales of slaves overthrowing oppressive governments with an army of frogs, the Nile river turning into blood, seas parting; not to mention people rising from the dead. But numbers 21 is just downright strange—even by Biblical standards. The Israelites are wandering around in the wilderness, having been set free from the oppressive regime of Pharaoh quite some time ago, now, when they start whining again. They are tired, they say, and they wonder aloud why Moses ever led them out of Egypt. Did he just lead them out here to die? What’s more, they are tired of the same old food that they are having to eat. I mean, the manna was a welcome relief at first, but after about 25 years of munching on the same thing day in and day out, they are sick of it. So they start complaining, against Moses and the Lord.
This is when the story takes a turn for the strange of Hitchcockian proportions. After listening to Israel’s complaints for years, God finally gets fed up with their moaning and sends down snakes. The God of the plagues now sends a plague upon Israel. And just in case you think that maybe this is happenstance that they were complaining and happened to wander into a den of snakes, they are called Seraph Snakes in Hebrew. The same word that describes those beasts that attend to the throne of God in Isaiah 8 describes these snakes. They are seraph, fiery snakes. These snakes are from God. Snakes are everywhere, think Indiana Jones. And the Israelites are getting bitten by these snakes, these very poisonous, fiery snakes, and are dying. After enough of them die from this plague of snakes, the Israelites repent and ask Moses to call off the attack. “The manna’s not so bad, come to think of it! Just call off the snakes,” they say.
Now, perhaps the strangest thing of all happens. Instead of just making these fiery serpents disappear, God tells Moses to make a serpent made out of bronze, to put it on a stick for all of Israel to see, for when they look at this serpent, they shall be saved. What happened to, “Thou shall make no graven images?” Just a few chapters ago, God and Moses were on the mountain again, having to re-write the 10 commandments because of the last time the Israelites melted some metal and made it into the image of an animal. Now, God is commanding Moses to do this very thing in order to save the Israelites? Wait, so let me get this straight, the Israelites were complaining because they were sick of eating manna, so God sent poisonous snakes down to show them that things could be worse, they repent, and then God tells Moses to make a brass image of one of the snakes, hold it high on a stick and whoever looks at this brass snake after being bitten will be saved. Strange. Even by Biblical standards.
I’d be happy to leave this strange story in the Old Testament and chalk it up to one of those texts that we could write off as being irrelevant in light of the New Testament. The problem is, Christ drags up this strange story in relation to himself in our Gospel lesson today. And what’s worse, he brings it up in what is one of the best texts in the 4 Gospels. There is no ignoring Numbers 21.
Christ says, while speaking to Nicodemus, that he is like the serpent that Moses lifted in the wilderness. The brass serpent, the image of the very thing that kept the Israelites in bondage and was killing them, became their salvation. Looking at the image of their brokenness, the Israelites were given the ability to break the pattern of their brokenness. There is something salvific about looking at our brokenness.
“I am like the serpent,” says Christ. Jesus was to become the image of our bondage. Christ, on the cross, becomes the model of the very thing that keeps us in bondage. Sin, violence, fear, pain are age old serpents, waiting to strike humankind. What’s worse, they came from God as a result of our own sin. But like the brass serpent, God has given us a way out. Christ has become the Good Serpent, lifted high on the cross. And all who turn aside from their brokenness and look at this Good Serpent with faith, shall be saved.
When I was 15 years old I got my driver’s license. When I was 15 years and one week old, I got my first speeding ticket. My father was then the chief of the fire department, so of course the cop knew my dad. There was no hiding this sin from him. I went home, handed him the ticket, and he handed me a radio. “Next time this goes off for a wreck, you’re coming with me,” he said. A couple of nights later, the radio went off, and my father and I sped to the scene of a horrible accident. One man was dead, and a lady was horribly injured and was going to have to be medi-vaced out to Charleston. I watched in horror as they loaded the man in a bag into an ambulance and the woman onto the helicopter. My father, after working the wreck, made his way back to the car where I was sitting and said, “Son, your speeding is a much bigger deal than a ticket. Lives are at stake.” My father may have not been awarded Oprah’s parent of the year award with this tactic, but the point was made. If I was going to break this pattern, I was going to have to look at the consequences of my actions.
Jesus said, “I am like the serpent that Moses lifted up in the wilderness.” Anyone who looks on me and sees with faith will be saved. Look at the cross. What do you see? Blood rolling down his face from the crown of thorns, like the faces of so many abused people in the world. Look at the cross, his back chewed to a meaty pulp from the beatings, like the backs of so many slaves who helped build our "civilized" society, or the backs of the poor who make our affordable world so convenient. Look at the cross, emaciated from lack of food, like the hungry, neglected by so many in the world. Look at the cross, his hands and feet pierced, like the hands and feet of countless criminals, counted unworthy of hope, seen as being beyond redemption. Look at the cross, all of humanity is there, beaten, oppressed, broken and bloodied. Look at the cross. Seeing the brokenness of humanity is the first step to breaking the pattern of the brokenness. Look at the cross. Behold, your salvation.